This one is a bit of a part 2 to the story just before this, "The Best Made Plans of Peregrin Took".  You don't have to read that one to read this one, but it helps a bit.  This one is set post quest and refers to "Best Made Plans".  Frodo, Merry, Pippin and a bit of Sam.

                                             Secrets and Smiles

I watch from my chair in the far corner of the room and I can’t help but smile at the young hobbit holding everyone’s attention with the yarn that he is so artfully spinning.  Several of his listeners are laughing so hard that they are doubled over and I see tears of mirth in the eyes of more than one of them.  The story is one that has been told repeatedly but we hobbits enjoy hearing a good tale told again and again most especially if the story is a favorite such as this one is and if the hobbit telling it can bring something new to it. 

I study the young hobbit carefully.  I smile when I am satisfied that I see no traces of our journey in his manner save for a bit more self-confidence.  The bright green eyes twinkle with mischief and the lips quirk up in a fashion that lets all of his listeners know that he isn’t afraid to laugh at himself.  He holds his shoulders straight and sits tailor fashion on an old rug with his back to the hearth.  I have to smile as I see him run his fingers absently over the elaborate gold trim on his new waistcoat.  He’s been admiring it all evening and now when he is surrounded by avid listeners he still can’t help himself.

The waistcoat was a birthday gift.  I was there when Merry gave it to him just before the party.  Merry had handed him the carefully wrapped package and said, “Here, Pip.  I can’t have you looking your usual fright at my thirty-ninth birthday.”  Pippin had pretended to be insulted for all of about five seconds.  Then when he’d opened the gift and seen the handsome dark green waistcoat with the gold trim his pretense had faded and he’d hurriedly tried it on.  From the delighted expression on his face, you would have thought that Merry had given him two sacks filled with diamonds and jewels rather than a waistcoat. 

“You’ve given me something proper!” Pippin had declared as Merry and I laughed at him.  He had blushed then but had wrapped his arms around Merry and hugged him fiercely.  All evening Merry and I had gained great amusement by watching Pippin admire himself in every reflective surface that he encountered.  Pippin has never been one to care about his appearance very much and so it is quite funny to see him so taken with his own reflection.

“More tea, Mister Frodo?” Sam asks interrupting my thoughts.

“No, thank you, Sam,” I reply with a reassuring smile for my dearest friend.  He worries too much about me and so I do try to look light-hearted as often as is possible.  “I am just enjoying Pippin’s story-telling.  He has them all in the palm of his hand tonight.”

Sam looks up at Pippin and then says with a shrug.  “He always has folks in the palm ‘o his hand.”

I really can’t argue with that statement for Pippin has always been a charmer.  From his place by the mantle, Merry sees us and gives me a nod and a grin as a wave of laughter flows through Pippin’s audience.  The birthday lad looks relaxed and happy as he leans against the mantle with a glass of brandy in one hand.  I give him a wave of my hand and smile back.  Merry worries almost as much as Sam does and I don’t want to spoil his special night.  It has crossed my mind that I’ll not be around for too many more birthday celebrations and so I am trying my best to make this one count.

Satisfied with my apparent mood, Merry turns his attention back to Pippin who is now describing my beloved Bilbo all coated in flour.  As Pippin regales Merry’s party guests with the details of Bilbo’s appearance, he looks at me and winks quickly.  I wink back.  Sam catches us both, raises an eyebrow in curiosity, but doesn’t ask.  I am grateful for that because this is a small secret between Pippin and I.  It goes back about twelve years now.

As I watch the newly mature Pippin who now sits and entertains Merry’s party guests I can still see the flustered eighteen-year-old that I found standing on my stoop late one afternoon.  I had just finished washing up my dishes from afternoon tea when I’d heard a knock on my front door.

***

“Pippin!” I grinned.  “What a pleasant surprise.  I didn’t know you were in Hobbiton.  Come in, lad.”  I held the door open wide and Pippin strode inside like someone on a mission.

