The Funniship of the Ring. Book 9.
Or, In Which All Is Discovered And They Leave The Country.
Hoho awoke the next morning to Piping cutting the ropes that bound them.
"What happened?" he queried.
"Gladreel tied us all up and set us afloat in this swan boat with no oars," the little blobbit said with Bright Enthusiasm. "I guess she doesn't know good company when she gets it. Anyway, I swiped her pocketknife and I'll get you out in a jiffy."
After he was untied, Hoho wandered over to where Legless and Wimpy were playing some sort of game.
"Help help!" cried Wimpy.
Legless chuckled. "Don't pay any attention to him. He loves this game!"
"Don't listen to him, he's a maniac!" screamed Wimpy. "Get him away from me!" he screamed, wildly flailing his arms and whacking Mary overboard. Mary grabbed onto the side of the boat, and with much difficulty climbed back in.
"AAAIIIIEEEEE!!!!" screamed Wimpy as Legless smiled at him.
Hoho looked at them strangely and walked away.
"Avast, ye landlubbers!" cried Boring leaping about with Reckless Abandon. "Trim the mains'l, hoist the port jib and away we goooooo!" He ran around the boat several times waving his arms and leaping high in the air before tripping on a coil of rope and sprawling face down on the deck.
"Ouch," he said decidedly un-nautically.
Hoho shook his head and wandered off to where Arrogant was sitting glumly.
"I can't believe this," the man said shaking his head. "I can't believe that I, Arrogant son of Thornbush, the next king of Flounder, am stuck on a stupid little swan boat. Think of it! Me on a dinghy little swan dinky, I mean swan dinghky, I mean, well, no, I mean I could stand it if it were an eagle, or at least a hawk. But a swan!" he shuddered disgustedly and threw another small stone into the stream.
He sighed bitterly and reached around suddenly for another rock, and whacked Mary overboard. Mary spluttered and grabbed onto a rope dangling over the side, and with considerable difficulty climbed back in.
Hoho wandered over to where Tom was in the stern.
"What're you doing, Tom?" he queried quizzically.
"Quaffing," said Tom, "For the quacking has made me quite batty, considering the questionable status quo. And a quid pro quo to the Qatarians."
"Huh?" said Hoho.
"I thought we were, oh, never mind."
Hoho looked over at the still smoldering remains of the forest. Suddenly he saw a piece of paper on one of the trees.
"Arrogant!" he cried, "Pull the boat over!"
When Hoho read the piece of paper, he gasped. Arrogant snatched it away from him.
"WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE REWARD!!!!!!!!!" he screamed.
"Huh?" said Boring. (And the co-Author)
"I've always wanted my picture on a reward poster," murmered Piping dreamily.
Soon everybody was in a panic. So, once again, you guessed it, Tom was forced to take control of the situation.
"Run!" he cried.
"I don't know if you noticed," said Legless, "But we are in a BOAT!!!"
"A boat?" shouted Tom. "But I get sick in boats!" He leaped off the boat onto the shore and started running.
Camping that night by the poster, Hoho suddenly wondered where Gladreel had got their pictures.
'Hey, Arrogant!" he cried. "Arrogant? ARROGANT!!!!!" he screamed.
"Be quiet!" bellowed Wimpy. "Everybody's trying to sleep!"
"Be quiet yourself!!" yelled Arrogant.
"Hoho started it!" cried Wimpy.
"I didn't hear Hoho, I only heard you!" shrieked Legless.
"Tell the Self he snores!" howled Wimpy.
"Tell the Daft I don't!" wailed the Self.
"Both of you be quiet and go to sleep!" came an irate voice.
"You first!" hollered Wimpy and Legless.
"I didn't say anything!" screamed Arrogant.
"Yes you did!" said Wimpy.
"No, it was you," said a voice that sounded like Legless's.
"It was NOT me!" said the Daft angrily.
"I never said it was, it was Arrogant!" said Legless.
"It wasn't me, it was Wimpy!" said Arrogant exasperatedly.
"No, it was me," said a voice that sounded like Arrogant.
"Don't contradict!" shouted Legless.
"I wasn't!" hollered Arrogant. "Now if certain peoples would shut up, we could all get to sleep before the sun comes up!"
"Then dawn take you all, and be up with you!" said a voice.
