Chapter 9

Buckland - 1484 SR

"Is it too late in the year to be lying out on the ground as we are?" Pippin asks, obviously in a mood to chatter.

"We're not on the ground," I answer dreamily, "We're on a blanket, and rather a nice, thick one at that. And we are too full of picnic still to go traipsing all the way back to the Hall. Besides which, I like to watch the sky."

Pip shifts a bit, getting comfortable, and raises his head off my stomach to take a long pull from his cider-bottle. "Ah, good stuff that! Did you press it here?"

"It's Saradoc's," I answer. "Sometimes I think he prefers cider to beer."

"Does he really?" Pip's head flops back down. "How curious! You know, Mer, if you ate more, you'd make a better pillow. In the old days, when you were nice and plump, I'd be able to lie here for hours, leaning on you. There's a cloud that looks like a duck."

"Where?" I ask, stroking my fingers through his flyaway curls.

"Just there. Beside the cloud that looks like Minas Tirith."

"That's not Minas Tirith. It's clearly Edoras. I can see the Golden Hall."

"We'll have to go soon," Pip says.

He's correct. I have signed all the papers that must be signed, given away the treasures, said the goodbyes. Even the ponies we'll ride are ready in my stables, and the sturdy packhorse, a descendant of good old Bill the Pony. All that remains is our provisions and those few possessions we'll take with us--no need to carry much. Most of what we'll require to finish our days will be provided us, I know.

"Yes, Pip," I answer softly.

"Only, there's one thing..."

It's not like him to sound so hesitant, which lets me know exactly what it is he means to ask. "Must you?" I say. I don't like Diamond. I have never liked Diamond, even if I do love her son Faramir. How dare she have treated my dearest, dearest Pip as if he was nothing? How dare she have taken, for such a long time, all the spring from his step and the sparkle from his eyes?

It is not in me to actually hate another Hobbit--at least I like to think it isn't, but with Diamond I find I come terribly close to breaking that rule. She was aptly named, that one: a sparkling beauty with a hard, cold heart.

"I ought to," Pip answers, his voice trembling a little. "You know I ought to."

"Promise me you won't let her make you feel sad? Promise me, Pip?" I tug softly on his hair. "For you are everything that is good and fine in the world, and I would not have you see yourself reflected in her eyes."

Pippin flips over, his sharp chin digging into my chest. "Shall I spit on my hand, then?" he asks, and laughs.

"If it will make you keep your word." I crane my neck a bit to look into his eyes. "Tell me it's only a goodbye, and I'll believe you."

"It's only a goodbye," he tells me. "Honestly, Mer, I don't think she can hurt me anymore. I'll say the words, and then we'll come away together, you and I, and never think of her anymore."

"I believe you," I answer softly. "I believe everything you say."

Pippin turns slowly onto his back once more, groping upwards until he can take my hand. "There's a cloud that looks like an Oliphaunt. But not a fierce one. A nice little baby Oliphaunt."

And the thing is, he's right.

*****************************************************************************

FROZEN

I. Bag End - 1 Foreyule, 1389 SR

Merry loved best to sit quietly in the windowseat of Frodo's room with a cushion behind his sore shoulder and his eyes fixed on the soothing grey of the sky. Sometimes he would spy a bird dart across the greyness, or a tendril of smoke, or a cloud, but he liked it best when nothing disturbed the perfect dull circle.

Something inside him had gone very still, so still he wondered sometimes if he was really meant to have died. Everyone told him, after all, what a marvelous thing it was that he'd managed to remain alive. He didn't like when they said that: it made him feel peculiar, and even further removed from the world. Nothing he tasted or touched seemed exactly real.

"What are you doing, Mer?" Frodo always asked, when he found Merry so. "Still counting birds?"

"Yes," Merry would agree, because it was polite to answer, even though talking hurt his chest--and though, in truth, he counted nothing. Maybe he'd lost some terribly important part of himself on the hard road from Buckland, and he wished someone would tell him how to get it back again, or even that he had the words to know how to ask.

He knew he worried Frodo, and Bilbo too, and his dear mum had believed she was doing so little good for him that at last she'd gone sadly back to Brandy Hall and her duties there. Merry had meant to cry when she left, had felt like crying, but he hadn't.

On the first day of Foreyule, however, Frodo did not ask the question about the birds. Instead, he sat quietly beside Merry on the seat, watching the stillness of his eyes.

