What's that around your mouth?" Grissel asked Fudd. "It's yellow."
"Lemon pie." Fudd smeared his mouth across his sleeve. He'd stopped before entering Flog to eat the lemon pie King Elliot had given him. He thought he'd feel less guilty about working with the Goblins if he couldn't see the pie anymore, but for some reason, eating it had only made things worse. His stomach growled at him in a rather accusing way. Fudd tapped his foot on the ground and silently ordered his stomach to be quiet. He had bigger worries than an upset tummy.
"So let me make sure I understand," Grissel said. "You're telling me that King Elliot is just going to wait, all by himself, in some trees to catch us Goblins? Doesn't he know how much stronger we are than he is?"
Fudd threw up his hands. "He thinks he can get all of you into his forest and trap you there." He noticed a little lemon pudding on one of his fingers and licked it. Every lick sent a shock of guilt through him. Sweet, delicious guilt.
Grissel knocked Fudd's hands away. "How will he trap us?"
"It doesn't matter, because it won't work," Fudd said. "You and I will poof directly there and capture him, and then you're free to get rid of him."
Grissel smiled. "You said Elliot has the Brownies in those woods?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll bring all my Goblins. Once we've captured Elliot, I'll make sure that my Goblins finally destroy the Brownies!"
Fudd rubbed his hands together nervously. That had not been part of his plan. "But we agreed that I'd become king of the Brownies."
"You can become king of anyone we don't eat."
"And what about Patches?" Fudd cringed as he asked the question, worried about the answer.
A wicked glint crossed Grissel's eyes. "She's fine. For now. But that will probably change tonight."
Panic welled inside Fudd, choking him. "No, Grissel. No, you can't."
"Who's going to stop me? You?" Grissel bared his sharp teeth and let out a low growl. "I'll do whatever I want. Now come with me."
At this point, Fudd had no choice but to follow Grissel, but when they left Grissel's home, he saw Goblins already poofing themselves away. Some of them licked their lips. Some rubbed their hands together in excitement.
Grissel grabbed one of them. "Where's everyone going?"
"Can't you smell the pickles? Hurry before they're all gone!" With that, the Goblin poofed himself away.
Grissel sniffed the air. The sour smell of vinegar and cucumbers filled his nose. It came from the human world. A line of drool ran down Grissel's chin, and he grinned hungrily at Fudd.
"Remember the pickles," Fudd said, waving his hands and taking two steps back. "Goblins should eat more pickles and fewer Brownies."
Grissel watched as the last of his pickle-hungry Goblins poofed themselves to King Elliot's woods.
"It's a good thing I already decided to let them go," Grissel said. "Because otherwise they'd be in a lot of trouble for leaving without me."
Fudd sadly shook his head. He hoped the Goblins would find the pickles before they found any Brownies. He couldn't help but feel a little responsible for what was happening.
Grissel grabbed Fudd by the arm. "Now you and I will teach the human king it's not wise to trick Goblins."
Grissel poofed himself and Fudd to a spot just outside the trees. From there they could see a large pile of pickle relish. Every Goblin from Flog was gathered around the pile, fighting for as many bites as they could get. Several of them were so busy clawing at each other that no Goblin could get any relish.
"They're not trapped here at all," Grissel said happily. "Your king doesn't know as much about Goblins as I thought."
"Maybe they'll fill up on the pickle relish," Fudd whispered. "They won't be hungry for Brownies."
"We're always hungry for Brownies," Grissel said, licking his lips with his crooked blue tongue.
Fudd didn't like the sound of that, but he continued walking toward Elliot's hiding place in the trees. Grissel followed closely behind him. Too close. Fudd walked faster. He thought he heard Grissel smelling him.
When they arrived in the woods, they found Elliot facing them, relaxing with his back against a large oak tree. He didn't seem surprised to see them. He didn't look afraid either, which worried Fudd. This was the point in the plan when Elliot should have begun to look terrified.
"You were the only one who knew where I'd be hiding," Elliot said to Fudd. "And now you've brought the Goblin leader here to me."
