SEARCH FOR THE FOTR
The Fellowship of Nine is gathered in the snow on Mount Caradhras. The weather, boosted by the ill will of Saruman, is cold. The storm clouds throw cold and ice out of its blizzard. And the Fellowship is slowly beginning to freeze...
The Company now gathered together as close to the cliff as they could. It faced southwards, and near the bottom it leaned out a little, so that they hoped it would give them some protection from the northerly wind and from the falling stones. But eddying blasts swirled round them from every side, and the snow flowed down in even denser clouds. They huddled together with their backs to the wall. Bill the pony stood patiently but dejectedly in front of the hobbits, and screened them a little; but before long the drifting snow was above his hocks, and it went on mounting. If they had had no larger companions the hobbits would soon have been entirely buried. A great sleepiness came over Frodo; he felt himself sinking fast into a warm and hazy dream. He thought a fire was heating his toes, and out of the shadows on the other side of the hearth he heard Bilbo's voice speaking. I don't' think much of your diary, he said. Snowstorms on January the twelfth: there was no need to come back and report that! But I wanted rest and sleep, Bilbo, Frodo answered with an effort. He could no longer feel the driving snow in his face, or his numb hands. Slowly, he sank to his knees in a drift, feeling only a soft, eiderdown robe wrapping itself warmly around him. In his ears echoed a faint, sinister voice: Snow be down And wind fly up! Caradhras raised Against the foe! Open door to empty space Throw them elsewhere into woe!
"It's a person, I tell you! A boy!"
"No it is NOT! You're imagining things. Come on, we have to make it to the house!"
"I won't leave! Here, if you'd just help me, I could drag this one to the porch, but I think there's more in the snow somewhere..."
Voices pierced Frodo's mind. Girls' voices.
I must be dead. Or dreaming.
A stinging pain hit his face as someone turned him over. Snow roared in his ears once more, and he blinked into a snowstorm. Two dark figures knelt over him. In his exhaustion, he didn't care who they were.
"Back to sleep...Bilbo, I must rest..." he moaned.
"Oh, goodness, it IS a boy," one of the girls gasped. She grasped him firmly by the arms and began to drag him across the snow. He weakly fought against her, but it was of no avail. He was hauled bumpily up a short flight of steps into a building. Bright lights burned his eyes. He closed them quickly and lay on the floor where the girl had dropped him, which seemed to be covered in some kind of soft brown rug. He heard both girls come in and out, pulling in what sounded like other bodies. Then they closed the door and the noise of the blizzard was blocked out.
Frodo's first impulse was to feel around his neck for the Ring. It still hung on its chain, and the cold metal stung his fingers.
"Ohhhh...." Someone groaned next to him. Frodo blinked and rolled over.
"Pippin!" The youngest of the hobbits looked dazedly at him.
"Oh, Frodo, it's you?" Frodo crawled over his cousin and brushed snow off his face. "Pip, are you hurt?"
The little hobbit merely giggled tiredly and said, "A pint for Mr. Underhill, here. But don't let him dance on the table, or he'll spill the beer..." he closed his eyes.
"Pippin, don't go to sleep!" Frodo tried to shake him awake.
The door slammed again as the two girls rushed in from outside.
"Quick, can you walk?" the taller of them asked Frodo, seeing that he was awake.
"I...think so," he stammered, getting shakily to his feet and leaning against the wall for support.
"Then help me take these to the bedroom and get their clothes off. They'll freeze and die if we don't get them warm!" The girl threw off her coat and hat. The younger girl ran off to another room.
"Boil some water, Keano," the girl shouted. Then she grabbed Pippin and with surprising strength pulled him into an adjoining room with two large beds. Frodo was too cold and numb to notice anything about the room, and he had barely enough strength to lift Pippin, Merry, and Sam into the beds. Finally, he collapsed onto the floor. He heard the voices of the two girls buzz in his ears, but he lost consciousness.
Voices.
Young voices.
"He's cold. Too cold. Why won't he get warm?"
"I don't know. The others are awake. What's this ring he keeps talking about?"
"How am I supposed to know?"
"I wish mom and dad would come home."
"Me too. I'm scared."
"If only the storm would stop."
"Yeah."
Quiet.
The crackling of a fire.
Frodo's shoulder ached.
Cold, ice, daggers. I hurt. Why me, Gandalf?
Frodo faded back into blackness.
Frodo...
Gandalf, not now. I want to sleep.
Frodo, awake! Your friends need you. You cannot desert them now.
Must I, Gandalf?
You must!
I shall, then.
Good. Farewell, Frodo.
"Look, he's waking up!"
"Merry, Merry, look, Frodo's awake!"
"Keanu, run and get Winnie."
Frodo opened his eyes and was met with an array of blurred faces. Slowly his vision cleared, and he found Merry, Pippin, and Sam staring eagerly at him.
"Oh, Mr. Frodo, we thought you was dead for a while!" Sam cried, clutching Frodo's hand.
Frodo struggled to sit up, and leaned limply against the bedpost. In one corner of the room, a fire burned brightly in the grate, and evidences of plates and cutlery indicated that the hobbits had already eaten.
"I thought I was dead for while, too, Sam," he croaked, rubbing his sore throat. He shivered.
"You've had a nasty fever these three days," Merry told him.
"Oh, Frodo, you wouldn't believe what the young ones here told us they could do!" Pippin exclaimed, "They said that they have lights in the ceiling and on posts that they just press a button on, and they shine with light! It's called...called..."
"They call it ee-lec-tris-ity," Merry pronounced carefully. "They said that it wouldn't work because of the storm, but that it would 'come back on' when the blizzard stopped."
"Who are the ones who rescued us?" Frodo asked, accepting the cup of water Sam offered him.
"It's me!" A child rushed into the room and ogled Frodo from the bedside. "Are you REALLY fifty years old? You don't look like it!"
Frodo surveyed the child. What he had thought was the younger girl was actually a small boy with dark hair almost covering his ears. It constantly got in the way of the boy's sight, and he kept on pushing it away from his face.
"Yes, I'm really fifty years old," Frodo said, smiling at the boy.
"Keanu!" The older girl (she really was a girl) came into the room. She looked very much alike the little boy, except her dark hair was longer. "Don't bother Frodo too much, I'm sure he's very tired still." She turned to Frodo. "I'm Winnie. Winona. I'm twelve. And this is Keanu, he's seven. Don't mind him, he talks too much." She curiously observed the hobbit. "You've been super sick for a long time. I gave you all the medicine we had, but it didn't seem to do much good. My grandparents, who Keano and I live with, went to visit my aunt who just had a baby in the next town, so they weren't here when the storm blew in, or else you probably would have been better already, 'cause my grandma's a nurse and she would have known what to do."
Frodo sighed weakly and looked at Sam for help. Sam understood.
"Uh, Winnie, I think Mr. Frodo might like some...tea. Would you mind puttin' the kettle on?" The girl nodded and left.
"Merry and Pippin, why don't you two teach Keanu how to play Slaptoad?" He gestured meaningfully at them, and they ushered Keanu off to another room.
"Thank you, Sam. Too many at once. Now will you please tell me what's going on?"
Sam cleared his throat. "Well, Frodo, it's all very strange, but these two young 'uns say that we're not in Middle Earth anymore. They've never heard of Caradhras, or Gandalf, or Sauron, or nothing! They tell me they live in a shire called Sweet, in Idaho, in the Yoo-nited States of America! So, all I know is that we hobbits fell asleep, or were enchanted, or something like that in the snow, and woke up here. Oh, and don't worry, Mr. Frodo, we made sure to keep the Ring a secret. It's been around your neck the entire time."
"Thank you, Sam," Frodo fingered the Ring, then tucked it back into his shirt. "What about the others?"
