A Good Use For Punch

Frodo ducked into the quiet little study just off the main parlor and quickly pushed the door closed behind him with a relieved sigh.  He allowed the tension to slip from his shoulders as he stood with his palms pressed against the door and his forehead leaning on its surface just between his hands.  He had finally escaped!  It had taken nearly two hours but he had finally escaped.

No more fawning relations.  No more questions.  No more well-wishing or back-patting or hand-shaking or kisses on the cheek.  No more plates piled high with food being shoved into his hands or mugs of ale foisted upon him.  Best of all no more stories that began with the phrase, “I remember when you were just a little lad” and ended with laughter from everyone while he stood there, red-faced and trying hard to look amused despite the embarrassment.

He had finally managed to find a safe haven amid the warren of rooms that was Brandy Hall.  He was alone for the first time all day.  He smiled and then he realized that he could smell pipe weed.  Raising his head away from the door but not daring to turn around for fear of having his elusion of solitude shattered, Frodo sniffed the air.  It was most definitely pipe weed and it was very near by.  It was most likely coming from the very room in which he now hid.

His hands slid down the door and he turned around knowing that he would come face to face with someone else.  His expression must have screamed disappointment because the other occupant of the room said, “I am sorry to spoil things.  I only meant to be in here for a short while.”

Frodo peered through the thick cloud of smoke into the eyes of his cousin, Bilbo.  The older hobbit was seated in an old armchair puffing away on his pipe with a book open on his lap.  Before Frodo could make any effort at all to assure Bilbo that he had not spoiled anything, Bilbo went on.  “I had thought to sneak off from the party for a few minutes and have a quiet smoke but I seem to have lost track of the time.  I suspect that I have been in here for a while now.”

Judging by the amount of smoke in the small, windowless room, Frodo was sure that cousin Bilbo had been in the little room for a very long time indeed.  In fact Frodo was certain that he’d not seen Bilbo at the party for several hours at least.  It was true that Frodo had been kept very busy accepting birthday greetings from his many relations and listening to those embarrassing stories about “Little Frodo” and so he might not have noticed exactly when Bilbo disappeared from the party, but he was quite sure that it had been some time ago.

“I simply couldn’t stand another toast in my honor,” Bilbo chuckled softly.  “The first thirty or so where very nice, but even an old hobbit like myself grows tired of hearing how wonderful it is that I’ve reached such an unbelievably old age without falling apart or beginning to drool all over my ascot.”  He smiled broadly and started to get up from the chair.  “But I can see that you have shouldered the burden of ‘guest of honor’ for long enough and that it is my turn again.”

Frodo laughed.  “Don’t go,” he said.  “There seems to be room enough for both of us in here and I don’t mind sharing.”  He looked behind him at the door and frowned.  “It would be nice if this locked.”

Bilbo walked across the room and proceeded to remove a key from the pocket of his vest.  He put the key into the door lock and winked at Frodo.  “It does lock,” he confided in a whisper.  “I had meant to lock it earlier, but I had become rather involved in my book.  I guess I am growing a bit long in the tooth for I completely forgot.”  He sighed, replaced the key in his pocket and made his way back over to his chair.

Frodo noticed a comfortable little footstool sitting near the chair and so he followed Bilbo over and sat down on it.  He leaned his back against the chair next to Bilbo’s legs and settled in.  “How long do you suppose it will be before anyone finds us?” Frodo asked.

“Oh, they’ve plenty of food and the Hall is completely full of Brandybucks, Tooks, Bagginses, Bolgers, and the like.  I don’t think they’ll miss either of us for quite a while,” Bilbo said pleasantly as he continued to puff on his pipe.  “I do believe that the ale and the story-telling will keep them occupied for the present and give the two of us birthday lads a chance to celebrate our escape.”

Frodo smiled.  “I hate these things.”

“Pity,” Bilbo sighed.  “At your age you have so very many of them to endure in the future where as I will not have to suffer through that many more.”

Frodo turned to look at Bilbo.  “You aren’t ill or anything are you?” he asked in a worried tone.

“What?  Oh, no lad,” Bilbo said.  “I only meant that when you are ninety-eight you can probably assume that you have more birthdays behind you than you have ahead of you.”  Bilbo patted Frodo on the head affectionately.  “At twenty, you can expect a great many more of them as the years pass.”

“I wouldn’t want to go through this alone,” Frodo said looking so serious that Bilbo nearly laughed.  “I’m used to having someone to share my birthday with and I don’t think I should like having my birthday alone.”

