Birthday Gifts

March 22

“My birthday is in three more days.”

Legolas looked down from his high perch in the tree on the top of Bag End. There stood a little golden-haired hobbit child- Elanor. He smiled. “I know. That’s one of the reasons I came to the Shire for a visit.” He leapt down and sat in the grass to be at eye level with her.

“What would you like?” she asked.

“What would I like?”

“Yes, what would you like? I need to know so I can do something for you.”

“But why?”

Elanor nearly sighed aloud at the ignorance of the Elf, but held it back at the last moment and settled for twining her hair about her fingers in annoyance instead. “Because my birthday in three days!”

“You want to give me something?” Legolas vaguely remembered Pippin mentioning something about hobbits giving gifts on their birthday, and was touched that Elanor would want to give him something after knowing him for merely a week or so. “You don’t have to do that.”

“But I want to!” she persisted. “If you need some time to think, that’s all right.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I do need a moment.” Elanor nodded and wandered a ways away to allow him to think, sniffing at the flowers in her father’s garden and humming softly. Legolas frowned as he pondered what to tell Elanor he wanted. He didn’t want to tell her he wanted something hard to obtain. It had to be something easy… He thought for no more than five minutes when he was interrupted.

“When’s your birthday?”

Legolas looked up from his thoughts to see Elanor standing before him, tucking a flower into her hair, obviously bored from waiting.

“Daddy says that Elves are many millenniennia old. I don’t know what that means,” she said thoughtfully, sitting down beside him and toying with a blade of grass, “but it must mean that you had a birthday. When is it?”

“I do not remember which day it was,” Legolas admitted. The Elves did not celebrate birthdays, so the date had been forgotten to him, although he knew that his father would know. “I do remember it was around this time, though- when winter turns to spring.”

Elanor looked at him pensively before standing up. “I know what I’m going to give you, so never mind.” She went inside, leaving Legolas curious as to what she had in mind.

“Today’s my birthday,” Elanor told Legolas, her face alight with a grin.

Legolas smiled back. “I know.”

“Here.” She handed him a paper folded into quarters. Legolas opened it and read what was inside, scrawled in a childish hand.

I, Elanor Gardner, on this dae of march 25, giv Legoles Greenleef my birth-dae to shar with me, my birth-dae being the dae of march 25.

Beneath this were six signatures in red ink and one red scribble. He read the names carefully: Samwise Gardner, Rosie Gardner, Jolly Cotton, Nibs Cotton, Tom Cotton, and an ‘X’. At the very bottom of the page was a long scrawling scribble that trailed and looked like someone had began to draw a picture of a person with stick-limbs and hadn’t finished.

“It’s official- I got seven signatures in red ink!” Elanor said proudly. “I got Dad and Mum, and my uncles from when they visited yesterday, and my Dad’s Gaffer, that’s the ‘X’ there, ‘cause he can’t read, and then I gave the pen to Frodo, but I forgot that he couldn’t write yet and he started to draw before I could stop him. But,” she said, taking a breath, “his mark is on there, and one and one and one and one and one and one and one is,” she paused for a moment, counting on her fingers, “-seven! So now you share my birthday,” she finished breathlessly, beaming happily.

Legolas ran his fingers over the letters, a slow smile creeping over his face. He picked up Elanor and hugged her. “This is not only the first gift someone has given me for their birthday,” he said, setting her down, “but it is also the best.” Elanor smiled shyly. “There is only one thing left to do,” he said solemnly, kneeling and looking her in the eye.

“What is that?”

“What would you like for my birthday?”

2: The Inquisitiveness of Tooks

Pippin chewed on his lip nervously. His father encouraged his inquisitive nature, saying that it helped to gather knowledge for his future Thainship, but he wasn’t really sure if some of his questions would be considered important. They were important to him, and he didn’t know if he would ever get another opportunity for answers such as this one.

Steeling up his courage, five-year-old Peregrin Took opened the door of Bag End, ventured over to the bench in the garden where the grey wizard sat, asked, “Are you ticklish, mister Gandalf?” and hiccupped.

Gandalf considered this gravely for a moment (though not without a twinkle in his eye) before answering. “ I do not think I am, young Peregrin. No one has ever dared to tickle me,” he added, looking ferocious.

“Oh, how sad! You mean you’ve never been in a tickle fight?” Pippin asked, looking truly distressed. “But then,” he said in an afterthought, “You- hic!- never got tickled by older cousins and then got the hiccups. That’s what happens to me when- hic!- Merry tickles me. Do you ever get hiccups, Gandalf?”

“No, I don’t believe I ever have. I know something that may clear them up, however. If you sprinkle some sugar on your tongue and then drink some water, that might work.”

“Oh! I haven’t tried that one! Thank you Gand- hic!- alf!” Pippin exclaimed before racing away towards the kitchens. Within ten minutes he was back outside, carrying several varieties of tarts and pastries.

“I thought that if the sugar didn’t work, I might as well bring a few sweet things. Just in case,” Pippin said around a mouthful of apple tart.