"Others? Oh, Aragorn and Legolas and all the rest. We don't know, Mr. Frodo. This storm's been ragin' for three straight days, never a chance to leave the house at all. I sure hope the others found somewhere safe to stay. Winnie tells me that us four was the only ones she found out by their barn."
"Maybe the others didn't come here with us," Frodo suggested hopefully.
"Not much chance of that," Sam said gloomily. "Keano found these in the snow when he was scourin' around to see if he could find any more of us." He took out from his pocket a bright green feather and a silver buckle.
"This used to be on Boromir's shield!" Frodo exclaimed over the buckle, and then coughed. Sam handed him a handkerchief and nodded. "Yes, Frodo, and this was the tail end of one of the elf's arrows."
They sat in silence for a minute. Winnie came back in with a cup of steaming tea.
"Here, I made you some mint tea, and I also brought you a granola bar if you're hungry."
"A what?" Frodo took the package. "It doesn't look like something to eat."
"No, you unwrap it first," Winnie said. When Frodo puzzled over it, she impatiently took it back and stripped the wrapper off, handing him back a chocolate granola bar.
"They're really tasty, Mr. Frodo," Sam reassured him.
Between the tea, granola, and a bowl of pasta Winnie managed to boil, Frodo attained a full stomach for what felt like the first time in months. All while he was eating, Winnie plied him with questions about Middle Earth and his quest. She wasn't at all surprised to hear about the adventures he'd been in, and to his surprise, she said that someone had already written down Frodo and the Fellowship's story in a book! Three books, to be exact.
Frodo's face showed his thoughts, and Sam shooed Winnie out of the room and himself departed, ordering Frodo to "just lie down and get some sleep".
Frodo lay watching the fire's shadows flicker on the walls. His mind was reeling. This couldn't be happening! One minute he had been submerged almost frozen in the snows of Caradhras in Middle Earth with his friends and companions, the next minute stranded in another world with his cousins and gardener! Would he ever see Gandalf again, or Aragorn? What about Boromir? And Legolas and Gimli?
Filled with worries, Frodo rested his aching head on the pillow, and in a matter of moments was fast asleep.
"Psst...Frodo, wake up..."
Frodo groaned and rolled over.
"Frodo, the storm stopped!"
The hobbit opened one eye, then the other, and glanced out the window. For three days the only scene had been scouring white, but now the landscape was in view.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Pippin jumped onto the bed beside Frodo. "I can't wait to go outside and see what these kids call a 'car'! They tell me it takes you places, like a horse, or a wagon...except, from the description; it's more like an enclosed wagon. You have to drive it, but it goes by itself, no horse, or anythin'!"
That morning, Frodo felt well enough to get out of bed, and submitted to a tour of Winnie and Keano's house. Afterwards, wrapped in a warm blanket in the main living area with a mug of a tasty new drink called 'hot chocolate', he and the other hobbits discussed their predicament.
"I think we should go from house to house and look for the others, if they came here too," Frodo was saying. "Aragorn and Boromir would surely have found safety, and Gandalf too. But Gimli is slightly... susceptible to coldness, and might not have gone far."
"But with Legolas, he may have been fine," Merry put in. They all nodded.
"Frodo, if you're thinking of going out in this cold weather to look for anyone, you can just think again!" Winnie came into the room with a tray of cookies and granola bars. The three hobbits pounced on the food and wolfed it down.
"But I can't let them go without me," Frodo protested, nibbling a cookie.
"Ohhhh yes you can," Winnie said sternly, frowning at Frodo with her hands on her hips. He hung his head. "I guess you're right. I don't feel very well yet." The other hobbits hid smiles at the sight: the bearer of the One Ring meekly submitting to a twelve-year-old human child!
Later that day, Sam, Merry, and Pippin began to bundle up.
"I sure hope they haven't gone far," Merry said as he struggled into his shoes. "What's the matter with these, they're pinching my toes! Feels like they've shrunk or somethin'..."
"That's because they're mine," Pippin laughed, grabbing the boots out of Merry's hands.
"WHAT do you all think you're DOING?!" Winnie shrieked, bursting into the coatroom.
"Just getting dressed for the wintery outdoors, is all," Sam said puzzled.
"You can't go into town looking like that," Winnie yelped. She pointed at his cloak and short sword buckled around his waist, and Merry and Pippin's vests. "You guys look like you just came out of Charles Dickens or something! You'd get arrested for looking suspicious!"
"Oh." The hobbits looked sheepishly at one another. "We didn't think of that."
Half an hour later, they were attired in her grandfather's and her deceased father's old clothes.
"Are you sure you don't mind us wearing these?" Sam asked Winnie from the bathroom.
"I'm sure," she called through the door. "My dad died years and years ago, and I barely remember him. I'm sure you need these clothes more than he does now, anyways!"
When they finally gathered together again in the coatroom, they stared at each other for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"You look like you put your clothes on in the dark!" Sam chuckled to Merry.
"Well, you look like you had one too many pints and forgot which way your coat fit," Merry retorted.
"I think we're just not used to the way people dress here," Pippin said tittering.
Frodo was looking at them all thoughtfully. "Winnie, how tall was your father, and how tall is your grandfather?"
"Uh, I think my grandpa's about five feet and a couple inches, and my dad was barely five feet. We're a short family."
The hobbits' jaws dropped. "I...I grew about a foot and a half," Pippin exclaimed in shock. Evidently, so had the others! Instead of their customary height of just over three feet, they now comfortably (some of them) fit into clothes meant for humans!
Soon the three hobbits were gone, promising to be back in time for dinner. Keano begged to go with them, but Winnie forbade it, so he sulked in the living room.
Frodo paced up and down in front of the window looking out onto the driveway. Winnie and Keano lived in the country near a large mountain, and they had informed him that the nearest neighbor lived two and a half miles away. The village of Sweet was closer, only two miles. This was where the hobbits were walking.
At Winnie's urging, Frodo helped her with washing laundry, putting away clean dishes, and bringing in stacks of wood for the fires. Keano tagged along, still moping. While they worked Frodo asked many questions about this new world of humans. He was shocked to hear that no one believed in elves, dwarves, hobbits, wizards, or orcs! For him, they were as real as the clothes he wore.
"You're all just in books, now," Winnie explained. "I'll have to get you to a bookstore in Boise sometime so you can see."
"Just because you don't BELIEVE in different races of creatures other than humans, does that mean there AREN'T any?" Frodo wondered.
"It depends on where you go and who you talk to," Winnie said, folding a sheet. "For instance, if you ask my grandpa, the only things that are real are what you can see. If you ask my grandma, she'll tell you that there's a spirit world and a real world, and these two are together. If you ask Old Murphy who sits in his rocking chair on his porch in town, he'll tell you that anything is possible. And if you ask Jerry, our neighbor's hired boy, he says that nothing is true, so nothing ever happens. Which is just rubbish, because of COURSE things happen, and stuff is true all the time, so I don't think much of his ideas..."
"But has anyone ever seen a hobbit, or elf or dwarf?"
Winnie pondered this. "I don't think anyone here has," she said slowly, handing him a stack of towels. "But that doesn't mean no one else has. There are millions and billions of people in Idaho, and THOUSANDS of billions in all the other states, and all the states put together make a country and there are LOTS and LOTS of countries..."
"Stop, stop, you make my head whirl," Frodo cried. He put the towels on a shelf and sat down in a chair with his head in his hands. "I can't believe this. Hobbits can't just die out! I know the elves are departing over the Sea...I mean, they WERE going Oversea, but...dwarves? They still exist...existed, I mean. Oh, nothing is making sense!"
"Did I say something wrong?" Winnie inquired, looking worriedly at Frodo.
"No, I'm just confused. I think I need to lie down for a while."
Holding onto the Ring, Frodo curled up in bed.
