Elliot and the Pixie Plot (2 page)

She leaned over him with her hands on her hips. “Elliot, we have to talk.”

“Later. For once, my sister isn’t cooking tonight, so this might be my only chance to eat real food all month.”

“Always thinking about yourself. Did you ever think that my grade is going to be ruined if we don’t do our project?”

He hadn’t. Elliot tried very hard never to think about anything related to Cambria Dawn Wortson. Everyone except her mother called her Cami. Elliot preferred his own nickname for her: Toadface. He had called her that once at lunch. She dumped her tray on his head and convinced the lunch lady it was an accident. Now he called her Cami too. Seemed like a good compromise.

She leaned even further over him, and he wondered how she kept her balance. In a bossy voice, she said, “Science fair projects are due next week. You didn’t ask to be my partner, and I definitely didn’t ask to be yours, but we’re stuck with each other, so let’s make the best of it, okay?”

As proof that the entire will of the universe was now focused on the single purpose of destroying Elliot’s life, Cami had been assigned as his science project partner. Elliot thought back to when he had nearly been scared to death by the Goblins. If he’d known then that he would have to do a whole science project with Cami, he might have let the Goblins finish the job.

Not really. But he definitely would’ve moved to a different country.

“Elliot, are you listening to me?”

He was now. The way Cami pronounced his name, the last part rhymed with “Scott.” Whatever. Her name rhymed with “Fanny.” Almost.

“I said, are you listening?”

“Sure.” He began loosening the rope around his legs. “We have to do our science project.”

She huffed. Being a toadface, it was no surprise her breath smelled like a toad’s. Although to be fair, he’d never really smelled toad breath before, so it was really just his best guess.

“So do you have any ideas?” she asked.

Anti-girl spray? Probably best not to suggest that, so he shrugged. Something fast and easy. That was all he cared about.

Cami plunked down beside him and pulled a notebook out from her backpack. A pink pen was lodged in the middle of it, and she opened the notebook to that page, showing him a bunch of writing that was so
girly.
The dots over her
i
’s were tiny hearts, for Pete’s sake.

“Then we’ll have to use my idea,” she said. “I read on the Internet about a potion we can make that might turn things invisible.”

Elliot snorted. That was close to the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. The actual stupidest thing was when Tubs Lawless, a boy who used to bully Elliot, had forgotten his own name. Cami gave Elliot a dirty look, then continued. “Anyway, my mom got us all the stuff, and I’ve already mixed it together, but she doesn’t want to store it at our house in case it blows up. I figure your house already blew up once, so if it happens again it’s probably not as big a deal. Okay?”

“Do I have to do anything but store it?”

“Well, it wouldn’t kill you to stir it once in a while—unless stirring makes it blow up, in which case it really would kill you. My mom thinks it’s probably safe just to keep it somewhere. It has to sit for a while before it can be tested. So what about it? Can I bring it over tomorrow morning?”

Tomorrow was a Saturday. Elliot had always liked the idea of never having to see Cami on the weekends, but for once in her life she was right. The project was due really soon, and if all he had to do was store it, then that didn’t sound so bad.

“Fine,” he said. “We’ll try to turn something invisible. You can bring the potion over in the morning.”

She jumped to her feet and offered him a hand up, which he ignored. She kicked her foot on the sidewalk a couple of times, then said, “By the way, I hear you finally stood up to Tubs.”

“Oh, yeah.” Tubs had bullied Elliot for as far back as either of them could remember. Tubs probably only remembered as far back as last week, but Elliot remembered his preschool years when Tubs used to tie Elliot to the merry-go-round with his blankie and start it spinning. After he won the Goblin war a few weeks ago, Elliot had told Tubs the bullying was going to stop. Tubs had pretty much left him alone since then. In fact, Tubs’s parents had even asked if he could sleep over at Elliot’s house tonight while they were out of town.

Proof that good deeds do get punished.

Cami shrugged. “Well, I thought it was really brave of you to do that. See you tomorrow!”

She skipped off down the sidewalk away from him, like the tricky hunter he knew she was. All of that being nice to him—it was just her game, her bait to draw him in. But it wouldn’t work, because he was no ordinary kid. He was Elliot Penster, king of the Brownies. And he had to hurry home before his dinner was all gone.

“Pssst, Your Highness!”

Elliot jumped back on the sidewalk as his Brownie friend Mr. Willimaker motioned to him from behind a tree. “Oh, it’s you. I wondered when I’d see you again.”

Mr. Willimaker pressed his bushy gray eyebrows together. “It hasn’t been that long, has it?”

“Just a few weeks, I guess—since the Brownies finished rebuilding my family’s blown-up house.”

Mr. Willimaker nodded as if he had no clue what Elliot was talking about. “Er, yes, naturally I know all about that story, so let’s say nothing more of it. I’ve got to talk to you. It’s an emergency.”

Elliot sighed and tilted his head in the direction of his home. If he really concentrated, he could almost smell his mother’s lasagna from here. And he had the sinking feeling that whatever Mr. Willimaker’s emergency was, it meant Elliot might not get any of her delicious dinner.

“Okay,” Elliot said, sighing. “Tell me your problem.”

