diff --git a/src/main/java/com/samskivert/mustache/BasicCollector.java b/src/main/java/com/samskivert/mustache/BasicCollector.java
index a444cee..8e2918e 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/samskivert/mustache/BasicCollector.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/samskivert/mustache/BasicCollector.java
@@ -37,7 +37,11 @@ public class BasicCollector implements Mustache.Collector
 
     protected static final Mustache.VariableFetcher MAP_FETCHER = new Mustache.VariableFetcher() {
         public Object get (Object ctx, String name) throws Exception {
-            return ((Map<?,?>)ctx).get(name);
+            if (((Map<?,?>)ctx).containsKey(name)) {
+                return ((Map<?,?>)ctx).get(name);
+            } else {
+                return Template.NO_FETCHER_FOUND;
+            }
         }
     };
 
diff --git a/src/main/java/com/samskivert/mustache/Template.java b/src/main/java/com/samskivert/mustache/Template.java
index ea0f629..ec61d50 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/samskivert/mustache/Template.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/samskivert/mustache/Template.java
@@ -140,10 +140,6 @@ public class Template
             Object value = getValueIn(ctx.data, name, line);
             if (value == NO_FETCHER_FOUND) {
                 // preserve variableMissing
-            } else if (value == null) {
-                // we found a fetcher, and it returned null; so we keep searching our parents, but
-                // we won't freak out about a missing variable if we have a nullValue configured
-                variableMissing = false;
             } else {
                 return value;
             }
diff --git a/src/test/java/com/samskivert/mustache/MustacheTest.java b/src/test/java/com/samskivert/mustache/MustacheTest.java
index 9d54ac5..a6f755e 100644
--- a/src/test/java/com/samskivert/mustache/MustacheTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/com/samskivert/mustache/MustacheTest.java
@@ -357,7 +357,8 @@ public class MustacheTest
     }
 
     @Test public void testShadowedContextWithNull () {
-        test("outer", "{{foo}}{{#inner}}{{foo}}{{/inner}}",
+        test(Mustache.compiler().nullValue("(null)"),
+            "outer(null)", "{{foo}}{{#inner}}{{foo}}{{/inner}}",
              context("foo", "outer", "inner", context("foo", null))
             );
     }