"In my day they were called 'Tooklets' or 'Tookens' or 'Takens.' What are they called now?" asked Gammer Starkweather as she studied Peony Baker's burning face. Peony kept her hands clenched on the edge of her mother's Pen and Ink table to keep from jerking the old biddy's hat off her head and beating her with it. "Those Tooks. Most lasses just can't resist 'em, whether they're married or not. You're proof of that, aren't you, girl?"
"What are you doing, Rumble?" asked Lady Rainwater quickly and Starkweather looked away. Peony mentally blessed Missus Rainwater for the distraction and forced her hands to release their grip.
The Widow Rumble had plucked a beautiful pheasant-quill pen from one of Peony's many baskets and was running the long, green feather through her arthritic fingers. "I'm picking out a pen, Rainwater!" she announced and stroked the feather across her wizened face with bliss.
"What do you want with a pen?" asked Rainwater as she looked over Peony's selection of scented soaps. She picked up a small cake and breathed in the sage and lemon aroma.
"I'm learning to read and write." Rumble answered smugly and her friends turned to her in shock.
"At your age?! Never!" Starkweather declared.
"Look here." Rumble scooted Starkweather out of the way so she could reach the scrap paper that Peony's patrons tested their quills and nibs on. She carefully dipped her pheasant feather into the ink well and wrote MY NAME IS ADAMANT RUMBLE in rather lovely block letters. Her S was facing backwards but Peony would never have mentioned it. Rumble flourished her paper at her delighted friends. "It says 'My name is Adamant Rumble.' Isn't that fine?"
"That is FINE!" Rainwater declared and Starkweather nodded, smiling. "Who's teaching you?"
"My boyfriend, Sammie Gardner."
Feeling somewhat more relaxed now, Peony forced a laugh. "Don't let Del hear you say that!"
Rumble giggled, a beautifully friendly sound. "We've agreed to share him. I get him in the mornings and she gets him the rest of the time."
"What about Aster? Where does she fit in?" Peony teased.
A low, soft voice answered "We do not speak that name, thankyouverymuch." and Delphinium Grubb stepped quietly up to Peony's counter with Sammie in tow. He was blushing.
"Hello, Wart-Toad." Del greeted Peony and leaned her hip on the table. "You're looking particularly hideous today." Del was smiling but her eyes were serious.
Peony subtly shook her head, deflecting her friend's concern. "Morning, Greasy-Nit." she politely replied.
"Oh, you two." Sammie said. "Honestly. Good morning, Miz Starkweather, Miz Rainwater. My darling Adamant." The widow blew him a kiss.
Starkweather smiled down at him. "Good morning, Samlad. How appropriate. We were just speaking of Tooklets."
"What's a..." Sammie began.
"MY NAME IS BAKER!" Peony shouted. Everyone jumped and Gammer Starkweather looked down at the girl with real disapproval. "I'm NOT a Took, my father was Tomas Baker and that's all there is to it!"
"Well! I've never seen such rudeness!" Starkweather exclaimed.
"Neither have I, you...you turdlet." Rainwater growled and she chucked the soap roughly back into the basket, obviously fed up at last. She took the sputtering Starkweather by the elbow and steered her away from Peony's stand. "Will you ever learn to keep your mouth shut?" The Widow Rumble sighed and patted Peony gently on the cheek. Then she followed after her friends with the pheasant quill still in her hand. Peony let it go. As soon as the Widow realized what she'd done, she'd be back to pay for it. Or, if not, then it was just a stupid feather after all. Peony gazed at her hands and blinked her eyes furiously to keep them from blurring. She scanned the bottles of ink, the quills, and the rolls and boxes of fine paper until she finally worked up the nerve to look at her friends.
"What IS a Tooklet?" Sammie asked her quietly.
"It's an old fashioned word. You usually hear it in the North Farthing." Del explained, smiling. "A Tooklet is a Changeling." she made a grabbing motion. "Stolen from those irresponsible and awful Tooks by the Fairies in the Old Forest and brought to live with decent, upstanding families." Sammie grinned with amusement. "They look like Tooks, tall and fair with green eyes, and they usually contrast with the families they're placed with for added humor. Which explains Peony here, tall and fair and green-eyed, being brought up by the Bakers who are all short and round and brown like a family of meatballs."