“Nor should I, my lad,” Bilbo smiled.  “Dear Esmeralda means well when she plans these large parties but I do wish that she would stop short of inviting the Sackville-Bagginses.”

“Oh, she didn’t invite them,” Frodo said.  “They just turned up.  She was very annoyed about it but she couldn’t think of any way to keep from allowing them to come in with the rest of the invited guests.”

“Those scoundrels,” Bilbo muttered.  “Such cheek they have!  Imagine showing up at a party uninvited.”

Frodo laughed.  “Lots of folks that have showed up here weren’t invited.  They just heard about the food and the drink and decided to drop in.”

Bilbo grinned.  “Of course, you’re right, Frodo.  How did you come to be so bright at twenty?”

“I’m a Baggins,” Frodo smiled.

“That you are, my lad,” Bilbo agreed.  “And we Bagginses are naturally clever.  You and I seem to think alike in many respects.  We both located this little room.”  Bilbo removed his pipe from his mouth and began to refill it with Old Toby as he spoke.  “Who are you hiding from?”

“Rose Brockhouse,” Frodo said blushing a bit as he said her name.

“Oh?” Bilbo asked lighting his newly filled pipe and putting it back into his mouth.

“She’s been following me about all afternoon trying to hold my hand,” Frodo said looking disgusted.  “She bats her eyes at me and smiles, but when she smiles at me she looks like that old barn cat that Saradoc has just after it’s killed a mouse.  It’s creepy.”

Bilbo laughed.  “I suspect that she’s taken with you.  We Bagginses are cursed with a sort of undeniable charm.  The lasses are drawn to us.”

Frodo wrinkled his nose slightly.  “I wish Rose Brockhouse could be drawn to someone else.”  Frodo sighed deeply.  “She giggles all the time and she twirls her hair.”

“Twirls her hair?” Bilbo asked.

“She takes a strand of it and wraps it about one finger and twists it up as if she were trying to curl it,” Frodo explained.

Bilbo made a face.  “Not a very attractive habit.”

Frodo shook his head.  “Who are you hiding from?”

“The Sackville-Bagginses, of course,” Bilbo said.  “And that pop-n-jay Tobias Tunnely.  Nice enough fellow I suppose but all he wants to do is to tell me about how talented he is.  He’s started teaching carpentry and I think he is trying to scare up some business.”

“Carpentry?” Frodo asked.

“Yes, he has offered his services should I know of anyone who might want to learn to build things,” Bilbo said.  “I think he’d do better to speak to some of the young parents who have children in need of tutoring instead of an old bachelor like myself.”

There was a sudden rattle of the door knob and both Bagginses froze.  A voice outside of the door announced, “I think it’s locked!”

“What are you looking for over there?” Frodo heard Esmeralda Brandybuck ask.

The door knob rattled again and the first voice said, “I was looking for more ale.”

“Well we don’t keep it in there,” Esmeralda sighed.  “Come with me and I’ll show you where Sara has put the barrels.”

Frodo and Bilbo listened as their almost-visitor moved away from the door.

“That was close,” Frodo said.

“Yes indeed,” Bilbo agreed.  “But he’s gone now.”

“What are you reading?” Frodo asked looking at the book that was lying on Bilbo’s lap.

“Oh, this is something I found here in the library just before the party began,” Bilbo said.  “I put it in here because I suspected that I might need something to read.”

“You planned your escape?” Frodo asked in surprise.

“Naturally,” Bilbo said.  “I didn’t want to wind up in here without anything to read or anyone to talk with and I couldn’t count on decent company dropping in so I put a book in here.”  Bilbo held the book out to Frodo.  “It’s called “Shire Poetry” by Norris Goodbody and most of it is fairly dreadful.  I didn’t have too much hope for it when I found it but you never know when you might discover something unexpected.”

Frodo opened it to a random page and read aloud,

I went walking in my garden in the rain,

I fell and gave my ankle quite a sprain.

I tripped upon a vine.

Fell on my behind.

I should have stayed indoors, that much is plain.

“That’s terrible!” Frodo groaned.  “Is the entire book that bad?”

“Some of it is much worse,” Bilbo confided.  “It does give me pause to think that someone decided to put this sort of rubbish down in a book for others to read.  I suppose that there is no accounting for taste.”

“I guess you wish that you’d selected a better book,” Frodo grinned handing the book back to Bilbo.

