Sam was having a rather bad day. Frodo had left just the week before, and Rosie was out visiting and had taken the children with her.

He sat in the living room of Bag End looking at the painting of the ship over the fireplace. Frodo had given it to him shortly before he had left on the very ship depicted in the painting.

After staring at the painting for a while, Sam noticed that it seemed to change. The sail turned purple, and the hull, green. Sam moved in closer, thinking he had gone mad, but instead of the ship returning to its former state, it had grown a dragon’s head. As he leaned in, the picture grew to twice its size. Sam fell into the ice cold water with the thought that his bad day had just gotten much, much worse.

Sam floundered about in the freezing waves, wishing that he had accepted those swimming lessons that Merry had offered. He was sinking fast when strong hands grabbed his arms and lifted him up. Stunned, Sam did not resist, for though he had no idea what this person (or thing) was, he did know what would happen if he refused help.

He was pulled up a ladder and found that he was on a ship, facing a young man and three… what were they? Were they hobbits or young humans? Sam looked a bit closer and guessed that they looked too young to be full grown hobbits, so human children it was.

There was a girl and two boys. One of the boys and the girl seemed to know the man, and the other boy was going on about the British Consul. Needless to say, Sam was rather confused. Who were these people? What was he doing here? What in Middle Earth was a British Consul?

As he was thinking this over, the young man turned to him and said, “Good day, traveler. I am Caspian, tenth of that name, and king of Narnia. Who, pray tell, are you? What sort of creature are you? You’re not a dwarf; that is for certain.”

“Begging your honor, sir, I’m Samwise Gamgee, and bless you, I’m anything but a dwarf. I’m a hobbit. And I’ve never heard of Narnia. Do you know how far from the Shire it is, sir?”

“A hobbit?!” said Caspian, startled. “Queen Lucy, were there any hobbits during your reign? And do you know where this Shire is?”

“No, Caspian,” the girl called Lucy replied, wringing out her dress as she looked Sam over. “I’ve never seen a hobbit before, and there never was a place called ‘the Shire’ in Narnia.”

“Well then, Master Hobbit, what are you doing in these parts?”

“Well, sir, I don’t rightly know. I was just sitting in my living room looking at a picture when I just landed right in the water.”

“By Jove!” the boy, whose name was Edmund, exclaimed. “We were looking at a picture too, before we arrived!”

“Well,” Caspian said to Sam, “Aslan must have a reason for you to be here, so you might as well join us for our meeting later. In the meantime, why don’t you tell your tale to Queen Lucy here, and perhaps she will tell you hers.”