And immediately, dawn came and Hoho rubbed his sleepless eyes.
Arrogant cried in his sleeping bag until they threatend to roll him up in it and throw him in the river. Even so, he sniffed until he got the bright idea to have a questioning to see who deprived him of his beauty sleep.
He lined up the Funniship shortest to tallest, and starting at the tallest (Boring) he glared at each of them in turn.
"Ok," he growled. "Now we're gonna make this fast. What I want to know is why did someone want to deprive me of my beauty sleep? If I'm any less beautiful at the end of my life than I should be, someone's gonna get it hot!"
"I don't think you're gonna have to worry about that too much," retorted Legless.
Arrogant snarled at him and moved on to Wimpy.
"Well?" he said. "What do you have to say? I think I would be right in assuming that you started this."
At the short end of the line, Mary and Piping burst out giggling.
"I'm telling you, Hoho started it!" hollered Wimpy.
"Although he could be lying," came a voice like Legless's.
"I am not lying!" screamed Wimpy.
"I never said you were," shouted Legless.
"Yes you did!" screeched the Daft.
"Let's not start this again!" bellowed Arrogant.
"You started this!" wailed the Daft and the Self.
"Did not!" said the Man angrily.
Hoho, fed up with this childish nonsense, clambered back onto the boat and started off.
"Hey!" cried Tom pointing. "Hoho's starting off without us!"
"No, Hoho, No!" shouted everyone. They started running towards the boat and jumped on. Except Tom. He had tripped on something and was now running along shore trying to keep up with the boat.
"Tom, run Tom!" shouted Hoho.
"Go!" Tom screamed. He jumped onto the boat and just made it.
"Oof!" said Hoho, who Tom had landed on. After about a minute, they came to where the fire hadn't burned the forest, and there was a mountain on either side on the banks, and one rather tall one in the middle of the stream.
"Ok," said Arrogant cheerfully, "Let's land here."
Hoho looked back up the stream forty feet or so to where they had just been and shook his head.
"Let us linger for a time," said Legless. "For the eastern shore does not worry me."
Piping almost said that they were on the western shore, but he decided not to remind Legless of his terrible sense of direction.
"Ok, said Arrogant, "I'll go home and the rest of you can go to Mortar."
"Where are Boring and Hoho?" said Mary. "I think they can go to Mortar and the rest of us can go home."
The rest of the Funniship agreed to this readily.
Boring, however, had gone up the hill to seek solace. He wandered up a long unused trail, and soon came to a small clearing in the trees with a large flat boulder in the center. He had an impression that somone unfriendly was behind him. He whirled around but he saw only Hoho's smiling face.
"None of us should wander alone," he said while giving Boring some logs to hold. "Least of all me, er, you. I know what troubles you," he continued, "But there are other ways, other paths that we might take."
"I know what you might say and it would seem like wisdom but for the warning in my heart," shot back Boring. Hoho sulked for a couple of seconds but soon recovered.
"Warning against what?" he queried.
"Warning against delay. Against pain. And against tongue piercing!" Boring sighed.
"What?" said Hoho (and the co-Author) thoroughly confused. "Tongue piercing? What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about my family problems. What did you think I was talking about?"
"Well, the Ring of course!" said Hoho. "That is the reason we're on this quest. Y'know," he sidled up to Boring who was seated on the rock and put his arm around his shoulders, "I've had a lot of time to think on this trip. I've thought about me, I've thought about the Ring, then I thought about me again, but then I thought about you."
"Uh, ok," said Boring leaping up, "I gotta go."
"No no, you dolt!" shouted the blobbit. "What I was trying to say was, you poor unfortunate soul, you've never even seen the Ring. Wouldn't you like to now?"
"No," said the man nervously.
"As you wish, I care not," said Hoho. "But it's a great and powerful Ring, It'll give you cool powers, and make you invisible! It gives the power of conquest, and vanquishment! You can be a king rich and powerful beyond your wildest imaginations!"
Hoho jumped up and strode up and down, speaking ever more loudly. Almost he seemed to have forgotten lunch, while his talk dwelt on walls and weapons, and the mustering of men; and he drew plans for great alliances and glorious victories to be; and he cast down Mortar, and set Boring up as a mighty king, benevolent and wise, giving many great feasts. Suddenly he stopped and waved his arms.