“And are all of those for you?” asked Gandalf.

“No,” Pippin said. “I saved this one from Frodo. It’s too good to be in a hobbit’s stomach- I think it would be much happier to be in a wizard’s belly, don’t you?” He handed Gandalf a delicious-looking chocolaty pastry.

“I will try not to dash this pastry’s hopes for happiness, then,” Gandalf said, accepting it.

Pippin grinned and fell back to asking questions- he still had quite a few bouncing around in his brain.

“Do body parts leave the body?”

Gandalf looked rather surprised by this question. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Pippin said as he swallowed a particularly large bite, “people don’t always tell my why things are happening, so I try to think of the answers myself. When Pearl shut her finger in a door (I remember because she was shouting about how the weight of the door had chopped her finger off) her fingernail fell off. I thought that the fingernail must have been angry to have been shut in a door like that, so it left. I think that if anything were to leave me, it would be my lips because I always chew on them when I’m nervous or thinking, and I let them get chapped in the winter. If I were a lip, I wouldn’t like that. So do body parts leave the body?”

Gandalf looked rather amused. “No, I’m afraid they don’t.”

“Oh,” Pippin said, cramming his mouth full with more food to distract himself from his disappointment. “I always wanted to know what I looked like without lips. Gandalf,” Pippin chattered, “I think if it could, your head would leave you. You’ve hit it twenty-seven times so far, and you’ve only been here for four days.”

“How do you know this?”

“I like to watch people. And dad taught me to count when I was four, and he told me to practice, so when I watch people, I count how many times they do something. Did you know that Frodo had stumbled twice since elevenses?” A loud crash and a curse sounded from the open window. “Three times now. And he’s said that word five times since last week. He’s very clumsy.”

“I hadn’t noticed that.”

“Most people don’t. I think that if you’re not noticed, you notice more. I can be very quiet when I want to.”

“I can believe that,” Gandalf said, smiling.

“Really? I told that to Bilbo, and he laughed. I don’t know why. I never said anything funny or clever. My parents are always telling me that I’m funny or clever, but Merry’s the funny one and Frodo’s clever. What did your parents say about you when you were my age?”

Gandalf, for once, was at a loss. Finally, he thought of an answer that might amuse the young Took. “I can’t remember- I’m so old!”

Pippin was delighted at this. “How old are you, Gandalf? Are you as old as Frodo? I heard him say to Bilbo once that he couldn’t remember his parents very well. Are you that old?”

Gandalf, feeling rather somber at Pippin’s casual mention of Frodo’s parents, said, “No. I’m far older than Frodo.”

“Are you as old as my parents? I don’t think that I’ll ever be that old!”

“I’m much older than that.”

“Are you as old as- Bilbo?” Pippin asked in reverent tones. Someone that old was very old indeed!

“I’m older than even Bilbo.”

Pippin threw his sticky hands in the air. “Then how old are you? No one is older than Bilbo!”

“If I told you how old I was, you would never believe me.”

“I would! I would! Merry says I believe everything. He said I was gullible. I think that means he thinks I talk a lot.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. The last part of gullible sounds like babble. Gully-babble. How old are you?”

Gandalf leaned over and whispered a number. Pippin’s eyes widened. “Wow! Are you telling the truth?”

“Yes.”

Pippin looked Gandalf in the eye seriously. “No fibbing?”

Gandalf returned his look solemnly. “No fibbing.”

“Wow,” Pippin said in awe. “I never knew that numbers could go that high!” He glanced at the untouched pastry in Gandalf’s hand. “Are you going to eat that?”

“I thought you said that it would rather be in a wizard than a hobbit?” Gandalf asked, hiding a smile beneath his beard before handing the chocolaty treat over.

“I’m a wizard!” Pippin grinned. “I can make this disappear! Close your eyes!”

Gandalf obliged. Less than five seconds later, Pippin said, “Open your eyes!” True to his word, the entire pastry had vanished.

“See? It’s gone! You don’t know where it is, do you?”

“No,” Gandalf said, his twinkling eyes resting on the brown stain around Pippin’s lips that Pippin’s tongue was working so industriously to clean away. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“See?” said Pippin, beaming. “I’m a wizard! Well, thank you for talking to me, Gandalf,” Pippin said before getting up and slipping through the green door of Bag End.

“Hobbits,” Gandalf said, amused, before drawing out his pipe with his weathered hands for a smoke.

3. A Sticky Situation

“Pippin?” Merry whispered, searching through the store room frantically. Aunt Eglantine had just placed the squirrelly hobbit-lad under his care for the evening during the Yule party, and he didn’t want to get in trouble for losing him after the first fifteen minutes. He had turned his attention to a pretty-looking lass for not even one minute, and when he turned back he’d seen the eleven-year-old slip off between groups of adults towards the store room.

“Peregrin Took! Where are you?”

A call came from the back where the large barrels of flour were kept. “Merry? Is that you?” One of the barrels was missing its lid. Merry crept towards it in and peered over the edge. There was Pippin, sitting in the barrel and covered from head to toe in flour. Merry’s stomach did a little flip.

