The Mount Zoom Challenge - GAME

[The Saucepan Man]

Smoke get in your Tyres

The Hobbits stared disconsolately at the piles of crumbs and broken biscuit which lay neatly at the four corners of Bag-Endless-Fuel.

“Oh well, Pip,” said Merry. “At least you tried.

“Perhaps if I bake them for longer next time, they’ll be stronger,” offered Pippin.

“More likely than not, you’ll burn the place down,” observed Samwise.

“Still,” said Bilbo. “It’s given me some ideas. After all, food is the one thing that we do have in prodigious quantities.”

And so, over the next hour, they tried every possible comestible item of suitable size and shape that they could lay their hands on: large, round slabs of cheese (nice ride quality but prone to warping), huge game pies (too flaky and subject to leakage), enormous pancakes and crumpets (hopeless), monster doughnuts (too flabby and unstable), rollers comprised of impressively-sized cucumbers, marrows and corn-cobs in a row (too irresistible to the local wildlife), immense meatballs (too prone to degradation) and so on. All, alas, to no avail.

Then they moved on to kitchen utensils: plates, pans, dishes, breadboards, rolling-pins, bowls and baking-trays. But though each was crafted with Hobbit appetites in mind, none were quite large enough or strong enough.

Finally, as Frodo headed back to find something else that might avail, his eyes rested on the front door – the round front door.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed. “Hobbit-hole doors are round and just the right size!”

“But will they be strong enough?” asked Merry.

“They will if we nail a few together.”

And so the Hobbits set about removing Bag End’s doors from their frames and nailing them together in groups of three. Next, they carefully fixed them to the axles and stood back to survey the results of their efforts.

“You know, this just might work, my boy,” said Bilbo happily. “Let’s try it out.”

But as the first firework was ignited, and Bag-Endless-Fuel lurched forward unsteadily, it became clear that the ride provided by the makeshift wooden wheels would be unbearably uncomfortable.

“We’ll never make it over the High Pass without tyres on these things,” remarked Bilbo glumly, taking out his pipe and filling it with some Longbottom Leaf to help him think.

Silence once more descended on the living room as the Hobbits mused over the conundrum which faced them. Bilbo’s smoke rings became ever larger as he wracked his brains ever more desperately, until they were the size of large ... tyres!

“That’s it!” he exclaimed. “We shall use smoke rings as our tyres!”

“Smoke rings!” cried Frodo in disbelief. “Are you kidding? Smoke is surely entirely unsuitable as tyre material. It won’t stay on the wheels for a start. And even if it did, it could never support the vehicle’s weight.”

“Nonsense, my boy,” replied Bilbo. “We are taking place in a race in which the vehicles are assorted buildings, cities, towers and geographical features. We have just been attacked by a pack of wheel-obsessed porcupines. I heard from Elrond that Medel-zoom employed a rabid rabbit to get past the Troll, while Sauron turned a pack of rats into a pack of rat-wraiths. We are all stretching the bounds of credulity as it is. Smoke ring tyres are surely entirely in keeping with the way this race has gone so far.”

In no time at all, the Hobbits were back outside, with Bilbo puffing away on his pipe and blowing ever larger rings of smoke. Once they were of sufficient size, he carefully blew a ring around each ad hoc wheel. For a moment, the smoke simply swirled shapelessly around them. But then, as the Hobbits looked on in amazement, it began gradually to coalesce round the wheels, slowly lifting the vehicle slightly off the ground.

“Well I never did …!” spluttered Sam.

Unfortunately, however, the effect lasted only a moment. The Burrow-Buggy began to shake and bob furiously before, with a muffled *pop*, the smoke dissipated and it fell to rest once more on its wooden wheels.

“Blast and botheration!” said Bilbo. “The suspension can't take the strain. The effort required to support the disbelief is too much for it.”

“Hey there little man, what’s going down?” said an unfamiliar voice behind them.

