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Title: The trouble with Pippin (#2345)
Author: Ottis413
Chapters: 1
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Archive: Tolkien
Category: Lord of the Rings (Movieverse)
Description: Merry tries to help Pippin with a problem, and reflects on their life in the shire. Based on the movies, and set the day before Bilbo's 111th birthday party.
Published: 02 Nov 2005
Updated: 02 Nov 2005
Warnings: Short
Type: Humour
Characters: Merry, Pippin, and Sylvia (Sil')
Chapter 1 - Trouble with Pippin
A/N; This story is based on the movies, where the ages of the hobbits were closer together then they were in the books. (Merry and Pippin in their late "tweens" and Frodo 33, and Sam about the same age, at the time of Bilbo's 111th birthday party ..)
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The Trouble With Pippin;
Trouble began, and not for the first time, with an apple.
There was a bag of them on the table in front of Merry, round, shiny and fruity. If they'd known what was going on, they would have run for the hills.
"Have another. Sil' said I could have as many as I wanted," he said. Pippin gave his lifelong friend and accomplice a sidelong glance. "Tasty, a bit wrinkled, but a damn good flavor."
Rose Cotton came by their table and gathered the empty cups, and sat a full one in front of each of them. There was no need for her to ask first.
"Sylvia, named an apple, after you!" said Pippin after Rose had left. Each word was an acid drop on the air.
"She said twas 'cos of my rosy cheeks," said Merry. "An' I helped her gather up that four bushel of apples for Bilbo's party, and I went and fetched that wig from Bree for her father ."
"It didn't work, though," Pippin said. "That wig he wears, that's a terrible thing to see on a hobbit that's still alive."
"But she was pleased I made the effort."
Pippin didn't take his eyes off the bag. Fruit and vegetables grew famously in the Shire's hot summers and mild winters. Sylvia was definitely a keen lady hobbit when it came to sexual antics among the apple trees with a camel-hair brush. "She and her father sell their apples all over the place," Merry went on. "Funny, eh, to think that pretty soon hundreds of hobbits will be having a bite of Merry Reds."
"Hundreds more," said Pippin. Their wild youth was an open book, although only available in plain covers.
"Thank you, Pip." Merry grinned, then looked wistful for a moment, then opened his mouth in mock concern. "Oh, you aren't jealous, are you Pippin? Your not begrudging me my little claim to fame?"
"Me? Jealous? Why should I be jealous? It's only an apple. It's not as if it's anything important."
"That's what I thought. It's was just a little fun to humor a friend," said Merry. "So how are things with the party?"
"Fine. Fine."
"Got the tents up yet?"
"Mostly."
"Good," said Merry. "Good."
They sat in silence. Pippin had been helping erect the tents for Bilbo's 111th birthday party, Merry was supposed to have helped, but hadn't shown up.
"The potatoes, got them did they?" asked Merry.
"Yea, we did," great lot of help you were, thought Pip.
"Got enough benches?"
"Yes."
"I expect you're looking forward to the fireworks?"
"Yes."
"I expect there'll be lots of dancing?"
"Yea."
Pippin had been trying to work up the nerve to ask Sylvia out for an ale and a dance. But Merry would turn on the charm when they met her, to the point where Pip could hardly get a word in edgewise. Pip usually didn't have any trouble along these lines, but whenever he was around Sylvia, (or "Sil' " as her friends called her) he got all tongue-tied and stumble-footed.
"You coming over to dinner at Bag End tonight?"
"What're they havin'?"
"Pork."
"With apple sauce?"
"Yes-"
"No," said Pip.
There was a creaking behind Merry. Looking up, Pip saw Samwise and a couple of the other hobbits who had been working on the party arrangements coming in.
"Oh, well, can't sit here chatting all day," said Pip, standing up and finishing his ale quickly. "Some of us have work to get done for the party."
"Yes."
"So I'll be off, then."
"Goodbye."
The door slammed shut as Pippin hurried off down the path.
"What's the matter with Pip?" Sam asked as he and the other hobbits sat down at the table where the Gaffer was holding forth. Merry glanced from Sam to Rose, then, looking back, said "Nothing unusual." as he got up to leave.
It occurred to Merry that, just possibly, he might have gone a bit too far. But only a bit, he thought. Still, he reminded himself with a grin, Pip had set off not toward Bag End and the party field, but toward Sil's family orchard.
Their good friend Frodo would be 'coming of age' on his birthday, which was the same day as his uncle Bilbo's, and he and Pip's weren't too far behind. The trouble with coming of age, at least, the trouble as far as he and Pippin were concerned, was that you were expected to settle down, get married, and no more adventures or travelin'. But to tell the truth, that was fine by him, (except maybe for the 'married' part). Everything he wanted was here. Everything he'd ever wanted was here, although in his youth he'd run out of hobbit-lasses a few times. Foreign parts were all right to visit, but they weren't really serious. They had interestin' new drinks and the grub was fun, but foreign parts was where you went to visit and then you came back here, the Shire was real. He, and Pippin also, he thought, were happy in small places.
Of course, he reflected as he left the inn and started up Bywater Road, most hobbits didn't share his and Pip's views of the world. Sometimes he and Pippin would walk out to the Tower Hills, where you could look out across the forests, over the plains, and all the way to the shores of the ocean on a clear day.
A view like that, Merry reasoned, could probably suck your mind right out of your head.
They'd told him the world was round, which was common sense, and went through space in circles around the sun, which sounded fine to him. It was all happening "Out There" somewhere, and it could continue to do so, with Merrys blessing and disinterest, so long as he could live in his personal world called the Shire, which he carried around in his heart.
Merry saw it as his job to make Pippin think about things. The business with the apples was petty enough, a spiteful little thing when you got down to it, but Merry needed something to make every day worthwhile, and if he had to make Pip angry or jealous enough to finally ask Sylvia for a date, then so be it.
Pippin would now scheme for some way to get ahead of Merry in the quest for Sylvia's attentions, and Merry knew he would get them in the end, and he'd be his old self again.
Hobbits said things like "we make our own amusements easy enough" as if this were a matter of pride, and perhaps it was. Merry was confident that he could deal with his friend in a bad mood, but not when he was bored. The last thing you wanted was for a Took or a Brandybuck to get bored and start making their own amusements, because they sometimes had famously erratic ideas about what was amusing.
Still, The Big Party was tomorrow, and that would set the two of them right for weeks. Hobbits rose to partying like a trout to a fly.
Everybody was looking forward to the Baggins birthday party. It would be a good day out and of course there was going to be lots of food, drink, dancing, fireworks, and a big bonfire. Whoever heard of a birthday party without a good bonfire?
And afterward you could roast potatoes in the ashes.
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Adapted from part of a story by Terry Pratchet, called "The Sea And Little Fishes"
When I read Terry Pratchet's story, the line "And afterward you could roast potatoes in the ashes." seemed to sum up the "Hobbit mind set". So I ended up rewriting a small part of it into this story...
By Ottis413, and edited by Shell68.
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