Disclaimer: The characters and settings contained in this story are the creation of J.R.R. Tolkien and are the property of the Tolkien Estate. I do not own hobbits or the Shire, but am merely utilizing them as the basis for a work of fan fiction.

“Something In Common”

Pippin heaved a sigh, scuffling a foot along the dirt of the marketplace. He leaned over a bit to peer under the edge of the merchant’s table, hoping that maybe a stray cat had wandered through, or perhaps a frog, or maybe someone had dropped some marbles, or...or something.

He was bored. Bored and -- well, not really hungry, but he could always find an extra corner to fill. It had been fun, at first, when his father took him along as he talked with the merchants. Paladin, as acting Thain of the Shire -- old Ferumbras still officially held the title, but he was near incapacitated by age, so Paladin did most of the work -- Paladin, himself, needed to keep up good relationships with the merchants and to know what their stores were. He tried, once or twice a year at least, to get to Hobbiton and talk to the vendors at every one of the stalls.

And, now that Pippin was ten, Paladin had thought it would be good training for him to start coming along on these visits. They had spent much of the morning going through the carts that sold food -- frequent samples were on offer -- and those that sold toys or books that Pippin could look at or flip through while his Da talked.

Now, though, they’d moved to another area of the market. A decidedly boring area, Pippin thought as he kicked the ground again, where there wasn’t any food or any toys, but just things like quills and ink and parchments. He didn’t *mind* such things, now that he’d finally learned how to make words with his letters, but he wasn’t exactly *interested* in them, either.

Frodo would be. Frodo and Cousin Bilbo liked that sort of thing. And Pippin liked to visit them. Sometimes, if you could get Frodo out of the study, or if his gardener lad was around, Frodo could be quite fun.

That was one reason Pippin had been so eager to accompany his father to the market: he’d been hoping for a visit to Bag End. And Da had promised him they would go to see their cousins, but he was taking for-ev-er to talk to the big hobbits, and he wouldn’t let Pippin leave on his own and it just wasn’t fair.

Pippin picked up a nicely shaped quill that was lying near the edge of the table and began twirling it in his fingers, then hastily dropped it back into place when his Da and the merchant shifted their positions as they talked. He cast his eyes idly over the rest of the marketplace, giving a half-hearted wave in return to Freddy Bolger’s greeting as he trotted by.

Inspiration struck Pippin, and he tugged, quickly and hard, on his father’s waistcoat.

“Da! Da! I’m sorry for interruptin’, sir,” he tossed over his shoulder to the quill merchant before again addressing his father, who had leant his head down to listen to him.

“Da, can Fa--I mean Freddy, can Freddy Bolger walk me up to Bag End? Can he, Da, please?”

“Well, Pippin,” Paladin began hesitantly as the lad eagerly gestured the Bolger over to where they stood.

“You said we could visit Frodo, Da, you said we could, and it’ll be all right, Freddy’s Frodo’s friend, he’ll be ‘sponsible for me, won’t you, Freddy? Please?”

Pippin ended this speech in a pleading tone that could easily become a whine, as Paladin had experienced with other bored children before this one.

Freddy stood just outside the circle of merchant and Tooks, giving Paladin a bow of his head in greeting and looking uncertain as he shifted from foot to foot.

“Well,” Paladin was wavering, and Pippin knew it. “Oh, thank you, Da!” he called out with a bright smile on his face, crushing his father’s knees in a hug.

“You’re sure this is all right, Freddy?” Paladin asked the Bolger over the top of Pippin’s head.

“’Course it is, sir.” Freddy swallowed. He was just into his tweens, and was not going to begin them by insulting the hobbit who might as well be the Thain of the Shire.

“Let’s go, then,” Pippin called out, letting go of his father’s legs and skipping forward, grabbing Freddy’s hand as he went. “I want to see Frodo!”

He waved to the merchant as Freddy was tugged around to follow him. “You have lovely quills, sir, I’m sure big hobbits like them a lot!”

Paladin tried to school his face from embarrassment, and the merchant tried to stifle a laugh as Pippin and Freddy made their way back through the marketplace.


“Thank you for walking me to Frodo and Cousin Bilbo’s,” Pippin said very politely as they trudged through Hobbiton. He and Freddy were no longer holding hands, and Pippin had his clasped behind his back, trying to impress Frodo’s friend with how grown-up he was, and how little of a bother.