“Frodo, Uncle Doc says to tell you that he and Merry are having a pint at the Green Dragon and for you to come and join them,” Pippin said breathlessly.

“I’ll just get my coin purse and go right along,” I said but I found that Pippin was blocking my way.

“Please don’t go just yet,” he said hurriedly.  “I can’t come into the Dragon with you because it’s after luncheon and I’m not allowed this close to evening hours and I need to speak to you but if you go to the Dragon I won’t get a chance.  Please?”

This sudden rush of words startled me.  Pippin often managed to overwhelm me with his rapid speech and I hadn’t seen him in several months so I was quite out of the habit of listening properly.  I must have looked completely puzzled because he slowed it down and tried again.  “I need to ask you about something, Frodo,” Pippin said.  I could see him trying to speak slower.  He was struggling to hold back the rush of words that threatened to  drownd us both.  “If you go now, then I won’t be alone with you and I don’t want anyone to know that I asked you this.”  That was when he sped up again.  “Aunt Esmeralda only let me come to give you the message and then if you go I’m to come back and follow her about to several shops in the market while she looks at cloth and hats and buys dishes and whatever else she likes that I don’t care for at all.”

“Easy, Pippin,” I laughed.  “I suppose that you and I could sit here for a while and talk if it will help you escape an afternoon of shopping.”

He gulped for breath and looked slightly relieved.  “I don’t know why I can’t go into the Dragon after five.  I can go in there before five and I would do the very same thing after five that I do before five.  I would just be doing it later in the day.  Just what is it that happens in there after five, Frodo?” Pippin asked as I tried my best to lead him to the kitchen.  My plan was to feed him.  I figured if he were filling his mouth with food and drink he would have to speak slower or he would surely choke.

“Is that what you wanted to ask me about?” I inquired.

“What?” he looked confused as we reached the kitchen.  “Oh, no.  I wonder about that but it isn’t at all why I’m here now.  I need to ask you a question about Bilbo.”

This took me by surprise because Pippin had been but eleven when Bilbo had left the Shire.  Pippin had adored Bilbo but he didn’t speak of him often simply because I suspect he didn’t remember him nearly as well as Merry and I.  “Sit down and I will get us something to drink, Pippin,” I offered.  “Then you can ask me your question about Bilbo.  I will be most happy to help you if I can at all.”

“Well, if you can’t then no one can,” Pippin said tartly.  “I can’t ask Bilbo and you were the only other one there at the time so it has to be you.”

“Very well,” I said.  I might find myself confused by the speed of Pippin’s speech but I was very well acquainted with his blunt mannerisms.  Pippin never meant to be insulting or rude but he often managed both simply because he was so very out spoken.  I quickly poured him a large cup of cold milk and sat this and a plate of freshly baked oatmeal cookies in front of him.

As I sat down across from him with a cup of milk for myself he got to the point.  “Frodo, when you pulled that prank on Bilbo with the bucket of flour how old were you?” he asked ignoring the milk and cookies in a very unhobbit-like manner.

“I was your age,” I answered carefully.  This was not my favorite topic and I was wondering why it had come up just now but Pippin didn’t give me too much time to think on that.

“Why doesn’t anyone ever explain about the rope when they tell the story?” Pippin asked.

“Rope?” I frowned.  “Pippin, if you are thinking of using this trick on-“

“You’re too late to warn me, Frodo,” Pippin admitted in a rather embarrassed tone.  “I tried it last week and it didn’t go the way I’d planned it.  That’s why I have to know about the rope and you are the only one that can help me.  You see, I nearly knocked Aunt Esme unconscious with that bucket and it was all because I didn’t know about the rope.”

“Aunt Esme?” I said completely shocked.  “You actually pulled this prank on your Aunt?  Peregrin Took, I am surprised at you!”

“No, Frodo,” Pippin said quickly.  “I was trying to prank Merry but Aunt Esme came into Merry’s room instead of Merry and the whole thing went wrong at that point.”

I relaxed a bit for knowing that Pippin hadn’t actually been trying to dump flour on Merry’s mother but I was still completely confused as to why he was telling me all of this. 

