The Captive of Bag End
Queasyfrodo, the Captive of Bag End, has lived in the chimney since he was a tiny baby hobbit. Every day, he dusts the mantelpiece. His master, Bilbo, the Mayor of Hobbiton, is a cruel hobbit who won’t let Queasyfrodo go outside Bag End. Queasyfrodo’s only friends are Bilbo’s cousins and gardener, Merry, Pippin and Sam. Each day they look down on the streets of Hobbiton.
Today Queasyfrodo is sad. On the streets below, the Festival of Fools is beginning, and Queasyfrodo wants very much to go. Merry thinks he should go. Pippin adds, “Life is not a spectator sport.” Sam just says “Ninnyhammers and noodles!”
Bilbo won’t allow Queasyfrodo to leave the hobbit-hole. “Sneak out,” says Merry.
Just as Queasyfrodo makes up his mind to go to the festival, Bilbo arrives. He quizzes Queasyfrodo on his alphabet. The lesson goes well, until Queasyfrodo is told to say a word that begins with the letter ‘p’. Queasyfrodo is rather backward, and immediately says ‘festival’.
“I deduct two things.” Deducted Bilbo. “Firstly, you need to work harder with your alphabet. Secondly, you are thinking of going to the festival.” He commands Queasyfrodo not to go outside. But as soon as Bilbo leaves, Queasyfrodo climbs out of a window, steps outside and runs, giggling like a maniac, to the festival.
The Festival of Fools is so exciting! Queasyfrodo hardly knows which way to turn next. He tries to stay hidden in the background but ends up near Elrond, an Elf-Lord, in the middle of the festivities. Then Queasyfrodo finds himself in front of the stage where the beautiful Elf-maid, Arwen, is dancing. Queasyfrodo can’t take his eyes off her. Neither can the Captain of the DĂșnadain, a Ranger named Estel.
When it is time to crown the King of the festival, the crowd picks Queasyfrodo. The crowd cheers when Elrond places the crown on Queasyfrodo’s head. But then the shiriffs start throwing pebbles at Queasyfrodo, and the crowd follows their example. Bilbo will not stop them. He wants to punish Queasyfrodo for leaving the hole.
Arwen stops the cruelty and helps Queasyfrodo get away from the crowd. This makes Bilbo very angry with her. He tells Estel to arrest Arwen, but she escapes from the shiriffs. With Glorfindel’s horse, Asfaloth, Arwen slips up the chimney, where she is safe from arrest.
She finds to her great surprise that the chimney widens out in the middle and goes into a secret room that only Queasyfrodo knows about. She sees the little wooden town that Queasyfrodo has carved.
“If I could do this, you wouldn’t find me clinging to daddy for money,” she says. Asfaloth admires Queasyfrodo’s village in his own way – he eats the toy sheep and their shepherd.
Arwen quickly becomes Queasyfrodo’s friend. He shows her the mantelpiece, and he learns that Bilbo was wrong about both him and the Elves.
“You helped me. Now I will help you,” Queasyfrodo tells Arwen. He knows how to get her out of the hobbit-hole without Bilbo or the shirrifs knowing, but they will have to climb down. He carefully helps Arwen and Asfaloth to the roof of the hobbit-hole.
“The trick is not to move a muscle.” He says. When a stone comes loose, they glide over the heads of the shirrifs to safety.
Arwen asks Queasyfrodo to come with her.
“But this is where I belong,” he says. So Arwen gives Queasyfrodo an Evenstar pendant that shows him where to find her.
“Remember,” she says, “When you look at this band, you hold my address in your hand.”
When Bilbo hears that Arwen is no longer in the cathedral, he sends Estel to find her. But Bilbo does so many bad things to the people of the Shire that Estel refuses to take any more orders from him. Bilbo orders his shirrifs to arrest Estel.
