- The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
Eggses
By Andy Longwood
I am told that my grandson is unmanageable.
My children complain. He sneaks onto their property and steals from their larders. He harasses them with questions and wastes time they need for themselves. They see no point in inquiry – it solves nothing, and they have done fine without asking questions, so why shouldn't he? Nevertheless, he is curious to a fault. Where did we come from? Where does the river start? What is beyond the mountains? My sons and daughters and nieces and nephews have no time for him. He is a nuisance, a bother, a clever little irritant who disrupts routine. There is no dealing with a clever boy whom no one has time to educate.
He is smart – too smart for his own good. He is out of sorts with his cousins and aunts and uncles, the good, reliable people who work the earth and mind the children and never, ever give thought to the world beyond the river. They have become quick to blame him as a thief and a little sneak – and usually, they are right.
Today, my eldest daughter complains of stolen eggs. I have suggested that this particular crime has been perpetrated by something more feral than my grandson, but my eldest has harbored a particular dislike for her nephew ever since he showed her son how he'd learned to make obscene noises with his armpits, and passed the knowledge onto him. She claims he must have gotten into her coop earlier this morning, when her son got himself stuck in a tree and had to be rescued.
"He is a terrible influence," she complained later, when her chickens had been disturbed and her child had been rescued, brought in, and made to sit with his mum and grandmother like a good boy. "I would forbid my children from playing with the rascal, but I couldn't be so cruel to a poor orphaned lad as that."
"Poor?" the son in question said, with an affronted sneer. "He promised me half the eggs if I'd get stuck in that tree, and here I am with none. He's a right ass, he is."
"Déagol!"
She remains blind to the fact that Déagol is easily as mischievous as his chosen playmate, and that any trick pulled by the pair is likely to have been half-devised by him. Mothers have perfected the art of selective ignorance, but grandmothers must know better.
I will not punish my grandson for something that there is no proof he has done, but whether I like it or not, he is the primary suspect for nearly everything my children complain about. I choose the quickest path home, and down to the riverbank where my grandson has made his haven. He is there, his tangled hair full of leaves, his hands full of eggs. His back is towards me, and I approach quietly.
"Sméagol," I say, and he jumps, quickly concealing the eggs and doing his best not to look like he has just been eating stolen produce.
"Good afternoon, Grandmother!" his voice cracks as he speaks. He is at that age where he cannot trust his own voice, especially not when he has been caught doing something he knows he should not have done.
"Where did you get those?" I ask, and my voice is perhaps more severe than the crime warrants. My children, grandchildren, and the children of my friends have enough eggs that they won't miss a few, and my youngest grandson is growing.
"Found them," he says, his expression guardedly innocent.
"And whose were they before you found them?" I press, determined that Sméagol will repay his aunt, if he has inconvenienced her with his thieving.
"No one's," he says, as an egg slips from his hands and smashes in the grass. He groans with disappointment and looks forlornly at the broken fragments of shell, which are small and speckled with brown. These are not the eggs of domesticated fowl.
It is not uncommon for children to forage. A nearby raspberry bush is often more convenient than a trip home. That isn't why the sight of the speckled eggs is distressing. I'm not bothered as much by the fact that my grandson is foraging as by the fact that he would rather steal than come to me.
I can not understand why it is so hard to raise this one child when I have raised so many successful sons and daughters in the past. My third son – his father – was no less precocious, but back then, I was a mother first and foremost. I had none of the responsibilities that I have today. I am always somewhere else, ensuring that our quiet little corner of the world runs smoothly. I am so busy giving counsel that I am unable to counsel him.
Is it any wonder my grandson acts out? He's lost among the family. Orphans are not as uncommon as people might wish. His aunts and uncles and cousins are kind to him, and they love him, even if he bothers them. He is family. But they have children of their own to pay attention to, and business that does not include him, and though I should be there to attend him, I can not. Perhaps he knows he alone is not enough to elicit the attention he needs, and acts out because of it. He wants me to notice him. He wants someone to parent him the way his cousins are parented, with love and with strictness and with attention.