"What is it you really look for, Mer?" Frodo asked at last.

"Nothing," Merry answered, truthfully this time, and Frodo, being Frodo, seemed to understand, as the others did not.

"I felt that way after my mum and dad died," he said. "I wanted there to be nothing, neither noise nor distraction. I did not want people to try to make me get over it, and feel well again, when I wasn't ready. Is that how you feel, Mer?"

"I don't know," Merry replied thoughtfully. He sounded older to himself, and sometimes he caught a look in his cousin's eyes, as if Frodo was regretting ever having wished that Merry would grow up a bit and stop pestering him so frequently. Frodo looked now as if he wished to be pestered.

Because now, Merry knew, he demanded nothing. His face seemed to have forgotten how to smile, and his eyes to light. He spoke quietly and politely when spoken to, but volunteered almost nothing. He did not fidget, or spill, or break things, or race around with mad glee. He did not gobble as much of any treat as he was allowed and then try to charm Frodo out of *his* share. He no longer recognized his own face in the looking-glass, because it was white, and the only brightness in his eyes came from the low fever that wouldn't seem to go away, any more than the pain would leave him.

Frodo stroked his curls softly, and Merry wished he could do something to drive the worry out of his beloved cousin's eyes. He felt sometimes that he could almost read Frodo's thoughts: is all this because he's still unwell? Is it because he isn't eating, and a young Hobbit that doesn't eat is a sad creature indeed? Is it something I've said or done? Or *not* said or *not* done?

The worst had been that morning. When Merry had neatly folded the old tatty blanket he'd had since babyhood and set it far in the back of one of wardrobe drawers, Frodo looked as if he would cry, and the tears had actually spilled down when Merry returned to his bed for his old rabbit Rags and laid the soft toy on top of the blanket. The noise the drawer made going closed had sounded to Merry like the lid going on a coffin, a noise he'd heard once, that had made a great impression on him.

He'd then made his bed tidily, the way his mum liked him to do, but he rarely did, and then had gone into Frodo's room to work his awkward way up into the windowseat.

"You know, Mer," Frodo said, "I have a surprise for you. Next week, Bilbo's taking us on a visit to Tuckborough, to stay with your Uncle Paladin and Auntie Eglantine and our cousins. We'll have Yule there, and perhaps some young Hobbit I know might also have a birthday party?"

"That's nice," Merry said listlessly.

"Your mum and dad will be there too, Merry. I'm sure you'll be glad to see them again. And soon after we get there, if should be time for our new cousin to arrive. That will be exciting, don't you think?"

"My shoulder hurts," Merry murmured, shifting slightly--which it did. The ache seemed to go all the way down into the pit of his stomach, and it never stopped, night or day. And earlier, before he'd been allowed to get up, Mr. Allrest had been to see him.

"Merry," Frodo said.

Merry glanced up at him, hating that he'd made such a desperate expression appear on his cousin's face. He tried to squeeze some life into his voice. "That healer was here, Frodo. He poked at me!"

"*That healer,* Mer? Mr. Allrest quite likely saved your life! But, I must say, he's not best pleased with you, naughty lad. Your shoulder hurts because it's not healing properly, and it's not healing properly because you don't eat or take your medicine as you should." Suddenly, Frodo seemed to go from sad to rather cross, and Merry shrank back deep as he could into the seat. "And it breaks my heart to see you sit here so sadly and not know how to help! I miss my Merry-lad!"

Merry looked at him a moment in silence, then slid across the cushion to climb up into Frodo's lap. "I'm still your Merry-lad, aren't I, Frodo?" he asked, wondering what it was they all wanted of him. "I've tried to be very, very good so you'd love me again after I was so naughty. Haven't I been good, Frodo?"

"Merry, oh, Merry." Frodo squeezed him gently and bent to kiss his curls. "Dearest little Merry. Whoever said I wanted you to be good like that? Were you the naughtiest little Hobbit in Middle-earth, I would still love you best. You will always be my Mer, and all I want is for you to be full of life and fun again, and make me smile as you once did."

Merry gave a little sigh, settling further into his cousin's lap as he pondered these words.

"Tell me," he said, suddenly, not even knowing what he meant to ask, "About Gandalf and when I was born. I like that story, because it gets sad, but then it's happy again."

"Like you're going to be?" Frodo asked.