Meanwhile, the three other hobbits wandered into the small town of Sweet. To say that they were noticed is an understatement. That people stared and laughed at them is putting it lightly.
The hobbits dashed into a bar to get away from the growing crowd of heavily bundled young people, leaving them hooting in the cold.
"Oh, this looks familiar," Pippin said, looking meaningfully at Merry, nodding towards the mugs stacked on the sideboard and sniffing the air.
"What say we stop for...ah, a little something to warm us up before we move on?" Merry asked excitedly. The cousins edged towards the barkeeper, who eyed them curiously.
"No, we don't have time," Sam began, but seeing how the two were already asking for "a pint of the strongest" he relented. "Well, I suppose one drink wouldn't take too long."
After quaffing their drinks, Sam paid the bartender with a small coin from the Shire, which the man said was more than enough (what he didn't tell the naïve hobbits was that the coin was made out of silver, and very valuable).
By then there was nobody in sight outside around the bar. The hobbits dodged from alley to porch and managed to get to the outskirts of town without being seen.
"Wow, we're gettin' good at this undercover retreating," Pippin remarked.
Merry smacked him lightly. "We're not retreatin', you oaf. We're just...moving to new territory. The others obviously weren't in town, or people wouldn't have been starin' at us, they'd be used to strange-lookin' characters already."
"Maybe we can catch a ride with someone," Sam suggested, shivering as they waded through almost waist high snow towards a road that had been cleared.
"You know, that's not a bad a idea. Pretty intelligent for a gardener." Merry ducked the snowball Sam threw at him.
The hobbits began to walk down the road. Ten minutes later, a snowplow came into sight.
"Hey, you fellas look pretty cold," the driver yelled out of his window.
"Yeah, we are. What's the next nearest town besides Sweet?" Merry called back.
"I think Horseshoe Bend's the closest, but the roads are still down over there. I'm heading to Boise right now. I heard they didn't get near as much snow, and I don't want to miss the football game. Say, you guys wanna ride along?"
"Sure!"
"After all," Pippin whispered to Merry as they clambered into the snowplow truck, "the rest of the Fellowship could be anywhere, so if they're not in Sweet, they could be in Boise."
"Just what I was thinkin'," Merry grinned. "Anyways, I've really been wanting to ride in one of these 'cars'."
"So, where are you guys from?" The driver looked expectantly at the three.
"Well, ah..." Merry stuttered.
"Eh, we're visitin' our...cousins who live just outside of Sweet, but...we have to go into town." Sam quickly made up an explanation.
"I see," the driver said politely, but puzzled.
Once in Boise, all the hobbits could do was stare dumbfounded out the snowplow's windows.
"I swear by the Old Took that NOBODY back home will ever believe what we're seeing right now," Merry gasped.
Downtown Boise's buildings and towers rose high above the streets. The driver noted the hobbits astonishment at the city and decided that they must have lived in the country all their lives. He pointed out sight after sight, gesturing to the Capitol building and then to the fountain.
When they arrived a couple blocks from BSU, parked, and began to walk towards the stadium, the hobbits almost passed out.
"Look at all the humans...I mean, the PEOPLE!" Pippin shouted. The typical crowds of Bronco fans headed en masse before them. The hobbits were dragged along through the current, shouting a thank you and goodbye to the driver of the snowplow.
At the gate, a man in uniform asked for their tickets.
Merry looked worried. "Tickets? I don't have any."
"Aw, just go on through. You're gonna hold up the line," the man yelled. "We're giving free tickets away today, anyways."
"Cool, we're goin' to see a football game!" Pippin said as they sat down in the bleachers.
"What do y'mean, 'cool'?" Sam asked.
"Keano says 'cool' all the time," Pippin tried to look wise, "and it means 'great' or 'that's fine'."
"And I thought WE looked strange," Merry shouted to Pippin over the noise, looking at the mass of screaming fans surrounding him.
The game began. Though first greatly confused, the hobbits finally started to catch on.
"Bronco first down!" They yelled with the other BSU fans. They screamed when a touchdown was made, booed as the referee made a bad call, and flung their arms up and down in the wave.
During the end of half time, Merry was looking at everyone around him, and suddenly gasped.
"Pip, look!" He shook his cousin's shoulder. "It's Boromir!"
Pippin looked. Sure enough, the Gondor warrior stood cheering a few rows away! Someone had put blue and orange paint on his face in stripes, and he roared and laughed as loud as the heartiest fan.
Dragging Sam, the hobbits rushed over to Boromir.
"BOROMIR, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"
Boromir jumped, and then slapped them on their backs. "Welcome, hobbits! This is a grand day for a football game, what say you?"
"Boromir, we've found you, and Mr. Frodo's back at the house, but we still have to find Strider and the elf and dwarf," Sam said over the tumult. He quickly told Boromir their predicament. Boromir agreed that they should set out at once to find the others.
"Frodo, are you awake?"
"Yes, come on in, Winnie."
The girl entered the room carrying a tray of tomato soup and crackers. "I thought you might like dinner."
"Is it that late already?" Frodo sat up in bed and glanced out the window at the sunset.
"Yeah, you slept all through the afternoon."
Frodo sipped the soup. "It's very kind of you to let us stay at your house, Winnie. I'm sorry I acted so out-of-sorts earlier."
"That's okay," Winnie smiled, "I understand. It must be hard to be in another world without your friends."
They ate dinner as Winnie explained about modern technology, humans, and the culture from a twelve-year-old's view. Frodo eagerly wrote down much of what she said on paper. Then he told her stories from the Shire, and at her request, reluctantly showed her the Ring. She took it in her hand, and without warning, slipped it on her finger! Frodo gasped.
"What?" she said. The hobbit blinked. The girl was still visible! She tried the Ring on all her fingers. The Ring had no effect on her!
"It's a nice ring, but I've got prettier ones," she told him, giving it back. He almost snatched it from her in his eagerness. He still felt closely attached to it, and the pain he'd been experiencing in Middle Earth from Sauron's oppression had not ceased. It felt cool to the touch, but strangely seemed to burn him from within.
Just then, they heard Keano rush down the hall. "They're back!"
Frodo and Winnie went to the door. Sam, Merry, and Pippin crowded in, followed by Boromir and Gimli.
"We found Boromir at a football game," Pippin told Frodo, and seeing his puzzled look, added, "I'll explain what that is later."
"And we saved HIM from being locked up," Boromir grinned, nodding at Gimli.
"It was not my fault that I did not know weapons are not allowed at the City Hall," Gimli grumbled. "I merely thought someone could give some assistance in finding my way around, and a squad of men rushed at me! Naturally, what can one do but put up his axe in defense?"
Frodo smiled. "He does look slightly dangerous," he whispered to Sam.
"So, the men grabbed my axe from behind and pushed me to the ground! Very...erm, embarrassing, for a dwarf. Of course, if I'd used half of my strength, I could have flattened them, but I did not desire to hurt the little weaklings. They were going to take me to someplace called a 'jail', but then the hobbits appeared and managed to talk them out of it."
"We said that he was part of a parade, portraying the Vikings," Merry said, winking at the rest.
"Vikings? Parade?" Frodo asked of Sam.
"Just some people from this world who lived a long time ago," his friend told him, "who we thought looked somethin' like Gimli. We spent a little while in a moo-seeum, lookin' at lots of pictures and things, so we thought it sounded reasonable to say that the dwarf was one of them. A parade is where a lot of people march around for others to see them."
"Come in and eat something," Winnie said, trying in vain to make Keano stop staring at Gimli. As they all filed into the kitchen, she looked up at Boromir, who was more than 6 and a half feet tall. "My, it must be awfully hard to find clothes that fit you. I'll have to see if we can go into Boise sometime and get you some."