I can never seem to do right by my grandson. This is why the eggs bother me.
He can obviously see the dismay in my face, for he looks frightened and asks, petulantly, "Will I be punished, now?"
I sigh.
"No," I say, and he relaxes, visibly relieved. For a moment he stands, unsure of himself, and then sits back down, obviously expecting me to leave.
I don't.
"Do you know why I decided to build my home here?" I ask instead, looking around at the trees that lean over the river and drop leaves in it.
"No," he says.
"I used to come here quite a lot, when I was a lass," I say, listening to the quiet sound of the river and the wind in the trees. Sméagol turns to look at me.
"You did?" he says, the egg in his hand momentarily forgotten.
"I did," I offer my grandson a small smile. "Especially when I had gotten in trouble."
Sméagol's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline in surprise. "You didn't," he says, his voice accusing.
"Oh? And why not?" I ask, fluffing out my skirt as I sit down next to him. Sméagol frowns at me, as one does when one is asked to explain a concept that is already perfectly obvious.
"Well, you're Grandmother," he says. "You're the one who gets told when other people make trouble."
"But I wasn't always a grandmother," I remind him. He eyes me for a moment.
"Are you sure?" he asks, a corner of his mouth lifting in a wry grin.
"My dear, I am not so old that I can not remember that."
"But maybe you're only imagining that you weren't. Maybe you've been a grandmother forever, and just don't know it," he suggests, happy to contradict me.
"And how would that be achieved?" I ask, feeling myself beginning to smile.
"A spell!" he exclaims. "A wizard came and put a spell on you, Grandmother. I saw him. He was big and terrible, and he had a staff with a light on the end. He was this tall!" He spreads his arms as wide as they will go, and strains to make his fingers extend far enough to portray the size of his great and terrible wizard.
"That is a very tall wizard," I observe.
"Very tall. Taller than Uncle Reynard. Taller even than I'm going to be when I grow up."
"I should be quite frightened if I were to see such a terrible wizard at my door," I say.
"You don't need to be frightened of anything," Sméagol insists. "You have me to protect you." And he smiles, confident in his skills as a guard.
"And what would a lad like you do if he ever came across a wizard?" I ask. Sméagol scratches his chin thoughtfully.
"I would tell Aunt Tremelda that he had stolen a pie off her windowsill," he says. "She would send him running, she would."
I burst out laughing, and Sméagol laughs as well. He likes nothing better than to laugh with people, and know that he has caused their mirth. His pranks are not malicious, nor are they played in cruelty. He is only just discovering when it is and is not right to employ his particular brand of humor.
"What else does this wizard of yours do, besides put spells on defenseless old grandmothers?"
"He got into Sandrigal's larder and ate the strawberry jam she was going to use for supper," he says, suddenly solemn.
"That is a terrible crime," I agree. "One which, I believe, you were found guilty of."
Sméagol fixes me with the most innocent expression he can muster. "Me? No, no. It was the Wizard!"
"And the strawberry prints on your bed sheets?"
"He put them there."
"And the jam jar I found in your hands?"
"He handed it to me and ran away just before you came."
"Oh? Then why were you hiding underneath the table?"
"Because I knew you would accuse me, Grandmother." He looks at me with a pained expression. "I'm always accused of everything."
"Only because you commit everything," I remind him. He hangs his head in halfhearted shame, but he's smiling, and so am I.
"Tell me," I ask, "What is a lad like you doing stealing eggs from nests?"
"I'm hungry," he says.
"Why didn't you come to me, then?"
"You were busy."
"You could have gone home."
"Home was too far away."
"But you came here to eat what you found anyway," I remind him.
He doesn't answer. He's been fiddling with an egg, and now he raises it to his mouth and sucks on one end, and then tosses the empty shell into the river. It bobs along the surface for a moment before it fills with water and sinks, and he reaches for another egg.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
He finishes swallowing. "Sucking them," he says, drilling at the egg with a stick.
