Author's Note:

This is the prequel to my other story "Everyone Loves a Parade". Again, written a few years ago for my English class while we were reading The Lord of the Rings. Our assignment was to write a short story describing an average (or not so average) day in the life of one of the races/people groups of Middle Earth (Rider of Rohan, Elf, etc.) Naturally, I tried to think of something outside the box. I remembered that my previous assignment had an unnaturally friendly Ring Wraith and decided to tie that story into my new one. So now you get to read about Willy's past :) Reading "Everyone Loves a Parade" is not necessary to understand this story, but you should go read it anyway (wink, wink). Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The world of Middle Earth and all its inhabitants (except for Willy) belong to J. R. R. Tolkien.

A Day In the Life Of Willy (or Raghbaghorthactorus): The Pogo-sticking Ring Wraith

Raghbaghorthactorus (or "Willy" as he's called later in this story) was by no means, a normal Ring Wraith. For one thing, Raghba- ok, you know what? We're just going to call him Willy. Anyway, so Willy the Wraith didn't really share everyone else's desire for despair and destruction. In fact, he didn't share them at all. But besides not being malicious, Willy also enjoyed baking. He love to bake all kinds of things like cookies, muffins, and pies. Definitely not normal.

One nice day, (or as nice a day as you could have in Mordor) Willy was in the kitchen. He was working on the most magnificent work of art he had ever created; a four layer, chocolate, Mt. Doom shaped cake. You see, today was not just another day. Today, was Sauran's birthday. Willy wanted so much to impress his master. Make him proud, even if Willy wasn't like the rest of the Wraiths. So the first thing that came to mind was, do what your good at! Bake something! Now the cake was nearly finished. All it needed now was the fire coming from the top of the volcano. Sounded easy enough. After that was done, (and after a bit of trial and error) Willy went to take the cake to his master.

When he got to the throne room, the other Ring Wraiths were already there presenting their gifts. They had brought things like a new sword, daggers, a crown polishing kit, an alarm clock that played the Darth Vader theme, etc. Willy walked slowly towards the others, trying very hard not to ruin the cake. The other Wraiths were to busy fawning over their master to notice him at first, so Willy just stood waiting in the middle of the room. After a few minutes, one of the Wraiths turned around. he noticed Willy and poked the Wraith next to him. Now all of them had turned around and were staring at him and his cake. There was a long pause. The other Wraiths looked at the cake, then at Willy, and then back to the cake.

After the awkward silence became almost unbearable, one of the Wraiths started to laugh. Soon all of them were laughing so hard that Willy wished he had decided to come later. If Ring Wraiths could blush, he would have been scarlet. When he could handle the laughter no longer, Willy shoved his cake on to the nearest table and ran out the door. Willy didn't really know exactly where his legs were taking him, but before he knew it he riding across the rocky fields of Mordor. He road past Emyn Muil, outside of Rohan, and between the forests Fangorn and Lothlórien.

Then an idea began to form in Willy's mind. What if he could find the Ring and bring it to his master? He had been looking for it, and would be greatly pleased if it was returned to him. The other Wraiths wouldn't dare laugh at him then, and his master would finally be proud of him. So he rode on until he came upon a forest. He hadn't found a better place to start looking, so he decided to check it out.

Willy had been riding for an awfully long time now, so he took a break by a big tree. He let his horse wander around and graze while he rested. After he had been dosing for about an hour, he got up and rode off again. As Willy rode through the forest, he heard something; a strange sound was rising up with the wind. He kept riding and the sound got closer. Soon he recognized the sound as singing. Through the trees he saw a little log cabin with wildflowers all around it. The song was coming from a small, sort of dwarf like creature with a floppy blue hat and yellow boots. Of course his song was absolute nonsense, something about willows and dillos.

When the creature turned and noticed him, he seemed quite delighted to have a guest. Willy tried to explain that he was on an urgent mission. He was quite firm and attempted to look as scary as possible, but the little man would not hear of it. He introduced himself as Tom Bombadil, and said that he looked after the forest. Tom invited Willy into his house for tea, but really didn't give him a chance to say no, so he followed Tom inside.

Tom's house was small and colorful, with a big fireplace and comfy chairs. They sat down and had tea and cookies, and talked about why Willy had come. Tom was very understanding and sympathetic. He also started calling Willy "Willy" because Raghbaghorthactorus is such a mouthful. While they were talking, Willy noticed something odd in the corner of the room. Tom explained that it was a "pogo-stick", something he had invented himself. Tom let Willy try it out. As Willy bounced around on the pogo-stick, he thought to himself:

Why can't I just stay here?

So he did. He is now living in the Old Forest, pogo-sticking away. He never returned to Mordor (the other Wraiths didn't miss him anyway) and happier than he's ever been in his whole life.

Thank you for reading!