"But how could we go all the way back there if none of us can drive?" Sam asked.
"And aren't your grandparents coming back soon?" Merry wondered.
Winnie poured tomato soup into bowls. "They called me this afternoon while Frodo was taking a nap. Since Keano and I are used to staying by ourselves, and we're doing fine, they're going to stay in Twin Falls for a couple more days. So I can teach one of you how to drive, and we can go into Boise!"
Sam choked on his soup. "Teach one of us to DRIVE??!"
"Me, me, pick me!" Merry and Pippin yelled. Frodo just looked confused.
"I think...that I should teach the big guy to drive. He looks the most like a grown-up than the rest of us," Winnie decided. Everyone looked at Boromir. He shrugged, and poured himself a fourth helping of soup.
"Okay, here's the gas pedal, and you push it to make the car go. No, not so hard! Just a little bit, really gently...yes, just like that. This thing tells you how fast the car is going. Right now, it's barely ten miles an hour. When you see signs on the side of the road with numbers on them, they mean that you should be driving just at that many miles an hour."
The four hobbits stifled their laughter. They, Gimli, and Keano stood outside in the chilly morning. The sun rose cold behind them, and their breath came up in steam.
"Boy, he's in for a long day," Merry chuckled as Boromir slowly drove down the dirt road that led around the farm. Winnie had grown up using the farm equipment, so she knew how to operate the rickety old van. Now she was trying to teach the Gondor warrior how to drive.
"If you ask me, and I know you will not, I'd say we were doing this the LONG way," Gimli muttered through his almost frozen beard. "Why not just hitchhike into Boise again, like we did coming back to Sweet?"
"Because, how many people do you think are goin' to give six strange- lookin' characters and two kids a ride into Boise? They'd think we was kidnapping them." Sam sighed.
"And why would they think that? I look very decent for a dwarf, if I do say so myself," Gimli grumbled. The hobbits snickered.
"I wouldn't trust Boromir in a car, if I was Winnie," Pippin said, "he's not that great with hand-foot coo-ordination."
"You big oaf, it's hand-eye coordination, not hand-foot. Right, Frodo?"
"No, Frodo, don't listen to Merry, it's hand-foot. I'm right, aren't I?" The cousins began to playfully shove each other around in the snow.
But Frodo was not listening. He sat a little ways away on a stump, hunched over in the icy breeze.
Sam came over to him. "Mr. Frodo, are you all right?"
Frodo jumped. "Oh, Sam, you startled me. Of course I'm all right." He quickly dropped the Ring back into his shirt. Sam looked at him unhappily. "No, you're not. It's that Ring. It's taking firmer hold of you. You're always touchin' it, to make sure it's still there, always lookin' to see it." He pulled Frodo to his feet. "Why don't you go back in the house and get some rest. You still look tired."
"Thanks, Sam." Frodo walked slowly to the house. Despite his efforts to disguise it, the Ring WAS getting heavier. It obviously had not wanted to leave Middle Earth, and now that it was in the year 1999 (so Keano had told him) it was almost as if Sauron's presence had been released into the present. Frodo felt uncomfortable. It was his fault the Ring was here, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. So why did he feel so guilty?
"Don't you understand the meaning of the word SLOWLY?" Winnie shrieked in Boromir's ear as they rushed through the Horseshoe Bend hills. In the backseat of the van the other members of the Fellowship huddled together. Merry and Pippin tried to seem brave, but were failing fast. Gimli looked stern, Sam exhausted, and Frodo carsick. Keano rode beside Winnie in the front seat, enjoying the wild ride down the highway.
"Stop swerving into the other lane," Winnie shouted, "you're going to make the police think you're drunk."
"I'm not drunk any more than you are," Boromir roared back.
"Then drive straight!" she shrilled.
Miraculously, they made it into Boise without any mishaps. Stopping at Fred Meyer, Winnie dragged Boromir and Gimli to the men's section and tried to find some clothes large enough for them. Shoving eight dollars into Keano's hand, she ordered him to take the hobbits next door to McDonalds.
"What are THESE?" Merry gasped as Keano handed him his food.
"French fries. You know, PO-TA-TOES? Eat them with some ketchup, like this." He shoved a handful into his mouth and chewed noisely. "They're good."
"Mmmm, they really ARE good," Pippin grinned, biting into a Big Mac.
The other people at the restraunt watched wide-eyed as the hobbits and boy devoured thirteen hamburgers, six sodas, two Chicken McNuggets, and four large fries.
"Is that a river out there?" Frodo pointed out the window across the busy shopping area. Everyone looked, giving him a chance to hastily pile the rest of his hamburger onto Pippin's napkin. He made a face at it; hamburgers were definitely not the food to eat after a roller-coaster ride in a car with Boromir.
"Yeah, it's the Boise river. It gets kind of shallow in the winter, but there's some good fishing in summer. Wanna go see?" Keano slurped down the rest of his Pepsi. All the hobbits were in favor, so they cleared their table to throw the trash away.
"Hey, how did this get here? I thought I finished mine," Pippin held up Frodo's unwanted hamburger. "Oh, well. The more, the merrier!" He swallowed it in two gulps.
Crossing the busy street, they walked across an empty lot all the way down to the river's edge by a bridge.
"Now this is more like it," Sam sighed, as they walked down a path beside the water. The snow had mostly melted, and a few birds hopped about under the bushes. The hum of the cars was muffled by the trees.
"I can actually hear myself think again, after all that noise in the restraunt," Pippin said.
"Think? I didn't know you could think," Merry said with mock surprise. The two hobbits cheerfully tussled, Keano jumping around them in excitement.
Frodo wandered off from the group. He felt cold, and weighed down with the Ring. His fingers itched to hold it, to stroke it, to make sure it was still safe around his neck. Glancing from side to side to make sure Sam wasn't nearby, he leaned against a tree and pulled the Ring out of his shirt. So smooth, so shiny. Just a little ring. One little piece of metal. If he put it on...No, he rebuked himself firmly, it would only draw Sauron's attention to me, and who knows what he could do here! But small doubts nagged at him. After all, when Winnie had tried the Ring on, nothing had happened. And this WAS a different world. Was Sauron even present?
His finger drew itself slowly towards the Ring.
"Mr. Frodo? Where are you?"
Frodo jumped. He dropped the Ring as if it was burning, then recognizing Sam's voice, fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, dropping the Ring back out of sight. He moved away from the protection of the tree, his face clearing.
"I'm here, Sam."
"Thank goodness. I thought I'd lost you." Sam moved towards his friend. "Are you...Frodo, were you doing something with that Ring?"
"I....I just...wanted some time away by myself....to be alone. I'm all right, Sam, really," he reassured him, trying to smile. "Come on, let's gather the others and go back to the store. I'm sure Winnie will have found Boromir and Gimli some clothes by now." He walked back along the path to where the others were now appearing around the bend. Sam followed, but nobody saw the anxious way he kept looking at Frodo.
Returning to Fred Meyer, they found Boromir and Gimli proudly wearing their new clothes. Boromir, in jeans, flannel shirt, and boots, looked like a cowboy. Gimli didn't seem quite respectable, in his sweats and braided beard, but he was persuaded to not carry his axe around, so at least he didn't look dangerous.
On the ride home, they were passing the fairgrounds, when Boromir suddenly swerved into the next lane and pulled into the dirt parking lot along with a million other cars. Everyone clamored to know what he was doing.
"There's an archery contest going on here. I'd like to see how people shoot nowadays."
So they piled out of the van and headed for the racetrack, which was where the contests were being held. Upon inquiring, Frodo found out that the first four rounds had already commenced. Only the five worthiest archers would compete in the last round.
Boromir edged his way to the front of the crowd, providing a path for the others and giving them a space at the edge of the fence. Now they all had a front row view of the field.