"Oh, that explains me?" Peony asked and her mouth began to twitch into a smile. "And here I thought my Mum had been indiscreet." she mumbled.
"Oh, never." Del answered and began to recite.
"Where did you come from, Baby dear?
Out of the Everywhere into here.
What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?
I know something that no one knows.
But how did you come to us, you dear?
The Fairies thought of you and I am here."
Del didn't spout poetry for just anybody and her voice was warm. Peony felt her anger begin to drain away like dirty dishwater. She wanted to grab the Grubb girl and hug her and kiss her and never let go. She blushed instead and went to straighten the soaps. "Did you know?" she quickly asked them before she lost her nerve.
"We heard some talk." Del answered with a shrug.
"But we thought we'd wait for you to say something." Sammie finished. Peony felt another wave of affection for him and the Greasy Nit.
Sammie confidentially leaned towards Peony. She sighed and moved closer. Del joined them and she and Sammie made a great show of looking all around the market to make sure they couldn't be overheard. Peony laughed, finally. "Which Took was it?" Sammie whispered.
Peony considered not saying anything. What business was it of theirs? But they were friends, weren't they? And this was Sammie, the infamous Samlad Gardner, and if anyone would understand, it was him. "I don't know. Mum won't tell me."
"Your Mum won't tell you? That's kind of important!" he disapproved.
"I'm too young, she says." Peony answered and her voice was miserable.
Sammie was aghast. "You're thirteen!"
"Too young." Peony repeated. Del stayed quiet and her eyes flicked back and forth from Peony's face to Sammie's. "And, anyway, my Dad, Tomas Baker, was the best Dad in the world. I don't need to know!" she declared and her eyes welled up again. "I hate this." she sobbed.
Sammie patted her hand. "It's a'right. I know exactly how you feel."
"No, you don't." Peony answered fiercely and Sammie jerked his hand back, surprised.
Then he grinned disbelievingly. "I don't?!" he dug out a handkerchief and handed it over. Peony accepted it gratefully and wiped her face and blew her nose. Seeing this, Fredegar Bolger, approaching the Pen and Ink stand with a list in his hand, decided to give the place a wide berth instead. Peony watched him swerve towards the candy sellers and tried to scrape herself together before she frightened away any more customers.
"I'll wash this, Sammie. Thank you." Peony tucked it into her pocket. Sammie was still waiting for an explanation and Peony looked at Del pleadingly. The Grubb girl looked quickly up into the blue sky and held out her hand, palm up, to check for rain. She wasn't going to get in the way of this very interesting conversation. "I really hate you, Delphinium." Del just smiled. Peony drew close to Sammie again and her voice dropped to a whisper. "You don't know how I feel because everyone concerned with YOU live together up in Bag End like a happy family in a fairy tale. Master Frodo and the Mayor and the Mistress Rose all ACKNOWLEDGE you. You're not some dirty little Baggins secret like I'm a dirty little Took secret. You're right out in the sunlight with TWO dads and they both love you so much. You're not a bastard at all, really."
Sammie's eyes were round as war-shields. "I...oh." was all he could say.
Peony leaned closer, almost within kissing distance, and her voice became cold and hateful. "And somewhere out there is a Took who deserves to have his nadgers in a vice." She shook her fist in the general direction of the Tookland. "And I swear I'll catch up to him someday and he...will...be...sorry!" She jerked Sammie's handkerchief out again and held it to her face. She ducked out of sight behind the Pen and Ink stand's pavilion. Sammie followed but Del did not as it wouldn't do to abandon the shop completely. Peony was grateful. She sank down onto the grass and Sammie sat with her, slinging a comforting arm around her shoulders.
Peony wept and listened to Del greet customers as if she had done so all her life. "Good morning, Mister Twofoot. Where's the stationery? Let's see...oh! The stationery's over here."
"We're really very lucky, you know." Peony whispered to Sammie. "We could have been dumped into a foundling home or farmed out to distant relatives. Or raised as servants in, say, Brandy Hall or Great Smials."
