CHAPTER Two - A Breakfast for Champions

The next morning, Merry woke to the aroma of flapjacks cooking for breakfast, and his stomach growled. He heard someone walk up to his door and knock. It was Dahlia, the cook. He knew Dahlia--she was his cousins' nanny, and she also helped out around the smials until it was time to go home just before dinner. Dahlia was an older hobbit grandmother whose husband died years ago of a winter sickness. When his aunt gave birth to Pippin, Dahlia offered to help out with the four children, and since then, she had became part of the family.

"Time to arise, Master Meriadoc!", yelled Dahlia from behind the door, "it's half past nine!"

"Yes, Ma'am!", Merry yelled in return, "and please, call me Merry!" But he already got the feeling she was no longer behind the door. He could hear her bare hobbit feet shuffling down the hallway.

Merry was exhausted when he went to bed last evening. His aunt and uncle kept him up wanting news of the Brandybuck clan. Finally satisfied they had all the latest hearsay, and seeing their nephew yawning every minute or so, they finally let Merry go off to bed.

He leaned up on his elbow in the bed, rubbed his tired eyes and surveyed the morning outside his window. It was bright and cheery outside, and full of trees and green hills to explore. He was anxious to start his holiday, so he swung the blanket over the bed and got up. All he wore to bed was the shirt he traveled in the day before and a pair of underclothes, so he felt the early morning chill as he tiptoed to the wash basin. After he washed his face and hands, he opened his bag and changed into clean shirt and trousers. He then left for the kitchen to take in the aroma, and fill his hungry stomach.

At the table he met with a large platter of flapjacks, fruit and cream, bread with butter, and bits of bacon fried to a crisp. He hadn't tasted food this good since...well, since he left home the day before yesterday! It was a long wagon drive from Buckland to Tuckborough! His twelve-year-old appetite dug in.

Little Pippin was also eating his breakfast across the table from Merry. He was sitting in a special chair that brought him to the same level as the table. He had food in his mouth, food in his hair, food in his lap--but he would get to all that as soon as his hands were free from holding the pieces of bread in his hands, ready to take the place of the fruit in his mouth at first swallow. "Slow down, Master Peregrin! There's food enough for everyone!", Dahlia chided, as she took hold of one of Pippin's recently freed hands and wiped it and his mouth with a damp cloth. Pippin merely kept on chewing with his mouth packed with food, focusing on the serious business at hand.

Merry watched the comical scene before him, and wondered how such a little boy could put away so much food! Merry noticed Pippin was actually keeping up with him! Not to be out done by some upstart four-year-old, Merry filled his bowl with more berries. He didn't wish to be a glutton on his first day, so decided only several spoonfuls with cream would suffice.

Merry's breakfast activities were interrupted by a scream outside. He jumped at the sound; he knew the voice behind that scream--it was Pim. He wiped his mouth, and jumped from the table and ran out the kitchen door to see what the matter was.

He was first to arrive on the scene. He saw Pim lying on the ground holding her leg. She was in tears.

"What happened?!", asked Merry, as he ran up to her.

"Nothing! Go away!", Pim sobbed.

Merry could hear the pain in her voice. "Something's happened, Pim! I can even see it! Are you hurt?" By this time his Aunt, Pearl and Vina were coming near; apparently Dahlia stayed in the kitchen to watch over young Pip in his chair.

"Pim! What have you done?", asked Eglantine. She looked at her daughter on the ground holding her now swollen ankle.

"I (sniff)...I, was trying to walk on the fence (sniff), to see if I could (sniff)...", was her reply, but her mother guessed all the rest.

"More like fancying yourself a minstrel and performing before a crowd!", laughed Perva. A sharp eye from her mother made Perva hold her tongue from further teasing.

"Pim! What in the Shire were you thinking?! That fence is too high for anyone to walk on!"

Pim was so embarrassed; she began to sob even more.

"Let's get her inside, Pearl", said Eglantine. Pearl obeyed and the two women hauled up Pim to her good foot to take her limping to her room.