Author Note: This has been a very long time coming, for that I apologize. I hit a nasty writers block, and wasn't able to break it for a long time. Pair that with working much more than I expected to, and you'll see why it's been so long! I won't promise another chapter quickly, because I don't like to break promises. I will try to have it out soon though. At least it's already outlined! Thank you to my lovely husband Burt, who kindly proof read and offered ideas on where to go with the story line. Any grammatical errors are my own!

As always, character's thoughts are between the ~'s.

Pizza by the Pound

The door to the closet slowly opened as I hung up the phone. Two neatly dressed hobbits stepped out and looked around the room, followed by my son. I sat quietly on my bed, looking at them and wondering what in the world I was going to do next. Frodo, who was standing slightly in front of his cousin, met my eyes and returned my gaze with a contemplative stare of his own. Pippin, however, caught sight of my dresser and immediately headed for it.

My dresser is one of my favorite pieces of furniture. You see, I inherited it from my grandmother. The children all know not to touch it, partly because it's one of the few things I have to remember Grandma by, and partly because of the collection of antique perfume bottles I have displayed on top of it. Crystal antique perfume bottles. I have them placed so the afternoon sun shines through a window near them and sets off a series of rainbows throughout the room. The bottles had apparently caught Pippin's attention.

I watched Pippin's progress toward the dresser, waiting until he was reaching out a hand to touch it to say "Pippin, please don't touch that."

Pippin whipped his hands behind his back and turned to face me, his face a study in guilt.

Frodo walked over to Pippin, grabbed his hand, and dragged him over to the bed where I was sitting. His face was set in an anxious frown, while Pippin looked over his shoulder at the forbidden furniture.

"Pippin has something he wishes to say to you." Frodo gave Pippin an encouraging little shove, urging him toward me. Pippin looked at the ground, then back up at his cousin. "Go ahead Pip."

Pippin turned big, remorseful eyes on me and said "I'm sorry for making a mess lady. I won't do it again." By now he was looking back at the floor, shuffling his furry feet on the carpet and twisting his hands together in front of himself, just like my son does when he knows he's done something wrong and doesn't quite know how to make up for it. My heart melted again. How can you possibly stay mad at something so cute? Especially when it's not your child, and you don't have to preserve discipline? I would learn to my sorrow that discipline is the first thing you need around Pippin Took. No, make that the third, patience and fortitude being the first two!

I heaved a sigh, patted Pippin on the top of his curly head, and gave in. "Pippin, I'm not mad at you, I know you were curious about what the jars and bottles contained." A movement by the hallway door caught my attention and I looked over in time to see AJ slipping unobtrusively out of the room. Just as well. We needed to talk, and it would be easier to have a conversation without a six year old interrupting.

"Why don't you both sit down over there," I said, pointing toward the window seat across from me, "and we can try and figure out what's going on." Frodo led his cousin over to the window seat, helped him up to it, and then climbed up himself. The both sat, hands clasped in their laps, looking at me.

"I don't quite know where to start," I confessed, looking at Frodo. "I suppose my first question is how did you get here?"

Frodo looked at me intently for a moment, seeming to consider his words carefully before speaking. "I'm not sure."

That statement could mean a variety of things, I mused. It could mean that he really wasn't sure what had happened, which I suspected was true. It could also mean that he wasn't sure how much he could tell me, and that could be equally true. I noticed that Pippin had moved closer to Frodo as I thought, and was practically sitting on his lap. He looked as though he was afraid of something.

"Is something wrong, Pippin?"

Pippin looked at his older cousin, waiting for him to nod that it was alright to speak before turning back to me and saying "No lady."

"My name is Susan, you can call me that Pippin. No 'lady' is necessary in this place." I could already tell that the word 'lady' would get old in a hurry. If the hobbits were going to be here for any length of time, they would need to call me something other than that if they weren't going to attract any attention. Any more attention that is.

"Where is here, la-er-Susan?" I smiled at Frodo's correction.

"That's a little hard to explain. I'm not sure you're familiar with our country names. You are in my house, which is in the town of Lake Illusion. My town is in the state of Texas, and the country of the United States of America." I paused to see if they were following what I was saying at all. Frodo had his forehead wrinkled as he tried to take in the information, Pippin just looked blank. "I take it you haven't heard of any of those places?"

Frodo shook his head slowly, obviously discomfited with the idea that he didn't know where he was. We sat silently for awhile as I considered what I should do next. A sudden thought occurred to me, and I reached for the phone.

"Excuse me a moment, I need to tell my husband something." Both hobbits watched in fascination as I picked up the phone receiver and dialed Steve's work number.

