Whatever you do…

 

Chapter two: …keep the children away from Sam and Rosie!

 

Meriadoc and Peregrin stood frozen in the living room. The children had all come through the door and Frodo and Elanor (eldest, tallest and fastest) had already reached the table.

 

“What are we going to do?!” Meriadoc hissed to Peregrin.

 

Suddenly a plan came to Peregrin’s mind. He took a leap and jumped on the table. “Hold it!” he yelled and by a miracle the Gamgee children (and Faramir, of course) stopped. “Where are you all going?”

 

“Duh! What do you think, Peregrin?!” Frodo exclaimed, “We’re going to see our new brother!”

 

“Does this mean you already had your present from the Gaffer?”

 

“Present?” Daisy asked.

 

“What present?!” Merry said, sounding more curious than he wanted to.

 

Peregrin’s eyes glinted, his plan worked. He turned around to Meriadoc. “Can you believe it?! Just an hour ago, the Gaffer told us he was going to GO and give all his grandchildren a present. Something must’ve BLOCKED in his head.” Peregrin turned back again, “I can’t believe he forgot! He has apparently been working on it a long time.”

 

Meriadoc, who understood what Peregrin was aiming at, slipped out of the room at this point. In the minds of the young hobbits grew doubt, it could be seen in their eyes. Was this a joke? Or was it true and were they to get a present?

 

“Well, what are you waiting for? Go and ask him! Your brother will stay where he is; he can’t walk, but your grandfather can and he might be gone when you return to the kitchen. Are you going to take that risk?”

 

“I suppose…,” Elanor began.

 

“Let’s go and ask!” little Bilbo exclaimed. He turned around and ran back to the kitchen, where the Gaffer was still waiting for Sam. Soon all turned around and followed Bilbo.

 

Peregrin jumped of the table. His plan had worked. They had bought it. Of course there were no presents, but this might just buy him and Meriadoc the time they needed. He ran into the hall and saw that a few chairs had already been put down by Meriadoc.

 

“Meriadoc, this won’t help! They’ll break through this block in a matter of seconds! We’ll need something more solid.”

 

“Like what?!” Meriadoc said a bit irritated.

 

“The living room table!” Peregrin yelled.

 

As fast as they could the two hobbits ran back to the living room and picked up the table. This was quite a job for two hobbits, who hadn’t done anything alike sports in years. They had just dragged it into the hallway when they heard a yell. Faramir had lingered in the room between the living room and the kitchen a bit, because the Gaffer wasn’t his grandfather, so he wouldn’t get a present anyway and he had spotted his father, Meriadoc and the table.

 

He immediately turned around and screamed: “Friend! Fire! Foe! It was a trick! They are blocking the way to the bedroom! Friend! Fire! Foe!”

 

Peregrin and Meriadoc quickly put the table crosswise in the hall and turned it on its side, so the tabletop now was their shield. They had only finished putting up their defence for, say, two seconds, when the sound of 26 running hobbit feet could be heard again. Both hobbits stood, pressed against the table, expecting that the children would come and try to push the table over.

 

“Here come the orcs again!” Meriadoc said, trying to smile.

 

“Yes, but now we are prepared!” Peregrin answered, smiling broadly.

 

Unfortunately, they were not so prepared as he thought. They only had their table/shield, while the Gamgee children were armed with broomsticks and everything else they could find. And worst of all: the chairs, earlier collected by Meriadoc, were on the children’s side of the table. Pretty soon, the chairs were placed against the tabletop and Elanor, Frodo, Merry and Pippin were standing on them. Elanor had a mop and her brothers had broomsticks and they were trying to hit Peregrin and Meriadoc with them.

 

“Go away!” Frodo yelled, “We want to see our brother and you can’t stop us!”

 

“No!” Merry agreed, “We’ll push you away from this table…”

 

“…and then we can knock over your defence!” Pippin finished the sentence.

 

“Hey! Duck, guys!” it was the voice of Goldilocks. She may have been young, but was definitely one of the smartest of all Gamgees. She had found a bag of potatoes and had dragged them to the fight. “Here you go.” She gave a few potatoes to Daisy and Bilbo, “Throw them over the defence!” However, Daisy missed and Bilbo only managed to hit Meriadoc once.

 

“I’ll show you how it’s done,” Goldilocks said to her younger siblings. She took a potato, screamed, “Duck!” once more and threw. The potato sailed over the table and it seemed to land on something hard, because everybody heard a large PLOK.

 

Only seconds after that they heard a sound like something hit the ground and immediately after that Meriadoc screamed: “Peregrin!”

 

“What happened?!” Faramir wanted to know.

 

Elanor got up and looked over the defence. “Is he dead?”

 

“No, Elanor, of course not! He is just unconscious.”