“I set the trick up just like I’d heard folks say it went when they told the story,” Pippin said.  “I put a full bucket of flour over Merry’s door and I had it perfectly balanced and everything.  It isn’t all that easy to do as I am sure you must know having done it yourself.”

“No, it isn’t a simple matter,” I agreed.

“And to make matters worse, Merry was late in returning and I spent the entire afternoon waiting in his room for him to come in so that I could prank him,” Pippin said, finally noticing the cookies and taking one.  “I wasted an entire day on it all and then wound up in my room the entire next day because I had dumped flour on Aunt Esme instead of Merry.  I lost two days of my summer on this and so naturally I want to know why it is that no one ever mentions the rope.”

“Pippin, you aren’t thinking of attempting this again, are you?” I asked.

“Well, not really,” he said taking a large bite of the cookie and chewing quickly.  “It’s only that I could have killed her with that bucket if it hadn’t landed straight over her head the way it did.  She could have been hurt and it would have been my fault and that’s all down to no one mentioning the rope.”

I had to fight the urge to laugh as I pictured my tall, imposing Cousin Esmeralda covered in flour with a bucket over her head.  But Pippin wasn’t paying attention to my efforts and he continued.  “It isn’t fair that when folks recount your prank they leave out details, Frodo.”

“Pippin, can you keep a secret?” I asked him and mercifully, this got his attention.  Pippin was always pleased when anyone trusted him with a secret.

“Of course I can, Frodo,” Pippin said looking hopefully at me now.  He was always trying so hard to please Merry and I and to seem older.  Secret keeping was something that he’d worked long and hard on because his natural impulse is to tell whatever comes to mind.  He had only just begun to be able to keep a confidence recently and he was eager to prove himself with the new opportunity that I was offering him.  “I won’t tell anyone.  Not even Merry if you say so,” Pippin said looking desperately earnest.

“Pippin, you and I don’t have any real secrets that are just ours really,” I said slowly.  “Most of the secrets that we share with one another are also known by Merry or even several other folks.  This will be the first time that you and I have our own special secret.  I am trusting you with this and I hope you won’t let me down because this secret involves Bilbo.”

“Bilbo?” Pippin looked impressed.  He knew that I rarely shared anything private about Bilbo with anyone.

“Yes, because as you pointed out when this conversation first began, only Bilbo and I were there when the original flour prank took place,” I said.  “This secret is one that I have only shared with Bilbo.  Now that Bilbo is away, I am going to trust you with it.”

Pippin managed to look nervous and thrilled all at the same time.  The two emotions fought for control of his face and thrilled finally won out.  “Oh, Frodo, I promise.  I may not be old enough to be in The Green Dragon after five but I can keep a secret,” Pippin declared.

I smiled.  “Good because I am going to give you a very big one to keep.” 

He leaned forward intently and that was how he remained the entire time that I was telling him my story.  He looked at me as if he were preparing to memorize my every word.

***

“We had been up late the night before,” I began.  “Bilbo had allowed me to stay up and visit with him and several of the dwarves who had come by on their way to Bree.  I had been very entertained by their stories and had heard a great many tales that I never heard Bilbo speak of before.   One of these involved a couple of lads who somehow managed to drop a bucket of flour over the head of Bilbo’s father.  I was so impressed with that particular prank because Bilbo said it had been glorious.  He went on further to say that he wished he’ d been the one to do it but that he wasn’t.  He said that he had only seen it.”

“I went to bed that night planning how I might pull that very trick on Bilbo.  You see I could tell that he was impressed with the lads who had been brave enough to attempt it and clever enough to pull it off and naturally, I wanted to impress Bilbo.  I had decided that this was the way to do that very thing.  I would impress him by pulling the prank that he so admired.  I would impress him further still by managing to pull the prank on him.”

Pippin sat there slowly munching cookie after cookie while I continued my narrative.  Anyone who knew him at that age might have been sure that I’d turned him to stone because the lad was never that still or that quiet for that long.

