“The Best Made Plans of Peregrin Took”

(Pippin is 18 and Merry is 26)

It was frustrating really. That was all there was to it. He didn’t like to think of the time he’d spent on this and with no results to show for it save the fact that he’d wasted a perfectly good afternoon that he could have spent elsewhere doing something enjoyable. Why had he let himself believe that he could actually manage to pull something like this off on his own? It probably wouldn’t even work. Of course there was no knowing that unless the trap was actually sprung and that seemed very unlikely now.

Pippin frowned over at the slightly open door. He let his eyes move up to the perfectly balanced bucket that sat on top of the edge of the door just waiting to be tipped over. The bucket had been there in that very spot now for nearly two hours without anyone pushing the door open and causing the bucket to empty its contents onto the head of the hobbit responsible for this wasted effort. Just exactly where was Merry anyway?

Pippin sighed and shifted his position. He was starting to get tired of keeping watch on the door. He had put in a great deal of work earlier and he was starting to feel sleepy. Pulling off pranks wasn’t as easy as some folks might think. It took effort and planning to execute them properly. This was especially true if the prank in question was one that you’d never actually seen accomplished before.

For years Pippin had heard the stories about the time that Frodo had placed a bucket full of flour on the very top of Bilbo’s study door in the hopes of pulling a prank on his favorite relative. Frodo had been eighteen and had come for a visit to Bag End, or that was how the story usually went. Pippin had heard eighteen most often but some folks told that Frodo was twenty and Pippin had even heard that Frodo was only twelve in one astonishing version. Pippin doubted, now that he’d tried the trick himself, that a mere lad of twelve could have got the bucket up on a door. The round edge of the door made it imperative that one got the bucket exactly in the center-most spot on the door or else the bucket would simply fall to the side and spoil the trick before the intended victim ever actually arrived. So far, Pippin’s intended victim had failed to show up. Just where was Merry?

Getting back to the story about Frodo and the original bucket trick, Pippin remembered that Frodo had filled the bucket with flour and had set it in place and then Frodo had sat down at Bilbo’s desk to wait. In the story, Bilbo had arrived soon after Frodo had finished setting things up, unlike Merry who had yet to arrive at all! Bilbo had said something like. ‘Frodo are you in there?’ and then he had pushed the door to the room open and got quite a surprise. This was always Pippin’s favorite part of the story. Everyone that told it spent a good deal of time describing how Bilbo had looked when he was coated with flour. In fact it had never occurred to Pippin until just this minute but none of the folks that told the story had been there when it had happened and so Pippin wondered if Frodo had described Bilbo’s appearance to them or if they had just imagined what Bilbo might look like all covered in flour. Pippin had imagined what Merry would look like covered in flour and he had been very pleased with the image.

He could just imagine Merry slowly pushing the door to the room open and the bucket emptying onto Merry’s head and coating Merry with flour. He also had enjoyed picturing the astonished look on Merry’s face. Then he had further enjoyed hearing Merry say, ‘Pippin! When I catch you I am going to kill you!’ That part was only funny because of the open window. Pippin had been a very careful planner this time. He had even planned his escape. Before sitting down on Merry’s bed to wait for the payoff to his trick, Pippin had opened the window wide enough for an escape. He would enjoy the look on Merry’s face, as he stood there covered in flour all flustered and trying to brush the flour off of himself. He would enjoy it when Merry managed to get the flour out of his eyes and when Merry saw him sitting there laughing then he would jump up from the bed and scurry right out the window before Merry could get his wits about him. The last thing Pippin would enjoy was hearing Merry say, ‘Pippin! When I catch you I am going to kill you!’

Pippin sighed and shifted on the bed again. He really hated to get up and go over there and take the bucket down after all of the work it had been to position it. He was also not about to crawl out of the window and leave his prank unattended. He didn’t want to miss the finish of it whenever Merry arrived. If he left that would be exactly when Merry would walk into the room. The prank would still happen but Merry wouldn’t know who had performed such a brilliant trick on him. Pippin would also miss out on seeing it all and then years later when someone told the story there wouldn’t be anyone about that knew how Merry looked when he was coated in flour. The story wouldn't have that same amusing description like the one about Frodo and Bilbo had without a witness. Pippin was extremely bored just now though. Maybe he could write a note and leave it on the bed for Merry to find.

Merry wouldn’t be in the mood to look around for a note when he was coated with flour and left wondering who he should kill, would he? No, Merry would most likely do a lot of yelling, dust himself off and then charge out of the room in search of whoever had pranked him. Merry wouldn’t think it was Pippin because this trick was just too well thought out to be one of Pippin’s tricks. Even Pippin wouldn’t think that it was his own trick if he hadn’t just spent several hours waiting for Merry and if he hadn’t spent at least two hours setting the entire thing up. That was the trouble with pranks. You went to a great deal of effort and so it was very hard not to want credit for your work.

