Cake is Cake is Cake
Happy Birthday to Budgielover, my own Sam!
Merry drew his brows together in consternation, clearly struggling to find a tactful way to answer. Pippin, though, with 11-year-old candor, answered, "Cake's cake, Frodo. It's good no matter how it looks," and then swiped a finger into the icing.
"Oi!" Frodo said, and tried to smack a Pippin's hand, but the finger was already in his mouth. "It's not so bad, is it? Bilbo's made Sam a cake for his birthday for years now, and I don't want him to miss out on that."
"Icing's good," Pippin announced.
"I'm sure it will taste fine, Frodo," Merry finally said. "It's just a little, um . . ."
"Crooked," Pippin said, then brightened and suggested, "Maybe we could slice some of the top of the one side and eat it so it's all the same height."
Frodo ignored the suggestion and looked glumly down at the cake. "It is rather lopsided, isn't it?" he said. "And Bilbo always put the icing on so nice and smooth, not all clumped up."
"I think Sam will care more that you went to the trouble of making him a cake than how it looks," Merry comforted, and then put his arm around Frodo when his cousin continued to stare morosely at the cake.
"Frodo," Pippin said in exasperation, "it's cake. Cake's always good."
"I hope Sam thinks so," Frodo said, and sighed.
---
"Mr. Frodo, you made me a cake!" Sam exclaimed in utter surprise. "Well, I never.""Oh, you have, plenty of times," Frodo said with a laugh. "It's a first for me, though, Sam, so think kindly of me when you taste it. And I'm sorry about how it looks. It was a little better earlier today, but Pippin tried to eat some off the bottom of it, to even it out without ruining the icing, and that whole part of it rather crumbled, and well, happy birthday, Sam," he ended lamely.
Sam beamed at him with gratitude. "Sir," he said, "cake's cake. It's always good."
"See!" Pippin pronounced in triumph. "Sam knows what's important."
"I most certainly do," Sam told the lad, and then cut the cake.