“Well, what story would you like, my lad?” Bungo asked his son, as he always did whenever he put his son to bed. Belladonna, standing behind him, smiled indulgently. She knew what Bilbo would answer, what he always answered – but he managed to surprise them both. Instead of asking for a tale of Wizards, Dwarves and Elves, tales Bungo had learned to tell from ‘Adar Gerontius’, Bilbo said unexpectedly, “A Tip and Tulip story, Papa!”

These stories were the sort Bungo himself had grown up on, and he turned a puzzled look on his eleven-year-old lad. “Are you sure, Bilbo, my lad?”

“I’m a Baggins, Papa! I ought to hear proper Baggins stories, don’t you think?” 

Bungo gave Belladonna a sidelong look. She looked rather hurt by their son’s words for the briefest of moments, but managed to calm before Bilbo noticed, and so Bungo began in the proper manner.

“Once there were two little hobbits named Tip and Tulip. They were brother and sister, and they lived in a cozy little smial with their mama and their papa and their auntie…”

“Were they Bagginses, Papa?”

Bungo blinked at the interruption. How Tookish of his lad, he thought with wry amusement. “Yes, I should say so,” he agreed. “They were Tip and Tulip Baggins, and they lived in a cozy little smial with their mama and their papa and their auntie…”

“What about their uncle, Papa? And their cousins? Surely they had ever so many cousins. And their Granddads and Grandmums?”

Bungo rolled his eyes heavensward as Belladonna laughed. 

“Of course they had cousins, my love,” she said, planting a kiss on Bilbo’s curls. “But it was a little smial, not like Bag End. They couldn’t all live together, and I believe this auntie never married. She came to live with them because…” Belladonna glanced at Bilbo.

“Because Tip and Tulip were twins, and the birthing was hard on their Mama,” Bungo said. “So her sister came to live with them, to help tend the babies and help around the smial, and she just never left.”

“Oh,” Bilbo said, nodding. Now it was beginning to make sense.

“So, Tip and Tulip Baggins,” Bungo said, giving Belladonna an amused smile, which she returned, “were very good little hobbits. Their smial was situated by a little stream, and the lad and lass often played quietly in the shallow water together. They never quarreled, and they shared in everything. When their Papa and Mama, or their Auntie, called them in from their play to come eat, they did. And when they were asked to help around the house, they did that, too, without complaining.”

Bilbo thought of all the times he’d run about, half-wild, with Siggy, his best cousin, and all the scrapes they’d got into – he thought about Cousin Otho and how disagreeable he found his Baggins cousin. Otho certainly wasn’t like Tip and Tulip! But then, he was a Sackville-Baggins, and Bilbo supposed that couldn’t be helped. “Tip and Tulip were never naughty?” he asked, thinking it over.

“Oh, hardly ever,” Bungo said. “Not very, at least, I should say.”

“Because it isn’t proper?”

Bungo nodded. Bilbo scowled.

“Tip and Tulip sound boring, Papa. If they’re proper Bagginses, I’m glad I’m half-Took!”

Belladonna’s eyes sparkled, and she gave her son another kiss. Bungo looked rather discomfited. 

“Do you want a different story, then?”

“O yes! How about the one Gandalf tells about the great Mariner and the Dragon…”

“I’m not sure I remember that one, Bilbo,” Bungo began hesitantly, but he was cut off as Belladonna launched into the tale of Eärendil the Mariner and Ancalagon the Black, the great Dragon – suitably toned down for young lads’ ears!

Before long, Bilbo was fast asleep, dreaming of great Adventures, and his parents crept off to bed, laughing ruefully. “I imagine it was Aunt Pansy,” Bungo sighed. Belladonna nodded. Pansy Bolger had never approved of her family, not after the fiasco between her beloved brother Hilly, and Pansy's niece Rosa Baggins!