“I was spending an entire month with Bilbo.  This was nearly four years before I moved in with him here at Bag End.  I planned the trick out for days and I had decided that my location would be his study.  It seemed perfect to me because he came into his study every single day after luncheon and was in there for several hours while I amused myself by reading and walking in the garden.  I had got up the night before and hidden an entire sack of flour in the study behind a large stack of books.  I don’t know if you remember or not but Bilbo was not one for house keeping and often had large stacks of books just sitting about, especially in the study.”

Pippin nodded so that I might know that he remembered but he didn’t say anything so I continued.  “I had already hidden a bucket in there behind the sofa after supper while Bilbo was having a pipe with the Gaffer and so I was ready to pull off my prank.  I had my flour and my bucket and I had chosen my location.”

Pippin looked impressed with my planning as he took a long drink of milk and selected another cookie.  “The next day about an hour before luncheon I asked Bilbo’s permission to use his study to write a letter to Uncle Saradoc.  I often wrote to Buckland while visiting and so that was a fairly clever excuse to use and Bilbo didn’t seem to take any notice of it.  He gave me permission and even told me that I could use one of his newer quills for my letter.  I must admit that I had a slight pang of guilt at that moment but it only lasted for a minute or two.  I was soon thinking how glorious it would be if I managed to play what seemed to me to be one of Bilbo’s favorite pranks.  I reasoned that I shouldn’t feel guilty because in the end, Bilbo would be proud of me.”

Pippin smiled and finished his milk.  He was still playing me his complete attention.

“I found a small step ladder that Bilbo kept in the study and quickly set to work.  As you know balancing the bucket on the rounded top of the door is dreadfully difficult and so I was a very long time getting that exactly right.  Filling the bucket before hand was no trouble at all but that business of balancing it and leaving the door open just enough was very tricky.  I had nearly decided to give up when I finally managed it.” 

Pippin was looking puzzled now but he still didn’t interrupt me.  “I sat down at Bilbo’s desk and waited.  I didn’t have to wait long because Bilbo soon came to get me for luncheon.  That was what I’d been counting on when I selected the time of my prank.  I knew that he would walk into the study to get me for luncheon.  Now, this is where everything begins to go wrong.”

Pippin looked at me in surprise.  He wrinkled his nose a bit and frowned because as far as he knew nothing had gone wrong.  The prank had gone off splendidly.  I was about to ruin his opinion of this particular prank for good and all and I did wonder if I were doing the right thing but I kept hearing him ask about a rope and so I knew that this was probably for the best.  Once Pippin gets hold of an idea, he doesn’t let go until he is satisfied with his answers so telling him the truth was the best thing. 

I hurried on with my tale.  “I was very pleased when I heard Bilbo approaching the door to the study.  I even heard him call out to me but of course I didn’t answer because I wanted him to open the door.  The prank wouldn’t work if he didn’t open the door and so I waited.  Suddenly I could see the tiniest shift in the door and I actually saw the bucket quiver slightly.  Then I heard it.  The sound of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins’s shrill voice calling out, “Bilbo Baggins!  I know you’re home I smell stew cooking!”

Pippin’s mouth fell open and his eyes widened.  He wasn’t expecting Lobelia and frankly I hadn’t been either.  I sighed and continued.  “Lobelia’s voice has always had a peculiar affect on Bilbo and he actually shudders whenever he hears it.  I could just imagine him with his hand on the doorknob about to come in and complete my prank and then Lobelia spoiled the entire thing because instead of opening the door to the study, Bilbo closed it!  He pulled the door completely shut and I hear him say, “Save yourself, lad.  Count to ten and then go out the window and eat in town while I get rid of her.”

Pippin giggled a bit at that part and I returned his smile.  “Well, I don’t have to tell you what happened to the bucket at that moment.  It was knocked to the floor on my side of the study and flour went everywhere.  Bilbo didn’t hear the racket that it made because Lobelia was shouting for him again and I could hear him hurrying toward the kitchen.”