Fudd still tasted the lemon pie in his mouth, which was a little sourer now than he remembered. It had been a gift from Elliot, and he repaid that gift by bringing Grissel here. Rule number four in the Guidebook to Evil Plans clearly stated, "Never accept a gift of kindness from your mortal enemy" (page 12). Fudd had never really understood the meaning of that rule...until now. He kicked a foot in the dirt, ashamed of himself.
"You've been helping the Goblins try to get me," Elliot added. "Why?"
Fudd's lower lip quivered. Ever since he learned that Grissel would be eating his friends, he'd begun to think working with him wasn't such a good idea. "This is all my fault. More than anything I wanted to be king, but I know now I was wrong. I'm so sorry."
"Well, I'm not sorry," Grissel snarled, pushing his way past Fudd. "I still want to get rid of you, human. I already scared you half to death. It's time to finish the job."
Elliot smiled. "Better get close enough that I can see you this time."
Grissel growled and took a step toward Elliot. Grissel's foot landed on a rope that instantly went tight around his bony foot and pulled him up into the air. In a panic, Fudd stepped to the side and into another rope that yanked him up beside Grissel. They dangled upside down, their bodies swinging softly in midair. Fudd clasped his hands together and waited until his body turned to face Elliot, then said, "Forgive me, Your Highness."
Elliot marched right up to Grissel and Fudd and said, "These are my dad's traps. I've been in them myself, so I know you can't get yourself free. If you're both very good, I'll let you out before my dad finds out and tries to have you for dinner. I order you both not to poof out of there. I order all Goblins not to poof away from here."
"You think you can defeat me that easily?" Grissel said with a sneer. "Release me now or else."
"Or else what?" Elliot asked.
Grissel pointed high up to a tree that stood over the pile of Goblins and the pickle relish. Two more Goblins had appeared there. Tied up in a rope dangling from their hands was Patches. If they let go of the rope, she would fall right onto the backs of the Goblins.
Grissel showed his jagged teeth as he laughed. "You've lost, little king. Release me now, or else they get your favorite Brownie for dessert!"
Elliot ran to where he could get a better look at Patches. The Goblins had tied the rope several times around her whole body. She wouldn't be able to wiggle free on her own, and even if she did, there was nowhere she could go but down onto the pile of Goblins. Several had already smelled her and left the pickle pile to stand beneath her with their arms out. When her rope dropped, they wanted to be the first to get her.
"Help!" Patches cried. "Elliot, help me!"
"You have ten seconds before I order them to drop her," Grissel hissed. "Eighteen!"
Elliot turned. "I have eighteen seconds?"
Grissel rolled his eyes. "Didn't you hear me? Ten seconds. I didn't say which ten. Now it's seventeen!"
Mr. Willimaker ran to Elliot's side and tugged on his shirt. "That's my daughter. Please, Your Highness, we have to save her."
"Can't she just poof away?" Elliot asked.
"She's Grissel's prisoner. If he ordered her not to poof away, then she can't. Just like Grissel can't poof away from here until you allow it."
"Sixteen!" Grissel said.
"Let me go up there," Mr. Willimaker said, beginning to flap his hands nervously.
"You're not strong enough to stop them." Elliot took a deep breath. He didn't want to admit that he was sort of scared to say
the next part, but there was no choice. "Poof me up there."
The Goblins holding Patches began playing with the rope. They swung her in a little circle so that the Goblins below would have to run to catch her when she fell.
"Stop that!" Patches yelled, wiggling angrily. "I'm not a swing!"
"Fifteen!" Grissel said.
"Poof me up there," Elliot repeated. His heart pounded and his fingers felt numb, but he had made his decision.
Mr. Willimaker shook his head. "I told you before, Brownies don't have enough magic to poof humans. I'd send part of you up there, but the rest of you might not make it."
"Thirteen!" Grissel said.
"You're on number fourteen!" Elliot said.
"Never heard of that number," Grissel yelled back. "Twelve!"
"Poof me now," Elliot said to Mr. Willimaker. "Do it, or else they're going to drop her."
"Even for a Brownie, my magic isn't powerful enough," Mr. Willimaker protested, wringing his hands together. "Maybe a stronger Brownie could do it, but not me."
