Jorgy Amongst the Bumblebears
The Westfarthing, On the Outskirts of Hobbiton
(Private)
Today had been a very good day. There had been many very good days for Jorgy, all in a row. Today, in fact, marked the eighth good day in a row, a current record for him. A good day was not as easy to come by as one might think. You had to get up early, have a great big breakfast, feel good, do some writing or some painting, then canter about to work and share a good second breakfast with your fellow librarians (if you were a librarian like Jorgy of course), in the middle of work, a sizeable lunch, shared with friends at the pub, then back to work before letting out for afternoon tea and supper back at one’s own home. It was difficult to manage, but when all things lined up like that it was worth it’s weight in gold, even th0ugh technically it weighed nothing and gold, to Jorgy, was rather useless. It was evening now, and Jorgy decided to go on an evening constitutional. His belly was full of roast chicken with all the trimmings, with Yorkshire pudding, glazed carrots, a savory potato salad with dill and bacon, and roasted cabbage. It was quite delicious and, what’s more, Jorgy had made it all himself. He’d been practicing for quite some time, trying each recipe on their own several times until he was satisfied that they were perfect. Tonight, he made them all together, making a true feast for himself and Jorgyferret. He was stuffed, so stuffed that he was afraid he might explode and throw mashed potatoes all over the walls if he ate another bite.
Mrs. Pumpkinberry would receive a handwritten invitation (he’d been practicing his calligraphy at the library with Eris Loamfoot) in the coming days, asking her to join him for a special midsummer feast. He was going to invite several people, Eris, Cressilda Boffin, and Sybil Cotton. It was going to a grand get together, the first that he would host. He was bubbly with excitement, a bounce in his step as he walked. He offered to bring Jorgyferret along with him, but his stuffed companion elected to stay behind and bask in the window.
Hobbiton in the evening was a beautiful place. The whole place glowed with a warm golden light, the only gold that Jorgy had any use for. The greens of the trees and the hedges mixed with the deep blue and purple of the sky. The air was cool with a soft westerly breeze, shaking the trees and creating a soft music that eased the heart. He could hear the conversations of hobbits here and there as they finished their own evening meals; he could hear laughter, hoots, and hollers from the inns, songs being sung. It felt good. He waved to several of the people he knew in town, and they waved enthusiastically back. It had taken a bit of time, but Jorgy had truly begun to feel as though he was accepted as part of the community. The good gentlehobbits accepted his oddities and eccentricities and made him one of them. It gave him a light feeling in his heart. Belonging had been one of the things he’d searched for most since he’d woken up by that fire with barely a memory of who and what he was.
Soon, though, his walk took him out of Hobbiton and the sights and sounds of the town soon passed from a low murmur then to silence. The sounds of the wilderness took over, crickets and cicadas and katydids. Evening birds too, made song in the trees while the wind whispered a jolly tune that tickled his ears. Jorgy laughed and skipped along the path, feeling his tummy less and less heavy as he went along. He began to hum along with the wind, making up a tune as he went. It was not a very melodic, or even a very good one, but it made him smile. He began to whistle, trying to match the wind in pitch but soon found that wind had a much wider range than he. He’d only taken up whistle in the last few months, having tried endlessly to make a sound from his lips that didn’t sound like an accidently flatulence. He laughed. “Alright, wind. You win this round!” he said, a wide grin on his face. He walked on and on, feeling lighter but soon began to feel his legs tire. How long had he been walking now? Surely it had not been that long? He looked back, the sights and lights of Hobbit were barely visible, a haze of color between a set of oak topped hills. The forests were beginning to crowd him, looming with great majestic green leaves and trunks of the deepest brown.
He yawned. He was not tired, not really, but he could do with a nice rest. His little legs would be quite grateful to him if they were given even a few moments respite before making the return journey back to home and hearth (and a good soak in his copper tub). A large tree with a trunk at least twice as wide as Jorgy presented itself and made a tempting looking resting spot. The grass was a deep green, and it almost bounced under his feet as he came near. There was all manner of wildflowers about the tree as well, a dozen or more, most that Jorgy could not identify. He would have to ask Mrs. Pumpkinberry tomorrow about them. She had a book of wildflowers with pictures and names that he could peruse. His lids began to get heavy as he sank down, his back to the trunk of the great tree, a great sleepiness overtook him. It was as if a great, warm blanket had just been pulled over him, the pillow cool and crisp to the touch. He’d never been tucked in, not that he remembered, but he had the vaguest notions of it happening in the back of his memory, the faces of his parents just out of reach.
“Excuse me, sir,” a voice appeared next to him on the left, tiny, round, and high pitched.
“Do you mind not sitting on the flowers?” another voice said, just as tiny, round, and high pitched, but coming from his left.
He looked about, blinking his eyes owlishly. There was no one there. Something buzzed about his ear, a soft buzzing like that of a… bee? He turned and looked toward the buzzing, but what he saw was unlike any bee he’d ever set eyes upon. It was small and round, with the same black and yellow coloring as any bee, but the face, and the legs looked, well they looked like bears. But they were bees. But they were bears too. Bees, and bears. Bears and bees. Surely, he was dreaming. This was all a fabrication of his tired mind, making fanciful tales for him to laugh about as he awoke. A bear and a bee, what would his imagination come up with next?
“Sir? You’re sitting on some flowers there, if you don’t mind—” the little beebear, or bumblebear said again.
