It's not clear what you do have on your computer if it doesn't have Word. But you might like to take a look at
OpenOffice before splashing out on the commercial package. OO is free and in many ways is equally good as MS software - and in some ways much better. And bear in mind you're going to have to hunt around for an unused copy of Office 97.
FWIW, Word 2010 isn't too bad - it's just a bit different. And if you only want basic functionality you might find that WordPad does everything you need!