"And you would throw it all away?" he shouted.
"Yes, yes!" shouted Boring.
"Then you won't take the Ring?" said the blobbit in dismay.
"No no no!" said the man rushing round to the other side of the boulder.
"Why are you so unfriendly?" asked Hoho. "Can't I even lend you the Ring?"
"No!" the man shouted. "Help help help!!"
"You may be twice my height," growled the blobbit, "But I am twice the man you are! And you are no match for me, Man!" And he leaped over the stone, and his handsome (in his own opinion, anyway) face was contorted in rage. Boring rushed to the other side and stood panting.
"Help, help!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Fool! Obstinant fool!" shouted Hoho. "To throw away such a thing as Moron's great Ring! You're hopeless!" And with a final snarl, he pulled a huge iron chain from around his neck, and with some effort wrenched from it a small band of gold, slipped it on and disappeared.
Boring ran around shrieking until he tripped on a log. He rolled over and over and over and over and over until he was stopped by a lake. He swam back and sat down.
"Hoho?" he spluttered, "Hoho? I'm sorry, I do not know what came over me, but it has passed! Hoho? HOHO!?"
But Hoho had put his earplugs in and was seated on a tower of some sort. He saw a cloud shaped like a hand groping its way toward him. Hoho's mind was in a turmoil between 'Take off the Ring!' and 'Run run run run!'. When the cloud-hand was 2 inches away he blew on it and it disappeared.
Then Hoho looked down and saw the river stretching like a rubber hose that needed to be rolled up. Hoho knew in his heart what he must do, but he was afraid to do it. He wondered what Handoff would have said. Then he remembered. The blizzard probably would have said something like, 'You wimp! Don't choose a blobbit to do a man's job! And pass the pretzels!'.
Hoho decided to sleep on it. He stumbled sleepily down the hill and crawled under a log for a much needed nap.
So ends the Funniship of the Ring. In The Two Cowards, we will continue with what paths the Funniship chose, and where they went, and what clothes they wore, and if their hairstyles were in style, etc. etc. etc. and so on, and so forth.
Well? We've got The Two Cowards finished, and we are awaiting response. Please review. :)
Or, In Which All Is Discovered And They Leave The Country.
Hoho awoke the next morning to Piping cutting the ropes that bound them.
"What happened?" he queried.
"Gladreel tied us all up and set us afloat in this swan boat with no oars," the little blobbit said with Bright Enthusiasm. "I guess she doesn't know good company when she gets it. Anyway, I swiped her pocketknife and I'll get you out in a jiffy."
After he was untied, Hoho wandered over to where Legless and Wimpy were playing some sort of game.
"Help help!" cried Wimpy.
Legless chuckled. "Don't pay any attention to him. He loves this game!"
"Don't listen to him, he's a maniac!" screamed Wimpy. "Get him away from me!" he screamed, wildly flailing his arms and whacking Mary overboard. Mary grabbed onto the side of the boat, and with much difficulty climbed back in.
"AAAIIIIEEEEE!!!!" screamed Wimpy as Legless smiled at him.
Hoho looked at them strangely and walked away.
"Avast, ye landlubbers!" cried Boring leaping about with Reckless Abandon. "Trim the mains'l, hoist the port jib and away we goooooo!" He ran around the boat several times waving his arms and leaping high in the air before tripping on a coil of rope and sprawling face down on the deck.
"Ouch," he said decidedly un-nautically.
Hoho shook his head and wandered off to where Arrogant was sitting glumly.
"I can't believe this," the man said shaking his head. "I can't believe that I, Arrogant son of Thornbush, the next king of Flounder, am stuck on a stupid little swan boat. Think of it! Me on a dinghy little swan dinky, I mean swan dinghky, I mean, well, no, I mean I could stand it if it were an eagle, or at least a hawk. But a swan!" he shuddered disgustedly and threw another small stone into the stream.
He sighed bitterly and reached around suddenly for another rock, and whacked Mary overboard. Mary spluttered and grabbed onto a rope dangling over the side, and with considerable difficulty climbed back in.
Hoho wandered over to where Tom was in the stern.
"What're you doing, Tom?" he queried quizzically.
"Quaffing," said Tom, "For the quacking has made me quite batty, considering the questionable status quo. And a quid pro quo to the Qatarians."