“Well, now that you’re here, I don’t need anything to read,” Bilbo smiled.  “It’s quite nice just to sit and talk and share our birthdays.  We’ve no need for the poetry of Norris Goodbody, poet of The Shire.”

Frodo snickered.  “I wonder who Norris Goodbody is?”

“Well, as this book proves, he isn’t a poet,” Bilbo said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Sara, I don’t want to alarm the guests but I think we may have a small fire,” Esmeralda whispered as she approached her husband. 

Saradoc had just finished putting out several kegs of ale to replace the empty ones.  He looked over at his wife and frowned.  “A small fire?” he whispered.  “Where and exactly how small?”

She took his arm and led him to the far end of the parlor.  “See the smoke rolling out from underneath that door?”

He gazed as a steady cloud of smoke billowed from underneath the door.  “That looks like more than a slight bit of smoke to me,” Saradoc said.  “I think maybe we have more of a fire than you think.”

“What should we do?” she asked. 

Before Saradoc could answer there came a scream from behind them and a shrill voice yelled, “Fire!  The Hall’s on fire!  Run for your lives!”

Esmeralda turned to face Lobelia Sackville-Baggins who was still screaming and pointing to the smoke that was coming from underneath the door.  Suddenly hobbits were running for the exits in all directions.  Some with plates of food in their hands, some with full mugs of ale, some with small children under their arms, and some just running away empty-handed.  There were not too many of that last variety.  Lobelia turned to run along with the rest, knocking several folks aside as she did so and continuing to shout “Fire!”

Esmeralda looked at Saradoc in horror.  It seemed as if all of their guests were in a panic and the smoke continued to billow about from beneath the door.  “Do something!” she said.

Saradoc quickly made his way over to the food tables and lifted the punch bowl up off of the table.  Dodging fleeing guests, he made his way over to the door with the bowl.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I thought I heard someone yell something about a fire, Bilbo,” Frodo said sitting up straight on the footstool.

“A fire?” Bilbo frowned.  “Here at the Hall?”  He listened for a moment and he also heard the screams and the sound of running feet outside of the door.  “Come on, Frodo lad,” Bilbo said taking Frodo by the arm and picking up the book with his other hand.  “We had better get out of here while we can.  If there’s a fire then we certainly don’t want to lag behind.”

The two of them quickly made their way to the door and Bilbo removed his key from his pocket and quickly unlocked the door.  Before he could pull the door open someone else did that for him.  The door swung inward and Saradoc Brandybuck proceeded to hurl the contents of the large punch bowl right into Bilbo and Frodo’s surprised faces.

Dripping with punch and open-mouthed with surprise Frodo blinked at Saradoc as Bilbo asked, “Where’s the fire?”

“We thought it was in there,” Esmeralda said looking surprised to see Bilbo and Frodo.

Bilbo frowned.  “What made you think that?”

Frodo laughed and they all looked at him in confusion. 

“Your pipe, cousin Bilbo!” Frodo said.  “All of the smoke in that little room must have been coming out underneath the door.”

“Well that’s hardly any reason to suspect a fire,” Bilbo objected.  He looked down and realized that he still had the book of poetry in his hand.  “Sara, you’ve ruined this book with the punch, to say nothing of wasting perfectly good punch.”

“I thought the smial was on fire!” Saradoc explained.  “What was I supposed to do?”

“Next time,” Bilbo said.  “Knock first.”  With that, Bilbo strode off and left the three of them standing there staring after him, Frodo still dripping punch on the floor and Saradoc holding the empty punch bowl at his side.

Esmeralda stifled a giggle.

“Oh, surely you don’t think that this is funny,” Saradoc frowned at her.

“Not entirely, but it is a wonderful way to clear the Hall of guests,” Esmeralda said looking about the empty room.  “I must remember to thank Lobelia for screaming fire the next time that I am unfortunate enough to see her.”

Saradoc sputtered a bit and then looked at Frodo.  “I am sorry that this nonsense has ruined your birthday, Frodo,” he said.

“To tell you the truth, I actually enjoyed it,” Frodo smiled.  “Bilbo and I had a lovely talk and there is still plenty of food left and cake too.  Now that the guests are gone, we can get Merry from the nursery and celebrate with just the family.”

“Why don’t you go and get into some dry things, and see if Bilbo would like to help those of us that are left eat dinner?” Esmeralda suggested, smiling. "I'll go and collect Merry."

As Frodo ran off to try and catch Bilbo, Saradoc looked over at his wife.  “We should have plenty of food left my dear, but I do believe that we are out of punch.”

GW     09/22/2005