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Little Pippin awoke long before the crack of dawn on a quiet and breezy summer morning. Yawning and shifting comfortably, he caressed his soft white cotton mattress and thought to himself “What a lucky little boy am I.”
And indeed, how lucky a boy he was to wake from a nice, long slumber, to find himself still with hours to spare before sunrise. Snug and warm under his favorite blanket, in a delirious state of half-dreaming, he was beginning to drift back to sleep, when a sound startled him.
Two voices muttering. Then, a clunk and a hush.
Pippin went still. Suddenly, he became very aware of the darkness surrounding him, and pried his eyes open ― but it was not yet light enough outside to make out to whom the silhouettes belonged, as the only source of illumination was the of the moon, weakly reflecting off his window. With as little movement as possible he twisted the sheets and turned on his side, toward the sound.
The room went silent, and he could sense the air shift, the figures stop dead in their tracks. Pippin could hardly hold back a nervous chuckle. After a moment of holding his breath, he heard a whisper of a whisper.
“Is he awake?”
“Never mind! Just leave it there and go!”
He heard rustling, another clunking noise, the distinct sound of two hobbits walking on their tippy-toes, shushing each other like criminals or pranksters, and finally the gentle click of the door closing.
He smiled to himself. A present! he thought, and felt something like a prince. He’d not felt so childlike in all his nineteen years of life.
Then, he smiled brighter, wondering what the occasion could be. May it Fatty Bolger’s birthday? Early Midsummer? Early Yuletide? Oh! if there were anything Pippin liked better than presents, it was a surprise. He squirmed in anticipation, now that it was safe to, and made a point to keep his eyes shut until the morning to reveal his gift.
Amazingly, Pippin fell back asleep, and when he next awoke he found himself sprawled in the bright sun of high noon, disheveled. He laid half on top of his blanket (a crime, in his worldview) and where the sleeves of his nightshirt had ridden up the crumpled mattress pressed red lines onto his skin.
When Pippin put a stop to the internal battle between his brain and his eyelids, he finally abandoned his bed. Yawning and stretching, he stood up on his very tippy-toes and blew a strand of hair away from his forehead, only for it to land back before his eyes.
Tippy-toes. He could’ve sworn he remembered something about that particular word…
He blinked and tasted a feeling dry and cloying in his mouth. Something didn’t feel right, like a strange dream.
Then he blinked again, remembering it wasn’t a dream, but a memory. He turned around excitedly and a shock of regret trickled on his cheeks as the bright morning poured through the round window into his unsuspecting eyes. He let out a squeak and his hands flew to his face. When Pippin had rubbed the tears away, he gave his hand a lick, just to see how it would taste.
Tastes like sweat, he thought. He had a look around, and there it was, the mystery box two hobbits had planted in his room last night. On the writing desk under the window was a wrapped box. Pippin gave his eye another good rub and held it up; it was as small as a pocket dictionary, and placed on it was a handwritten note. He faced downward to escape from the sun, and to get a better look at the note.
Dearest Peregrin, it began. Before continuing, Pippin noticed the handwriting seemed unfamiliar. He flipped the note over, but no signature was found. This could only mean one thing. He continued reading the note, eager for more information on this, obviously, newfound secret admirer.
We think you’ll need this.
Happy birthday! Love, Mam & Da.
Oh. Pippin suddenly felt quite silly for believing he had a secret admirer. It was only his parents and their strange tradition of gifting their children on their birthdays instead of the other way around. Then he was hit with a second wave of silliness when he realized he’d forgotten his own birthday: today! A rush of excitement crashed over him, before a knock on the door distracted him from the gift.
He cleared his throat and said, “Come in.”
At that, his three sisters, Pimpernel, Pervinca, and Pearl, barged in all at once and smothered their littlest brother in birthday wishes before he could run away. Pippin blinked, bewildered. High-pitched exclamations of “Such a big boy!” and “Twenty! Twenty years of knowing you!” (and other such variations) poured endlessly into his poor newly-awakened ears followed by gushing and pinches of the cheek.
It was twenty seconds afterward that Pippin managed to wriggle out of Pimpernel’s arms, only for Pervinca to grab him by the ankles and pull him back into the gully between the three girls.
“Help, this is an ambush!” Pippin exclaimed.
“Has our handsome little boy gotten a gift for me?” said Pervinca, the youngest and most vibrant sister, who happened to be particularly fond of her baby brother. Pippin did not answer her question.
Pearl (quite fiercely) pinched his right cheek. “Don’t tell us you’ve forgotten.”
“I… erm―” he fumbled.
Pimpernel crossed her arms. “You clean forgot, didn’t you? You slime.”
Pervinca scoffed in mock indignation. “How unfair. I gave you that scarf for my birthday! It wasn’t cheap, you know.”
“I, uh…”
“Oh, please!” Pimpernel said to Pervinca. “That scarf was worth an hour in the garden. Are you forgetting the music box I got him for my birthday?”
“Made! You stole that from me!”
Like birds fighting over worms, the sisters began arguing amongst themselves. Pippin was stuck in the middle, becoming ever more troubled at their yelling, when Pearl jumped in. “Oh stop it, you two! It’s too early for this. You’re whipping him up into a frenzy.”
“Well,” Pearl looked at Pippin, “if you don’t have gifts for us…”
“How are you going to find gifts for everybody else in time?” Pervinca finished.
Pippin looked at his eldest sister. “E-everybody else? Who’s everybody else?”
“Oh you know,” Pimpernel started counting her fingers, “the Chubbs, the Grubbs, the Bolgers, Boffins, Brandybucks, especially―the whole lot of them, like.”
Pippin raised his brows in horror. “All of them?”
“Of course,” Pimpernel frowned. “Mam and Da essentially invited all of Buckland.”
“And the Shire at large. Even old Marmadas Brandybuck will be there.” Pervinca smiled suddenly. “You’re so dead.”