"I know." was all Sammie said and Peony eventually began to calm.
"Hullo, Miz Rumble! Oh, of course it was a mistake, we knew that! Good morning, Master Bolger, yikes, that's a long list..." Del continued pleasantly.
"You can't let it get to you, Peony." Sammie murmured. "People are going to talk and you can't jump up and scream and shout at all of them. If you try to fight what's obvious, you'll lose and go crazy."
"They're just so hateful!"
"No, they're mostly just tactless. Gammer Starkweather is a good old lady. She stood by Mum when I was born. Not many people did, y'know. She wasn't being hateful to you, just mouthy. And truthful. Why deny what's right in front of her?"
Peony thought about that for a long time and plucked at the grass with her fingers. "You're right, Sammie. I've been stupid. I have to apologize to her."
"I get stupid, too, sometimes." Sammie guilelessly admitted. "And we'll both be stupid again. I mean, there's no fighting the inevitable." Peony studied him for a moment. Then she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. She could feel him smile just before he tilted his head and kissed her back. On the mouth. And what a lovely feeling that was. She stared at him with wide eyes for a moment until they both broke down and giggled. "You taste salty." he accused and Peony started laughing all over again.
Del suddenly ducked around the pavilion. "Stop having fun back here, it makes me nervous."
"Sorry, Del."
"Sorry."
"Humph. Your Mum's arrived, Lackbrain, so you're free for the rest of the
day. It looks like I overcharged some people but undercharged others so it worked out all right." Peony and Sammie scrambled to their feet and went to greet Mirian Baker.
She does NOT look like a meatball, Peony decided and noticed that her mother's large, brown eyes were bright with tears as she looked at her daughter with fondness. Peony turned on Del. "Tattletale!" she hissed. Delphinium was checking for rain again and didn't deign to reply.
"C'mere, sweetheart." Mirian held out her arms and Peony shuffled forward for a hug. Young as the girl was she was the same height as her mother and Mirian sighed. "You're growing up, eh?" Peony nodded, though she wasn't feeling particularly mature at the moment. Her mum kissed her. "You and I are going to have a little talk tonight, then." Peony gasped. Sammie and Del's eyes practically blazed with sudden interest.
"Really?" Peony asked with a voice as small as a mouse's.
"Really." Mirian smiled and she gave a little shudder of dread and Sammie and Del chuckled over it. "Go and play, now. I'll see you at dinner."
Peony felt she couldn't move but her friends seized and pulled her towards the Water. She didn't talk again until they reached the banks of the small river. "I'm scared." she decided suddenly. "What is she going to say?"
"Well." Delphinium said matter-of-factly. She put her arms around Peony and jerked her head at Sammie to follow suit. He did, grinning, and Peony looked from one to the other and tried to control the sudden ka-bump of her heart. "Whatever she tells you, Toady-girl, you should know that you better tell it to us, too."
"Or we'll drown you." Sammie threatened.
"LIKE THIS!" Del shrieked and the two of them lifted Peony up and pitched her into the water. She rose to the surface, coughing and laughing. She could have struggled, she supposed, but there really was no sense in fighting the inevitable, after all.
End
Del's poem is by George MacDonald and I tweaked it to fit.
Epilogue:
"Is that Petunia Baker hiding in the bushes?" Merry Brandybuck asked Pippin Took. Pippin turned and leaned back in his chair to see around Merry's head into the lilac bushes on the borders of Bag End's green lawn. Frodo Baggins couldn't see past his two huge cousins and stood up. Merry yanked him back down again. "Don't! She doesn't want to be seen." An arm emerged from the flowers and a small stone was thrown into the passel of children playing tag among the grape arbors.
"That's her, all right, but her name's Peony, not Petunia." Frodo said. "Is she throwing rocks at Delphinium? That's not wise." Another stone was gently launched through the air and hit Del on the shoulder. The Grubb girl turned around but didn't see Peony waving at her. She turned back to the game. Then another rock, larger this time, was whipped through the air and smacked her on the back of the head. Del turned around dangerously slow then and very, very carefully scanned the lilacs. To the surprise of the older Hobbits, her annoyance disappeared when she spotted Peony frantically waving.