"Huh?" said Hoho.
"I thought we were, oh, never mind."
Hoho looked over at the still smoldering remains of the forest. Suddenly he saw a piece of paper on one of the trees.
"Arrogant!" he cried, "Pull the boat over!"
When Hoho read the piece of paper, he gasped. Arrogant snatched it away from him.
"WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE REWARD!!!!!!!!!" he screamed.
"Huh?" said Boring. (And the co-Author)
"I've always wanted my picture on a reward poster," murmered Piping dreamily.
Soon everybody was in a panic. So, once again, you guessed it, Tom was forced to take control of the situation.
"Run!" he cried.
"I don't know if you noticed," said Legless, "But we are in a BOAT!!!"
"A boat?" shouted Tom. "But I get sick in boats!" He leaped off the boat onto the shore and started running.
Camping that night by the poster, Hoho suddenly wondered where Gladreel had got their pictures.
'Hey, Arrogant!" he cried. "Arrogant? ARROGANT!!!!!" he screamed.
"Be quiet!" bellowed Wimpy. "Everybody's trying to sleep!"
"Be quiet yourself!!" yelled Arrogant.
"Hoho started it!" cried Wimpy.
"I didn't hear Hoho, I only heard you!" shrieked Legless.
"Tell the Self he snores!" howled Wimpy.
"Tell the Daft I don't!" wailed the Self.
"Both of you be quiet and go to sleep!" came an irate voice.
"You first!" hollered Wimpy and Legless.
"I didn't say anything!" screamed Arrogant.
"Yes you did!" said Wimpy.
"No, it was you," said a voice that sounded like Legless's.
"It was NOT me!" said the Daft angrily.
"I never said it was, it was Arrogant!" said Legless.
"It wasn't me, it was Wimpy!" said Arrogant exasperatedly.
"No, it was me," said a voice that sounded like Arrogant.
"Don't contradict!" shouted Legless.
"I wasn't!" hollered Arrogant. "Now if certain peoples would shut up, we could all get to sleep before the sun comes up!"
"Then dawn take you all, and be up with you!" said a voice.
And immediately, dawn came and Hoho rubbed his sleepless eyes.
Arrogant cried in his sleeping bag until they threatend to roll him up in it and throw him in the river. Even so, he sniffed until he got the bright idea to have a questioning to see who deprived him of his beauty sleep.
He lined up the Funniship shortest to tallest, and starting at the tallest (Boring) he glared at each of them in turn.
"Ok," he growled. "Now we're gonna make this fast. What I want to know is why did someone want to deprive me of my beauty sleep? If I'm any less beautiful at the end of my life than I should be, someone's gonna get it hot!"
"I don't think you're gonna have to worry about that too much," retorted Legless.
Arrogant snarled at him and moved on to Wimpy.
"Well?" he said. "What do you have to say? I think I would be right in assuming that you started this."
At the short end of the line, Mary and Piping burst out giggling.
"I'm telling you, Hoho started it!" hollered Wimpy.
"Although he could be lying," came a voice like Legless's.
"I am not lying!" screamed Wimpy.
"I never said you were," shouted Legless.
"Yes you did!" screeched the Daft.
"Let's not start this again!" bellowed Arrogant.
"You started this!" wailed the Daft and the Self.
"Did not!" said the Man angrily.
Hoho, fed up with this childish nonsense, clambered back onto the boat and started off.
"Hey!" cried Tom pointing. "Hoho's starting off without us!"
"No, Hoho, No!" shouted everyone. They started running towards the boat and jumped on. Except Tom. He had tripped on something and was now running along shore trying to keep up with the boat.
"Tom, run Tom!" shouted Hoho.
"Go!" Tom screamed. He jumped onto the boat and just made it.
"Oof!" said Hoho, who Tom had landed on. After about a minute, they came to where the fire hadn't burned the forest, and there was a mountain on either side on the banks, and one rather tall one in the middle of the stream.
"Ok," said Arrogant cheerfully, "Let's land here."
Hoho looked back up the stream forty feet or so to where they had just been and shook his head.
"Let us linger for a time," said Legless. "For the eastern shore does not worry me."
Piping almost said that they were on the western shore, but he decided not to remind Legless of his terrible sense of direction.