***

Pippin and I sat there looking at one another and finally Pippin said, “You mean it didn’t work?  You didn’t actually dump flour all over Bilbo?”

“No, I didn’t,” I said.

“Then why does everyone say that you did?” Pippin frowned.  “I’ve heard that story all of my life.  Everyone tells it and in every single version of it, Bilbo gets coated with flour and you are successful.  Bilbo is shocked at first but he quickly recovers and thinks it a wonderful joke on him.  He always laughs and everyone that tells the story talks about how clever you were and how amused Bilbo was.  They all claim to have heard Bilbo himself tell the story!”

“That last part is entirely true,” I told him.  “Bilbo did tell the story and with each telling it became better and better and I became more clever and Bilbo was covered in more flour with each telling.  But I am telling you now that it didn’t happen the way that you’ve always heard that it did.”

“You mean to say that Bilbo lied?” Pippin said, cutting to the very blunt fact of it all in the way that he always did.

“Yes, he did,” I said.  “You see, Pippin he came in later and found me trying desperately to clean up his study.  I had flour all over myself and it seems that the more you sweep flour-“

“The more it spreads,” Pippin finished for me with a knowing frown.

“I see that Esmeralda made you clean up the mess,” I smiled.

“She did and it took ages,” Pippin sighed.

“It took me a very long time too,” I said.  “You see, Pippin the thing you have to know about Bilbo is that he loves a great story and he also loves me very much.  Naturally he realized at once that I had been trying to impress him.  He actually got a bit teary eyed when he realized that I had gone to all of that trouble.  In fact, he didn’t punish me.  He just made me clean it all up.”

“Aunt Esmeralda punished me,” Pippin sighed.

“Bilbo might have felt less flattered if I had actually succeeded,” I grinned at my younger cousin.  “Since I managed to fail so spectacularly he got slightly emotional over it all.  I begged him not to tell Saradoc and Esme about it because I knew that they would not be pleased with me in the least.  Bilbo thought I was embarrassed because the trick had not gone off properly but I was worried about being punished.  Bilbo also enjoyed blaming my failure on Lobelia.  He liked to blame Lobelia for anything that he could and so this pleased him to have something new that he could dislike her for.”

Pippin laughed.  “But even you don’t mention the rope when you tell it,” he said suddenly serious.

“That is because I didn’t use a rope,” I sighed.

“You mean that you didn’t have a rope either?” Pippin said in astonishment.

“No, I didn’t know I was supposed to have one until Bilbo asked me where I had tied it to,” Frodo laughed.  “So, your prank was actually more successful than mine.  You did manage to cover someone in flour.  I missed completely and neither of us had a rope.  That, my dear cousin, is why there is never any mention of a rope when the story is told.”

“But all of that other business about Bilbo coated in flour and-“

“Bilbo made it all up and told it in the way that made me sound the most impressive,” Frodo smiled.  “He was the one that first told the tale and started it spreading around.  He thought I would be pleased by it.  For years I was embarrassed whenever it was mentioned because I knew the real story and even though Bilbo made it sound wonderfully funny, I knew that it wasn’t like that at all.  Later, I realized that Bilbo was trying to make me look impressive to others and that he was already quite fond of me in spite of my failure to perform the prank.”

“But he told it so very well,” Pippin said, still amazed.  “I heard him tell it at least twice when I was very small and I laughed and so did everyone else.”

“I think that after telling it for so long and telling it so well that Bilbo actually came to believe it himself, Pippin,” I explained.  I really do believe that he convinced himself that it happened in just that way.  “Now do you see why I told you that this was a secret?”

“I do,” Pippin said.  “I promise that I will never tell another soul about this, Frodo as long as I live.”  His green eyes were filled with a rare seriousness as he promised me this.

“I will take the secret to my grave,” Pippin said dramatically.

“I know you will,” I said.  “But please don’t take it there any time soon."

He smiled shyly at me.  "You know what I mean.  I promise that I won't tell this to anyone, ever," Pippin said.

