Elliot and the Pixie Plot (5 page)

But what was it?

Elliot flipped on the kitchen light, and the mist sparkled to life, as though it were made of thousands of mirrors. Its shape folded and curved like a fast-moving cloud.

Elliot ran his hand through the mist, then pulled it away when it stung him. “Okay, sorry,” he muttered. The mist clearly had touch issues.

It moved toward the back door with Tubs following obediently behind. Elliot grabbed his arm, but he might as well have tried to slow down an elephant for all the good it did him. Tubs put a hand on Elliot’s face and shoved him to the ground without breaking his stride.

“Tubs!” Elliot called. “What are you doing?”

“Pretty mist,” Tubs said again.

Elliot thought Tubs was sleepwalking, but he couldn’t be sure. Tubs said a lot of strange things while he was fully awake too.

Elliot leapt to his feet and tried to block Tubs from opening the door, but Tubs pushed past Elliot as if he were made of feathers. The mist expanded once it reached open air and continued to lure Tubs away.

“Wake up, Tubs!” Elliot cried. He considered running upstairs to get his dad’s help, but Tubs would be gone before Elliot could get back. He grabbed a rock and threw it at Tubs’s back. It hit with a klunk but bounced off without Tubs reacting.

Elliot was a little relieved about that. If Tubs had reacted, Elliot would have a bloody nose already.

He ran up to Tubs and began punching his arm, yelling at him to stop, and kicking at his legs. In any other situation, Elliot might have considered this a golden opportunity. But the mist was beginning to worry him. It was clearly something magical, but why did it want Tubs?

Elliot decided to appeal directly to the mist. “Hey!” he yelled. He swatted his hand through the mist, even though it felt like he was being bitten each time. “Where are you taking him?”

The mist didn’t answer, which wasn’t surprising considering that it had no mouth. It led Tubs across Elliot’s backyard grass, all the while folding and dancing in the air. It was taking him into the woods behind Elliot’s house. Elliot barely liked going there during the day. And as dark as it was out here in Elliot’s yard, it was even darker in the woods.

“Wake up, Tubs!” Elliot called again. “Come back to my house. We have candy in there! Remember, you like candy!”

Tubs hesitated, just for a moment, and then continued to follow the mist.

Elliot ran back to his house and grabbed the hose that had been Kyle and Cole’s favorite toy for the last several months. He turned it on full blast and shot a stream of water at Tubs, who kept walking as if unaware. So Elliot shot the water toward the mist. It created some sort of barrier that turned the water back on Elliot and soaked him with what felt like an entire lake of water splashing down on his head.

Elliot turned the hose off and sloshed back to Tubs, now at the edge of the woods. Obviously there was nothing he could do to wake Tubs up, but he could speak again to the mist.

“Whatever you are, you don’t want him,” Elliot yelled. “Trust me, you really don’t! Just take me instead. I’ll go with you, but leave him out of this!”

“Like, you’re totally in the way, human,” a girl’s voice said.

It didn’t come from the mist. Elliot swung around and saw a bright light a little deeper into the woods, like a small star had landed there.

“Who are you?” Elliot walked toward the light. Whoever had spoken was hidden behind a row of fallen trees. He climbed over the trees, now with Tubs only a few steps behind him. In front of him was a…a…a—he didn’t know exactly what.

She was a foot high and didn’t look any older than he was, but she sounded like one of those teenagers who thought she was cooler than everyone else. She had round wings; long, thin ears; and a bunch of curly, yellow hair. Her dress was bright red, purple, and yellow, and looked like something a little girl would dance around in, just to watch the skirt twirl. Around her neck were several loops of the grass chain that Cami had woven in his backyard earlier that day.

“Are you a Fairy?” he asked.

The girl shot a furious look at him and aimed her wand in his direction. Instantly a tree grabbed Elliot’s right leg and yanked him upside down high into the air.

“I so totally don’t need to be insulted right now,” she said. “If I didn’t have more important things to do, I’d just hurl you into space or something.”

Okay, she wasn’t a Fairy. But how was he supposed to know?

Elliot watched the mist approach her. It swirled in a wide circle and then settled at her feet. Slowly the particles of mist revealed themselves to be other similar creatures, each one bowing to her first. They all wore brightly colored dresses too, like a rainbow had exploded all over them.

Tubs stood in front of them. His eyes were open, but he didn’t appear to be seeing anything. “No more pretty mist?” he mumbled.

The not-a-Fairy who had spoken before said to the others with her, “Wow, humans are so lame-brained. Grissel should’ve told me.”

Grissel?
Was this the Pixie princess, Fidget Spitfly? He wondered if she liked to spit on flies.

And she talked funny. He knew it wasn’t Flibberish, the language of the Underworld, but he didn’t know any humans who talked like her either. Not even his sister Wendy’s giggly friends.

Fidget stood and fluttered into the air so that she was directly in front of Tubs. “So, dude, it would be totally awesome if you released Grissel from the Brownie jail,” she said, tossing her pile of curly blond hair behind her shoulders.

“Sure,” Tubs mumbled, clearly still asleep. “He’s released.”