"Like I'm going to be," Merry assured him, settling in to listen.

When Frodo finished his tale, Merry sat quietly, a furrow of deep thought creasing his brow.

"Do you think you will have to?" he asked, after a long while.

"What's that, Mer?"

"Leave the Shire. Travel to the ends of the world. Do you think the Valar will ask that of you, Frodo?"

"Oh, I shouldn't think so," Frodo answered brightly. "I think they generally use Big People or Elves for that sort of thing."

"Except for Bilbo," Merry said. "I think I might like to have adventures like Bilbo. Only not with goblins." Merry shivered. "Goblins frighten me."

Frodo laughed. "Well, then, we shall have to keep you clear of goblins, Wargs and Orcs. But I thought there wasn't anything that frightened you, Mer."

"Oh, I was frightened all the time in the forest, Frodo," Merry told him. "And then I was frightened I would die and never see you again. I made believe you were holding my hand. If you have to go out into the wide world, you won't forget me, will you?"

"Never," Frodo promised. "Never, ever, Merry."

Then the two of them spat on their hands and slapped them together to make the promise right and tight.

That afternoon at tea, Merry drank all his milk, and after he'd finished his first crumpet with butter and strawberry jam in only six bites, he asked Bilbo for a second one.

II. The Tookland - 8 Foreyule, 1389 SR

From Hobbiton to Tuckborough was not a long journey, nothing like the journey from Buckland, but Merry still had to demand several times were they there yet, or growing near, and when would they arrive, because they'd been traveling for ages, and what if his new cousin came while they were taking so very long?

This made Frodo laugh, though Bilbo looked rather as if he'd had enough of questions for that time, and of the young Hobbit who asked them.

Merry was simply too excited to keep still. He bounced a bit on the seat, but that hurt his shoulder so that he had to sit quietly a moment holding his sore arm. And then he craned about, trying to see everything at once because it was pretty here in the Tookland, so green and hilly and full of wild trees and orchards and fields that grew different things than were generally grown round Hobbiton or at home, and because he'd never come into the Tookland from this direction before.

He leaned so far, trying to see, that he spilled himself over the side of the pony trap, and would have fallen under the wheels if Frodo had not quickly grabbed the back of his jacket and jerked him back up where he belonged. This rough-but-necessary handling hurt Merry's shoulder again, quite badly this time, and he subsided into stillness on his cousin's lap until they arrived at the Great Smials.

There Uncle Dinny came out to great them, Pimmie and Pervinca hanging off each of his hands, while Pearl walked very grown-up-like behind them with her nose in a book.

As soon as the trap stopped, Pim and Pervinca let loose of their father, running the rest of the distance down the drive, and Merry couldn't help but jump to the ground, racing to meet them halfway. All three of them leapt and shouted and finally ended up tumbling together like puppies on the drive, laughing madly until Merry's shoulder gave a terrible throb-crack and he remembered why he'd been ordered not to greet his cousins with his usual glee, and why all the grown-ups had been shouting at him to stop.

He gave a small squawk of pain and lay very still on the grass beside the path, trying to tell his shoulder it must stop hurting and not ruin his fun. Above, he could see Pimmie's eyes had gone wide, and Pervinca was sucking her thumb.

Merry was glad then of Pearl's gentle touch as she sat him up, taking great care not to jar the places that were sore. Still, Merry could not help the tears that flooded his eyes, both from the sudden pain and the thought that he might not be able to join, all this holiday, in the rough-and-tumble games he loved, for his girl-cousins were just as good at that sort of thing as any lad.

But now Pimmie, who never cried, ever, would tease him for blubbing, and everyone would treat him like Cousin Bilbo's best dishes, the ones he wasn't allowed to touch because they were too delicate.

Merry hated to feel delicate. And he didn't like to be teased, unless it was in good fun.

Only Pim didn't tease him. Instead she said, "Merry?" and her eyes got even wider. "Da, I didn't mean to break him!"

"You didn't break me," Merry wanted to say, but his head seemed to be getting very far from his feet, and it wasn't until Uncle Dinny picked him up that things began to go right again.

"Now then, my little lad," Uncle Dinny said, in his deep voice, smiling all over his face that was just like Merry's mum's, only somehow a lad-face rather than a lass's. It comforted Merry that his Uncle did not seem to find things like cracked shoulders disturbing in the least, but bore his nephew away to the Great Smials infirmary with the same air of good cheer he'd worn when Merry arrived.

