Chapter 1. Making Preparations

A Hobbit could starve to death in the midst of plenty.

Merry Gamgee meditated on this unfortunate fact after he was shooed from the kitchen at Bag End once again, when all he wanted was a bit of bread-and-butter.

O very well, to be perfectly honest he wanted considerably more than a bit of bread-and-butter. The smells emanating from kitchen were enough to drive any self-respecting tween wild: baking, stewing, roasting, simmering, frying, bubbling, poaching, cooking... and naught for the huddle of hovering tweens, no, not at all!

 ‘Come away, Merry!’ Pippin Gamgee said impatiently. ‘Surely there’s food to be had somewheres. We could go to the Ivy Bush, or the Green Dragon, or even to Cottons’—that would be worth the walk now, wouldn’t it?’

 ‘Aunt Marigold is probably baking something for the wedding,’ Merry said gloomily. ‘Just like everyone else between here and Bywater.’

 ‘We’ll just tell her we’ve been orphaned by a sudden disaster,’ Pippin said soothingly, patting his brother’s shoulder. ‘Aunt Mari will fall all over herself to feed us.’

 ‘Just so long as she feeds us,’ Merry grumbled.

 ‘Besides,’ Pippin added with a wink, ‘we had better take ourselves off before they think of any more tasks for us to do! Ham’s chopping wood, Tolman’s fetching wood, Bilbo and Robin are plucking chickens...’

 ‘And after we eat,’ Merry said, brightening, ‘we could go to Proudfoots’ and serenade Frodo as he’s pulling weeds!’

 ‘Now you’re talking!’ Pippin said, clapping his brother on the shoulder. ‘I knew you’d think of something!’

 ‘I’m light-headed from hunger; ‘tis difficult to think of clever things to do,’ Merry quavered like an old gaffer.

 ‘Come, lad, we’ll feed you and then you can think up lots of lovely things for us to do!’ Pippin said. ‘It’s our duty to make Frodo’s wedding memorable, you know!’

 ‘Such a heavy responsibility to bear,’ Merry sighed, shaking his head. Just then he heard Ruby calling his name. Ducking down instinctively, he pulled Pippin down beside him. ‘The cat is at the mousehole!’ he whispered. ‘Come along now, Pip!’ The two crept from the garden, staying low until they were out of sight of Bag End’s windows, and then laughing they raced each other down the Hill.

***

 ‘Where did those lads go?’ Rose asked querulously, wiping her damp brow with the back of her hand.

 ‘I’m sorry, Rose-mum, I thought I saw them skulking about just a few moments ago,’ Ruby said apologetically.

 ‘And all these good sandwiches gone to waste!’ Rose said, ‘after all Goldi’s work to make them up nice lunches for the lads.’

 ‘I’ll eat ‘em!’ Tolman said promptly, entering with another armload of wood. ‘And I’ll carry some to Ham, Robin and Bilbo.’

 ‘There’s a lad,’ Rose said. ‘Perhaps we should save some for Merry-lad and Pippin-lad.’

 ‘No need,’ Tolman said, giving his hands a cursory wash and quickly piling the sandwiches into a basket. ‘They’ll just go stale. Make up fresh ones when they come back from wherever it is they went.’

 ‘Arranging a wedding surprise for Frodo, no doubt,’ Rose said dryly.

 ‘Well that is one of their tasks, after all,’ Goldilocks said, seizing a cloth to remove the apple tarts from the oven. ‘There!’ she said, eyeing the fruit of her labours with delight.

 ‘O nicely done, Goldi!’ Rose praised from behind her, putting her hands on the tween’s shoulders to look at the tarts: perfectly browned and bubbling over with goodness. ‘Set them on the table there, dearie, and we’ll stir up some nice sugar icing to spoon over the top.’

 ‘Do you suppose you put in the right amount of sweetening?’ Tolman said, looking the tarts over with a critical eye. ‘Perhaps someone ought to taste one, just to make sure.’

 ‘I think we’ll chance it,’ Goldi said recklessly. ‘Do go on and take some sustenance to our brothers before they perish of hunger!’

