Once again, I don't own LOTR
"I dare you."
"Nuh-uh, I dare you."
"I dared you first."
"I double dare you."
"I triple dog dare you."
"Whose daring what?" a voice asked from behind. The twins Gary and Pip Brandybuck stiffened as they turned to see the owner of the voice. Faramir was standing with some lass in his clothes timidly behind him. They sighed in relief.
"Oh, it's just you, Faramir." Gary said.
"What happened to your hair?" Faramir asked, noticing the absence of long dark locks, even though Gary had a cap on.
"None of your business." He replied pulling the cap tighter on his head.
"He had to cut it off." Pip laughed, "Caught in the bush, and Dad had to cut it all off."
"It'll grow back. Anyway, what are you daring?" Faramir asked again. He had some idea, they were standing at the only gap in the hedge for miles around and only a small gate stood between the Shire and the Outside.
"To go over the gate and touch the trees in the Old Forest. Nothing bad." Pip said, looking out to the green-grey canopy beyond.
"But has the possibility to be distinctly dangerous."
"Foolhardy."
"Maybe even impossible." Gary grinned. Faramir knew exactly what those grins meant; after all he had spent most of his life with them.
"One of us is to be the first hobbit to go down into the wood, and bring back a stick as a token of an adventurer." Pip said in delight. Faramir snorted in contempt.
"You guys are really stupid aren't you?" Goldilocks huffed, emerging herself from the quiet of Faramir's shadow.
"Who're you to be calling us stupid?" Gary said shocked.
"Yeah, who are you? And what are you wearing?"
"My name is Goldilocks Gamgee, I am wearing spare pants and I think you're stupid because you are not the first hobbits to go in there." She said defiantly, crossing her arms, "you should know that your father went in there before you, and I sure other hobbits went in there as well."
"A Gamgee! I didn't think they would cross-dress, being gardeners and all. And I thought the Gamgee girls were pretty too." Gary said in false shock.
"And I don't think a girl should be going around calling their elders or superiors stupid, unless she is herself stupid." Pip laughed somewhat maliciously. Goldilocks' great brown eyes brimmed with tears, and she ran through the gate into the wood. Faramir look at his cousins in rage, green eyes blazing.
"Who taught you manners?" he asked them, "your rear-ends would have kinder things to say." And he ran after her into the woods.
"Faramir likes Goldilocks! Faramir likes Goldilocks!" they chanted after them, swinging on the open gate.
"Oi! Who's up there? Pip? Gary? Come down here now!" the voice of the elder Merry boomed from below. The twins looked at each other, realising that their father must have overheard the exchange and they decided that the fear of the forest was less than the fear of their father's wrath. They turned on their tails and ran into the woods themselves.
Merry stalked up the hill, his entire frame was shanking with anger (being the tallest hobbit in history that was a spectacle to behold). He had heard the rude exchange between his sons and the children of his dear friends, knowing he had taught the future Masters of Buckland better manners. As he arrived where he had heard the voices, he could see no sign of either party. He looked around; there was no place they could have gone with him seeing them…unless…they couldn't be so stupid to go into the woods? As an answer, he saw the gate in the hedge swinging on its hinges.
Don't ask me how they became so nasty, as Merry would not tolerate any behaviour of the kind in his home. They must have had other friends with the behaviour, I would not tolerate it at all.