The healers there felt all over Merry's shoulder carefully, deciding that he'd unknit slightly what had not been very well knit to begin with, but hadn't knocked anything out of true. They gave him a spoonful of something that tasted like slightly over-ripe grapes, strapped him up tightly and sent him off into the world--or at least to the spot in the corridor where his cousins waited, their numbers supplemented now by Reginard Took, who was almost Frodo's age, and Ferdibrand Took, a year younger than Merry, as well as his more distant cousins, Fredegar and little Estrella Bolger, who looked up at Merry with tears in her big, dark eyes.

Merry put on his best smile, embarrassed somewhat by his earlier weeping, and tried to make light of his injury--though in truth his shoulder throbbed so badly it even made his teeth ache. "Hullo," he said as brightly as he could, and for several moments was bombarded with questions about how he'd gone down the river, and what had it been like alone in the dark wood, and however had he escaped from the owl? Merry tried to make his answers exciting, like something from a tale, because to say that he'd been scared and sick and cried a great deal would have been disappointing for his cousins.

They all seemed to approve very much of his adventures, but soon someone (Fredegar, most likely, who had an instinct for such things) realized that tea-time had come, and was promised to be especially nice, as a greeting for the new arrivals, and so the cousins (all but Frodo and Reginard, who had long since escaped into the relative quiet of the library) were running in a pack to see what the special treats might include.

Merry found then that not only couldn't he keep up, he didn't have the heart in him to try. Instead, he rather wished himself back at Bag End, in Frodo's orderly room, in the windowseat, with the comfortingly grey sky above him.

Pearl had stopped and turned back to wait for him. "Never mind, Merry," she said kindly, reaching down her hand to take his. "Come say hullo to mummy instead, and I'll see if I can't find an especially special treat for you."

Still downhearted, Merry followed until they reached Pearl's family's new rooms, close by those of the Thain. They were much grander than the old ones, he noticed, which had been rather shabby, though very homey and comfortable. These were comfortable enough too, but it was the kind of comfort more suitable to grown-up Hobbits than to the sort of small lad inclined to leave sticky fingerprints. Past the good parlor, though, he was happy to find a nicely-worn nursery with a large playroom (where Pearl left him, promising to return soon) equipped with quite a surfeit of lovely toys, including a very realistically carved wooden dragon whose wings could be made to flap and wooden fire come out of its mouth by the pulling of a string.

And also, in two rocking chairs by the nursery fire, sat his Auntie Egg and his own dear mum, knitting.

The moment he noticed them, Merry gave a cry of delight and threw himself across the room, remembering his hurt shoulder only just before the moment of impact but still managing to stop in time. "Mummy!" he shouted. "I missed you! I missed you more than anything!"

Esme's face broke into the brightest of smiles--reminding Merry that he hadn't been very warm with her, when last they'd been together. "Oh, my sweet Merry-lad," she called, stretching out her arms to boost him up as he wriggled into her lap, tangling himself very badly in her knitting wool in the process. Merry leaned his head upon her bosom, turning his face up to hers to be kissed, drinking in her softness and her nice mum-smell before he slid down again to a bestow a kiss upon Auntie Egg, who was his favorite aunt, even though she'd been a Banks before her marriage, and not a Took or Brandybuck. Or even a Baggins. He thought, briefly, of settling on her lap for a cuddle, for in normal times Auntie Egg was even softer than his mum, and nicely round, perfectly made for cuddling.

Then he realized his auntie really hadn't much lap left just now, and what she had was far too close to the kicking baby. Still, Merry was curious. "May I touch?" he asked, politely, and when his auntie nodded, laid his small hand on her belly. The skin felt very tight, under her clothes, and he could feel little flips of motion through the tightness.

"He's almost done now, isn't he?" Merry asked, awestruck. He wondered if the baby could hear him, so close to the surface did it seem. "HULLO BABY!" he called. "It's your Cousin Merry. Did you want to come out for Yule?"

Auntie Egg laughed. "And what does he say back to you, dearest Merry?"

Merry made as if to listen. "He says, 'Yes, please,' but he thinks he'll wait until Second Yule and the New Year, so as not to interrupt my birthday party."

"What a thoughtful lad," Esme exclaimed. "I'm sure you two will be great friends, with your birthdays only a day apart. Will you each have a party, or only one that lasts for two days?"