"Ok, said Arrogant, "I'll go home and the rest of you can go to Mortar."
"Where are Boring and Hoho?" said Mary. "I think they can go to Mortar and the rest of us can go home."
The rest of the Funniship agreed to this readily.
Boring, however, had gone up the hill to seek solace. He wandered up a long unused trail, and soon came to a small clearing in the trees with a large flat boulder in the center. He had an impression that somone unfriendly was behind him. He whirled around but he saw only Hoho's smiling face.
"None of us should wander alone," he said while giving Boring some logs to hold. "Least of all me, er, you. I know what troubles you," he continued, "But there are other ways, other paths that we might take."
"I know what you might say and it would seem like wisdom but for the warning in my heart," shot back Boring. Hoho sulked for a couple of seconds but soon recovered.
"Warning against what?" he queried.
"Warning against delay. Against pain. And against tongue piercing!" Boring sighed.
"What?" said Hoho (and the co-Author) thoroughly confused. "Tongue piercing? What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about my family problems. What did you think I was talking about?"
"Well, the Ring of course!" said Hoho. "That is the reason we're on this quest. Y'know," he sidled up to Boring who was seated on the rock and put his arm around his shoulders, "I've had a lot of time to think on this trip. I've thought about me, I've thought about the Ring, then I thought about me again, but then I thought about you."
"Uh, ok," said Boring leaping up, "I gotta go."
"No no, you dolt!" shouted the blobbit. "What I was trying to say was, you poor unfortunate soul, you've never even seen the Ring. Wouldn't you like to now?"
"No," said the man nervously.
"As you wish, I care not," said Hoho. "But it's a great and powerful Ring, It'll give you cool powers, and make you invisible! It gives the power of conquest, and vanquishment! You can be a king rich and powerful beyond your wildest imaginations!"
Hoho jumped up and strode up and down, speaking ever more loudly. Almost he seemed to have forgotten lunch, while his talk dwelt on walls and weapons, and the mustering of men; and he drew plans for great alliances and glorious victories to be; and he cast down Mortar, and set Boring up as a mighty king, benevolent and wise, giving many great feasts. Suddenly he stopped and waved his arms.
"And you would throw it all away?" he shouted.
"Yes, yes!" shouted Boring.
"Then you won't take the Ring?" said the blobbit in dismay.
"No no no!" said the man rushing round to the other side of the boulder.
"Why are you so unfriendly?" asked Hoho. "Can't I even lend you the Ring?"
"No!" the man shouted. "Help help help!!"
"You may be twice my height," growled the blobbit, "But I am twice the man you are! And you are no match for me, Man!" And he leaped over the stone, and his handsome (in his own opinion, anyway) face was contorted in rage. Boring rushed to the other side and stood panting.
"Help, help!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Fool! Obstinant fool!" shouted Hoho. "To throw away such a thing as Moron's great Ring! You're hopeless!" And with a final snarl, he pulled a huge iron chain from around his neck, and with some effort wrenched from it a small band of gold, slipped it on and disappeared.
Boring ran around shrieking until he tripped on a log. He rolled over and over and over and over and over until he was stopped by a lake. He swam back and sat down.
"Hoho?" he spluttered, "Hoho? I'm sorry, I do not know what came over me, but it has passed! Hoho? HOHO!?"
But Hoho had put his earplugs in and was seated on a tower of some sort. He saw a cloud shaped like a hand groping its way toward him. Hoho's mind was in a turmoil between 'Take off the Ring!' and 'Run run run run!'. When the cloud-hand was 2 inches away he blew on it and it disappeared.
Then Hoho looked down and saw the river stretching like a rubber hose that needed to be rolled up. Hoho knew in his heart what he must do, but he was afraid to do it. He wondered what Handoff would have said. Then he remembered. The blizzard probably would have said something like, 'You wimp! Don't choose a blobbit to do a man's job! And pass the pretzels!'.
Hoho decided to sleep on it. He stumbled sleepily down the hill and crawled under a log for a much needed nap.
So ends the Funniship of the Ring. In The Two Cowards, we will continue with what paths the Funniship chose, and where they went, and what clothes they wore, and if their hairstyles were in style, etc. etc. etc. and so on, and so forth.
Well? We've got The Two Cowards finished, and we are awaiting response. Please review. :)