Pippin yawned and stretched out on the bed. A quick nap might not be a bad idea. It would be time for dinner soon and Merry would be back for dinner. Merry would come into his room to wash up for the evening meal and instead of washing up he’d get a face full of flour for his trouble. A quick nap wouldn’t hurt and then Pippin reasoned, he would be awake and properly able to enjoy the end result of his prank.

*****

There was a noise somewhere. Footsteps maybe? Pippin wasn’t sure since he was only slightly awake. Someone out in the hall. Voices. Two of them. One a lass’s voice and one Merry’s! Pippin sat up and immediately looked toward the door. Merry was back. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stared at the door, willing it to open. He gave a quick glance up toward the bucket to make sure that it was still in place and then the door began to move! Pippin was excited beyond words. He had to put both hands over his mouth to keep from laughing with joy as he watched the bucket slowly tip over as the door opened wider. Then his heart was suddenly in his throat and his eyes were as wide as saucers. His hands fell away from his mouth and he shouted a warning. “No, go back!” But unfortunately, it was too late for that.

There was a loud thunk as the bucket crashed down from the top of the door and dumped all of its floury contents out. Pippin watched in horror as the bucket came to rest upside down on top of his Aunt Esmeralda’s flour-coated head. There stood Merry’s mum with a large bucket over her head and flour all over her. Pippin was completely immobilized by fear. He sat there on Merry’s bed as his dear Aunt weaved about in an effort to keep her balance. He could hear her coughing and sputtering and, and, swearing! Aunt Esmeralda was actually swearing! A part of him was frantically yelling, ‘Pippin you idiot, get out of the window before she gets that bucket off of her head and sees you!’ but another part of him was yelling, ‘Pippin! You’ve killed her! She’s going to fall over on the floor in Merry’s room and just drop dead from the shock or maybe the blow to the head.’ All of this was going on inside Pippin’s mind but his body wasn’t doing anything. He was just sitting there with his mouth hanging open while his Aunt spun in a circle and waved her arms about like a wind mill.

Pippin coughed as the air in Merry’s bedroom filled with flour dust. Aunt Esmeralda certainly was stirring about enough and the flour had spread out more than Pippin would have thought possible. In that story about Frodo and Bilbo, the flour was all on Bilbo and Pippin didn’t remember the bucket hitting Bilbo in the head either. That was a surprise. Pippin had once got a bucket stuck on his own head and he hoped that this bucket wasn’t stuck on Aunt Esme’s head. What had happened to the bucket in Frodo’s prank? Why hadn’t anyone ever said anything about that bucket hitting Bilbo in the head? Why was it that folks couldn’t tell a story properly without leaving out important bits like what happened to the bucket?

“Mum?” Merry called out. “Are you all right in there?”

Pippin groaned softly and that was when the hic-ups began. Sometimes when he was very nervous, Pippin would get the hic-ups. Naturally, he had plenty to be nervous about just now and so he had the hic-ups. As he watched his favorite Aunt come to a stop near the foot of Merry’s bed and pull the bucket from her flour-covered head, Pippin hic-upped several times. He watched as his Aunt shook her head like a wet dog, which threw flour all over Pippin, and he watched as she rubbed the flour out of her eyes. That was when he squeezed his own eyes shut and silently wished he’d listened to that voice that told him to go out the window earlier.

“Peregrin Took did you have anything to do with this?” his Aunt’s voice asked in a very low, very controlled tone unlike the voice he’d heard her use earlier when she’d been spinning in a circle and swearing. That voice had been shrill and loud. This voice was far more dangerous than that one.

Pippin opened his eyes a tiny bit and then tried to say something but only managed to hic-up loudly. He put his hand over his mouth and nodded his head as she glared through flour-ringed eyes at him while holding the now-empty bucket in her hands.

Pippin could see Merry leaning against the doorframe and watching everything with a very amused look on his face. Somehow, that was the worst part of this. At least it had seemed like the worst part right up until his Aunt had begun to lecture him. That had seemed like the worst part until she had set him to cleaning Merry’s room. Pippin came to realize just how hard it was to clean flour up. It was especially hard if someone had shook it out of their hair and brushed it off of their clothes and just generally made things much worse than they had to be, but telling Aunt Esme that she’d made a bigger mess of things didn’t seem like a good idea. Besides, it was very hard to talk properly when you were hic-cupping constantly.

Later as Pippin lay in his own bed trying to quit hic-upping, Aunt Esme came in with a glass of water. She hadn’t spoken to him since she’d set him to cleaning Merry’s room, which had taken him several hours. The flour was on every surface in the entire room and even out in the hallway. He had also had to clean up the trail of flour that his Aunt had left when she stormed out of Merry's room on her way to clean herself up. Just before she had left she had told him, “As soon as you finish that, Peregrin Took, you will go straight to your room and stay there until I am through being angry with you. I will have all of your meals sent in and you will not set one furry toe out of your room until I say that you may!” Now, here she was bringing him water for his ever-present hic-ups.