 

“GOLDILOCKS!” Faramir exploded, “How dare you knock out my dad?!”

 

“Well, Faramir Took, it wasn’t like I meant to!”

 

“Yes you did! You hate me and therefore you wanted to kill him!”

 

“I did not! And by the way, if your precious father and Meriadoc hadn’t blocked the road, all this wouldn’t have been necessary in the first place!!”

 

Faramir had no reply for this and attacked Goldilocks. Or at least he tried, Frodo jumped between them in the nick of time. “Okay, that’s enough! Faramir, it may be so that you and Goldilocks are arch-enemies…”

 

“Ahum.”

 

“Sorry, Elanor…it may be so that the two of you don’t exactly like each other…”

 

“Frodo!”

 

“Sorry, Elanor…it may be so that the two of you don’t always get along that good, but Goldilocks did not mean to knock your father out.”

 

“Yes, she did!”

 

“No, I didn’t!” Goldilocks jumped passed Frodo and pulled Faramir’s hair. Frodo desperately tried to separate them again, this time with the help of Merry.

 

On the other side of the table/shield Peregrin woke up. “What is that noise? It hurts my head! What was I hit by anyway?!”

 

“You were hit by a potato…,” Meriadoc grinned.

 

“Typical! Why can’t I be hit by something reasonable for a change!” Peregrin grunted.

 

“And as for your other question; the potato was thrown by Goldilocks Gamgee…”

 

At this point Peregrin sat up. “Don’t tell me…Faramir got mad, yelled at Goldilocks and now they’re fighting.”

 

“Yup…” Meriadoc sighed.

 

 Peregrin sighed also and lay back on the floor again. “Why can’t they get along?! They’re always fighting! You can’t leave them alone for even five minutes!”

 

“Just be glad that today was such a tense day and that they have had too much on their mind. It’s only their first fight of the day. And you know what they say…”

 

“Of course I know what they say! After someone has separated them, Goldilocks’ll say Faramir started and vice versa!”

 

“I didn’t mean that…”

 

“You didn’t?” Peregrin asked curiously and sat up straight again, “What did you mean then?”

 

“It’s an old saying my grandmother used very often.”

 

“Well?”

 

“She always said that most people are doomed to marry the one they hated the most when they were little.”

 

“You mean Goldilocks and Faramir are going to get married one day?!” At this Peregrin burst into laughing. Unfortunately for him and fortunately for Frodo and Merry (still trying to separate Goldilocks and Faramir) he laughed so loudly he was heard by everyone.

 

Pippin jumped on the chair and peered over the table. “Hey! Peregrin’s alright! Attack!”

 

Immediately everybody started throwing potatoes again and the broomstick stabbing also began once more.

 

Meriadoc and Peregrin weren’t doing too good; even though Meriadoc gloriously managed to pull the mop out of Elanor’s hands, they were hit several times by potatoes. Throwing them back didn’t help, because the children were very fast and dodged all. In the end the children defeated Meriadoc and Peregrin and knocked over the table. Elanor, Frodo, Merry and Pippin jumped over it and the younger ones crawled under it. Of course Faramir and Goldilocks were fighting about who could go first, but one well-aimed potato by Merry settled it.

 

Now all the children made their way to their parent’s bedroom and there was nothing Meriadoc and Peregrin could do. Both of them were (literally) lying on the ground and they had no energy left to get up and were therefore (literally) overrun by all the children.

 

“Well, Peregrin, we failed.”

 

“I think we might’ve made a little mistake coming here, Meriadoc…”

 

But at that moment the bedroom door opened and Sam came out. “Children! You can come to see your little bro…” Sam stopped abruptly when he saw all his children already standing in front of him. “Well, what in the…”

 

He looked around. He saw the kitchen table standing in the hallway, the potato covered floor and Meriadoc and Peregrin lying on the ground. He never had time to finish that sentence, because he was pushed into the bedroom. The door was locked behind him.

 

After several minutes Peregrin found power to talk again. “Now what?”

 

“Dunno…I can’t move…” a soft voice answered.

 

Knock, knock.

 

“Did you say something Peregrin?”

 

“No, I thought that was you.”

 

Knock, knock.

 

“Did you say something Peregrin?”

 

“No, I thought that was you.”

 

Knock, knock.

 

“Did you say something Peregrin?”

 

“No, I thought that was you.”

 

KNOCK, KNOCK!!!

 

“I think there is someone at the door.”

 

“Gee, smart. I wouldn’t have thought of that,” Meriadoc said dully. He pulled himself up and stumbled to the door, mumbling something about hobbits with thirteen children, who can’t open their own door. Meriadoc managed to open the door.

 

Coming soon: Chapter 3: …be nice to the guests!