As Estel doesn’t like killing hobbits, he tries to escape without fighting, but he is gravely wounded by the shirrifs, who are using swords. Arwen rescues him and takes him to the hobbit-hole.
“Please, can you hide him?” she asks Queasyfrodo.
Queasyfrodo helps them, but then Asfaloth sees Bilbo coming. After Arwen escapes, Queasyfrodo hides Estel in the hole up the chimney and pretends that nothing is wrong. But Bilbo does not believe him. Suddenly, the figure Queasyfrodo carved of Arwen falls down the chimney. Bilbo sees it.
“I know you helped her escape,” he says, “But I know where her hideout is, and tomorrow at dawn I attack.”
The moment Bilbo leaves, Queasyfrodo goes into his hole to see Estel healing himself with athelas. Estel wants Queasyfrodo to help him find Arwen and warn her. But Queasyfrodo is afraid to disobey Bilbo again. Estel cannot believe that Queasyfrodo will not go with him. Arwen is Queasyfrodo’s friend, and she is in trouble.
As Estel leaves the hobbit-hole, Queasyfrodo stares at the pendant Arwen gave him. He notices the three other hobbits watching him, but they pretend they’re not looking. Pippin sweeps up piles of food and tidies empty mugs of beer, and Merry hums to himself. Suddenly, Queasyfrodo changes his mind and catches up with Estel.
At first Estel does not believe that Arwen’s pendant will help them. But after years of staring at maps of the Shire, Queasyfrodo recognizes the address carved on the back of the pendant.
Estel and Queasyfrodo, following the advice of Queasyfrodo’s memory, travel down a dark stairway and then walk through tunnels under the city. Elrond thinks they are Bilbo’s spies and stops them before they can get to Arwen. Elrond tells the crowd of elves that the spies must be killed, but then Arwen sees Estel and Queasyfrodo and tells the other elves, “These people aren’t spies. They’re our friends.”
Estel and Queasyfrodo tell the elves that Bilbo plans to attack at dawn. As the elves prepare to leave, they hear Bilbo’s voice in the shadows. He has followed Estel and Queasyfrodo, and now his shirrifs and ruffians surround the unarmed elves.
Estel, Arwen and the elves are taken back to the square to be executed. Queasyfrodo is taken to the chimney pot and tied there.
When Queasyfrodo hears Bilbo laughing manically when he calls Bill Ferny to execute Arwen, he unties his ropes and rushes to her rescue. The hobbits cheer as he takes her to the safety of the hole in the chimney.
Bilbo is outraged. He commands the shirrifs and ruffians to surround the hobbit-hole. As the forces of Bilbo storm Bag End, Estel frees himself, Elrond and the other elves. They race to the hobbit-hole to fight Bilbo’s soldiers.
Queasyfrodo, Merry and Sam try to drive the soldiers away by throwing stones at them. Pippin throws his empty beer mugs and piles of chicken bones and carrot-tops down at the soldiers.
Queasyfrodo is getting tired, but he tips over a large vat of molten lead which was balancing precariously on the edge of a chimney pot for no apparent reason. The liquid metal showers down the front of the hobbit-hole, and the soldiers flee. Only Bilbo manages to enter Bag End, through a secret side-door.
Bilbo chases Queasyfrodo and Arwen out onto the ledges of the chimney shelf. But before Bilbo can harm them, he trips over Merry’s outstretched leg and plunges to his doom on a very sharp thistle through his eye. He is finished off by Halbarad, a DĂșnadain ranger. At last Hobbiton is free of his cruel reign.
At dawn Arwen and Estel walk out of the hobbit-hole. As the crowd cheers, Arwen turns and motions for Queasyfrodo to join them. He squints in the early morning sun and the crowd becomes very quiet. Then a young girl called Rose Cotton blushes and kisses him on the cheek. As Queasyfrodo kisses her back, she runs off to get married to Sam. Elrond calls to the crowd,
“Three cheers for Queasyfrodo!”
THE END

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