The Misadventures of Eric

About a week later Eric’s hole was almost completely dug. Max and Leo had worked overtime, using up valuable play-space in their schedules to make their master happy. They dug by day and dug by night, and finally the hill in Eric’s yard was almost completely hollow. Every once in a while Eric would inspect the hole, but he was careful to stay outside and look in—he didn’t want the hole to collapse on him again. For the most part, though, Eric would nap in the shade of the apple tree on the top of the hill, thoroughly enjoying the pleasant summer weather and hoping to visit his friends in Hobbiton again.

But he didn’t.

In the early evening Eric woke up from one such nap and excitement crawled through his skin. Max and Leo were standing over him and that could mean one of two things: either the dogs were hungry (which wouldn’t make sense, because they were eating worms all day) or the hole was completely excavated (which would make sense, because they were eating worms all day). As Eric got up the dogs excitedly jumped up and down, licking his face and annoying him a little bit. It was hard enough to get up from a nap when you’re nestled between tight tree roots, and with two dogs jumping on you it was much more difficult. But he was too excited to care too much, and once he was standing, he happily joined in the fun, jumping up and down and wrestling with his dogs.

“Let’s go see how good you did!” Eric said. In response the dogs barked and licked him some more, prompting the neighbors to stare out of their windows. They were already curious about the family—who would let their young child paste hair on his feet anyway? But after the past week they had the assumption that something was terribly wrong. Every day of the past week Eric had gone out to that hill and the dogs were digging underneath him as he just slept there or ate brunch there or nibbled cakes. The neighbors hadn’t seen any sign of parents scolding or punishing Eric for tearing up the yard or anything like that. In fact, the neighbors hadn’t seen any sign of parents at all. They were concerned for the boy and felt they should do something about him—but not quite yet.

Eric and the dogs walked down the hill and scrutinized the newly-dug hole. It was large and earthy and moist-looking. There were large piles of soil all over the yard, and in normal circumstances Eric may have played King-of-the-Mountain with his dogs. But he was pleased with the progress the dogs had made, and since they would have let him win the game anyway, he stepped inside the newly-formed cave instead.

The view was different from the inside. It was both larger and smaller than his first look had made him believe, like a box he had opened and was unable to fit the contents back into. The roots of the apple tree tried to poke at his head, and the air didn’t quite feel right.

But that didn’t matter to Eric. He finally had a hole.

He screamed and jumped and danced with his dogs, so utterly happy he couldn’t control it. He pointed to all the muck and roots and ends of worms that still occupied his holey place and made them disappear, and for a brief moment his new hole was completely floored and walled and ceilinged and furnished. He had a dining room, a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom, and all sorts of other rooms he didn’t even know about yet. He had hallways and passageways and hidden nooks. He was on top of the world as he celebrated under the earth.

And then it all disappeared, and he realized he would have to build all these things. With a sigh he put his arm down, and sat down in the middle of the hole, his faithful dogs sitting beside him.

“Now what are we gonna do?” Eric asked his friends. “This whole time I just wanted my hobbit hole, but now that we’ve got one, we don’t have any wood for the floors and walls and stuff. What are we gonna do?”

Eric felt his eyes begin to water. His dream that was so close seemed too far away to ever be real. Without a proper hole he could never be a proper hobbit, and he could never go back to Hobbiton and visit his new friends again, and—wait! The old hobbit with the curly hair and missing teeth said Eric had to go through the hole, didn’t he?

Eric wiped his eyes and got back on his feet, and ran to the side of the hill opposite the entrance. He had a brilliant idea—if he could make it through to the other side, maybe he would come back out in Hobbiton! He scratched away at the dirty wall, shoveling the soil away with his chubby fingers. And now the dogs helped, or tried to, by digging away at the floor. They had an idea of what their master was doing and thought it was a good idea.

The hill disagreed, and with as much of a crash as dirt-on-dirt can make, the hill—tree and all—collapsed onto Eric and his companions, leaving them buried and completely trapped.