Part 3, by Pearl Took of the Esmeralda team:

Pippin went back to his desk, pulled over the horrid blank pages, dipped his pen and began.

Firstly, it is terribly hard to think well when one is bored.

I am bored.
Very bored.
Most extremely bored.

I will be bored all winter because we are here all winter and not at home where there is always something to do even it if is chores.

Pippin stopped to dip his pen thinking it was a shame he couldn’t just keep on listing things as a list filled pages quicker.

When one is bored one gets desparate, and desparate hobbits do odd things that they might not otherwise do,and they do them without giving them much thought or worrying much about the consiquences of the odd desparate things they then do.

That all sounded good! Although Pip wasn’t sure if he had spelt ‘desparate’ correctly. That nearly had his first page filled; he was writing somewhat larger than usual.

Also, it isn’t always easy to think a thing through to a horrible ending when one thinks the idea is a fine and happy one to begin with.

Wonderful! Next page.

Mathoms are mathoms because nobody really wanted them, at some point in time, so then they end up put into mathom rooms (so called because they are full of the stuff no one wants which we call mathoms). They are in those rooms so that someone who is needing something no one seems to want can get it and use it to give away or swap with.I am not sure I would have done anything differently even if I had thought about what I was doing because, after all, that wasn’t anyone in particulur’s mathom room, it was just a regular, full of old dusty stuff mathom room and there really shouldn’t have been any reason that I couldn’t use something out of it. It is a Took mathom room in the Took anscesteral home and I’m a Took.

Marvelous! Only two more pages to go.

I am not a grownup Took and I reckon that must be what caused all of this problem. I guess a grownup Took would have known that, even though that box was in a regular mathom room, that a box with pretty carving on it was something too special to use as a mathom - even though it was in a mathom room.

Also, I have been told that one shouldn’t do trades with a servant. I’ve done trades with the farm hand’s sons at home, but the stupid old Smials is not like wonderful home. There’s all sorts of stupid rules and dumb ways of doing things here. So even if I’d thought ahead I do not think I would have realized that I was being mean to Diccon or that he would feel like he had no choice as I’m used to lads having a choice in whether or not they make a trade.

Pippin took a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. One more page and he would be finished! He would be able to leave his room and at least he could go be bored in the library, which was one of his favorite places to hide.

I’m sorry I didn’t think all of this through before I took a mathom from a Took mathom room and did a swap with a lad nearly my own age who I am friends with. I’m sorry I didn’t think that Diccon was really attached to his hurdy-gurdy - although I think that was the only part of this I might have realized had I thought ahead because he does play it often, so I should have known that he likes it a lot.

Pippin paused, taking the time to do some of the thinking he was writing about. He wrote more slowly now. His letters grew smaller as he now felt he was running out of room on the page.

I am sorry, Da, that I am bored here. I know you have to be here all winter for some reason that I don’t understand because I’m a lad. I shouldn’t do things that make it harder for you to be here, things like swapping the box with Diccon for his hurdy-gurdy. Things that get the other adults upset with you just because I’m you’re son. I’m glad I’m your son and I don’t want you to not be glad I’m your son just because I don’t think well when I’m bored. I hope you will forgive me.

He was making the ‘k’ on ‘Took’ when Pearl knocked on his door then came in with his lunch tray.