The Fellowship of Nine is gathered in the snow on Mount Caradhras. The weather, boosted by the ill will of Saruman, is cold. The storm clouds throw cold and ice out of its blizzard. And the Fellowship is slowly beginning to freeze...
The Company now gathered together as close to the cliff as they could. It faced southwards, and near the bottom it leaned out a little, so that they hoped it would give them some protection from the northerly wind and from the falling stones. But eddying blasts swirled round them from every side, and the snow flowed down in even denser clouds. They huddled together with their backs to the wall. Bill the pony stood patiently but dejectedly in front of the hobbits, and screened them a little; but before long the drifting snow was above his hocks, and it went on mounting. If they had had no larger companions the hobbits would soon have been entirely buried. A great sleepiness came over Frodo; he felt himself sinking fast into a warm and hazy dream. He thought a fire was heating his toes, and out of the shadows on the other side of the hearth he heard Bilbo's voice speaking. I don't' think much of your diary, he said. Snowstorms on January the twelfth: there was no need to come back and report that! But I wanted rest and sleep, Bilbo, Frodo answered with an effort. He could no longer feel the driving snow in his face, or his numb hands. Slowly, he sank to his knees in a drift, feeling only a soft, eiderdown robe wrapping itself warmly around him. In his ears echoed a faint, sinister voice: Snow be down And wind fly up! Caradhras raised Against the foe! Open door to empty space Throw them elsewhere into woe!
"It's a person, I tell you! A boy!"
"No it is NOT! You're imagining things. Come on, we have to make it to the house!"
"I won't leave! Here, if you'd just help me, I could drag this one to the porch, but I think there's more in the snow somewhere..."
Voices pierced Frodo's mind. Girls' voices.
I must be dead. Or dreaming.
A stinging pain hit his face as someone turned him over. Snow roared in his ears once more, and he blinked into a snowstorm. Two dark figures knelt over him. In his exhaustion, he didn't care who they were.
"Back to sleep...Bilbo, I must rest..." he moaned.
"Oh, goodness, it IS a boy," one of the girls gasped. She grasped him firmly by the arms and began to drag him across the snow. He weakly fought against her, but it was of no avail. He was hauled bumpily up a short flight of steps into a building. Bright lights burned his eyes. He closed them quickly and lay on the floor where the girl had dropped him, which seemed to be covered in some kind of soft brown rug. He heard both girls come in and out, pulling in what sounded like other bodies. Then they closed the door and the noise of the blizzard was blocked out.
Frodo's first impulse was to feel around his neck for the Ring. It still hung on its chain, and the cold metal stung his fingers.
"Ohhhh...." Someone groaned next to him. Frodo blinked and rolled over.
"Pippin!" The youngest of the hobbits looked dazedly at him.
"Oh, Frodo, it's you?" Frodo crawled over his cousin and brushed snow off his face. "Pip, are you hurt?"
The little hobbit merely giggled tiredly and said, "A pint for Mr. Underhill, here. But don't let him dance on the table, or he'll spill the beer..." he closed his eyes.
"Pippin, don't go to sleep!" Frodo tried to shake him awake.
The door slammed again as the two girls rushed in from outside.
"Quick, can you walk?" the taller of them asked Frodo, seeing that he was awake.
"I...think so," he stammered, getting shakily to his feet and leaning against the wall for support.
"Then help me take these to the bedroom and get their clothes off. They'll freeze and die if we don't get them warm!" The girl threw off her coat and hat. The younger girl ran off to another room.
"Boil some water, Keano," the girl shouted. Then she grabbed Pippin and with surprising strength pulled him into an adjoining room with two large beds. Frodo was too cold and numb to notice anything about the room, and he had barely enough strength to lift Pippin, Merry, and Sam into the beds. Finally, he collapsed onto the floor. He heard the voices of the two girls buzz in his ears, but he lost consciousness.
Voices.
Young voices.
"He's cold. Too cold. Why won't he get warm?"
"I don't know. The others are awake. What's this ring he keeps talking about?"
"How am I supposed to know?"
"I wish mom and dad would come home."
"Me too. I'm scared."
"If only the storm would stop."
"Yeah."
Quiet.
The crackling of a fire.
Frodo's shoulder ached.
Cold, ice, daggers. I hurt. Why me, Gandalf?
Frodo faded back into blackness.
Frodo...
Gandalf, not now. I want to sleep.
Frodo, awake! Your friends need you. You cannot desert them now.
Must I, Gandalf?
You must!
I shall, then.
Good. Farewell, Frodo.
"Look, he's waking up!"
"Merry, Merry, look, Frodo's awake!"
"Keanu, run and get Winnie."
Frodo opened his eyes and was met with an array of blurred faces. Slowly his vision cleared, and he found Merry, Pippin, and Sam staring eagerly at him.
"Oh, Mr. Frodo, we thought you was dead for a while!" Sam cried, clutching Frodo's hand.
Frodo struggled to sit up, and leaned limply against the bedpost. In one corner of the room, a fire burned brightly in the grate, and evidences of plates and cutlery indicated that the hobbits had already eaten.
"I thought I was dead for while, too, Sam," he croaked, rubbing his sore throat. He shivered.
"You've had a nasty fever these three days," Merry told him.
"Oh, Frodo, you wouldn't believe what the young ones here told us they could do!" Pippin exclaimed, "They said that they have lights in the ceiling and on posts that they just press a button on, and they shine with light! It's called...called..."
"They call it ee-lec-tris-ity," Merry pronounced carefully. "They said that it wouldn't work because of the storm, but that it would 'come back on' when the blizzard stopped."
"Who are the ones who rescued us?" Frodo asked, accepting the cup of water Sam offered him.
"It's me!" A child rushed into the room and ogled Frodo from the bedside. "Are you REALLY fifty years old? You don't look like it!"
Frodo surveyed the child. What he had thought was the younger girl was actually a small boy with dark hair almost covering his ears. It constantly got in the way of the boy's sight, and he kept on pushing it away from his face.
"Yes, I'm really fifty years old," Frodo said, smiling at the boy.
"Keanu!" The older girl (she really was a girl) came into the room. She looked very much alike the little boy, except her dark hair was longer. "Don't bother Frodo too much, I'm sure he's very tired still." She turned to Frodo. "I'm Winnie. Winona. I'm twelve. And this is Keanu, he's seven. Don't mind him, he talks too much." She curiously observed the hobbit. "You've been super sick for a long time. I gave you all the medicine we had, but it didn't seem to do much good. My grandparents, who Keano and I live with, went to visit my aunt who just had a baby in the next town, so they weren't here when the storm blew in, or else you probably would have been better already, 'cause my grandma's a nurse and she would have known what to do."
Frodo sighed weakly and looked at Sam for help. Sam understood.
"Uh, Winnie, I think Mr. Frodo might like some...tea. Would you mind puttin' the kettle on?" The girl nodded and left.
"Merry and Pippin, why don't you two teach Keanu how to play Slaptoad?" He gestured meaningfully at them, and they ushered Keanu off to another room.
"Thank you, Sam. Too many at once. Now will you please tell me what's going on?"
Sam cleared his throat. "Well, Frodo, it's all very strange, but these two young 'uns say that we're not in Middle Earth anymore. They've never heard of Caradhras, or Gandalf, or Sauron, or nothing! They tell me they live in a shire called Sweet, in Idaho, in the Yoo-nited States of America! So, all I know is that we hobbits fell asleep, or were enchanted, or something like that in the snow, and woke up here. Oh, and don't worry, Mr. Frodo, we made sure to keep the Ring a secret. It's been around your neck the entire time."
"Thank you, Sam," Frodo fingered the Ring, then tucked it back into his shirt. "What about the others?"