“’Sallright,” Freddy waved him off, staring straight ahead as he kept walking. “You’re better’n who I’ve usually got to mind.”

“Who’s that?” Pippin chirped.

“My sister,” Freddy said, and closed his eyes as he suppressed a shudder.

Pippin had stopped stock-still in the road.

“You’ve got a sister?” he gasped in astonishment, his eyes wide with wonder.

Bag End was such a lads’ hole -- everyone that Pippin had ever met there, with the exception of his own family, had been a lad. He knew Frodo didn’t have any sisters, and Merry didn’t, and it had never occurred to him until now to wonder about Frodo’s other friends.

“Aye,” Freddy responded from where he’d stopped and turned around, hands in his pockets, to regard his young charge. He wondered if the lad was more dimwitted than he let on. “Estella Bolger’s my sister.”

Pippin was just beginning to keep track of who went with whom in some of these branches of the family. He knew who Estella Bolger was, of course; he just hadn’t realized she was Fatty’s sister.

“Oh,” he said calmly. “She’s pretty.”

Freddy grunted noncommittally.

“But she smells terrible,” Pippin continued in a matter-of-fact tone, wrinkling his nose at the memory of the last time he’d encountered Estella.

“Aye,” Freddy sighed heavily and let his head droop. “That she does. She thinks that scented water they sell the lasses makes her smell nice, but you can’t tell her more isn’t more and have her believe you. I’d hoped maybe I could get to market and buy out their stock before she got there, but no such luck.”

Pippin looked at Freddy’s miserable figure. “Why don’t you just take her bottles, or break them?” he asked helpfully.

“You think I haven’t tried that?” Freddy cried out. “She’s got a hold on me. Every time I do something she disagrees with, she takes something else from me and hides it in her little cubbyhole.

“And as for breaking them, well, that’s no good. Then the whole smial smells like that, and you can’t get away from it, even when she’s gone.”

Pippin was stuck on the idea of Estella taking things from Freddy. “But, can’t you just take your things back?” he asked. “You’re bigger’n her.”

“And that’s the problem.” Freddy sighed again. “I’ve known for a couple of years now where her stash is, but I can’t fit in there.”

“Sisters are a trial,” he breathed out, jamming his hands further into his pockets and closing his eyes again.

“Oh, aye!” Pippin agreed enthusiastically. Freddy opened his eyes again in time to catch the tail end of a series of vigorous nods.

“That’s right; you have a few of them yourself,” he commented, his heart starting to warm to the lad as potentially something more than just Frodo’s friend and a little cousin. “So, do your sisters take your things as well, then?”

“No,” It was Pippin’s turn to sigh heavily and look down at the ground once more. “’Least, not usually. Anything a lass would want, they’ve already played with it before I got it--and sometimes broken it, besides.” Pippin thought of the jack-in-the-box stored among his toys with a spring that had popped out at him perhaps twice in the time he’d owned it.

“Well, what do they do to you, then, to make your life such a trial?” Freddy prompted. He’d been willing to give the lad the benefit of the doubt there, for a second, but really, how much bother could it be to have older sisters instead of a younger?

“They swing me about!” Pippin said with a fierce scowl, mimicking Freddy’s hands-in-pockets stance. “Every time there’s a party or dancing, they pick me up so my feet don’t touch the ground, and then they twirl me all about with them and their friends, and they all laugh at me and say how cute I am!”

“Hmm,” Freddy responded carefully. That didn’t sound so bad, not compared to his own little pest of a sister’s habit of pilfering his treasures, among other things she did. But he had to admit that it didn’t sound like great fun, either.

“Pervinca’s the worst,” Pippin continued. “She’s only a little bit older’n me, but she’s strong like all the other lasses in my family, and sometimes she throws me about so quick that my tummy doesn’t feel like eating for a whole hour after she’s done!”

“An hour!” Freddy echoed, shocked. He was quite fond of food, himself, especially the delicacies served at parties, and if you couldn’t eat for a whole hour at one of these festivities, why, you might miss out on something good. And it was true that Pippin Took was rather small for his age, while his sisters were rather large for theirs.

Suddenly, something else clicked in Freddy’s mind, and he gave a small groan.