"Get Sammie?" Frodo suddenly said.
"Eh?"
"Peony's whispering 'Get Sammie! Get Sammie!' I can just barely hear her."
"Good ears on you, cousin." Pippin remarked as Del oh-so-casually began to circle around the tag players to where Sammie was reading a new adventure book in the thick shade of a fig tree.
She walked directly past him without stopping. "'Peony's here. Her Mum must have told her. She looks upset.'" Frodo mumbled with his head cocked towards the two. Sammie looked up, startled, and then looked into the lilacs. Peony made a wiggly motion with her hand and disappeared.
"And if that didn't mean 'meet me by the Water' I'll eat this chair." Merry decided, slapping the arm of his garden-chair with his palm. Del was gone. Sammie very carefully, and slowly, marked his place in his book and got up. He walked over to one of Bag End's open windows and dropped it safely in. Then he put his hands in his pockets and ambled away, whistling and being sure not to be too obvious. "Now why just those two and not the others?" Merry wondered, looking over at the small horde of children still shouting with laughter among the fruit trees.
"'Her mum told her.' Del said." Frodo mused. "Told her what?"
"Dunno." Pippin answered then suddenly gasped. "Wait, Baker? Mirian Baker? Mum's favorite niece?"
"You don't think she finally told someone?" Merry began.
"Now, this we've got to hear, too!" Pippin exclaimed and looked around with a sneaky expression on his face. It took a good five minutes for all three of them to saunter, stroll and tiptoe away without attracting attention but they managed it and they were quickly in hot pursuit of the youngsters. Sammie and Del met up on Oak Lane road and ran along it. The Travelers followed at a distance. It was hard going to be inconspicuous on the well-populated lane, though, as big as Pippin and Merry were and as notorious as Frodo was. More than a couple of people stared after them interestedly as they crept through the hedges.
Oak lane finally intersected the river and the three hid behind a stump as Sammie and Del wandered the banks until Sammie spotted Peony in the distance. The entire group moved cautiously towards her. She was stomping around and around in a circle with her head down. Frodo, Pippin and Merry threw themselves into the reeds and watched them. Peony was shaking her head and flicking her hands as if she were a wet cat. "What's she saying?" Merry whispered.
Sammie put his arm around her and Del stood by and tried to look concerned and caring but her eyes were on fire with interest. Sammie was murmuring to Peony who was wringing her hands. Frodo put his hand to his pointy ear and concentrated. "'Is it really that bad, Peony?'" Frodo reported. "'Yes, it's really that bad, Sammie, I couldn't believe it. What was Mum THINKING?!' And Del just said 'Your dad WAS a Took, wasn't he?' and Peony says 'Yes.'" Merry sucked in an excited breath.
Then Peony burst out with a heartfelt "AAAIIIIIGH!!!" that was clearly heard by the trio in the reeds and half the Shire as well.
Pippin frowned. "I'm on the verge of being insulted."
Del put a hand on Peony's shoulder and said something. "'Who was it?' Del just said." Frodo clarified. Everyone leaned forward. Frodo could feel the heel of Pippin's hand digging into his back. Merry bit his nails. Sammie and Del held very still.
Peony found her courage and said a name. Del jumped back in shock. Sammie's mouth fell open.
Frodo choked and slumped onto the ground. He clapped his hands over his ears. "Oh! Oh, oh, oh, I don't believe it!"
"Who?!" Merry shook him. "Who, Frodo?!" Del was beginning to giggle and she was blushing. Sammie's face sported a rather horrified grin and he patted Peony on the back.
Merry was still shaking his cousin and Pippin slapped his hands away before the children noticed the commotion. "Who's the culprit, Frodo?" he whispered.
Frodo flopped onto his back and looked up at Pippin in amazement. The beginnings of a smile was on his mouth and Pippin loomed over him threateningly. Finally Frodo whispered, "Oh, Pip, I'm sorry. It's Paladin Took. Peony is your little sister."
Pippin looked down at Frodo. Then he slowly turned and stared at Peony who was still shaking her head in scandalized bemusement.
Then he fell over backwards and was still.
End
~
Pretty Good Year