"Others? Oh, Aragorn and Legolas and all the rest. We don't know, Mr. Frodo. This storm's been ragin' for three straight days, never a chance to leave the house at all. I sure hope the others found somewhere safe to stay. Winnie tells me that us four was the only ones she found out by their barn."
"Maybe the others didn't come here with us," Frodo suggested hopefully.
"Not much chance of that," Sam said gloomily. "Keano found these in the snow when he was scourin' around to see if he could find any more of us." He took out from his pocket a bright green feather and a silver buckle.
"This used to be on Boromir's shield!" Frodo exclaimed over the buckle, and then coughed. Sam handed him a handkerchief and nodded. "Yes, Frodo, and this was the tail end of one of the elf's arrows."
They sat in silence for a minute. Winnie came back in with a cup of steaming tea.
"Here, I made you some mint tea, and I also brought you a granola bar if you're hungry."
"A what?" Frodo took the package. "It doesn't look like something to eat."
"No, you unwrap it first," Winnie said. When Frodo puzzled over it, she impatiently took it back and stripped the wrapper off, handing him back a chocolate granola bar.
"They're really tasty, Mr. Frodo," Sam reassured him.
Between the tea, granola, and a bowl of pasta Winnie managed to boil, Frodo attained a full stomach for what felt like the first time in months. All while he was eating, Winnie plied him with questions about Middle Earth and his quest. She wasn't at all surprised to hear about the adventures he'd been in, and to his surprise, she said that someone had already written down Frodo and the Fellowship's story in a book! Three books, to be exact.
Frodo's face showed his thoughts, and Sam shooed Winnie out of the room and himself departed, ordering Frodo to "just lie down and get some sleep".
Frodo lay watching the fire's shadows flicker on the walls. His mind was reeling. This couldn't be happening! One minute he had been submerged almost frozen in the snows of Caradhras in Middle Earth with his friends and companions, the next minute stranded in another world with his cousins and gardener! Would he ever see Gandalf again, or Aragorn? What about Boromir? And Legolas and Gimli?
Filled with worries, Frodo rested his aching head on the pillow, and in a matter of moments was fast asleep.
"Psst...Frodo, wake up..."
Frodo groaned and rolled over.
"Frodo, the storm stopped!"
The hobbit opened one eye, then the other, and glanced out the window. For three days the only scene had been scouring white, but now the landscape was in view.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Pippin jumped onto the bed beside Frodo. "I can't wait to go outside and see what these kids call a 'car'! They tell me it takes you places, like a horse, or a wagon...except, from the description; it's more like an enclosed wagon. You have to drive it, but it goes by itself, no horse, or anythin'!"
That morning, Frodo felt well enough to get out of bed, and submitted to a tour of Winnie and Keano's house. Afterwards, wrapped in a warm blanket in the main living area with a mug of a tasty new drink called 'hot chocolate', he and the other hobbits discussed their predicament.
"I think we should go from house to house and look for the others, if they came here too," Frodo was saying. "Aragorn and Boromir would surely have found safety, and Gandalf too. But Gimli is slightly... susceptible to coldness, and might not have gone far."
"But with Legolas, he may have been fine," Merry put in. They all nodded.
"Frodo, if you're thinking of going out in this cold weather to look for anyone, you can just think again!" Winnie came into the room with a tray of cookies and granola bars. The three hobbits pounced on the food and wolfed it down.
"But I can't let them go without me," Frodo protested, nibbling a cookie.
"Ohhhh yes you can," Winnie said sternly, frowning at Frodo with her hands on her hips. He hung his head. "I guess you're right. I don't feel very well yet." The other hobbits hid smiles at the sight: the bearer of the One Ring meekly submitting to a twelve-year-old human child!
Later that day, Sam, Merry, and Pippin began to bundle up.
"I sure hope they haven't gone far," Merry said as he struggled into his shoes. "What's the matter with these, they're pinching my toes! Feels like they've shrunk or somethin'..."
"That's because they're mine," Pippin laughed, grabbing the boots out of Merry's hands.
"WHAT do you all think you're DOING?!" Winnie shrieked, bursting into the coatroom.
"Just getting dressed for the wintery outdoors, is all," Sam said puzzled.
"You can't go into town looking like that," Winnie yelped. She pointed at his cloak and short sword buckled around his waist, and Merry and Pippin's vests. "You guys look like you just came out of Charles Dickens or something! You'd get arrested for looking suspicious!"
"Oh." The hobbits looked sheepishly at one another. "We didn't think of that."
Half an hour later, they were attired in her grandfather's and her deceased father's old clothes.
"Are you sure you don't mind us wearing these?" Sam asked Winnie from the bathroom.
"I'm sure," she called through the door. "My dad died years and years ago, and I barely remember him. I'm sure you need these clothes more than he does now, anyways!"
When they finally gathered together again in the coatroom, they stared at each other for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"You look like you put your clothes on in the dark!" Sam chuckled to Merry.
"Well, you look like you had one too many pints and forgot which way your coat fit," Merry retorted.
"I think we're just not used to the way people dress here," Pippin said tittering.
Frodo was looking at them all thoughtfully. "Winnie, how tall was your father, and how tall is your grandfather?"
"Uh, I think my grandpa's about five feet and a couple inches, and my dad was barely five feet. We're a short family."
The hobbits' jaws dropped. "I...I grew about a foot and a half," Pippin exclaimed in shock. Evidently, so had the others! Instead of their customary height of just over three feet, they now comfortably (some of them) fit into clothes meant for humans!
Soon the three hobbits were gone, promising to be back in time for dinner. Keano begged to go with them, but Winnie forbade it, so he sulked in the living room.
Frodo paced up and down in front of the window looking out onto the driveway. Winnie and Keano lived in the country near a large mountain, and they had informed him that the nearest neighbor lived two and a half miles away. The village of Sweet was closer, only two miles. This was where the hobbits were walking.
At Winnie's urging, Frodo helped her with washing laundry, putting away clean dishes, and bringing in stacks of wood for the fires. Keano tagged along, still moping. While they worked Frodo asked many questions about this new world of humans. He was shocked to hear that no one believed in elves, dwarves, hobbits, wizards, or orcs! For him, they were as real as the clothes he wore.
"You're all just in books, now," Winnie explained. "I'll have to get you to a bookstore in Boise sometime so you can see."
"Just because you don't BELIEVE in different races of creatures other than humans, does that mean there AREN'T any?" Frodo wondered.
"It depends on where you go and who you talk to," Winnie said, folding a sheet. "For instance, if you ask my grandpa, the only things that are real are what you can see. If you ask my grandma, she'll tell you that there's a spirit world and a real world, and these two are together. If you ask Old Murphy who sits in his rocking chair on his porch in town, he'll tell you that anything is possible. And if you ask Jerry, our neighbor's hired boy, he says that nothing is true, so nothing ever happens. Which is just rubbish, because of COURSE things happen, and stuff is true all the time, so I don't think much of his ideas..."
"But has anyone ever seen a hobbit, or elf or dwarf?"
Winnie pondered this. "I don't think anyone here has," she said slowly, handing him a stack of towels. "But that doesn't mean no one else has. There are millions and billions of people in Idaho, and THOUSANDS of billions in all the other states, and all the states put together make a country and there are LOTS and LOTS of countries..."
"Stop, stop, you make my head whirl," Frodo cried. He put the towels on a shelf and sat down in a chair with his head in his hands. "I can't believe this. Hobbits can't just die out! I know the elves are departing over the Sea...I mean, they WERE going Oversea, but...dwarves? They still exist...existed, I mean. Oh, nothing is making sense!"
"Did I say something wrong?" Winnie inquired, looking worriedly at Frodo.
"No, I'm just confused. I think I need to lie down for a while."
Holding onto the Ring, Frodo curled up in bed.