“Oh no, Pippin…”

Pippin grinned. “I’m Gorbadoc! He has white hair, and when I saw it, I thought that it must be fun to have hair that isn’t any color, so I decided to turn my hair white too! Only I fell in the barrel by accident. Can you help me out?” He lifted his hands up to Merry, and Merry took them and pulled him out. To Merry’s horror, he began to dust himself off. The flour flew everywhere. Merry grabbed his hands.

“Pippin! Stop!”

“Why?”

“If your mother finds out I let you crawl around in a barrel of flour, I’m in trouble!”

“Why is that different from normal?” Pippin said cheerily. Merry grimaced.

“And you will be in trouble too.” Pippin stiffened, keeping perfectly still so as to keep from letting even the smallest grain of flour fall from his clothes and hair.  Merry fought an enormous grin.

“You just get up to your room as quick as you can without leaving much of a trail. Change your clothes and clean yourself off. And don’t let anyone see you!” Pippin nodded and dashed off, leaving a sprinkling of flour in his wake. Merry sighed and got out a broom.

After he had swept away all traces of flour and replaced the lid on the barrel, he followed the trail of white that Pippin had left, obliterating it with the broom as he went. By the time he got to Pippin’s room, he was sneezing so hard that tears were running down his face. He dried his eyes and opened the door to find Pippin’s dusty clothes lying in a heap on the floor and Pippin dunking his head in the washbasin. Merry’s eyes widened.

“Pippin,” he said slowly. “How much flour did you have in your hair, and how much water do you have in that basin?”

Pippin lifted up his head. “I don’t know, Merry. I had lots and lots of flour in my hair, because that’s where I wanted it, and I didn’t have very much water left because mama used most of it to clean me up just before tonight.” His curls were dripping wet flour onto the floor.

“Do you remember what happens when you mix flour and water together?”

“Sure! It gets sticky. Do you remember when- oh no.” There was a look of terror on Pippin’s face. He ran his fingers through his hair, and they came away with globs of a paste-like material. He tried to wash his fingers off in the basin, only to find it was full of the same pasty substance. “Merry! Merry! What do I do?”

Merry grinned. “We could go and dunk your head in the Brandywine.”

“Mer-ry! I’m serious!”

“Well, we’ll have to do something before it dries…”

“We could get a towel and rub it off.”

“Let’s try that, then.”

Twenty minutes later, Merry held in his hands a slightly sticky towel and beheld an amused Pippin, whose hair stuck out in hard spikes. Pippin touched his head gingerly.

“I have horns!”

Merry groaned. “We only helped the stuff to dry faster! What can we do? Wait- we can try to brush it out, or something. Now that it’s dry, it won’t stick to the brush- it’ll flake off!”

“But I hate having my hair brushed!”

Merry ignored Pippin’s protests, picked the brush up off of Pippin’s desk, and began to work the flour out of Pippin’s hair.

“Ow! Ow! You’re pulling on a knot!” Pippin wailed. Merry stopped and inspected the knot of hair and flour.

“This knot’s under all of your other hair,” Merry mused, fingering the knot. “I don’t think anyone would really notice if we cut it off…”

“PLEASE cut it off! Cut off as many of the knots as you can!”

“I’ll be right back. I know where mother keeps her sewing scissors. You keep brushing your hair out.”

Merry left Pippin to his arduous task and snuck down the hall to his parents’ room, keeping a wary eye out. He found his mother’s scissors and got back to Pippin as quickly as he could.

“Got them!”

Pippin’s face lit up. “Good, because I found another knot here, and here, and here…”

Merry sighed and began the process of cutting away the snarls.

After nearly an hour of cutting hair, cleaning clothes, and sweeping away remains, Merry and Pippin surveyed their work critically.

“I don’t think we did a shabby job, do you, Pip?”

Pippin shook his head. “No, it isn’t so bad. My head feels lighter, though,” he said, running his fingers through his curls. “Wait, Merry, did we rinse out the basin? I think it still has wet flour in it.” At that moment, Pearl Took burst into the room.

“There you two are! We’ve been looking for you for the past hour. Didn’t you hear us calling you?”

Merry and Pippin glanced at each other. “N-no, we didn’t hear you,” Pippin said uneasily.

“We were in here the whole time, if you were wondering. It was… too hot down at the party, so we came here to cool down.”

“I know! I’m too hot myself,” she said, fanning herself. Her cheeks were flushed and pink. “Do you mind if I use your washbasin, Pippin?”

Merry and Pippin looked at each other and grinned wickedly.

“Why no, Pearl.”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“Thanks.” Pearl dipped her hands into the slightly hardened paste in the basin and brought them to her hot face.

“Run!” Merry whispered to Pippin, and they shot out the door, Pearl’s angry shrieks following them down the hall.

“PEREGRIN TOOK! MERIADOC BRANDYBUCK! GET BACK HERE!”