"The second one would be best, I think," Merry answered. He loved his mum's gentle teasing. Carefully, he climbed up into her lap once more, leaning into her warmth. He still tired quickly, and the incident with his cousins had left him shaken. Esme untangled him gently from her yarn, rolling up the ball again and setting it and her needles aside, the better to wrap her arms around her son. Slowly, they rocked together, Merry watching Auntie Egg's slender needles move in their rapid, clacking dance, the little hat of blue wool she was knitting taking shape as if by magic.

He was glad, then, not to have gone with his cousins. Much as he loved them, just then their noise and motion seemed to much for him and for now he preferred this gentle stillness.

But only for now.

III. Great Smials - 18 Foreyule 1389

Merry was afraid of finding himself left behind in the next weeks, as Frodo and Reginard Took, both quiet souls, discovered they'd much in common and spent hours in the Smials library poring over maps and ancient texts, or rambling the frost-covered hills. Merry would see his cousin at First Breakfast, and every night Frodo would sing to him or tell him stories, but his mum had asked him specially to allow the older lad time for his own pursuits, and Merry had promised (and Esme had even performed the hand-spitting ritual with him, because she was, after all, the best of all mums) and therefor needed to live up to his word, because he was a Brandybuck and a Hobbit of honor.

Still, he often missed Frodo, especially since his older cousin was quite good at coming up with activities of a quiet nature that would not have hurt, but were still interesting. All the younger cousins ran and shouted constantly. They leaped and rolled and crashed into one another and their favorite words seemed to be, "I dare you"--although their dares were never mean or terrifying, like Berilac's.

To make matters worse, Merry was accustomed to being something of a ringleader in mischief or adventures, and a natural captain at games. To be the weak one, the awkward one, the one who easily tired was such a foreign thing to him that he refused to accept it as real, and instead pushed himself harder then he'd thought possible, even during his journey from Buckland, attempting to keep up with the others in activities that ought to have been easy and enjoyable, but instead sent him to bed every night aching and trembling with exhaustion.

Normally, his mum would have noticed and put and end to it, finding her son other pastimes, but as Auntie Egg was not allowed much on her feet these last weeks before the baby came, and there were a number of preparations to be made for the holidays, she seemed to be always running about the Smials with a pack of other aunties or cousins, a flurried look on her face and her plaits falling down. Merry didn't want to trouble her, and he most especially did not want to be left all on his own.

Two weeks before Yule the first snow of the year fell, large, fluffy flakes like down from a pillow to begin with, and then, later, a blizzard of tiny snowflakes that, despite their size, seemed to pile up amazingly, the wind whipping round through the whiteness in dizzying swirls. All night and the following day the snow fell from a sky that shone like pewter, and the air smelled clean yet slightly sour, like freshly-sliced lemons.

The following day dawned sharply clear and very cold, though the sun shone and the sky was blue as summer, casting oddly glowing shadows on the mounded drifts. So cold was the air that all the young Hobbits save poor Freddy Bolger (who tended to wallow somewhat) could run on the hard-frozen surface of the snow, shouting loudly to hear their voices echo on the frigid air and playing at being Elves--though nothing less Elflike than half-a-dozen pink-cheeked, hooded and mittened Hobbit lads and lasses could hardly be imagined. The game of Elves changed somehow to a game of frozen tag, small Hobbit bodies skidding madly on the icy crust.

When Esmeralda called them in to luncheon, Merry would have been glad enough to respond--he was hot inside his warm clothing (though his feet felt frozen), tired and very thirsty, but Pimmie decided they ought to have an adventure instead and pretend not to have heard. No one wanted to admit to being cold and hungry, and so they followed her through the scrap of hill and forest that separated the Smials from Tuckborough proper, where the millpond had frozen over satisfactorily.

For more than an hour they amused themselves sliding on the ice, leathery soles gliding beautifully over the hardness, laughing when they fell--except for Merry, for whom the continual jars to his shoulder soon had him biting his lip, his heart beating fast from the pain.

It was Freddy Bolger who suggested a game of Crack-the-Whip, with Freddy himself, the heaviest, as the anchor and one-handed Merry as the tip.

The first three cracks went delightfully, everyone skidding too fast to see when the whip broke, but still managing to stay on their feet. On the fourth crack, Pimmie, running next to Merry, tripped herself up on a lump in the ice and without meaning to, let loose of his hand.