"This is a phone, it allows people to talk over long distances." I turned my attention back to the receiver as Steve answered. "Hi honey, I'm glad you haven't left."

"I was just getting ready to call you and let you know I'm leaving." Steve sounded tired, it must have been a busy day.

"I'll go ahead and order the pizza's then. I called because I forgot to warn you that there will be more than our normal number to pick up.." I trailed off, not sure how to tell him why there would be more pizza's than he expected.

"Ahhh, kids have some friends over?" Thank you Steve!

"Yep!" Somehow I didn't think telling him who the guests were on the phone was the best idea in the world.

"Ok. Well I'm walking out the door right now, go ahead and call. Love you!"

"Love you too, honey!" I hung up the phone and reached for the phone book to call the Paolo's Pizza Palace. "What do you two like to eat," I asked, paging through the book.

"Sausages!" Frodo declared instantly.

"Mushrooms!" Pippin added.

"Sausages and mushrooms. Sounds like a winner to me!" I dialed the number, thinking I really should have memorized it by now, and mentally totaled the number of pies we were likely to need. By the time the cashier answered the phone, I was ready.

"I'd like to place a large order. I need 8 large pizza's for pick up. 1 cheese; 2 ham and pineapple; two mushroom; two sausage; and two garden variety. No, no breadsticks. The name is 'Steve'. Thank you." I replaced the receiver and looked over at the two hobbits, who were sitting with wide eyes, listening intently. "I don't suppose you've ever heard of pizza?" They both shook their heads 'no.' "You are in for a treat then! Wait here a minute, I think I have something that may make this easier to explain."

I walked quickly across the landing to the computer room. We store most of the overflow of our books there. I perused the contents of the shelf until I found the item I wanted, the "Atlas of Middle Earth." I grabbed the illustrated "Lord of the Rings" book, which was stored just above it. Carrying the books in one arm, I turned to the built in drawers on the other side of the room. We stored most of our maps in the middle drawer, high enough to keep a curious toddler out of them, and low enough to allow older children access. I reached in, fumbled around for a minute, and pulled out the National Geographic world map we'd bought to help the children with their homework.

To my surprise, they were still sitting on the window seat, talking quietly, when I returned. Frodo looked up as I walked across the room toward them, and quickly hushed Pippin as he started to say something. I wondered what he hadn't wanted overheard. I noticed that Frodo's eyes lit up when he saw the books in my hand, ever the literate hobbit!

"This may help." I knelt before the window seat, opened the "Atlas of Middle Earth" and turned the pages until I reached the map of the Shire. "You'll probably recognize these maps." Frodo hunched over the book, eyes intent as he examined it. "This map is well done," he said appraisingly. "It looks like one Bilbo was working on for awhile."

Pippin, who was sitting with his chin in his hand, suddenly straightened, put a finger on the "Road to Buckland" pictured on the map, and sighed, "I miss Merry." He slowly traced his finger along the road, turning several pages in the process. His finger stopped momentarily when it reached the words "Buckleberry Ferry". His face, solemn for once, turned toward his cousin as he said "That's where the black riders."

"Peregrin Took, remember what we talked about," Frodo interrupted in a rather stern voice.

Pippin looked abashed, closed his mouth, leaned his head on his palm, and looked down at his feet. I thought I knew what he'd been about to say, but now was not the time to go into what I knew, or how I knew it.

We leafed through the pages of the atlas, Frodo occasionally pausing to exclaim over a drawing. Pippin sat quietly, swinging his feet. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that when he wasn't watching the pages of the atlas flutter by, he watched the rainbows creeping across the walls of my room. ~Oh dear, how long are my bottles going to be safe.~

When we reached the last page of the atlas, I set it on my bed and picked up the National Geographic map of the world. "We'll need a large open space to spread this map out." I am fortunate to have something every book lover longs for, but few are able to have. We've set aside one section of the Master bedroom as a reading corner for me. It has a very comfortable rocking chair set next to two large bookcases filled with my favorite stories, a small side table to hold my hot cocoa in the winter, and is next to a large window overlooking the backyard, so I can keep an eye on the kids. I stood up, moved over to the rocking chair, and shoved it back to the wall, creating the space we'd need right in front of the window, which had the afternoon sun streaming through it. I beckoned Frodo and Pippin over.

"This should work," I said, slipping the rubber band off the map and kneeling on the floor as they hopped off the window seat and came over to me. I noticed that Frodo had Pippin by the hand, I'm not sure whether he was trying to reassure the younger hobbit or keep some measure of control over him.