Above them, Elliot kept silent. Tubs had been sleeping in Elliot’s bed, so they must have thought Tubs was king of the Brownies. Elliot hoped the Pixies would think Grissel had been released and would leave long enough for him to get Tubs safely back to the house.

But it didn’t happen that way. A Pixie poofed beside Fidget a moment later and whispered something in her ear. Fidget angrily sliced her wand through the air. Responding to her magic, hundreds of fall leaves lifted into the air and began swirling like a tornado around Tubs. The wind it created rushed up into Elliot’s face.

“Not awesome!” she said with a shrill, high-pitched voice. “You totally tried to trick me!”

“Totally uncool,” Tubs agreed.

Her voice got even higher and angrier. “You want to keep Grissel in jail? Then I’ll keep
you
in jail!”

The tornado tightened around Tubs until in a flash of light he was gone.

“No!” Elliot cried. “Bring him back!”

Fidget seemed to have forgotten about Elliot until then. She fluttered up beside him, then said, “Human, you totally have to look at me so I can do this little forgetting spell on you. What you saw was just between the Pixies and Brownies. Way not any of your business.”

“I’m afraid it is,” Elliot said.

Her eyes narrowed. “Like, why?”

“Bring him back, and I’ll tell you.”

With a wave of her wand, the tree dangled Elliot higher. It had loosened its grip, and Elliot felt sure if he wiggled too much he’d go crashing to the ground. Even if his head was still attached after he fell, he would probably get one monster headache.

“That human has no power to release Grissel,” Elliot said. “Only the Brownie king can do that.”

Fidget’s eyes darted to where Tubs had stood, then back at Elliot. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“I’m Elliot Penster, king of the Brownies. I’m the one you want.”

“Oh, fruit rot!” Fidget scowled. “You’re the king and not him? Okay, so you heard the whole speech before. Are you going to release Grissel or not?”

“Not,” Elliot said.

“What-ever.” Fidget flicked her wand and the tree released Elliot. Wind blew up at him as the dark ground rushed to greet his fall. The last thing he remembered was the ground about two inches from his face.

Some kids wake up to the sun shining through their bedroom windows. Others wake to an alarm clock on their bedside table. For some kids, their mother sings some annoying good-morning song while bacon sizzles on a pan in the kitchen.

Elliot Penster woke up to Tubs punching his arm.

“What?” he scowled, swatting Tubs away. “Stop that, I’m awake!”

“Where are we?” Tubs asked. “How’d we get here?”

Elliot slowly sat up and absorbed their surroundings. They were deep underground, in the Underworld obviously, and in a small cave with thick tree roots serving as the bars of their jail cell. This must be a Pixie jail.

“When you said I couldn’t bully you anymore, I told myself fine, there’s plenty of other kids to beat on,” Tubs said. “And I haven’t touched you for weeks, even when you did something so stupid that I should have beat you up at least a little. But I know that our being here is somehow your fault, Penster, and I’m going to get you for it.”

“Will you be quiet?” Elliot hissed. “First we’ve got to get out of here, then you can beat me up.”

“Yeah, but if you save us, then I’ll feel bad about beating you up,” Tubs said. “I’d rather do it now.”

Elliot scratched his foot across the ground toward Tubs, hoping to kick dirt in his face, but he was still wearing Reed’s slippers, which were soaking wet, so he only ended up smearing mud across his leg.

“I’m hungry,” Tubs said. “And really, really confused.”

Elliot crept to the bars, hoping to see more of where they were. The cave that trapped them seemed to be at the top of a tall hill. Far below them was what appeared to be a thick patch of woods. Bass drums beat a soft rhythm somewhere inside them, and colored sparks of light constantly jetted into the air in various places. Those woods were probably the Pixies’ home.

He wondered how far away the Brownies’ home of Burrowsville was. Did they know he was here? If so, was there anything they could do to get him out?

“Mr. Willimaker,” Elliot hissed. “Mr. Willimaker!” There was no other Brownie who Elliot trusted more. If anyone could help, it was Mr. Willimaker.

“What are you doing?” Tubs asked.

Elliot turned back to Tubs, who looked so relaxed leaning against the dirt wall that he might as easily have been sunbathing. “I’m working on getting us out of here,” Elliot said.

“Okay, you do that, and I’ll work on my thing,” Tubs said.

“What’s your thing?” Elliot asked.

“Taking a nap. I didn’t sleep so well last night.”

“That’s because you were wandering all over my yard and got us here in the first place!” Elliot said.

“Yeah? Well, you should’ve tried to stop me,” Tubs said.

Elliot scowled and turned back to the bars. “Mr. Willimaker?” he called more loudly.

He jumped away from the bars as a figure poofed in front of him. Not Mr. Willimaker, but Fidget Spitfly. Her hair was in a high ponytail on the side of her head. She had so much hair, he wondered why it didn’t make her tip over sideways. She wore a bright purple dress today. Really bright and really purple. Elliot felt a headache coming on just looking at her.

“Do you really think anyone can hear you calling while you’re my prisoner?” she asked. “How clueless would I have to be if I made it that easy? As if!”

Elliot lifted his eyebrows. “Where did you learn my language? You talk…different.”