“What?” Pippin asked suspiciously, drawing his heel back in the dust to form a line.

“You said Pervinca’s the worst?” Freddy asked.

Pippin nodded.

“Did you know she’s the same age as Estella?”

Pippin shrugged and nodded. He hadn’t really known, but what did that have to do with anything?

“Well, Estella thinks that scented water’s so fine that she’s giving it to all the lasses her age for her birthday this year -- and I know we’ve a visit to the Smials planned for around that time.”

Pippin’s eyes grew round and his mouth hung open, gasping like a fish for a couple of seconds. Then he burst out with, “She’s going to give that horrid stuff to Pervinca? Oh, Freddy, she can’t, that would just be too awful to have to smell it every day! You have to make her stop!”

Freddy felt the pain in those pleading green eyes -- after all, wasn’t that exactly the situation he’d found himself living in the past few weeks? -- but he hadn’t yet figured out even how to help himself. He said as much out loud.

“I don’t know how, Pippin. She’s -- they’re -- lasses!”

Freddy had taken his hands out of his pockets and begun waving them about as he grew agitated. On the last word, they froze expansively in mid-air.

Freddy and Pippin met each other’s gaze in the road for a long moment, until Pippin finally breathed a heavy sigh of “Aye.” Simultaneously, the two sat down in the dust of Hobbiton and rested their chins dejectedly on a hand.

A few long moments passed, then Pippin shifted slightly to regard Freddy’s profile. “Freddy,” he said slowly, “your hole’s here in Hobbiton, isn’t it?”

“You know it is,” Freddy answered, lying back and flinging his arm over his eyes.

“Is it far from Bag End, then?” Pippin asked.

“Not so very,” Freddy answered from under his arm. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, Frodo’s not expecting me at any certain time, and my Da’ll be a while in the market, yet,” Pippin answered, then looked down at his lap as he stretched his legs out next to the much larger hobbit’s limbs. “How small did you say your sister’s cubbyhole is?”

Freddy shifted his arm down from his eyes and gazed thoughtfully at the little Took.



“Careful, Pippin, I don’t know when she’s coming back!”

“Well, that’s why you’ve got to keep watch, then!” came the muffled voice from behind the back wall of the linen closet next to Estella Bolger’s room. “And don’t whisper so loud!”

Freddy cast one glance apprehensively toward the front door of the smial, then another back down at the little foot he could see sticking out from the hole in the wall. Already, several things had been thrown out past that foot to land in a pile on the sheet Freddy had ready to tie up by its corners.

There was the first quill Freddy had ever sharpened, muffin papers he’d saved in honor of particularly memorable parties or particularly worthy pastries, a book he’d borrowed two years ago from the library at Bag End, and a dessicated and crumbly old snakeskin, which fifteen-year-old Freddy had found fascinating, among other things.

Freddy glanced toward the door again, and then turned back in time to see the little foot disappearing entirely into the cubbyhole.

“Pippin!” Freddy hissed as he crouched down to call into the hole. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Freddy,” the voice came back even more muffled than before. “Did you know that this gets smaller back here? And I think I’ve found some more of your things.”

A few more items came flying out toward the sheet. At last, several marbles scuttered across the floor, followed by Pippin crawling after them, shooting the last stragglers with his thumb and forefinger as he carried a bedraggled stuffed pony in his mouth.

For the next few weeks, Estella Bolger had an especially frustrating time of it. Whenever her brother objected to one of her remarks, he would not answer as he usually did. But within a day, one of the items she knew she’d snuck from his room into her cubbyhole would appear, placed on top of some of the highest pieces of furniture that she couldn’t reach, taunting her.

She stood with her arms crossed and stared up especially hard, fuming, on the day when Freddy’s old stuffed pony appeared. She’d taken that when she’d been a little hobbitess, herself, and could still fit back into the narrowest part of her hole. Now, her father seemed to have taken it into his head after all these years that rodents might get in through the opening, and sealed it off.


“Come, lass,” Freddy tugged on Pervinca’s arm. “You’re one of the most comely lasses here -- dance with me again!”

Pervinca supposed she should find it rather flattering -- and she had, at first -- that an older hobbit showed her so much attention at the party held for Pearl’s birthday. But Freddy had had her out on the dance floor several times already, and the way he threw his bulk around -- well, it was a bit jarring to dance in such a style, Pervinca thought.

