By Sanguinary
Tolman, youngest of the Gamgee family, always had quite a time trying to fit in. By the time he was old enough to start playing in earnest, the siblings above him were all too big and fast for him to catch up with, and the grandkids that begun to appear were still too young. For young Tom, it was a constant race for him to try catch up with the others, in case he be left behind with the babies.
His shorter legs and smaller lungs almost always guaranteed he was behind the pack, a little tagalong that never ran fast enough for the others likes. They scrambled up trees and squeezed in holes, leaving Tom always behind enough to miss out on the fun. They didn't do it to be cruel, but like all old siblings they always ran that much faster.
So, more often than not, Tom found himself alone, sitting with his feet in streams and ponds while the others climbed trees, or shimmying up old oaks while the others played tag in the fields, or lying in the fields looking at clouds while the others swam in the ponds and stirred up the mud and sand. But it was funny how Tom began to notice things that the others couldn't notice amidst all the noise.
Like how before a storm came, the clouds didn't just get dark, but they formed shapes in the sky, large bumps and how before heavy winds came, the temperature always dropped quickly. He noticed how the air tasted different before a heavy rain, and how it seemed to pull taunt when drought came. Sometimes, his fingers would ache as a heavy storm moved in, and his knees popped on the days when it seemed perfectly fine, but out of nowhere, a heavy wind would come in and flatten the wheat in the fields.
As he got older, Tolman began to realize that it wasn't normal to know what the weather was going to be like before it changed. In fact, as it turned out, it was something only a few people could do. Weather-wiseacres, was what Samdad called them, hobbits who had the ability to see the weather and predict its changes before anyone else could. It wasn't really a special thing to have, not like the way Sammie's stories were special, or the way Del could hang from tree branches using only her feet, or how animals liked Meli best, but it was a useful thing to have.
Especially on days like this, Tom thought as he watched the first bit of hail begin to fall down across Hobbiton. He was curled up on the windowsill of the house, watching the white ice stones fall everywhere. Out in the fields, he could see the other playing children begin to scatter and run back towards their homes, chased by the hail. Soon, they'd arrive home in Bag End, dripping wet and loud as they always were. And then the colds would start and the house would be full of sneezing and coughing. But until then, Tom enjoyed the quiet and waited for the rainbow to appear after the storm, like it always did.
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