[Nurumaiel]

Just then Don hopped down from the stool and began walking out the kitchen door. "I'm fed up with you two crazy ladies," she said. "Especially the redheaded one. She talks too much. Goodbye!"

For a moment Rie and Nuru looked at each other, even Rie stunned, and then they rushed out into the common room, where Don was sitting and watching everyone.

"Don, what do you think you're doing, coming out here?" asked Nuru. "It's dangerous."

"So?" said Don stubbornly. "You can't make me leave. I'm my own person. If Mum or my second mum or Dad were alive and wanted me to, I would, because they're nice to me. But you two are just a couple of meanies!"

Rie sat down next to Don. "Tell me more about yourself," she said. "What happened after your family was split up."

Don seemed a bit more willing now that she was in the common room. "Oh, we went to live with different relatives," she said. "I had to go live with my mean old Aunt Mirabella. She made me go to bed really early, always be in stupid pretty dresses, and do you know what? She didn't think children should have fun. When I would tell her I'm bored she'd say, 'Why don't you read a book or just go to sleep?' I knew how to read because a nice old hobbit man who was a friend of my second mum taught me. But anyway, I'd ask if I could run and play outside with the other hobbit kids, and she'd say, 'No, you might get dirty, and playing and running is only for the children of ruffians.' Then I got really upset because she had just called my Mum and second mum and Dad ruffians because they let me run outside.

"And Aunt Mirabella wouldn't even let me talk to the other kids. She said I might learn bad things from them. She'd let me visit my sisters and brothers a lot, but not my twin. She said he was a bad example for me and it was better if I never saw him again. So I ran away.

"I went to find out where my twin was but when I got there my Aunt Donnamira, who has the same name as me and is worse than any other of my aunts and uncles, sent me right back to Aunt Mirabella, and I got scolded and sent to bed without supper. I ran away again, and this time I didn't try to find my twin, because I'd have to go right back to Aunt Mirabella. I just wandered around and had adventures and now I came here." Her eyes narrowed. "And what do I find? Two crazy ladies that are worse than my aunts could ever be!"

Nuru shoulders started shaking, and then, getting up, said quickly that she had to go back to the kitchen, for it was almost time for lunch.

"Why was she shaking?" asked Don.

"I think she was crying," said Rie, trying to fool the girl. "I think you hurt her feelings when you said she was a crazy old lady."

"No, she wasn't!" said Don. "You must not have eyes. She wasn't crying. She was laughing."