From behind them, they heard a small and much humbler voice than usual. "I could try," Fudd said.
"What?" Grissel snarled. "Whose side are you on?"
"I'll never be on your side again," Fudd said. "That was my terrible, unforgivable mistake." As his rope swung him again to face Elliot, he added, "Your Highness, I know there's no reason you should trust me. But Mr. Willimaker will tell you that I'm the only Brownie strong enough to attempt poofing you. I don't know if I can do it, but I do know there's no other Brownie strong enough to try."
"Just for that, I'm skipping to ten." Grissel stuck his long, snakelike tongue out at Fudd. "Ha! That'll show you."
Mr. Willimaker tugged on Elliot's shirt again. "Fudd is stronger than me, sir. But this is still too dangerous. Even though she's my daughter, I can't risk the life of our king."
"Nine!" Grissel said. "Release me now, or it'll be too late for Patches."
Elliot closed his eyes, took another deep breath, and then calmly turned to Fudd. "Poof me up there now, Fudd. I know you can do it."
"I'll do my best, King Elliot." Fudd closed his eyes and snapped his fat fingers together.
Dear Reader, generally speaking, poofing is not a bad way to travel. It's quick, painless, and at worst, only a little bit ticklish. But it's always best to be prepared, or else poofing tends to confuse the brain for a moment as it tries to figure out how to keep all the body parts together during the trip.
Since humans aren't used to getting poofed around, they should always start with a creature that has a lot of experience. The Brownies have no experience in poofing other creatures to places. None. Zip. Zero. It would have been better for Fudd to practice this trick a few hundred times with tiny worms who wouldn't mind if they arrived somewhere without their arms or legs, because they have no arms or legs.
However, Fudd had no time to practice. And no second chances. In less than a second, Grissel would order his Goblins to drop Patches. Elliot was the only one who could save her.
To Elliot, getting poofed somewhere by a Brownie felt as if a bunch of invisible hands had grabbed every part of his body and pulled them all in whatever order they wanted to the top of the tree. It didn't exactly hurt, but it wasn't comfortable either. When he opened his eyes (after his eyes were returned to their sockets), he was standing beside two surprised Goblins on a tree branch high above the pile of Goblins below.
One of the Goblins lunged at Elliot, claws out. Elliot ducked and the Goblin flew directly over his head. He flapped his arms as he began to fall. Not being a bird, he continued falling, landing on some Goblins below who had been hoping to catch the far more edible Patches.
Elliot stood again, trying to regain his balance. Then he noticed one very important detail. His left arm was gone. Fudd had gotten most of him here, but not all. He fell onto the thick tree branch and with his right hand grabbed a bunch of leaves to keep from falling. He locked his legs around the branch and steadied himself.
"Where's my arm, Fudd?" he yelled.
"I'm working on it, Your Highness!" Fudd called back.
"Eight!" Grissel screamed from his upside-down trap. "Eight, you idiot. Eight!"
The Goblin holding Patches looked confused for a moment, as if he couldn't figure out the importance of the number eight. Then Grissel yelled, "Drop her!"
"I thought that was on seven," the Goblin called back.
"Do it now!" Grissel yelled again.
The next few seconds passed so fast, Elliot would never be sure exactly how it all happened. He let go of the leaves that were keeping him steady and, while tightening his legs around the branch, swung his weight downward. The Goblin holding Patches released her rope, which fluttered in the air past him. He tried to grab it once, but it slipped through his hand. He tried again, and this time he somehow kept a hold on it, although Patches was so close to the Goblins now they could almost reach her if they jumped high enough.
The weight of catching Patches caused the branch to bow, and then it sprang back up like a rubber band. The Goblin who had been holding Patches hadn't considered the importance of holding on to anything other than the rope, and as the branch rebounded he flew into the air and then fell back to the earth like a Goblin-shaped rocket. He landed on another two Goblins who were trying to jump up and reach Patches.
Still upside down with his legs locked around the branch of the tree, Elliot felt Patches's rope begin to slip. With only one arm, he knew he couldn't hold on to her much longer. But he had no way to pull her up.
