Misadventures of a Teenaged Took
By Nolitari
A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews! They make me so happy. Sorry this chapter has taken so long, family has come back in town and then birthdays and then graduations. Excuse me if this too short, 'tis terribly difficult to legthen this particular story. Things will speed up soon, I promise!
Disclaimer: If I owned these characters, which I don't, I wouldn't be doing this to poor Pip. Or Merry either!
o-o-o-o-o
Eglantine sleepily walked as quietly as possible down the hall. She had heard some noises from Pippin's room, so she had decided to see if everything was alright. The boy sleepwalked occasionally, usually going to the kitchen for rice cakes. Trying to supress a yawn, she came upon Pippin's room, mildly surprised that the door was wide open.
"Pippin, darling? Is everything alright?" Eglantine said softly as she poked her head inside the bedroom.
He wasn't there.
Nor Merry.
Neither were their clothes.
"Paladin...PALADIN!"
o-o-o-o-o
The young Brandybuck pushed himself into a sitting postion. That wasn't the easiest task, for the floor of the hole was littered with sticks, roots, leaves and other things. Things that faintly looked like animal bones. Bones! He shuddered. That was only another frightful addition. Hearing the screaming wind, and the rusling leaves, and now bones freaked him out. It's reminding me of the ghost stories that Pop would tell on nights like this. I miss Buckland, I wanna go home...to just sit around the crackling fire and sip an ale and crunch into an apple. Just like last week, when Da and I set up the fire pit as always behind the hobbit hole...
o-o-o-o-o
Merry pulled the dead grass of last fall out of the ground. Today, as he and his father did every spring, the fire pit was being set up. On the cool, breezy evenings of May, Merry and his father would sit next to the fire and eat apples, drink ale, and talk. You could say it was their own time, since his father was always busy during the daylight.
"Da?" Merry asked, taking another large bite out of an apple.
"Yes, Merry?"
"When can I go to Tuckburogh?"
"You are leaving next week, son."
"That's a long time, ya know."
"I know it is. Am I too boring for your taste?"
Merry thought that his father was being serious, when actually he was merely jesting. "No, no, no! You're plenty of fun, Da. I'm just...well, eager to go. I've been stuck here all winter."
Saradoc chuckled
softly. "It's the Took in ye that makes you want to go on
adventures all the time." He shook his head, laughing. "Perhaps
a ghost story will hold you over."
"Yes! Please! You hardly tell them anymore!"
"Alright. On a night that had strong, howling winds, a creature would walk the woods of the Old Forrest..."
o-o-o-o-o
Merry faintly smiled at the memory. But something still haunted him, even after that comforting thought. The weather conditions were eerily like the conditions he was under. Was his father's ghost story real...?
o-o-o-o-o
Peregrin was having his own problems. He could not figure out what had happened to his cousin. Oh. Another problem: he forgot to mention to Merry that his mother would check on him every night, since he sleepwalked frequently. Now his ma was probably panicked and worried over her youngest...
"Merry? MERRY!" Pippin shouted out vainly. He had been wandering around the woods for about twenty minutes, in a desperate search for his cousin. Why did they have to go out in the middle of the night? Why couldn't they have waited until morning? Why was is it so important that they go in the pitch black of night?
Pippin may have never found out if he couldn't find his cousin.
o-o-o-o-o
Eglantine's worried shout raced through the halls, immeadiatly bringing Paladin out of his peaceful slumber. Had something terrible happened? Well, he would find out! Worriedly pulling his robe off of its peg, he rushed to where his wife's shout came from.
It was his son's room.
What had gone wrong?
Did it involve Pippin?
"Eglantine! What is the matter?" He asked once he got to the shocked female hobbit's side.
"Oh, Paladin! It's Pippin! And Merry! They're missing!"
Paladin took a few steps backward, worry piercing his heart. His son was missing, his worst nightmare unfolding right before his own eyes. "Are...are you sure they didn't just go to one of the pantries for rice cakes?"
"Paladin! If they went to the kitchen, why would their sleeping clothes be thrown on the ground?" She said, disbelieving her husband's nonchalant remark. Rice cakes?
"Eglantine, I was hoping they were still in the hobbit-hole." He sighed. "And they aren't. Where have they gotten to?" He said more to himself.
"I don't know, Paladin. That is why we must go find them."
o-o-o-o-o
Pippin gave up searching after an hour. So instead, he sat against the trunk of a tree, his eyelids growing heavier and heavier.
NO! He couldn't fall asleep at a time like this! But sleep sounded so comforting...he almost did drift off when a very scratchy and old voice abrubtly asked: "What ye be doing on my property?"