Meanwhile, the three other hobbits wandered into the small town of Sweet. To say that they were noticed is an understatement. That people stared and laughed at them is putting it lightly.
The hobbits dashed into a bar to get away from the growing crowd of heavily bundled young people, leaving them hooting in the cold.
"Oh, this looks familiar," Pippin said, looking meaningfully at Merry, nodding towards the mugs stacked on the sideboard and sniffing the air.
"What say we stop for...ah, a little something to warm us up before we move on?" Merry asked excitedly. The cousins edged towards the barkeeper, who eyed them curiously.
"No, we don't have time," Sam began, but seeing how the two were already asking for "a pint of the strongest" he relented. "Well, I suppose one drink wouldn't take too long."
After quaffing their drinks, Sam paid the bartender with a small coin from the Shire, which the man said was more than enough (what he didn't tell the naïve hobbits was that the coin was made out of silver, and very valuable).
By then there was nobody in sight outside around the bar. The hobbits dodged from alley to porch and managed to get to the outskirts of town without being seen.
"Wow, we're gettin' good at this undercover retreating," Pippin remarked.
Merry smacked him lightly. "We're not retreatin', you oaf. We're just...moving to new territory. The others obviously weren't in town, or people wouldn't have been starin' at us, they'd be used to strange-lookin' characters already."
"Maybe we can catch a ride with someone," Sam suggested, shivering as they waded through almost waist high snow towards a road that had been cleared.
"You know, that's not a bad a idea. Pretty intelligent for a gardener." Merry ducked the snowball Sam threw at him.
The hobbits began to walk down the road. Ten minutes later, a snowplow came into sight.
"Hey, you fellas look pretty cold," the driver yelled out of his window.
"Yeah, we are. What's the next nearest town besides Sweet?" Merry called back.
"I think Horseshoe Bend's the closest, but the roads are still down over there. I'm heading to Boise right now. I heard they didn't get near as much snow, and I don't want to miss the football game. Say, you guys wanna ride along?"
"Sure!"
"After all," Pippin whispered to Merry as they clambered into the snowplow truck, "the rest of the Fellowship could be anywhere, so if they're not in Sweet, they could be in Boise."
"Just what I was thinkin'," Merry grinned. "Anyways, I've really been wanting to ride in one of these 'cars'."
"So, where are you guys from?" The driver looked expectantly at the three.
"Well, ah..." Merry stuttered.
"Eh, we're visitin' our...cousins who live just outside of Sweet, but...we have to go into town." Sam quickly made up an explanation.
"I see," the driver said politely, but puzzled.
Once in Boise, all the hobbits could do was stare dumbfounded out the snowplow's windows.
"I swear by the Old Took that NOBODY back home will ever believe what we're seeing right now," Merry gasped.
Downtown Boise's buildings and towers rose high above the streets. The driver noted the hobbits astonishment at the city and decided that they must have lived in the country all their lives. He pointed out sight after sight, gesturing to the Capitol building and then to the fountain.
When they arrived a couple blocks from BSU, parked, and began to walk towards the stadium, the hobbits almost passed out.
"Look at all the humans...I mean, the PEOPLE!" Pippin shouted. The typical crowds of Bronco fans headed en masse before them. The hobbits were dragged along through the current, shouting a thank you and goodbye to the driver of the snowplow.
At the gate, a man in uniform asked for their tickets.
Merry looked worried. "Tickets? I don't have any."
"Aw, just go on through. You're gonna hold up the line," the man yelled. "We're giving free tickets away today, anyways."
"Cool, we're goin' to see a football game!" Pippin said as they sat down in the bleachers.
"What do y'mean, 'cool'?" Sam asked.
"Keano says 'cool' all the time," Pippin tried to look wise, "and it means 'great' or 'that's fine'."
"And I thought WE looked strange," Merry shouted to Pippin over the noise, looking at the mass of screaming fans surrounding him.
The game began. Though first greatly confused, the hobbits finally started to catch on.
"Bronco first down!" They yelled with the other BSU fans. They screamed when a touchdown was made, booed as the referee made a bad call, and flung their arms up and down in the wave.
During the end of half time, Merry was looking at everyone around him, and suddenly gasped.
"Pip, look!" He shook his cousin's shoulder. "It's Boromir!"
Pippin looked. Sure enough, the Gondor warrior stood cheering a few rows away! Someone had put blue and orange paint on his face in stripes, and he roared and laughed as loud as the heartiest fan.
Dragging Sam, the hobbits rushed over to Boromir.
"BOROMIR, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"
Boromir jumped, and then slapped them on their backs. "Welcome, hobbits! This is a grand day for a football game, what say you?"
"Boromir, we've found you, and Mr. Frodo's back at the house, but we still have to find Strider and the elf and dwarf," Sam said over the tumult. He quickly told Boromir their predicament. Boromir agreed that they should set out at once to find the others.
"Frodo, are you awake?"
"Yes, come on in, Winnie."
The girl entered the room carrying a tray of tomato soup and crackers. "I thought you might like dinner."
"Is it that late already?" Frodo sat up in bed and glanced out the window at the sunset.
"Yeah, you slept all through the afternoon."
Frodo sipped the soup. "It's very kind of you to let us stay at your house, Winnie. I'm sorry I acted so out-of-sorts earlier."
"That's okay," Winnie smiled, "I understand. It must be hard to be in another world without your friends."
They ate dinner as Winnie explained about modern technology, humans, and the culture from a twelve-year-old's view. Frodo eagerly wrote down much of what she said on paper. Then he told her stories from the Shire, and at her request, reluctantly showed her the Ring. She took it in her hand, and without warning, slipped it on her finger! Frodo gasped.
"What?" she said. The hobbit blinked. The girl was still visible! She tried the Ring on all her fingers. The Ring had no effect on her!
"It's a nice ring, but I've got prettier ones," she told him, giving it back. He almost snatched it from her in his eagerness. He still felt closely attached to it, and the pain he'd been experiencing in Middle Earth from Sauron's oppression had not ceased. It felt cool to the touch, but strangely seemed to burn him from within.
Just then, they heard Keano rush down the hall. "They're back!"
Frodo and Winnie went to the door. Sam, Merry, and Pippin crowded in, followed by Boromir and Gimli.
"We found Boromir at a football game," Pippin told Frodo, and seeing his puzzled look, added, "I'll explain what that is later."
"And we saved HIM from being locked up," Boromir grinned, nodding at Gimli.
"It was not my fault that I did not know weapons are not allowed at the City Hall," Gimli grumbled. "I merely thought someone could give some assistance in finding my way around, and a squad of men rushed at me! Naturally, what can one do but put up his axe in defense?"
Frodo smiled. "He does look slightly dangerous," he whispered to Sam.
"So, the men grabbed my axe from behind and pushed me to the ground! Very...erm, embarrassing, for a dwarf. Of course, if I'd used half of my strength, I could have flattened them, but I did not desire to hurt the little weaklings. They were going to take me to someplace called a 'jail', but then the hobbits appeared and managed to talk them out of it."
"We said that he was part of a parade, portraying the Vikings," Merry said, winking at the rest.
"Vikings? Parade?" Frodo asked of Sam.
"Just some people from this world who lived a long time ago," his friend told him, "who we thought looked somethin' like Gimli. We spent a little while in a moo-seeum, lookin' at lots of pictures and things, so we thought it sounded reasonable to say that the dwarf was one of them. A parade is where a lot of people march around for others to see them."
"Come in and eat something," Winnie said, trying in vain to make Keano stop staring at Gimli. As they all filed into the kitchen, she looked up at Boromir, who was more than 6 and a half feet tall. "My, it must be awfully hard to find clothes that fit you. I'll have to see if we can go into Boise sometime and get you some."