"Thank you, Pippin. You see, I don’t want anyone to think unkindly of Bilbo and so I don’t want them to know that he lied a bit to make the story more entertaining or to make me sound impressive.”

“Besides all of that,” Pippin said quite seriously.  “It’s a wonderful tale and it would completely spoil it to change it now.”

“It would indeed,” I said.

***

I listen as Pippin begans to describe Bilbo.  “There he stood, all covered in flour and looking like a snow hobbit.  All anyone could have seen of him was his eyes peering out of all of that white.  He just stood there completely surprised by it all with no idea how this could have happened to him right in his very own study!”  Everyone is laughing as Pippin pauses to allow them time to enjoy the image of Bilbo covered in flour.  Pippin is becoming quite masterful at story telling.  Most of the Tooks do have a gift for it. It was most likely from his Took side of the family that Bilbo inherited his talent for the telling of tales. 

Pippin looks toward me again and winks and then his attention is back on his audience.  He is telling them how impressed Bilbo was with my planning and how very clever I was for a young lad of fourteen.  Pippin has always thought that twelve was too young an age to be believable but that fourteen was much more impressive than eighteen. Whenever he recounts the tale, I am fourteen in it and I always remembered the rope. 

It has been Pippin’s distinct pleasure to include a detailed account of how the bucket is attached to something by a short rope so that the bucket does not hit the victim of the prank in the head.  Pippin confided to me that he felt this was an omission that needed to be corrected so that other young lads and lasses wouldn’t harm anyone when they tired the trick out for themselves.  I find his reasoning on this to be very astuit and I am quite sure that Esmeralda Brandybuck would agree with me. 

The rope makes for a better story and Pippin lengthens the tale by giving an account of how I attached the rope to the bucket and then to a small hook above the door.  I am amazed the no one has ever asked why the hook was above the door in the first place.  Pippin also takes extra pains to describe Bilbo coated in flour and everyone agrees that Pippin’s version of it is one of the best.  Pippin will most likely follow this telling of my tale with his own misadventure with flour.  He will tell that one equally well but without too many embellishments.  He leaves himself open to be teased for forgetting the rope and hitting the wrong target. This makes his audience love him all the more.  One of Pippin’s finest traits is his ability to laugh at his own mistakes.

As I sit back in my arm chair and listen to the laughter I look at Merry who is grinning wider and laughing more than anyone.  In fact, it was probably Merry who requested the tale in the first place.  Like me, he loves to hear Pippin wind a good yarn up and pepper it with humor.  Just now Merry is every inch the proud older cousin as he enjoys Pippin’s tale.  Merry has become such a fine young hobbit.  At thirty-nine I believe that he could direct the business of the entire Shire without any difficulty if he needed to do so.  Both he and Pippin have been forced to grow up too quickly but somehow, each of them has adapted to their new roles quite well.  I will always be grateful that our frightening journey didn’t manage to take the joy and the mischief from my two younger cousins lives.  They may have inner scars left upon their hearts just as I do and as my dear Sam most surely does, but they are able to move beyond them.  I am proud of them both and I know that when I do leave them behind, as I have become convinced that I must, they will be all right.

No matter what may happen to them in the future they will always have each another and Sam.  I hope that once I am no longer here, each of them will still have some small part of me that they carry with them.  I will always treasure them no matter what becomes of me.  I will know that somewhere, Merry is looking after Pippin and Pippin is keeping my secret while continuing Bilbo’s fine tradition of stretching the truth to make a good story better.  I do wish Bilbo could hear Pippin telling his tale.  He would love it almost as much as I do.

I see Sam approaching and looking a bit worried so I laugh along with Pippin’s listeners and watch the lines of worry fade from Sam’s face.  Leaving Sam will be the hardest thing that I have ever done.

“It’s a fine story, Mister Frodo,” Sam says.  “Mister Pippin has ‘em all laughin’ and Mister Merry seems to be enjoyin’ his party this year.”

“He does indeed, Sam,” I say.  Dear, dear, Sam.

The End

GW     01/23/2006