He led her to the back room, where a shelf held a single, unassuming timepiece. Its face was engraved with a hobbit-hole door, round and green. The hands were made of two tiny, hairy feet.
Piper took the watch, crossed the pass in ten minutes, and spent the remaining two eating a stolen scone on the troll’s snoring belly. She returned the watch the next day, slightly singed, slightly smug. hobbit runtime
The old clockmaker, Bilbo Baggins by name (though no relation to the famous one, he’d insist), had a dusty shop at the end of a crooked lane. His specialty was not ordinary time. He built runtimes —tiny, humming devices that could compress a long journey into a single pocket-watch’s tick, or stretch a moment of courage into a small, quiet eternity. He led her to the back room, where
“I need a hobbit runtime,” she said, breathless. “The old pass is guarded by a troll who only falls asleep for eleven minutes every century. The journey to the pass takes twelve.” Piper took the watch, crossed the pass in
Bilbo smiled. “Long enough to lose your handkerchief, find your courage, and still be home for second breakfast.”
“This is the There and Back Again ,” he said. “Wind it once. For exactly the runtime of a hobbit’s unexpected journey—no more, no less.”