"I've never seen an egg eaten like that."
"You have to poke a hole in each end and suck out the insides," he explains. "There has to be two holes, otherwise you won't be able to get anything out, and the shell will crack, and you'll get messy."
"Very ingenious," I say. "Will you show me?"
He has two eggs left. He looks from them to me, and nods.
So we sit facing each other and he shows me how to make a hole in each end of the egg without cracking the shell, and together we finish the last two of the eggs he has gathered. His eyes are bright with the pleasure of being able to teach me something, and he asks if I would like to hear a riddle. I would, and he recites;
Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking All in mail never clinking.
When I can not solve it, he claps his hands with glee.
"It's a hard one, isn't it, Grandmother?" he says, barely able to contain his pride. "I made it myself. I thought about it for ages. The answer is fish. It's a good one, isn't it?"
"Wonderful," I agree, and he glows at the praise.
Then he asks for stories, and I comply. I tell him of Beren and Lúthien, and he groans with boyish disgust at the thought of eternal love and begs for more. I tell him of Eärendil, who captains the stars, and the unfortunate Túrin, who married his sister and slew a dragon. I speak until his desire for stories is satisfied and he rests with his head on my knee and allows me to brush the leaves from his curly hair. He grins at me, and there is adoration in his face. He loves me, when I have time for it. I am reminded powerfully of my son, dead now these past twenty years, and his wife gone not long after. Things would have been different for their child if they had lived, I am sure of it.
"When we get back," I say as I brush grass off the back of his tunic, "You must apologize to Aunt Roselda for getting into her hen coop."
He is silent for a moment, then says "She didn't have any eggs anyway. There wasn't anything to take."
"But you were going to," I remind him. "You did take, in the end."
"Only from birds," he says.
"But the birds work for weeks to keep those eggs safe, so that they can hatch into new birds. You've killed some mother's children today, you realize."
"Oh."
He pauses, and the river rushes on.
"I didn't mean to," he says.
"I know. You need to think about these things before you act. You hurt more people than you know sometimes, Sméagol."
"I was just hungry," he says, petulantly.
"Why didn't you come home, then?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know, or you won't tell me?"
"I don't know."
He sits up
I wait in silence.
"You're always too busy," he says, suddenly. "You're always too busy for me, Grandmother. So I just . . ." he shrugs. "I just don't bother you."
"But you bother me a great deal more when you steal than when you come to me when I'm busy," I tell him. "Sméagol, when you cause trouble, it only comes back to me and makes me busier."
He crosses his arms and looks sullenly across the river.
"I will make you a deal," I say. "If you promise not to steal so much, I promise I will make more time for you. Business or not."
He looks at me. "You promise?"
"I promise."
"Really promise? You'll stop going out so much and you'll be here like this more?"
"I would much rather spend my afternoons with you than listening to your aunts and uncles complain," I assure him.
He looks at me hopefully. "What about reading? Will you teach me to read?"
"Yes," I assure him.
"When?"
"The moment I can," I promise, knowing that the moment may be weeks in coming. I am the matriarch of the River Folk. I have not the time to school a lad who is already past the age when someone should have been teaching him for years.
But he grins, and sticks out his hand. "I'll do it."
I take his hand and shake it.
"No matter how busy I am, I want you to remember that I love you," I say. "You are my grandson, and you will always have a place in my heart."
I look at him fondly, and he pretends to gag, to cover up his happy smile. I place my hand on his curly head and he allows me a small grin before I get up to leave.
"Oh, and Sméagol?" I say, before I go.
"Yes?"
"You owed your cousin half of those eggs. I expect you to make it up to him in a timely manner."
He rolls his eyes and groans.
"He was made to sit and listen to myself and his mother talk for an hour because of you," I say firmly. "If you expect him to go along with any of your schemes ever again, you'll need to make this up to him."
My grandson is unmanageable, but only because he deserves more time than I can give him.
I worry for his sake.