Elliot and the Last Underworld War
Read Elliot and the Last Underworld War Online
Authors: Jennifer A. Nielsen
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #General, #Humorous Stories, #Fantasy & Magic
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Cover and internal illustrations © Gideon Kendall
Cover and internal design © 2012 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Series design by Gothamhaus Design
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
Fax: (630) 961-2168
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.
Source of Production: Bang Printing, Brainerd, Minnesota, USA
Date of Production: March 2012
Run Number: 17203
For Chase, who has the heart of a king.
Contents
Chapter 1: Where Mr. Beary- Boo Is Not Happy
Chapter 2: Where the Sun Goes Dark
Chapter 3: Where the Earth Sinks
Chapter 4: Where Cami Walks In
Chapter 5: Where Something Grabs Elliot’s Gut
Chapter 7: Where Elliot Steps into Shadow
Chapter 9: Where Everyone Arrives
Chapter 10: Where Elliot Meets Slimy Toe Jam
Chapter 11: Where Minthred Likes Goats
Chapter 12: Where Elliot Stops
Chapter 13: Where Kovol Knows Elliot’s Name
Chapter 14: Where Kovol Wants a Duck Burger
Chapter 15: Where Grissel Returns
Chapter 16: Where Harold Makes a Mistake
Chapter 17: Where Grissel Goes Free…Sort Of
Chapter 18: Where the Plan Fails
Chapter 19: Where Elliot’s Feet Complain
Chapter 20: Where Kovol Needs Deodorant
Chapter 21: Where Grissel Bows
Chapter 22: Where Harold Confesses
Chapter 23: Where the Magic Fails
Chapter 24: Where Tubs Teaches Kovol
Chapter 25: Where the Juice Is Shaken or Stirred
Chapter 26: Where Kovol Gets Jealous
Chapter 27: Where Kovol Eats His Last Meal
Chapter 28: Where Elliot Has a Scar
Chapter 29: Where Elliot Goes Home
Unless you already know how to save planet Earth from total destruction, read the next sentence of this book! Actually, this second sentence won’t be all that helpful. Obviously not this third one either. Let’s be honest, you’ll probably need to read the entire book if you hope to learn anything useful.
In the first two books of Elliot’s story, children were warned to stop reading as soon as possible. Recent scientific studies have shown that one in five readers obeyed the warning and put their books down right away. They have hidden in fear under their beds ever since, gratefully living off whatever crumbs were left behind by their kind mice friends.
Those readers who ignored the warning stepped into dangers they could not have foreseen. For example, at least twenty children read about Elliot while walking to school and accidentally stepped into potholes. This might not seem dangerous now, but if you continue reading this book, you will understand that holes of all sizes should be taken very seriously.
Even if you dared to read the other books about Elliot, this book’s warning should not be ignored. In fact, if you care at all for planet Earth, you will pay very close attention to the lessons inside these pages. In past books, you were urged to close the book and run away. But now you are warned to turn the pages as fast as you can read them. You must know what happens inside this book to learn whether Earth gets destroyed. Because let’s face it—that would be a bad thing.
If you cannot wait until the end of the book to find out if Earth has been destroyed, then here are a few tips to help you figure it out for yourself.
First, you should go to your kitchen cupboards and see if you have some peanut butter to make a sandwich. If you have no peanut butter, no cupboards, and for that matter, no kitchen, then it’s possible that Earth was destroyed.
Second, you should ask your teacher when your homework is due. If she says it’s not due until Friday because Earth was destroyed, then you will have your answer. Also, you won’t have to worry about your grades anymore.
The final way to know if Earth has been destroyed is to look out your bedroom window. If you see planets and cosmos instead of plants and cars, then you are flying through space. This will mean that Elliot lost the war, and you will have to find a new planet to live on.
Hint: Choose a planet that has ice cream. You won’t regret it.
It was a day Elliot Penster would remember for the rest of his life. Oddly, up until exactly 11:14 am, it was a day Elliot would very much have liked to forget.
Because in all of his eleven years of life, Elliot had never had a day like this one. He had experienced some pretty unusual things, especially beginning last fall when he was made king of the Brownies. Since then, he’d been scared half to death by Goblins, had his house blown up, and had been kidnapped to the Underworld, where he ended up on an adventure that could change the course of world history. More about that later. Much, much more, in fact.
But as unusual as Elliot’s recent life had been, somehow nothing was stranger than his being paired for a game of Capture the Flag with the scariest girl in the fifth grade, Cambria Dawn Wortson, aka Cami with Warts On, aka Toadface.
For a long time, Elliot had felt that Cami must have inherited her looks from a toad somewhere in her family. But over the past winter she had gotten rid of her thick glasses that made her eyes look like melons with pupils, and she had stopped wearing clothes that made her look like a prison guard. Elliot’s mother even commented that she thought Cami had become quite pretty over the winter. Elliot’s sister, Wendy, said the only reason Elliot insisted he didn’t like Cami was because he secretly
did
like her. That was ridiculous, of course. But at least he had stopped peeking at Cami’s hands to see if the fingers were webbed like a toad’s.
Over the past few months, Cami had decided that she and Elliot should do stuff together. Maybe even have fun at the same time. So apparently, they were friends now. Despite that, Elliot still considered Cami his number one arch nemesis.
Many readers of this book will be surprised to learn that Elliot’s arch nemesis is Cami and not Kovol, the most evil Demon of all time.
Battling evil Demons wasn’t Elliot’s favorite thing about being king of the Brownies. He would have much preferred to drink Mushroom Surprise and sit on his royal toadstool in Burrowsville, where the Brownies lived. But nearly four months ago, he had awoken Kovol from his thousand-year nap. It was an accident, and the last thing Elliot had wanted to do, but he’d had no choice. Going to Kovol’s cave in Demon Territory had been the only way to save his ex-bully, Tubs Lawless, from the Pixies, and his Brownie friend, Mr. Willimaker, from the Fairies. In revenge for what Elliot had done, Kovol had promised revenge on the entire human race. Good grief, Elliot thought. That had to be about the biggest overreaction of all time.
But one thing still kept Kovol from being Elliot’s arch nemesis. For the past four months, Kovol had been stuck in a pit of gripping mud deep in the Underworld. He wouldn’t be able to escape until there was a total eclipse of the sun. At that point, Kovol would probably move up to the number one position on Elliot’s list of enemies.
Then Cami would have to slide down to number two, because, after all, she isn’t trying to kill Elliot. She just really annoys him.
And she was especially annoying him today. Because when he showed up that morning to play a game of Capture the Flag in the woods behind his house, Cami had already picked him for her teammate. The other team wasn’t much better. On that side was Tubs, who often got confused if he ever had to say more than two sentences in a row. Tubs was playing alone, because even he couldn’t bully someone into being on his team.
“That’s okay if I’m alone.” Tubs pulled a stuffed teddy bear from his shirt. “Mr. Beary-Boo will guard our flag.”
“Why do you have a teddy bear in your shirt?” Elliot asked.
“He’s my best friend!” Tubs snarled. “Besides, there’s two of you, so I need his help.”
“We’ll make you a deal,” Cami said. “You let Mr. Beary-Boo guard your flag, and then we’ll find something to guard ours. Then all of us will go out and try to steal the other team’s flag.”
And so the game began. Cami and Elliot found a small clearing surrounded by tall trees and thick bushes. They hid their flag in the dense branches of a maple tree while Tubs hid his flag somewhere farther away. “You start looking for the other flag,” Cami told Elliot. “I’ll get the guard for ours.”