Merry flew, balance gone, knowing he'd no hope whatsoever of stopping his flight or breaking his fall. He landed hard, face-down on a spot where the ice was weakest, crashing through into a dark cold that shocked the breath from his lungs.

He plunged deeper and deeper into the dark water, and when at last he found the presence of mind to kick himself upward, he struck his head on a shelf of ice. His eyes felt frozen, blurred with the cold, and if it hadn't been for Pearl catching hold of his collar from behind, he might have headed blindly in entirely the wrong direction, not toward the hole, but away from it.

"Merry!" The ever-resourceful Pearl slapped his back and Merry coughed out a good quart of chill pond water. From the blow and his bad landing, his shoulder throbbed in time with his heartbeat, but the rest of him couldn't be felt at all.

"All of you," Pearl commanded. "It's time to run along home now." She and Ferdibrand boosted Merry to his feet, while Estella sobbed, "You killded my Merry!" and Pervinca cried too, because she was chilled and ravenous and late for her nap.

A subdued group of cousins headed back to the Smials, most of them so damp and cold they couldn't even shiver.

"This is all your fault," Pearl hissed to Pimmie, who snapped back, "You're the eldest!"

Freddy took off his coat and wrapped it around Merry's shoulders, whispering worriedly, "Merry's blue. That can't be right, can it?"

The cousins sneaked inside through the most remote door they could locate, debating in whispers how they could possibly find warm, dry clothes without alerting their parents to the fact that they'd been playing, unsupervised, on the forbidden millpond when they were meant to be eating luncheon.

They huddled around the nursery fire, so painfully cold that nearly all the morning's fun was extinguished in their minds, Pearl and Ferdy began stripping soggy mufflers and jackets off the youngest Hobbits, rubbing their small, chilled hands to warm them, until Estella and Pervinca soon appeared quite warm and happy again, and began to clamor for their tea. Pimpernel, perhaps feeling a sense of responsibility for Merry's condition, began to undress him as well, but he whimpered, pulling away.

"Merry," Pearl came over to help. "You're soaked through. We need to get your wet things off so that you can warm up again. Be a good lad now."

In answer, he sat down hard on the hearthrug, not meaning, really, to be uncooperative--his legs simply wouldn't hold him up anymore.

Pearl frowned down at him, an expression of concern on her pretty Tookish face. "Pimmie," she said, "Run and fetch the quilt from my bed. Freddy, go try to find Frodo. And Ferdy...you take the little ones to tea."

Pervinca's stormy face brightened considerably. She took Ferdibrand's hand and with a look of cheerful expectation, stretching out her other hand to little Estella, but Estella only shook her head, planting herself firmly by Merry's side.

"Won't go 'way from my Merry," she said, her normally soft eyes defiant.

"Oh, very well then," Pearl snapped, cross with worry. "Stay here and starve if you like. She snatched the quilt from Pimmie's hands and began without further ado to strip Merry down despite his protests. He cried out when she touched his shoulder and pain seared all across his chest and down his left arm, but Pearl was merciless, not ceasing her labors until Merry was down to bluish-pale skin and underdrawers. She wrapped him tightly in the blanket, taking him into her lap as close to the fire as the two of them could stand, while Estella lay her head against Merry's good arm, her small hand wriggling in beneath the quilt to wrap round Merry's fingers.

"I won't be blamed for this, Merry," Pearl muttered, "So you just warm up now, like a good lad."

"What if he won't?" Pimmie asked. "Do you think we'll be punished? I'll bet mum and da won't let you stay at Laburnum's."

Pearl had been looking forward for some weeks to a whole fortnight's Yuletide visit at the Boffin family hole with her bosom friend, Laburnum Boffin.

"I *hate* being the eldest," Pearl answered bitterly. "Why should I be expected to show good Hobbitsense, when all this was *your* fault really? What am I meant to do, with a sister such as you?"

"I can't help that I have the best ideas," Pimmie retorted--which was true--Pimpernel had a way of making even the maddest ideas seem interesting and fun. "And you just won't admit that you still like a good lark as well as any of us. You're not really so very grown up as all that, Pearl. You're just as much a Took as we are, and you still love adventures."

Pearl sniffed, but Pimmie persisted. "Merry won't tell on us anyway. He's every bit as naughty as we are."

