7. Three Hobbits and a Little Spellcheck

“Let’s go as fast as we can,” said Frodo. “They call this the Spellcheck Wood, you know.”

“I wouldn’t want to linger here,” Samwise agreed. “Folks say it does fearful things to a hobbit.”

“Really?” Pippin said, ever the curious young Took. “I’ve never been in this part of the Wood before. What fearful things?”

“Changes a hobbit somehow, or so I hear, makes ‘em talk all addled,” Sam said with a shudder. “And I don’t reckon I want to find out what else.”

“Let’s get on, then,” Merry urged. “I’m ready for supper.”

“Ooh, seedcake,” Pippin said, smacking his lips. “And perhaps some mushrooms. Are there mushrooms in this Spellcheck Wood?”

“If there were, I wouldn’t dare eat them,” Fro do said. He stopped so suddenly that Sam wise ran into his back, and Pippin trod on Mary’s heels. “What an odd sensation…”

“What is it, Mister Fro do?” Sam wise said. “You look all strange all of a sudden.”

Fro do laughed nervously. “I feel a bit funny, to tell the truth.” He turned to Mary. “I feel a bit silly for asking, but Mary, do I seem…different, to you?”

“Not that I can tell,” Mary said, peering at him in the dim light under the trees. Then he straightened up, looking anxious. “But I’m feeling a bit strange myself. Have I changed any? Pippin, are you all right? You’ve gone white.”

Pippin was gazing at Mary with something close to horror. Before his eyes Mary’s hair had grown into a shining, curly-brown mass down to his shoulders, his familiar, sturdy form had seemed to shrink, and he was looking distinctly and disturbingly pretty. “You…your…”

Fro do turned to Sam wise with a pleading look. “Sam, quickly, say something! Anything!”

“Master Bulb, Vandal, Rive dell,” Sam wise recited, with growing fright. “Fro do, Mary, Took land, Bowater, Hobbit on, Gagmen-Oh save us! It’s all addled!” Sam gasped. “Nothing comes out right, Mister Fro do! What‘s happening to us?”

“It’s the Spell check!” Mary said. “What shall we do, Fro do?”

He looked quite pale and frightened. Pippin’s young mind was reeling, and in a sweetly confused sort of way he wondered, in light of his cousin’s sudden and boggling change of gender, if it was his duty as a Took and a gentlehobbit to comfort…er, her, somehow. What did one usually do to soothe a lass? He took up Mary’s hand and gave it a feeble sort of pat. “There, there,” he said faintly.

Mary growled and wrenched it away, and he would have gone after Pippin with his fingernails had not Fro do held him back. “Scratch his eyes out later! Let’s make a run for it now, quick!”

Filled with fright they began to run, slapping branches aside and leaping over deadfalls like deer, but as fast as they went Spell check continued to pursue them. Pippin held tight to Mary’s arm. Mary was muttering as they ran, and his voice was developing a lovely and sweetly terrible girlish lilt. At any moment Pippin knew he might feel an ‘E’ affix itself to his given name ‘Peregrin’, and he, too, would suffer the terrible fate of becoming a hobbit-lass through Spell check. You shan’t have him Spell check! Pippin thought grimly. Neither him nor me!

Fro do held to Sam’s arm just as tightly, though he feared it might be too late for them both. He shuddered to think of their fate if they did not escape. Sam wise might have a chance, but what on earth was a Fro do, anyway?

They were near the edge of the wood now, and the blessed sunlight of a world filled with colloquialisms, anachronistic spellings, and unrecognised place-names was shining on the path. “Uncle Bubo, Eldon, Minas Toroth!” Fro do cried desperately, putting on a burst of speed. “Now lads, jump for it!”

They leaped forward as one and landed in a heap in the green grass. Frodo stood up at once and began to brush himself off. “Hobbiton! Samwise! Bilbo! Sam, speak!”

“Master Frodo!” Sam cried in delight. “Mister Merry! Mister Pippin! Well, I’m sure relieved, and no mistake.”

“Not half as relieved as I am,” Merry said dryly, patting himself all over.

“That was a narrow escape,” Pippin said, wiping sweat off his brow. He was fervently glad to have dodged the terrible ‘E’, and he certainly didn‘t need another Brandybuck girl-cousin, thank you very much.

You have no idea, Merry thought, and shivered. The word betrothal loomed large in his mind: Pippin’s mother would’ve laid hands on the newly-eligible Brandybuck lass faster than a hobbit could put 'Tookland Wedding' in single quotations. 

“Come on, lads,” Frodo said. “The sooner we put Spellcheck behind us, the better.”

They began to move off at a quick walk, with many a nervous look over their shoulders.

“What a strange place!” Merry muttered after a time. "I wonder that there aren't warning signs posted."

“I wonder who put Spellcheck there, and why?” Pippin said. "I can't see much good in it being there."

“Well, may be there’s some good use in that Spellcheck, Mister Pippin,” Sam said. “If a body is careful."

********

the end