[Arry]

Gil speaks with Miz Bella

Woody and Hanson make friends

Gil leaned casually against the door frame, his cap in his hands. His older sister Laura had sent him in early to the Inn to see about getting her two younger sons into the new school. Gil was groaning at the early hour and chiding himself for telling her about Miz Bella at all. ‘Never mind that you had a bit too much of the Dragon’s ale last night. Call it a bit of payment for letting you stay here, Gil Tussock, until your own place is done,’ Laura had had told him. ‘You can explain to Mister Banks what made you a bit late.’

Woodruff (or Woody as he was mostly called), eleven, and Hanson, five, were not as unenergetic as their uncle. They had promised him they would be good, but could they please, please go in and have a look around. ‘G’wan, then,’ he’d told them both, taking a quick look in at the schoolroom. ‘I’ll just wait here ‘til Miz Bella is done talking to that other woman; then, I’ll get the both of you signed up.’ As an afterthought, and because he thought he should do it since he was after all their uncle, Gil called after them as they ran into the room. ‘Woody and Hanson Boffin, you be good now.’

---

‘Hey, look, Woody!’ Hanson pointed to the back part of the room where someone had drawn a circle on the floor. There were two boys there, one a Hobbit who looked to be about Hanson’s age. And another, taller, boy. One of the Big Folk, he thought. The younger boy held a bag of marbles and had taken one out to show the other boy.

‘They’re gonna play marbles,’ Hanson said, tugging on his brother’s shirt. ‘Let’s see if we can join in.’