Tipper awoke early the next morning to the sound of bells clanging. At first he thought it must mean that it was a holiday, but there weren't any holidays this soon after the Harvest Festival. "What could it mean then?" he wondered aloud. Then he realized it wasn't a bright merry chiming at all, it was the clanging of the warning bell. Something awful must have happened!
He pulled on his clothes as quickly as he could. Then he ran outside to the square where a large crowd was already gathered. He jumped up and down trying to see over the heads of all the older hobbits. Poor Tipper was quite short, even for a hobbit, and couldn't see a thing.
"She's gone," a lady sobbed. "My poor little one is gone!"
"There, there," someone said as they tried to console her. "I'm sure she'll turn up. She always was a rather naughty little one. She's probably off playing somewhere."
"Who, who's gone?" asked Tipper. No one paid the little hobbit any heed.
Tipper was about to give up and wait inside until someone told him at breakfast, when he spied Old Bilbo Gamgee. Bilbo was standing, leaning on his crutch, at the edge of the crowd with his head bent. Tipper ran over to him. "Master Gamgee, sir, do you know what's going on?" he asked anxiously.
"Ah Tipper, my lad," he said with a sigh. He seemed pained and quite grieved. Apparently he didn't think whoever it was would turn up, as the others did. "Willow's gone missing, that dear little imp." Tipper couldn't believe it.
"Did she just disappear? Do they think she's run away? What's happened?" he cried.
"Some think that she's run away, but I knew her better than that. She was a little beast, but she wouldn't run away."
"Well," cried Tipper, "what do you think has befallen her?"
"I don't know," said Bilbo with a pained sigh, "but it isn't good, I'll warrant. Anytime a hobbit's gone missing from this town, it's been for some sinister purpose."
"You mean like when Master Frodo went missing with your father, Master Pergrin and Master Meriadoc? Tipper asked.
"Yes... I mean... of course not. Mordor's dark and dead. Nothing of that kind can have befallen her." If only Bilbo had known just how wrong he was.