Chapter 6

"And that's why Merry wore your clothes," ended Pippin. "We really only wanted to help Frodo." He looked expectantly up into Rosie Cotton's eyes, who returned his glance thoughtfully.

"And you are telling me the truth?" she asked. Pippin nodded vehemently, trying to look as credible as he could. In the meantime he stepped nervously from one foot to another. This talk was lasting far too long. Why couldn't these lasses just believe him and let it be? He had apologised properly and told the tale in even more detail than he had planned to. But still they were holding him up. Out of the corner of his eye Pippin could see that the sun had already sunk dangerously low. 'Strawberries,' he thought, desperately. 'Mushrooms.'

Obviously unaware of his trouble, Rosie turned to her friend. "What do you think?" she asked.

Margy laughed lightly. "This is the oddest story I ever heard. But it fits them. I believe him."

"Indeed," Rosie agreed, "it will surely make for great tale-telling on boring evenings."

"No!" Pippin cried. "Please no! Don't tell anybody! It would ruin the whole thing and Merry . . . he's already upset." The young Took glumly hung his head, remembering his cousin's glowering stare. "It was my idea, so he blames it on me that . . . well, that you saw him dressed like that and all."

"So you should think about avoiding such debacles for your cousin in the future," Rosie teased.

"Yes," Pippin answered, sheepishly. But then as an inevitable afterthought he added: "But it worked."

The lasses laughed brightly at this, then Rosie looked at the lad and a glint that Merry would have recognised appeared in her eyes. "It seemingly worked, yes. But it only truly worked if we agree to keep your secret."

Pippin stared at them, unbelieving. Sam always said Rosie was such a gentle lass!

"We might, though," Rosie said, "under one condition."

Obviously, Sam didn't know Rosie well enough. Pippin gloomily clenched his teeth. He found he didn't really want to hear what would come next. The hope for an intact and incomparably large pudding vanished before his hungry eyes.

"You'll have to buy our discretion," Rosie informed him.

"Buy?" Pippin echoed lamely, fearing for the worst.

Without comment Rosie handed him back the pile of clothes Pippin had just given her. "My washboard is still down at the brook," she told him. "I left it there this morning. You'll also find a bar of soap there."

Pippin's shoulders slumped as if the clothes weighed as heavy as stones.

"You don't think Rosie would wash all morning and let you to ruin her work?" Margy asked sweetly.

Pippin felt himself strongly remembering the vengeful orcs in Bilbo's tales. 'Ugly, vengeful orcs,' he thought defiantly.

"It's quite simple, Peregrin," Rosie said. "Wash the clothes that you caused to be dirtied and no one will ever know of your little adventure."

'Yes,' Pippin thought, 'and I wish I'd never known of it, either.'

***

This day Pippin learned that there were times when he didn't like Merry much. Well, almost didn't like him anyway. Frantically scrubbing the soap down the skirt, which bore a remarkable number of grass stains, the young hobbit recited nearly every curse that had ever come to his ear -- silently, mindful of the two lasses who sat nearby. Of course Merry had a right to be angry. Who wouldn't be seething in such a situation? But after the first time the bonnet had slipped into the water and began to swim away with the current, Pippin had decided this was far too heavy a punishment.

' If I ever, ever get the chance,' Pippin thought, ' I'll make him wash the whole Brandy Hall's laundry. Oh yes, I will.'

He risked a quick glance over his shoulder to where Rosie and Margy sat on a grassy slope, chatting cheerfully about who knew what. Pippin promised himself that as soon as this cursed day was over he would think of a prank so devilishly clever and cunning as the whole Shire had never seen before. The lasses would have no idea what came over them. But that hope for the future was the only satisfaction inside the young Took.

Wiping some soap flakes from his forehead, he straightened. Critically, he surveyed his work. It looked quite clean to his eye. Sighing, he stood up, gathering the clothes in his arms.

Fleetingly he thought that if old Bilbo was still here, he could have made a great book out of this day. Pippin only wished he had been the one to read it and not one of the plagued main characters. On the other hand -- what kind of a writer would want to write such a story? Only a profoundly wicked one, of course, in which case Pip would never be allowed to read it.

Pippin was about to walk towards his tormentors when a questioning voice stopped him on the spot.

"Pippin? What are you doing here?"

Pippin bit his lip and turned. Next thing was, he almost dropped the cleaned laundry.

"F-Frodo?" he stammered, unbelievingly.

***

TBC