A Long-Expected Party

Gandalf sets off fireworks while large amounts of people dance and eat and drink, mainly alcohol, which all goes to show that this is indeed a party of some sort. If you pay enough attention, you can see Gandalf dancing like a fool of a wizard at one point.

Frodo sits down next to Sam at a table.

Frodo: Go on, Sam, ask Rosie for a dance!

Sam: I think I'll just have another ale.

Frodo: Get out there and DANCE, you drunken bum!

Frodo shoves Sam at Rosie and basically the same thing happens as happened to Bilbo when Gandalf shoved him in chapter one. They pick themselves up and dance off. Frodo gets laughing so hard that he falls off the bench and rolls under the table.

Frodo: HEEHEEHEE!! He SMASHED her into the TREE! HEEHEEHEE....*so on and so forth*

Bilbo is telling his story to a group of young Hobbit children.

Bilbo: So there I was, at the mercy of three monstrous trolls, and they were all arguing about how to cook us! Whether it be turned on a spit, or if they should sit on us one by one and squash us into jelly! They spent so much time arguing the whithertos and whyfors that the sun's first light crept up over the tops of the trees and turned them all to stone!

Gandalf sets off a tiny butterfly firework, which a crowd of Hobbit children try to catch, and, luckily for Gandalf's behind, can't. (Can you imagine if they had?! Second- or third-degree burns on itty Hobbit children tend to result in angry Hobbit mothers!) Gandalf then returns to his wagon for more fireworks, and when he leaves, Merry and Pippin come out to steal one of their own. Merry gives Pippin a boost into the wagon, where he roots around and comes up with one.

Merry: No, the big one, the big one! (The BIG ONE!) (...oh, dolphy, not another inside joke that I have to explain..!)

Pippin gets the biggest firework in the cart and they both run inside a tent, fearing for their lives should they be caught. Pippin lights the firework.

Pippin: There!

Merry: You're supposed to put it in the ground first!

Pippin: It is in the ground!

Merry: OUTSIDE!

Pippin: This was your idea!

The firework goes off, tent and all, knocking Merry and Pippin flat on their little hobbitty rears in the process. The firework turns into a dragon's head, sprouts wings, then starts doing dragony things, namely, trying to annihilate anything in sight, which it very nearly accomplishes by flying as low as possible over the party. Lots of panicked Hobbits running every which way. Frodo sees it coming (the dragon, not the guests, although really, the way these guests stampede they could be dangerous) and tries to warn Bilbo.

Frodo: *having finally gotten out from under the table* Bilbo, watch out for the dragon!

Bilbo: Dragon? Nonsense, there hasn't been a dragon in these parts for a thousand years!

They duck, not wanting to get made into crispy hobbit-bacon. The dragon-work passes over the hill ( very old, you know, if it hadn't been that way in a thousand years) and explodes. Merry and Pippin observe the chaos they have created and are happy hobbits.

Pippin: That was good!

Merry: Let's get another one!

Gandalf walks up behind and gets Merry and Pippin by their pointy ears.

Merry and Pippin: *squeakily* Ow, ow, your breaking our ears! We'll be good, we swear, just let us keep our ears, they're such good and useful things, you know...

Gandalf: Meriadoc Brandybuck, and Peregrin Took. I might have known.

Pippin: *grinning and forgetting momentarily that his ear is in danger* Yes, you might have if you weren't so old and forgetful...

Gandalf: URRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!! I am NOT OLD! Uh...okay, so I am, but I AM NOT FORGETFUL! *starts to avenge himself by ripping Pippin's ear off*

Pippin: *yelps* Ah! I'm kidding, I was kidding! I didn't mean it! Don't hurt my ears, it's not their fault! *tries really hard to remember exactly what Frodo's best puppy eyes look like, then imitates them* Pleeeaaaase?

Gandalf, faced with Frodo-eyes, relents and decides not to tear their ears off after all, instead making them wash dishes. Several Hobbits go by carrying the birthday cake, and Bilbo stands up.

Everyone in the general vicinity: Speech! Speech!

Bilbo: My dear Bagginses and Boffins, Tooks and Brandybucks, Grubbs, Chubbs, Hornblowers, Bolgers, Bracegirdles, and Proudfoots!

Proudfoot: Proudfeet!

Bilbo: Shut UP!! This is MY speech, I get to say what I WANT in it! You got that! Now, today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday! Alas, eleventy-one years is much too short a time to live among such excellent *glares at offensive Proudfoot* and admirable *glares even harder* Hobbits! I don't know half of you half as well as I should like and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

The offensive Proudfoot takes this the way it is meant, as a personal insult, but his hobbity wife reads his mind and bops him one and he decides to kill Bilbo later, in private. Bilbo, his point made and taken, goes on.

Bilbo: I have things to do. I've put this off for far too long. I regret to announce this is the end!

Proudfoot: *grumpily under his breath* I don't!

Bilbo: *ignoring certain annoying Hobbits beneath his notice* I'm going now. I bid you all a very fond farewell! Goodbye.

Bilbo puts on his ring and goes invisible, causing yet another bout of chaos among the party guests.

Merry and Pippin: Yay, yay, we love Bilbo! He's the funnest Hobbit ever, and he can cause a fuss just by sticking a ring on his finger, and he's just gotten the all-time record for scaring people during a single party! Whooohooo!!

Gandalf alone is not surprised or impressed, 'cause Gandalf is such a wise wizard and already knows about these things. Bilbo then lights out of there.

==============

And yet again, we have work to do!

A/N    Anything I need to explain...? Oh, yes, the stupid 'Big One' joke! Okay, here goes: dolphin's family lives on a small farm, and they raise lots of really smelly things like cows and chickens and the occasional pair of pigs. dolphin's brothers and sister-there are four kids younger than dolphin-play in the cow fields with the cows often, and one time, dolphin's only sister, Sinead, fell into some cow manure kindly left behind by the family Jersey. She came into the house covered in manure and screaming that 'she fell into the Big One' (capitalisation hers). Ever afterward, the words 'big one', no matter the context, are enough to send the whole family into an uproar, hence the little addition in the story. Understand now? Sorry, neither do I, you just learn to 'go with the flow' when you live with them.

(For future reference, dolphin's brothers and sister are, in order: James Brenan, the eldest; then Sean Bronson, followed by dolphin; Darion Jacoby, Rab Tierney, Dara Riordan and the only girl, Sinead Romany. Got that? To see the lot coming at one in a store can be extremely worrisome; they look like a veritable tribe! And, no, they are not Catholic. I am, they are not.)