"But how could we go all the way back there if none of us can drive?" Sam asked.
"And aren't your grandparents coming back soon?" Merry wondered.
Winnie poured tomato soup into bowls. "They called me this afternoon while Frodo was taking a nap. Since Keano and I are used to staying by ourselves, and we're doing fine, they're going to stay in Twin Falls for a couple more days. So I can teach one of you how to drive, and we can go into Boise!"
Sam choked on his soup. "Teach one of us to DRIVE??!"
"Me, me, pick me!" Merry and Pippin yelled. Frodo just looked confused.
"I think...that I should teach the big guy to drive. He looks the most like a grown-up than the rest of us," Winnie decided. Everyone looked at Boromir. He shrugged, and poured himself a fourth helping of soup.
"Okay, here's the gas pedal, and you push it to make the car go. No, not so hard! Just a little bit, really gently...yes, just like that. This thing tells you how fast the car is going. Right now, it's barely ten miles an hour. When you see signs on the side of the road with numbers on them, they mean that you should be driving just at that many miles an hour."
The four hobbits stifled their laughter. They, Gimli, and Keano stood outside in the chilly morning. The sun rose cold behind them, and their breath came up in steam.
"Boy, he's in for a long day," Merry chuckled as Boromir slowly drove down the dirt road that led around the farm. Winnie had grown up using the farm equipment, so she knew how to operate the rickety old van. Now she was trying to teach the Gondor warrior how to drive.
"If you ask me, and I know you will not, I'd say we were doing this the LONG way," Gimli muttered through his almost frozen beard. "Why not just hitchhike into Boise again, like we did coming back to Sweet?"
"Because, how many people do you think are goin' to give six strange- lookin' characters and two kids a ride into Boise? They'd think we was kidnapping them." Sam sighed.
"And why would they think that? I look very decent for a dwarf, if I do say so myself," Gimli grumbled. The hobbits snickered.
"I wouldn't trust Boromir in a car, if I was Winnie," Pippin said, "he's not that great with hand-foot coo-ordination."
"You big oaf, it's hand-eye coordination, not hand-foot. Right, Frodo?"
"No, Frodo, don't listen to Merry, it's hand-foot. I'm right, aren't I?" The cousins began to playfully shove each other around in the snow.
But Frodo was not listening. He sat a little ways away on a stump, hunched over in the icy breeze.
Sam came over to him. "Mr. Frodo, are you all right?"
Frodo jumped. "Oh, Sam, you startled me. Of course I'm all right." He quickly dropped the Ring back into his shirt. Sam looked at him unhappily. "No, you're not. It's that Ring. It's taking firmer hold of you. You're always touchin' it, to make sure it's still there, always lookin' to see it." He pulled Frodo to his feet. "Why don't you go back in the house and get some rest. You still look tired."
"Thanks, Sam." Frodo walked slowly to the house. Despite his efforts to disguise it, the Ring WAS getting heavier. It obviously had not wanted to leave Middle Earth, and now that it was in the year 1999 (so Keano had told him) it was almost as if Sauron's presence had been released into the present. Frodo felt uncomfortable. It was his fault the Ring was here, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. So why did he feel so guilty?
"Don't you understand the meaning of the word SLOWLY?" Winnie shrieked in Boromir's ear as they rushed through the Horseshoe Bend hills. In the backseat of the van the other members of the Fellowship huddled together. Merry and Pippin tried to seem brave, but were failing fast. Gimli looked stern, Sam exhausted, and Frodo carsick. Keano rode beside Winnie in the front seat, enjoying the wild ride down the highway.
"Stop swerving into the other lane," Winnie shouted, "you're going to make the police think you're drunk."
"I'm not drunk any more than you are," Boromir roared back.
"Then drive straight!" she shrilled.
Miraculously, they made it into Boise without any mishaps. Stopping at Fred Meyer, Winnie dragged Boromir and Gimli to the men's section and tried to find some clothes large enough for them. Shoving eight dollars into Keano's hand, she ordered him to take the hobbits next door to McDonalds.
"What are THESE?" Merry gasped as Keano handed him his food.
"French fries. You know, PO-TA-TOES? Eat them with some ketchup, like this." He shoved a handful into his mouth and chewed noisely. "They're good."
"Mmmm, they really ARE good," Pippin grinned, biting into a Big Mac.
The other people at the restraunt watched wide-eyed as the hobbits and boy devoured thirteen hamburgers, six sodas, two Chicken McNuggets, and four large fries.
"Is that a river out there?" Frodo pointed out the window across the busy shopping area. Everyone looked, giving him a chance to hastily pile the rest of his hamburger onto Pippin's napkin. He made a face at it; hamburgers were definitely not the food to eat after a roller-coaster ride in a car with Boromir.
"Yeah, it's the Boise river. It gets kind of shallow in the winter, but there's some good fishing in summer. Wanna go see?" Keano slurped down the rest of his Pepsi. All the hobbits were in favor, so they cleared their table to throw the trash away.
"Hey, how did this get here? I thought I finished mine," Pippin held up Frodo's unwanted hamburger. "Oh, well. The more, the merrier!" He swallowed it in two gulps.
Crossing the busy street, they walked across an empty lot all the way down to the river's edge by a bridge.
"Now this is more like it," Sam sighed, as they walked down a path beside the water. The snow had mostly melted, and a few birds hopped about under the bushes. The hum of the cars was muffled by the trees.
"I can actually hear myself think again, after all that noise in the restraunt," Pippin said.
"Think? I didn't know you could think," Merry said with mock surprise. The two hobbits cheerfully tussled, Keano jumping around them in excitement.
Frodo wandered off from the group. He felt cold, and weighed down with the Ring. His fingers itched to hold it, to stroke it, to make sure it was still safe around his neck. Glancing from side to side to make sure Sam wasn't nearby, he leaned against a tree and pulled the Ring out of his shirt. So smooth, so shiny. Just a little ring. One little piece of metal. If he put it on...No, he rebuked himself firmly, it would only draw Sauron's attention to me, and who knows what he could do here! But small doubts nagged at him. After all, when Winnie had tried the Ring on, nothing had happened. And this WAS a different world. Was Sauron even present?
His finger drew itself slowly towards the Ring.
"Mr. Frodo? Where are you?"
Frodo jumped. He dropped the Ring as if it was burning, then recognizing Sam's voice, fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, dropping the Ring back out of sight. He moved away from the protection of the tree, his face clearing.
"I'm here, Sam."
"Thank goodness. I thought I'd lost you." Sam moved towards his friend. "Are you...Frodo, were you doing something with that Ring?"
"I....I just...wanted some time away by myself....to be alone. I'm all right, Sam, really," he reassured him, trying to smile. "Come on, let's gather the others and go back to the store. I'm sure Winnie will have found Boromir and Gimli some clothes by now." He walked back along the path to where the others were now appearing around the bend. Sam followed, but nobody saw the anxious way he kept looking at Frodo.
Returning to Fred Meyer, they found Boromir and Gimli proudly wearing their new clothes. Boromir, in jeans, flannel shirt, and boots, looked like a cowboy. Gimli didn't seem quite respectable, in his sweats and braided beard, but he was persuaded to not carry his axe around, so at least he didn't look dangerous.
On the ride home, they were passing the fairgrounds, when Boromir suddenly swerved into the next lane and pulled into the dirt parking lot along with a million other cars. Everyone clamored to know what he was doing.
"There's an archery contest going on here. I'd like to see how people shoot nowadays."
So they piled out of the van and headed for the racetrack, which was where the contests were being held. Upon inquiring, Frodo found out that the first four rounds had already commenced. Only the five worthiest archers would compete in the last round.
Boromir edged his way to the front of the crowd, providing a path for the others and giving them a space at the edge of the fence. Now they all had a front row view of the field.