Tolman laughed and left the kitchen, but not before Rose quickly scooped half-a-dozen large ginger biscuits from the cooling rack into the basket.

***

 ‘Merigrin Took! Come out of that tree this instant! The tutor’s been looking all over for you!’

 The bird he was painstakingly drawing took flight and fourteen-year-old Merry Took laid down his pencil and sighed. ‘I’m coming, Ruby,’ he said to his twin. He tucked the pencil into its pocket and closed up the leatherbound drawing case, a birthday present from his father the Thain. He slid out of the tree. ‘What does the old grackle want?’

 ‘Merry!’ Forget-me-not, also called "Ruby", scolded. ‘That’s disrespectful.’

 ‘What does the old owl want, then?’ Merry said, though he thought “grackle” fit the tutor perfectly. He invariably wore a rusty black coat and squawked just like the crested grackle Merry had drawn a month or so ago.

 ‘You shouldn’t call names,’ Ruby said with a sniff.

 ‘It’s a compliment to call someone an owl,’ Merry said. ‘What does he want?’

 ‘He wants you to do your sums, for starters, and isn’t there a recitation you were supposed to have by heart for today?’

 ‘Why aren’t you sitting in that stuffy old study, dutifully doing your sums?’ Merry said.

Ruby put on a superior air. ‘I’m all finished for the day!’ she said. ‘Master Telebold has given me the rest of the day to play.’

 ‘Don’t you have some silly sampler to stitch upon?’ Merry asked. It was an annoyance to think of his sister free to pursue her interests when he was about to be chained to a chair in a manner of speaking.

 ‘Papa was so pleased with my recitation he told me to forget the stitchery and dance in the sunshine,’ Ruby said.

 ‘Papa was there to hear recitations?’ Merry said with a groan. He was for it now. If the Thain had come to hear lessons and found his middle son missing...

 ‘Yes,’ Ruby said with a smirk. She thought they were too easy on Merry, probably just because he was named for the Master of Buckland, and was glad to think he’d have some consequences this time. ‘He said you evidently are not well-enough acquainted with work, that you take it so lightly, and so you must have more work to do to keep in practice. He told Telebold to double your work if you’re not finished by elevenses.’

 ‘But the Sun is nearly to nooning!’ Merry said in dismay.

 ‘You’ve half an hour until elevenses is served,’ Ruby said nonchalantly, but her observation fell on the air, for before she finished her brother had left her, running at best speed back to the Great Smials.

***

 ‘Shall I send out a search party?’ Berilac Brandybuck said.

Estella cast him an ironic glance. ‘And just where would you suggest they start searching?’

 ‘Better than sitting here fuming,’ the steward of Buckland said helpfully.

 ‘I am not fuming!’ Estella snapped. ‘My husband knew quite well the date of the wedding of the Mayor’s eldest son! He ought to have returned a week ago!’ She added under her breath, ‘I knew I should have gone to Rohan with him this time. Those Rohirrim!’

 ‘The souls of hospitality, isn’t that what you called them when you returned from the last visit?’ Berilac said, pouring Estella a soothing cup of tea.

 ‘Rohan is a pot of honey and Merry is a fly,’ Estella said. ‘Every time we visit, every time, they have this celebration or that festival or some important foal about to be born and of course we must put off leaving until afterwards. You  have to be firm with those people.’

 ‘Yes, I recall the last time you were only six weeks overdue on your return,’ Berilac said. ‘That was quite an improvement over the previous year.’

 ‘Well if Merry knows what’s good for him, he’ll be at Frodo Gardner’s wedding!’ Estella flared. Her restlessness would not be contained, and she swept out of the room, a whirlwind of irritated energy.

Berilac sighed and added more sugar to the tea he had started to prepare for Estella. He sipped meditatively. It would be a shame to let a good cup of tea go to waste. He wondered where Merry might be. Somewhere on the Road, on his way back from Rohan, undoubtedly. Worrier that he was, attending to every detail falling under his authority, surely Merry would not miss young Frodo’s wedding...