Jorgy squinted. This wasn’t a dream. “I— what?” he sat up suddenly, surprised and a little shocked. “What in the name of breakfast?”
“Oh? You, you can hear us?” asked the little bee bear thing on his left. “I didn’t know that you could.”
“I can hear you,” Jorgy responded, still surprised at what was happening. “I’ve, well I’ve never seen anything like you is all.”
The little bees giggled and buzzed around so that they were facing Jorgy. “We’re bumblebears,” the one on the right said. “I’m Bearnadette, and this is my sister, Bearnice.”
Jorgy knew he shouldn’t laugh, but his smile was wide. What a marvelous thing! Bumblebears!
“Well, it’s very nice to meet both of you, my name is Jorgy, Jorgy Underash, at your service.”
There was a small amount of buzzing that Jorgy didn’t catch, some sort of language he wasn’t quite privy to, then, “It’s very nice to meet you Jorgy.”
The young hobbit then realized that he was still, apparently, sitting on some flowers and they were waiting for him to shift and move so that they were no longer squished beneath him. Hastily, he did so, bouncing onto a patch of springy grass by the tree. The little bumblebears buzzed happily and did what might have been called a curtsey.
“Thank you, kind sir. The flowers here are very delicate, very fragile,” said Bearnadette, holding a tiny flower in her paw as she buzzed around him. “They are very beautiful and rare, I’m not sure what hobbits call them, but we call them bloodroot.”
Jorgy took a hard look at the flowers, small things with white petals around a yellow center. It looked like something in Mrs. Pumpkinberry’s book. What had it said? Something about a tiny flower that had a red sap in its stem or something. “I think you might be right. I remember seeing that in a book. They are quite lovely, and so tiny. I hope you forgive me for accidently sitting on them.”
“Nothing to forgive,” said Bearnice buzzing happily and landing on Jorgy’s shoulder.
“I’ve never met a bumblebear,” said Jorgy after a moment, examining all the varieties of wildflowers around the base of the tree. “Where do you live?”
“Oh!” Bearnice buzzed off his shoulder and floated around the base of the oak, “We live here in this tree, up in the higher branches. Our hive is near the top, much bigger than a regular bumblebee hive. We usually only venture out at evening, when the light is red and golden, soft and warm to the touch. We’ve never met a hobbit before though, most of the time you folk are so busy going hither and thither and to and fro. We’ve always wandered what made you so busy all the time. You don’t have hives, but you move around like you’re bees. We’ve certainly never gotten to talk to one. We thought hobbits didn’t understand us.”
Jorgy bowed his head and made a flourish with his hands, the same kind of he’d seen other hobbits do to one another. “It’s the very greatest pleasure to meet you then, Bearnadette and Bearnice. I may not be like most hobbits, but I hope I represent them well. We are a busy lot, I do admit. But I’ve met some people that are even busier than us. We like to sit and watch the world around every now and then. Mrs. Pumpkinberry and I have a special time that we just have tea and watch the wind carry about the leaves.”
“Oh!” said Bearnadette, perking up. “I love watching the way the wind moves the leaves about. The smells and the tales they tell are just so fantastic.”
“The smells?” asked Jorgy. “Whatever do you mean by that? I’ve never heard of leaves having a smell.”
“Oh they do!” insisted Bearnadette, with Bearnice buzzing to her side and nodding vigorously. “Every leaf has a slightly different smell, just like every flower, every bumblebear, and every hobbit!” They both giggled, it was an infectious giggle that even caught Jorgy. He wondered what he smelled like to a bumblebear, he hoped it didn’t smell like a compost heap; he smelled Eris Loamfoot’s compost heap once and it brought tears to his eyes with the pungency.
“Do you like honey?” asked Bearnice suddenly, looking very serious all of the sudden. Jorgy’s laughter faded when he saw her tiny face. Clearly bumblebears took their honey seriously. It made sense though, bees and bears were both animals that were serious about their honey, both the making and the consuming.
“Oh, I love honey,” Jorgy answered earnestly. The little bumblebears both relaxed. The idea that a hobbit, or anyone really, could not like honey was unfathomable to Jorgy. Honey was one of the best things in this world. Honey, golden and warm and delightful, was part of what made being a hobbit so wonderful. Jorgy was fully convinced that no other race in Middle-earth, not men nor elves nor dwarves could love honey quite so much as a hobbit. “I especially love it with toast or in tea. Oh! Do you like tea?”
“We’ve never had tea,” said Bearnice.
“Indeed,” agreed Bearnadette, “but we’ve heard about it, leaves and flowers and such.”
“Is it good?” asked Bearnice.
It was Jorgy’s turn to giggle. “I think tea is very good. We hobbits even have a whole meal around it, every day too! You know what,” he asked after a moment’s introspection, “I think I should like to invite you both to my home tomorrow for tea. I think we should have an amazing time. It’s customary to invite friends over for tea in Hobbiton and I think you two are going to be good friends.”
“Oh goodness,” said Bearnadette, her little face flushing with excitement. “I think that would be lovely. We’ve never been to Hobbiton before.” The two bumblebears buzzed at each other momentarily, speaking in that language that Jorgy could not quite understand. “We accept your gracious invitation.”
“We shall have a wonderful time!” said Bearnice, giggling and buzzing about in circles. “We shall talk of all sorts of flowers and leaves and honey!”
Jorgy beamed with pride. “A grand time indeed!” He was going to have tea with bumblebears. Who else in all the Shire could say the same?