She would much rather, at this point, have been twirling her little brother about for her friends’ amusement. She caught sight of Pippin, as she stumbled at the end of Freddy’s outflung arm, sitting on the grass near the food tables with one of his friends and happily stuffing his face with rhubarb pie. Pervinca stumbled again as Freddy yanked her back in toward him.

She was beginning to feel a bit green, herself, as the dance wore on and Freddy continued to fling her around, so Pervinca didn’t notice, at first, when her dance partner stumbled.

She did notice when he collapsed upon his back on the ground. It gave her an excuse to stop moving, close her eyes and swallow against the slight pounding in her head and queasiness in her stomach.

Freddy was clutching one hand toward his throat and weakly waving the other in front of his face.

“Oh, there’s fumes, there’s fumes,” he called out weakly as concerned and curious hobbits rushed over. “I am nearly over...come,” his voice trailed off weakly.

Some of the other hobbits standing around noticed that their own eyes had started to tear up a bit, and they could detect an odor.

Pippin had edged his way through the crowd. “I smell it, too!” he cried out, beginning to cough slightly. “Oh, it’s foul! Somebody help Freddy,” he called before covering his mouth and nose with his hand and darting back through the sea of legs toward the food tables.

“Pippin, dear, are you all right?” his mother asked, brushing his curls up to feel his forehead as she passed him on her way to the commotion.

“Oh, yes, Mama,” Pippin gave one last slight cough before taking a deep, easy breath and favoring her with a big smile. “I think I just needed to get away from that bad smell,” he said as he popped a cheese-covered stalk of asparagus into his mouth.

“It’s Pervinca!” one of the hobbits in the crowd shouted as Eglantine made her way to the center of the disturbance. He was just in time to catch the lass as she swayed on her feet.

Eglantine leaned over and took a whiff of her daughter.

“Nurse!” she cried out, and, when the servant appeared, handed Pervinca’s elbow off to her. “Draw her a bath and scrub her well,” she ordered. Glancing over at Pippin, she added, “And dispose of any more of that scent you find around the Smials!”

Following Eglantine’s further orders, Freddy was carried (by three grown hobbits) to a pleasantly airy spot and given whatever he wished for refreshments for the rest of the party.

In light of her brother’s adverse reaction to such things, Estella’s parents requested that she dispose of all her scent as well.


“What’s the matter, Merry? You look as if you’ve been told that you can’t eat your favorite meal for a serving.”

Pippin took a swig of water from the dipper in the anteroom off Crickhollow’s kitchen door while he watched Merry scrape the dirt off his feet onto the mat and waited for an answer.

“No, but I do seem to have misplaced my second-favorite pipe,” Merry responded with a scowl as he finished wiping his feet and reached for the dipper in turn.

“Hmm,” Pippin said in a thoughtful tone. He lowered his voice to ask, “Did I hear you and Estella quarreling this morning, Merry?”

“Ungh,” Merry grunted as he put the dipper down. “You likely did. And a pointless quarrel it was, over nothing of importance. Seems this day is destined to go wrong all around.”

Supper that evening for Crickhollow’s three inhabitants was a quieter affair than usual, although there was still polite conversation.

After supper, Pippin gathered his dishes and carried them to the sideboard for washing up. He stumbled clumsily as he set them down, kicking his toes against the space under the cupboards. A board fell down, and Merry’s pipe rolled out.

“My pipe!” Merry called out. “The day’s looking better before it ends,” he laughed as he bent to pick it up and examine it.

“Oh, you know these old smials, Mer,” Pippin said easily. “Lots of nooks and crannies for things to get lost in.”

He turned to walk to his room, offering an angelic grin to a glowering Estella as he did so.

Estella huffed a pouf of air against the bangs lying on her forehead, then slowly lowered her crossed arms. Her face and her tone were relaxed when she laid a hand on Merry’s arm and bent down next to him to examine the board now lying on the floor.

“I guess we’ll have to see about fixing that, then,” she said.

“Oh. Aye,” Merry said, and then turned his head to look at her face. At that point, he lost the control he’d been struggling to maintain and fell to his rump on the floor, bursting into uncontrollable laughter as he looked into her eyes.


The End