Childhood in The Shire

By: Kari (little took lassie3)

Chapter 6

I didn't like Cindy's aunt and uncle. They glared at me with piercing eyes, and my first impression was that they were of the evil sort. Their children remained of the happy kind, except for the three eldest who treated me nastily. They snarled and glared at me the way their parents did, if not worse. Seeing them made me feel sorry for Cindy. I took it upon myself to become her friend. She could call me her boyfriend or whatever she liked, but a friend she remained towards me.

My parents thought it odd when I began to favor visiting Cindy rather than Merry. My sisters kept asking me when I was going to purpose; I didn't know what they meant, but I suspected they were mocking me for wanting to be friends with a girl.

But I found that not all girls acted like girls. Cindy didn't spend hours brushing her hair and gazing at herself in the mirror like my sisters did. At times I even forgot she was a lass! She and I shared a lot of things in common, but mainly our love for eating. I liked chocolate. She liked chocolate. Peppermint, carrot cake, blue berry muffins, cheese, strawberry jam, caramel apples-- she loved it all, as did I. It was hard to believe that I found someone who could eat more than Merry, who was never a competition to me when it came to eating, but Cindy sometimes beat me. She also enjoyed reading like me. And her most hated sport was fishing. She said it was boring, and I agreed.

After several weeks I found that I longed to be with another lad--with my Merry. After all, Cindy was a girl, and she and I had our differences. For instance she loved to dance, and I despised it. So, it was time to see my favorite cousin and best friend again. I left Cindy with a promise that I wouldn't be away too long, but she seemed not to want to part with me.

"Oh, please, Pippin! Don't leave me!"

"Oh, come now, Cindy! You're being silly!" I told her.

She hugged me tightly, which was something she always did when it was time for her to return to her aunt and uncle's house after long visits at the Great Smials, "Don't be too long," she said.

I said I wouldn't.

When I got to Brandy Hall, I realized I had forgotten how at home I felt there. When many weeks passed and the suggestion of me returning home came up, I revived my old habit of doing anything to be able to stay just for a little longer.

"I'm sure your little lady friend misses you, Pippin," said Merry. He begun to refer to Cindy as my "little lady friend", and I didn't like it for he said it as Frodo had once called Cecelia his "special friend". If Merry had any notion that Cindy was my girlfriend-- he was crazy. He has not been of the sane type since his fifteenth birthday. That is the moment where I had pinned the beginning of his peculiar behavior.

At that moment I wasn't sure if Cindy did miss me, but after a lot of pleading I stayed at Brandy Hall for an additional two weeks. But Cindy did miss me, and she proved it by showing up at Brandy Hall and fetching me after my two months of absence.

As she dragged me out of the Hall, Merry called after me, "Good luck!"

I wondered what the luck was for, but I soon found out it was for defending myself as Cindy yelled at me for three hours straight.

I noticed as we made our way to the Great Smials that Cindy had a nasty bruise on her arm, and I asked her where she got it from. It wasn't the first time I saw a bruise on her, but this one was bigger. I wondered if she would use her usual excuse that she got it from wrestling with her little cousins.

She did.

This time I was hesitant to believe her. I knew for a fact that her younger cousins were very active; there was a set of twin five-year-olds that always greeted me by playfully knocking and tackling me to the ground, but it never left a scratch or bump on me.

I decided I would buy the tale, and I left the subject alone, but I couldn't help but notice that as the days passed, the number of bruises and bumps did too. For two years I never thought it was anything serious, but one day when she came to my hole with several bruises on her arms and a cut just above her right eye, I became concerned and I decided to talk with my cousin Merry about it.

Merry had just turned twenty. I believe he was twenty and four months. Whatever it was I was constantly reminded by my parents that he was now a tween and he probably didn't have time for me, a simple eleven-year-old. But I begged to differ, for I was going to be twelve very soon. And Merry never would tell me that he didn't have time for his best friend!

I went to Brandy Hall and I told him that I needed to talk to him about Cindy.

"Sure, Pip, what is it?" he asked.

"Well, it's just that I'm kind of worried about her."

"Why? What's wrong? She get another lad friend?"

"No. Merry, this is serious."

"What?"

I explained to him about the increasing amount of bruises over the years.

"Hasn't Frodo noticed?"

"Naw, she only shows me. Not that she doesn't like Frodo, but she trusts me more than him… maybe because he's so old. But this time she's got this cut on her face. Somebody has to see it," I sighed, "What do you think is happening to her, Mer?"

Merry said he wasn't sure, but he had a pretty good idea it had something to do with Cindy's uncle. Merry met him once too, and he told me from the very start that he didn't like the hobbit. Merry said he would have to tell his father and inform Frodo too.

Cindy's uncle was arrested by the shirrifs for child abuse. Merry told me that Cindy's uncle was sick in the head, and that Cindy got those bruises from being beat by him. I asked Cindy if that was true, and she said yes. I asked her why she didn't tell me. She said she was afraid. I never told her, but I always thought that was dumb of her.

When Cindy's uncle was arrested, Cindy was readopted by my cousin Frodo who was to turn the legal age of thirty three in two days.