Elliot and the Goblin War (18 page)

“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.

Elliot decided he wasn’t going to accept bullying from Tubs anymore either. Just as he was helping the Brownies stand up for themselves, he planned to stand up for himself from now on too. He stood even taller on his rock, like a true king would.

“Here’s the deal. Any Goblin who promises to live in peace with the Brownies will get to come off the island. If you make this promise, you can return to Flog. We’ll become friends and learn to help each other. If you won’t promise to live in peace, then you will have to learn to live on this island.”

Elliot watched as several of the Goblins tried to poof themselves off. But he’d already commanded them not to leave, and they were too afraid of the water to cross the island. They truly were trapped.

After a number of failed tries at leaving on his own, a tall Goblin with an extra-long nose stepped forward and raised his hand. “King Elliot? I will promise.”

Elliot walked forward so that he stood across the water from the Goblin. “You won’t eat any more Brownies?”

The Goblin raised his hand. “May I be forced to eat chocolate cake all the rest of my life if I eat another Brownie.”

“Then be a friend to us, and we’ll be a friend to you.” Elliot nodded his head at several Brownies near him, who lowered their boards and helped the Goblin cross off the island. “You can poof home,” Elliot told him.

With a short, respectful bow to Elliot, the Goblin snapped his fingers and left.

In turn, nearly every other Goblin did the same. Some went home right away, some stayed to talk with other Brownies, setting up pickle trades and sharing ideas on Underworld gardening.

Suddenly very tired, Elliot leaned against a tree, watching the Goblins and Brownies as they worked together. Beside him, he felt a tug on his shirt.

“Your Highness, I couldn’t wait any longer to thank you,” Mr. Willimaker said, holding Patches by the hand. She danced from one foot to the other, clearly excited to be back with her father. Patches scampered over to Elliot, bowed before him, and then leapt into his arms and gave him a hug.

“You saved me from the Goblins,” Patches said, punching Elliot lightly on the arm. “That was really cool.”

“I think you saved me from the Goblins too,” Elliot said. “We’re even.”

Patches blushed. “I might have helped a little bit.” She told Elliot about escaping from the hole and then hiding in the carrot cave where she was captured again.

Elliot didn’t know what a carrot cave was. Maybe he’d ask about that later.

“I was pretty mad when they caught me again,” Patches said. “I really enjoyed those carrots. Dad says I ate so many I’m going to turn orange for a week!” Patches rubbed her belly with a hand that Elliot thought already looked a little orange, and then she let out a giant-size burp. Nobody who is only two feet tall has ever let out a burp such as this one. Earthquake scientists hundreds of miles away rushed to their monitors to see what happened. Astronauts orbiting the earth saw the entire planet shake just a little. And Mr. Willimaker laughed. He had missed Patches very much.

“We shouldn’t ever have trouble with the Goblins again,” Elliot said. “The Goblin war is over.”

In the end, every single Goblin left the island in the woods. The Brownies cheered again when the last one left. They hugged each other and then bowed together before Elliot.

Elliot raised his hands again for them to be silent. He took the crown off his head and gave it to Mr. Willimaker, then said, “There’s something you all should know. Queen Bipsy never gave Mr. Willimaker my name to be king. She told him to choose a name, and he chose mine. If you all want to have someone else as king, a Brownie maybe, I’ll understand.”

There was silence as the Brownies looked at each other. Then Patches said, “Your Highness, everything is as it should be. My father did exactly what Queen Bipsy told him to do. When he wrote your name, he was following her command.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Willimaker said. “When I chose you, I did obey her.”

Patches continued, “We know you’re the king, because when you commanded the Goblins not to poof away, they had to obey you. They would only have to obey a real king.”

“Hail King Elliot,” the Brownies cheered. “Long live King Elliot!”

Mr. Willimaker pushed the crown back into Elliot’s hands. “Your Highness, the Brownies need you. Patches was right. You are our king.”

Elliot smiled and put the crown back on his head. “Then as your king, I will finish this.” He marched over to the ropes where Grissel and Fudd were still hanging. Their upside-down faces had turned slightly purple, but otherwise they were fine.

“Your war is finished,” Elliot told Grissel. “There are no more Goblins who’ll fight with you.”

“I saw them leave, the cowards.” Grissel folded his arms. “Fine, I’ll make the promise too. Now let me go home.”

“He’s crossing his fingers,” Fudd said. “I can see him from here. Don’t believe his promise, Your Highness.”

Elliot shook his head at Grissel, disappointed to see he’d try something as sneaky as crossed fingers. “Mr. Willimaker, take Grissel to the Brownie prison. I want him to receive the most chocolaty chocolate cake we have, every single day, without frosting or milk, until he truly agrees to become a friend to the Brownies.”