"Come over here, next to me", I said, patting the floor next to my knees. "This is a map of my world." I watched Frodo as I spread the map before them. His eyes widened as he took in the extent of the world he was in. He looked up at me after a moment, the look of disquiet in his eyes broke my heart.

"Susan, I don't recognize any of these places."

Pippin, who had been idly tracing boundary lines looked up at that, clearly unsettled at either the tone of his cousin's voice or the words that he'd said.

"Frodo, are we lost?" Pippin crept a little closer to Frodo as he spoke.

"Yes, Pip, I'm afraid we are." Frodo put his arms reassuringly around his younger cousin. "But wherever we've landed, and however we've gotten here, we still have each other, and I'm sure Gandalf will be looking for us." He turned his attention back to me. "Where on this map are we?"

Time for a modern geography lesson. I leaned forward and put my hand on North America. "This world is divided into what we call continents.large land forms. This is the continent we are on," I pointed to North America. "There are several different countries on this continent. The country we are in at the moment is the United States. The United States is divided into what are called states, they are different sections of the country. See, each one is a different color from the one next to it." I paused to look at Frodo, who was listening intently. Pippin, however, didn't seem to be listening.

"So many?" Frodo seemed to be counting the states.

"There are fifty." His eyes grew round again. "As I said before, we are in the state of Texas, which is here." My finger had trailed down to Texas, tapping it as I spoke." We, my family and I, live here, on what is called the gulf coast." I moved my finger to a place slightly below Houston. "Lake Illusion, which is the name of our town, is about here. Do you." I was about to ask Frodo if he had any questions when we interrupted by a shriek of terror from Pippin. He had found my illustrated "Fellowship of the Ring" book, and was staring at a page, face screwed up in terror. Frodo leaped to Pippin's side, grabbed the book from his hand, and shook him slightly saying:

"Pippin! Pip! What's the matter! What did you see?"

Pippin collapsed into his arms sobbing softly.. I picked up the book, which had landed face up on the floor, open to the page illustrated with a picture of the Nazgul. Poor Pippin!

"I think I know what happened Frodo." I turned the book so that Frodo could see the picture. His shoulders slumped in dismay.

"You have them here too?" Obviously he'd hoped that the Nazgul had been left behind in Middle Earth. At least I could reassure him on that account. Or could I? The thought suddenly struck me that if two hobbits had been tossed into our world, what else could have been?

"Not that I know of. But we don't have hobbits in this world either." I bit my lip as I thought about how to ask Frodo about the ring. I hadn't seen it around his neck, but then I hadn't watched them change. Who knew if the ring would have the same effect on people in this world as it did in Middle Earth. My eye fell on the book in my hand. Ahhhhh! "Frodo, did you notice that I knew who you were without your having to tell me your name?"

Frodo looked at me assessingly for a moment over Pippin's curly head, before nodding his head slowly. "I did notice, and wanted to ask you about it, but the opportune moment hadn't arrived. What is that book?" He nodded toward the book that was now lying open on my lap.

"I knew you because you are a character in a very famous story here, one that I always thought was fictional Recently it's been made into a series of very successful films too." I closed the book and held it up so that he could read the title.

"Fellowship of the Ring?" His hand reached toward the book, taking it from my hand. "This is fiction? But how can it be.I'm real."

"In your world, you are. But in my world, you are from a story. This is the first story of three by the same author that recount your travels. You and your companions.Pippin, Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandybuck, Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas the elf, Gimli the dwarf and Boromir of Gondor. The same author wrote about Bilbo's journey in a separate book." Pippin was looking at the book over Frodo's shoulder now.

"Then you know about the.." Frodo paused, his hand creeping unconsciously to his neck as he spoke.

"The ring? Yes I do. Do you still have it?" I watched as Frodo thought for a moment, clearly trying to decide what to say.

"Yes." His hand slowly crept down again, to his lap, and I decided that was enough information for now. After all, I didn't' know exactly where in the journey they'd been when they appeared here. Somewhere between Rivendell and the Mines of Moria judging by their clothes. I could hear the clock chiming as we sat staring at each other, not sure what else to say. I glanced at my watch.

"Good heavens! Steve will be here with dinner any minute now, and I don't have the table set! Why don't you come downstairs with me while I get everything ready for dinner," I said, leaping up and moving quickly to the door.

Frodo looked longingly at the book in my hand. "May I read it?"

I thought for a moment. "As long as you keep in mind that this is a story. I don't know how much of what it portrays about Middle Earth, or your travels, is correct. And you have to promise me that you will put it down if what you are reading worries you."

Frodo stared at me for a minute, turning my words over in his mind. "I will. Come on Pippin."

I handed Frodo the book and they followed me downstairs. I hoped I hadn't made a horrible mistake.