"Where has Freddy got himself to, anyway?" Pearl wondered crossly.

"Probably smelled food and forgot," Pimmie opined, and peered closely into Merry's face. "I think Merry's better. See, Pearl, he's stopped shivering and fallen asleep. We could tuck him up snugly into bed for a nap and go find our own tea. I'm absolutely starving."

"I don't know," Pearl said, frowning down at the bundle that contained her young cousin. "He's still quite cold, Pim."

"But he's gone floppy, Pearl. And listen--he's snoring. Mum told us to look out for Merry, make sure he took plenty of naps. He's resting now, and most likely that's just what he needs. If it makes you feel better, you can bring him something especially nice for tea once he wakes up. I'll even help you."

"I suppose..." Pearls said hesitantly. "Mum did say he could do with lots of rest, as he's just getting over being ill."

"So, there you are." Pim leapt to her feet. "Now put him to bed and let's go, before the boys eat up every scrap and morsel."

Pearl set Merry down gently on the rug, climbed to her own feet and picked him up again. With Pimmie and Estella trailing, she carried Merry to his room, tucking him up in bed. Merry immediately sank even deeper into sleep.

"Sweet dreams, dear Merry." Pearl kissed the ends of her fingers and touched the kiss to Merry's brow. She and Pimmie hurried then to their shared room, unlaced one another swiftly as they could from their damp frocks and into warm new ones and raced, hand-in-hand to the Little Tea Room, having utterly forgotten Estella.

IV.

The youngest Hobbit padded back into Merry's room, pushed a stool up to the bedside and used it to climb carefully to the bed. She wasn't accustomed to Merry being so still--really, when she thought of her dear distant cousin it was as a picture in her mind of sunlight flashing on water, brightness in constant, dancing motion. His smiles and his laughter sent a warm fluttery feeling through her stomach. For all that, he wasn't like the other lads, impatient with her for her littleness, or tending to tease her because she was too young to understand much of what happened around her, no matter how she tried. Estella always tried to understand things.

Just now, though, Estella had a different sort of feeling in her stomach, one that had nothing to do with missing second breakfast and luncheon, or wanting tea.

Cautiously, not wanting to disturb her cousin if he was truly sleeping peacefully, she laid her small hand on Merry's cheek. How cold he was! Cold as the water and snow outside, nothing like his usual warm self. In her heart, Estella knew that could not be right, and she wept a few tears, unable to decide what she should do. Pearl was quite a big lass, and if she thought Merry all right to be left, most likely he was. Still, she could not entirely ignore the sensation of badness and things going wrong.

The best thing to do, she decided, was to find Merry's mum, because mummies were always wise about their little lads and lasses.

Estella slipped down from the bed, using her stool again. She knew her cousins would be angry that she'd told, and most likely she'd be punished--perhaps the Grandfather would not even fill her hood this Yule--but she would take that chance. No harm must come to her Merry.

She walked a long way along the corridors, searching for Cousin Esme, and hoping she wouldn't lose herself in the Smials. At last she discovered Esme in a storeroom along with Great-Aunt Donnabella, Cousin Genehilda and her very own mum. They'd a tableful of quite interesting-looking items before them, over which Esme quickly cast a cloth.

"Why, hullo, my love," Estella's mum, Rosamunda, said. "Where have you been all day? With your cousins?"

Estella nodded, suddenly shy with the four sets of adult eyes upon her. Timidly, she reached out to wrap her fingers round Cousin Esme's thumb. "Come see Merry?" she whispered.

"What's that, sweetness?" Esme bent low, until her face was near Estella's. "What did you say about Merry?"

"Merry got cold," Estella told her, in a slightly stronger voice. "Come see Merry?"

"My son!" Esme said lightly. "Sometimes I wonder if his Hobbitsense will ever grow. I suppose he's been tempted out into the snow, and now his shoulder is hurting him from the cold." Despite her laughing words, a crease formed between her brows and she hurried along the corridor too swiftly for Estella to keep up.

By the time she'd nearly reached the nursery, Esme was already on the way out again, her son caught up in her arms, bedclothes trailing as she ran.

She'd been right then. Fetching Merry's mum had been the right thing to do, and though she supposed she'd been brave and clever, Estella had never felt less proud of herself in her young life.

She sank down in the corridor with her skirts puddled round her small, furry feet, and wept.

To be continued...

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