"You're not Grissel's prisoner anymore," Mr. Willimaker shouted to Patches. "Elliot has you. Now poof out of there!"
Patches closed her eyes, and Elliot felt the weight of the rope disappear. He looked over to Mr. Willimaker and saw her poof close to her father, who grabbed her in a tight hug.
"Where's my arm?" Elliot called to Fudd. If he fell, he wouldn't last long against the Goblins below.
"Wish me luck." Fudd snapped his fingers, and Elliot's arm returned to his body. But something was still wrong.
"I don't need two arms on my right side!" Elliot said as his left arm appeared just below his right arm. "Fix this!"
"Sorry about that," Fudd said.
With another snap, the arm reappeared where it should be, properly attached to the left side of his body. Elliot wiggled it a few times to make sure it was going to stay in place, then used his arms to pull himself back onto the branch.
"We can poof you down now," Mr. Willimaker said.
"No, thanks." Elliot didn't want to get poofed anywhere ever again. He pulled the rope up with him and tied it around the branch. Holding tightly to the knots on the other end, where Patches had been, he took a running leap into the air.
Okay, so it didn't swing him back to the ground quite as well as he had pictured it. But in a clumsy sort of way, it did get him away from the Goblins where he fell onto the ground not far from Mr. Willimaker. It would have been nice if he could have landed on his feet, because landing on his hands and face didn't seem very king-like. But at least he landed with all of his body parts in one piece and where they should be. Plus, Patches was safe.
She ran to him with a hug that nearly choked him. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
"Welcome back," Elliot said, getting to his feet. "But this isn't over yet."
"You're right about that," Grissel said. "Because my Goblins are just about finished eating that pickle relish. And if they can't poof away, then they'll have nothing better to do than attack you."
"I don't think so." Elliot pulled his crown off his wrist and placed it on his head. It was a little small, but still a crown. It was time to end the war.
Elliot had put the pickle relish in a very special place in the woods, on an island. Of course, it didn't look like an island at all. Instead, it looked like pieces of Elliot's exploded home had fallen into the woods and landed in a wide circle around a pile of pickle relish. What the Goblins didn't know was that the Brownies
had put the pieces of wood from Elliot's home around the island where the Goblins were able to cross over them like bridges. They were so excited to get to the pickle relish, they never thought about what was beneath that wood.
It was time for them to think about it.
Elliot stepped out from the trees and yelled to the Brownies, "Remove the wood!"
Brownies appeared from their hiding places. There were more of them than the Goblins could count (which isn't saying much, since few Goblins besides Grissel can count higher than eight, their number of fingers). There were boys and girls, young and old, and all of them stood ready to obey their human king.
Each Brownie grabbed a single board and dragged it away from the island. It left the Goblins surrounded by at least a foot of water. The hose that Cole and Kyle played with every day was flooding the trench. A few Goblins tested the water with a toe or finger then pulled it out with a water welt on their green skin.
The Goblins hissed and scowled and shouted insults at the Brownies: "Your mother makes chocolate cake!" and "Pickles and Brownies taste good together!"
Elliot ran up to the island and stood on a large rock so that all the Goblins could see him. "Listen to me," he yelled. "It's time for the war between the Goblins and Brownies to end!"
The Goblins booed, the Brownies cheered, and a little squirrel who had wandered onto the tree branch overhead quickly scampered away. (As nearly everyone knows, squirrels have never been interested in interspecies wars.) Elliot held up a hand for them to be quiet and then proclaimed, "This war has been going on for a long time. You're so used to all this trouble that it seems normal to you. But from now on, friendship will be normal. Peace will be normal. I know Goblins are used to eating Brownies, but now you must learn to only eat things that want to be eaten. Brownies, I know you're used to losing in this war, but it's time to stop thinking of yourself as losers. You're too great to think that way. It's not who we are anymore."
Elliot paused and thought of Tubs. Tubs...who chased Elliot across town, and made Elliot do his homework, and who almost flushed Elliot down the toilet. Agatha had said Tubs's problem was that one day Elliot would figure out who he was. Elliot smiled. It was so wide that his smile almost stretched off his face. Maybe what Agatha had said would happen one day just had happened.