Frodo Baggins walked down the street away from Bag End, about to leave for the birthday of his friend Merry in Buckland, when he first noticed her. She was coming from the other direction, a basket full of flowers in one hand. As she passed, she accidently touched his arm and he immediately felt like he was on fire. He turned around and stared after her until she was out of sight. Then he shook his head, telling himself to forget her, he was only sixteen after all and she appeared to be about two years younger. He continued on his way and eventually reached the border of Buckland on the evening the following day. Merry´s birthday would be the day after and he wondered what his young friend had planned this time.
For the last few years, Merry and Pippin, another of his friends had make a game of outdoing each other at the birthday parties. Currently Merry was leading as master of surprises, with Pippin not far behind. Frodo smiled to himself as he reached Brandy Hall and saw the decorations that had been put up. Every corner of the garden was full of paper dragons, each of them appearing to spit fire at the guests. In the middle of the garden a table had been set for more than two hundred Hobbits. On one end, where Merry would be sitting, a huge cake stood on the table, it was so big that Frodo secretly wondered how they had managed to bring it here from the kitchen.
Merry and Pippin joined him a few minutes later, shaking hands briefly, then the three started to tell each other what had happened in the last four months since they had been at Bag End for the birthday of Frodo and his uncle Bilbo. Then the guests started to arrive. Most of them were inhabitants of Brandy Hall, but there were also a few Tooks, relatives of Pippin and some other friends of all of them, including Fredegar Bolger and Samwise Gamgee.
Frodo tried his best to follow the conversation of his friends, but his thoughts continued to return to the unknown Hobbit girl, feeling that he would like to see her again and he wondered if he would ever get the chance. The evening wore on and he excused himself as he started to get tired. Merry took him to one of the guest rooms and wished him a good night. Despite being tired he had a hard time of falling asleep. When he finally did sleep, his dreams were haunted by the unknown girl.
