Since everyone was so busy getting ready for the holidays no one paid the slightest bit of attention when the large kitchen door swung open for a minute then closed quickly and quietly. I'm free! Pippin had never been allowed out of the house alone being the little trouble maker that he was, and he always had to be bundled up so he wouldn't catch cold, but now he was running down the hill behind his house in nothing but his pants and long-sleeved shirt. He stopped, shivering for a moment, but then continued on.
He finally reached the place he had been looking for; the pond. It spread out in front of him, covered in ice like a giant puddle of spilled milk. Snow covered everything he saw, and the trees had icicles as big as he dangling from their branches. His breath blew out before him in little puffs of cold smoke, but he didn't mind, he had just spotted something on the opposite back, moving in the snow-white bushes. It's a rabbit! Pippin thought, smiling, maybe I could catch it and bring it home to show mum! And with that thought in mind, he ran out onto the ice, squealing with delight intent on catching the little white rabbit.
CRACK!! Pippin looked down suddenly, to see a huge gap explode in the ice where his feet had been moments before. He let out a scream as his body was plummeted down into a sea of piercing black cold. He felt his body collide with something hard and unforgiving and all the wind was knocked out of him, stars appeared before his eyes, as he tried to pull himself up, out of the darkness swirling around him.
Pippin had a vague memory of Merry trying to teach him to swim last summer, "Oh come on Pip, you can do it, pull your arms, and kick with your legs!" Merry was two feet from him in the little pond near the house.
"Merry.... I ... can't... do.... it!" Pippin had yelled in between mouthfuls of pond water. Merry had reached out and grabbed his cousin before he could go under, and the swimming lessons had stopped there.
The memory ended as Pippin felt a sharp sting from the ice above his head; he tried desperately to claw away at the ice, but only resulted in scratching his fingers so badly they had begun to bleed. In a last effort, he tried to find a hole in the ice to pull himself up out of, he had almost given up hope, and.... There it was! Light! Only two feet from where he swam was a gaping hole in the ice! He tried desperately to swim over to the opening, then with all his might he managed to pull himself up onto what appeared to be the snow covered bank of the pond, and then he knew no more.