“My car. That’s what!” muttered Bilbo in irritation, turning to see a wild-eyed man with dark brown eyes, a mane of unkempt brown hair, a long brown beard, dressed in a robe of rich reddish-brown and sporting a pair of shiny brown boots. “Now, who are you?”

“I go by the name of …”

“Radagast the Brown!” interrupted Bilbo.

“Er … yes,” Radagast replied. “However did you guess? Anyway, dude, you can call me Rad. It’s a lot less ghastly.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you Rad,” said Bilbo, shaking the Brown Wizard firmly by the hand. “I’m Bilbo Baggins. And this is my nephew, Frodo, and …”

But he stopped short as he noticed Radagast staring intently at Frodo.

“Have we met before?” the Istar asked Frodo. “I’ve got this weird feeling like I know you. Like you were family or something …”

“I don’t think so, brother,” Frodo replied.

“Weird, man. I was, like, tending to my garden and feeding the birds back in Rhosgobel when I got this groovy feeling telling me head out over the Anduin to this spot. Like someone close to me was in need of my aid. Anyways, like I said, what’s going down?”

And so Bilbo and the others explained to Radagast about the Mount Zoom Challenge, how they had to win because Gandalf and Elrond were depending on them, but how they could not go on without serviceable tyres.

“Cars, eh? Races?” Radagast said when he had heard enough. “It all seems a bit uncool to me, environmentally speaking. All those fumes polluting the air and hurting the plants and the trees and the animals. And causing global warming and the like.”

“Oh, I can assure you that we use only eco-friendly fireworks to propel Bag-Endless-Fuel,” Bilbo explained. “Provided by none other than Gandalf himself.”

“I see,” answered Radagast. “Well, I can dig that, man.”

“So, can you help us, Rad?”

“Well, seeing as you're friends of Gandalf, and what with the groovy Frodo feeling and all, I guess I can. What’s the problem?”

Bilbo explained about the smoke ring tyres and how the illogicality of the solution had rather overwhelmed the suspension of disbelief. Now back in Valinor, Radagast had been a rather sensible, studious fellow by the name of Aiwendil, logical of mind and rational of thought. And, although he had gone somewhat native on arriving in Middle-earth, he still had the knack of pulling a logical possibility from a logical improbability when the situation called for it.

“You know the best way to make something illogical logical in a place like this?” he asked.

The Hobbits shook their heads. Radagast turned and pointed his finger at a small band of Goblins who had been surreptitiously creeping up on the group, weapons at the ready, whereupon their blades promptly turned into large daffodils. Unsettled and confused, the Goblins turned tail and hopped off back to their Misty Mountain caves.

“Magic, dude!” explained Rad. “If there’s one thing that makes something unbelievable believable in a fantasy world, it’s magic. My normal thing is nature-based magic – you know, flower power and the like – but, hey, magic’s magic, you know?”

And so, after Bilbo had once more blown large smoke rings around the wheels of the little Door-Mobile, the Brown Wizard walked from one to the other, weaving his hands in ornate, swishing patterns and chanting under his breath. And as he went, a transparent film gradually formed over the rings of smoke and bound them to the wheels.

“Cool!” said Rad when he had finished. “That should do the trick. Now, you’d better get going if you’re not to bankrupt the Wise. If I know Gandalf, he’s probably been using the Counsel’s floating fund to support his gambling habit. Fare thee well.”

“So long, Rad!” the Hobbits called, waving farewell as they once more embarked on Bag-Endless-Fuel. “And thanks for all the swish.”

As the funky Brown Wizard watched the little Burrow Buggy heading smoothly off West towards the High Pass, his eyes rested on the smoke swirling around its Hobbit-door wheels, securely harnessed by his magic. Absent-mindedly, he rolled some herbs up in a thin strip of paper, lit it with his finger and inhaled deeply, before letting out a long, and slightly high-pitched, sigh of satisfaction.