Elliot followed Mr. Willimaker deeper into the orchard where he’d been hiding. “If you can be invisible to other people, then why do we have to go so far away to talk?” Elliot asked.

Mr. Willimaker frowned. “
I
can talk, but you’ll look pretty silly talking back to me. You can only talk to invisible people a few times before people start to wonder about you.”

“People already wonder about me.” Elliot noticed something new about his friend. “Hey, you’ve got a white patch of hair on the back of your head. When did that happen?”

“It’s always been there. You just didn’t notice it,” Mr. Willimaker said.

Elliot was sure he would have noticed it, but it didn’t seem important to push the matter. So he set his backpack down and knelt on the ground beside Mr. Willimaker. “So what’s the problem? Are the Brownies okay?”

“Probably. But we need to talk about Grissel.”

Elliot’s eyes narrowed. “What about him?”

Elliot wasn’t the type of kid to hold grudges, but it was hard to forget that as leader of the Goblins, Grissel had scared Elliot half to death and blown up his house. Elliot finally tricked the Goblins into ending the war and eating things for dinner other than the Brownies. All of the Goblins agreed and have lived quite happily with the Brownies ever since. All of the Goblins, that is, but one.

Their leader, Grissel, is cruel and calculating and entirely unpleasant, and that’s when he’s in a good mood. He is not in a good mood now. That’s because in addition to having lost the war, Elliot also sentenced him to hard time in the Brownie prison.

Doing hard time with the Brownies means eating chocolate cake at every meal without frosting or even a glass of milk. You’d be entirely unpleasant too if you had to eat chocolate cake day after day while surrounded by a bunch of Brownies.

“What’s the problem with Grissel?” Elliot asked.

Mr. Willimaker clasped his hands together. “It’s, uh, just not working out with him. I feel—er, we Brownies feel it’s time to release him. We’re sure he’ll return peacefully to Flog and never bother anyone again.”

“Did he promise that?”

Mr. Willimaker’s mouth, which he must have opened to speak, dropped a little wider. “I don’t, er, think we need to worry about any promises. Just give the order to release him, Elliot, right here and now, and then he can go free and we’ll all return to our happy lives.”

Elliot scratched his chin. “Are you all right?”

“What? Yes, of course.” Mr. Willimaker tilted his head. “Why do you ask? Don’t I seem like my normal self?”

“You’re acting really strange.”

“Ah, well, this is just how I act when I want you to release a prisoner. You’ve never seen me act this way, because I’ve never asked you to release one before.”

“Oh. Well, I’m not going to release Grissel.”

“What?” Mr. Willimaker threw up his hands in disbelief. “Why not?”

“Because he’ll just start eating the Brownies again. Until he promises to stop, he has to stay in jail.”

Mr. Willimaker’s face darkened. Normally, he was excessively polite, and his tidy gray hair and suit made him look like a gentleman. But something about him was different now, and Elliot was sure he heard an angry growl escape his lips. “But Your Highness,” he said between clenched teeth. “If you knew how important this is.”

Elliot sat flat on the ground and rested his arms across his legs. “What’s going on, Mr. Willimaker?”

Mr. Willimaker’s nose began to quiver. Not his entire face. Just the nose. For a brief second it popped out like a long, pink carrot, then he took a deep breath and it flattened itself back to its regular button shape. He said, “I’m asking you for the last time, Your Highness, to release Grissel the Goblin.”

Elliot stood. He placed his hands on his hips and then thought maybe that was too much like what Cami had done, so he put his hands to his side. “Who are you? Because you’re not Mr. Willimaker.”

The creature who was not Mr. Willimaker stared at Elliot with wide eyes while he searched for something to say. He stuttered out a few halfhearted protests, then finally leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He exhaled slowly, and as he did, the body of Mr. Willimaker dissolved, leaving in its place a small white goat.

Elliot stepped back, just to be cautious. Although he had figured whoever this was would give up trying to look like Mr. Willimaker, this was not what he had expected.

With black eyes, the goat looked up at Elliot, bleated loudly, then said, “Release Grissel or else!”

“Or else what?” Elliot asked. “What are you going to do, eat my shirt?”

“I might.”

Elliot sighed and picked up his backpack. “If this is the best you can do, then I’ve got to go.”

The goat drew in a large breath of air that seemed to fill its entire body. It stretched and expanded until it was four feet taller than Elliot. The goat’s thin white hair turned dark and wild (except for a small patch of white hair on the back of its head). Long, muscular legs formed, leading to a wide, hunched back and the face of a wolf.

With a growl, the creature said, “So you’re not afraid of farm animals. What about a werewolf?”

Elliot wondered why the creature hadn’t turned into a werewolf to begin with. Goats don’t have fangs, or sharp claws. This was much more impressive. In a bad way.

Elliot tried to keep his voice from shaking as he said, “You won’t hurt me. I’ll bet you’re not as bad as you say you are.”

“I’ll take that bet,” the werewolf said. “And I’ll win, because I am very bad. I’m like a triple scoop of evil with a cherry on top. A wicked, evil cherry that you’ll probably choke on if you don’t chew carefully before swallowing.”