“Drink this,” she said gently as she handed him the glass and looked over at his nearly full dinner plates. Pippin hadn't been very hungry this evening and the hic-ups made it difficult to eat. Every time he went to swallow he would hic-up and his food would come right back up. After attempting to eat the same piece of cheese several times only to have it returned by a sudden hic-up, Pippin had finally given up the effort altogether. It didn't make for a pleasant meal when what you were trying to eat kept escaping.

Pippin returned his attention to the offered glass of water and gratefully took it with both hands and drank. “You were sup-*hic* posed-to be Merry,” he said lamely after finishing the water.

She took the glass from his hands and sat it on the table by the bed. “I figured out that much of it while I was taking a bath,” Esmeralda said.

“I didn’t mean-*hic* for the flour to fall on-*hic* you, honestly,” Pippin apologized earnestly. “It-*hic* was a prank.”

“Sometimes pranks don’t come off as planned, do they?” his Aunt said with a slight smile.

Pippin shook his head. “No,” he managed looking down at his blankets to avoid her gaze. “I don’t under-*hic* stand about the bucket.”

“What about it?” Esmeralda asked.

“I’ve been trying to-*hic* puzzle it out all-*hic* evening and I can’t figure it,” Pippin admitted. He had been trying to figure out the bucket. “I never meant to-*hic* hit anyone in the-*hic* head with a bucket! Not even-*hic* Merry,” he explained.

“Well what in all the wide world of the Shire did you think would happen to the bucket?” Esmeralda said in a very Tookish tone. “You couldn’t have thought it would just up and float away.”

Pippin shook his head and looked at her. “I didn’t think -*hic* about it at all. It wasn’t told about in-*hic* the story so I didn’t -*hic* figure on it or what it-*hic* would do.”

She looked at him intently. “What story?”

“About the-*hic* time that Fro-*hic*” Pippin groaned in frustration. These hic-ups were driving him mad and they made explaining anything nearly impossible.

“That story about the time that Frodo dumped a bucket of flour on Bilbo?” Esmeralda said helping him out.

Pippin nodded. “That’s it.”

“So that’s where you got the idea for this bit ‘o mischief is it?” she smiled.

“Aye,” Pippin nodded.

“The bucket is supposed to be tied to the top of the door frame with a short rope so that when the bucket falls all it does is dump out its contents onto the victim,” Esmeralda said. “That keeps it from nearly knocking the hobbit that you are tricking unconscious.”

Pippin’s face must have shown his alarm at the mention of knocking someone unconscious because suddenly his Aunt had her arms around him and she was giving him a hug and rubbing his back as he hic-upped against her shoulder. “I didn’t-*hic* meant to hurt-*hic* you,” he managed.

“Pippin, darlin’ you didn’t hurt me,” she assured him. “It landed so that it only startled me more than anything.” She chuckled and Pippin pulled back and looked up at her in amazement. “I must have looked a sight with that bucket on my head and me all covered with flour!”

Pippin grinned shyly and nodded. “You were a sight at that.”

She smiled at him. “You lay down and go to sleep now. You didn’t hurt me and I suspect that I’ve recovered from the shock.”

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if someone had told me about the rope but every time I heard the story folks just left out the rope,” Pippin complained. “That’s an important detail for them to leave out, don’t you think?”

“I do indeed,” Esmeralda replied rubbing her head and smiling. “I think it would have been better for all concerned if someone had told you about the rope.”

Pippin lay down and let his favorite Aunt tuck him in as if he were much younger than eighteen and just as she stood he thought to ask, “Am I still stuck in this room tomorrow?”

“Yes, you are,” she said gently. “But I suppose that I’ll let you out at dinner time as long as you don’t take it into your head to dump anything else on top of me.”

“That seems more than fair,” Pippin sighed. Then he sat up and grinned at her. “My hic-ups are gone!”

“Yes they are,” she said. “Now, off to sleep with you. I’ll see you at first breakfast when I bring your tray in to you, you wicked child.”

Pippin lay back down, smiling. “Good-night,” he said softly as she left the room and closed the door behind her. He really did think that he’d got off rather easily. He had dumped a bucket of flour on her and hit her with the bucket in the bargain. It was a good thing that she wasn’t Merry or he’d be in for a return prank. At least this way all he got was a day in his room and a cleaning job. Besides, he’d learned several very important things today. First, always get the entire story behind something even if you have to pin folks down and ask questions. If he’d have done that then surely someone would have mentioned the rope. Second, never count on Merry to show up for anything on time. Third, even with planning a prank can still go wrong. But the most important lesson of all was that he now knew exactly why his Aunt Esmeralda was his favorite Aunt.

Pippin sighed and turned over to go to sleep. The next time, he’d know about the rope and he planned to have a long talk with Frodo about all of this when next he saw him. Frodo had some explaining to do about this rope business!

The End

GW 01/22/2006