Elliot and the Pixie Plot (7 page)

Dear Reader, in this chapter, you’re going to hear about Elliot’s next visitor to his jail. You may wonder if his next visitor is Diffle McSnug, who has recently returned from an exciting trip to the Far East, where his hot air balloon became tangled in a flock of migrating geese. Of course, as you should well know, there is no character in this book named Diffle McSnug. Don’t you think Elliot would be confused if a character who doesn’t exist in this book suddenly showed up at his Pixie prison with a story about hot air balloons and migrating geese? It’s too bad Diffle’s not a character, though. You would bite off your fingernails with fright hearing how Diffle fell to the earth after the angry geese chewed through the ropes of his basket. And you’d be shocked to know the amazing way he survived. You wouldn’t believe it, even if you heard the story.

Which of course, you won’t, because this is Elliot’s story. Diffle needs to get his own book.

Elliot only had to wait about twenty minutes before his next visitor (not Diffle McSnug) poofed in to see him.

Mr. Willimaker’s daughter, Patches, ran forward, trying to hug Elliot through the thick tree root bars of his prison. This really meant that she hugged the bars more than she hugged Elliot, but, Dear Reader, you should not take this to mean that Patches loved the prison more than she loved Elliot. She just couldn’t reach him, that’s all.

Elliot had saved Patches from the Goblins twice. In her opinion, that made Elliot at least as cool as her great-great grandfather Willimaker, who had fought in the Demon wars a thousand years ago.

“Here,” she said, pushing a wrapped-up bundle to Elliot.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Food. Carrots and beets and some turnip juice. And a couple of pickles.”

Elliot already knew about the pickles. Pickle juice was leaking from the bundle onto his brother Reed’s slippers, which were pretty much ruined by now.

“Thanks,” Elliot said, although ever since he’d learned the Pixies planned to kill him, he hadn’t felt very hungry, not even for pickles. He set the bundle on the ground for when Tubs woke up. Tubs would be hungry no matter who wanted to kill him. Elliot had once seen Tubs so hungry at the Quack Shack that he ate his entire duck burger without taking the paper wrapping off it first. And rumor had it that Tubs had once buttered his lunch tray at school. He’d broken off a tooth trying to take a bite from it.

“Nice clothes,” Patches said with a giggle.

Elliot glanced down at his checkered pajamas. “I didn’t have time to change into clothes before we were kidnapped.”

“Pixie led.”

“Huh?”

“You were Pixie led, not kidnapped exactly. Did you see a mist last night?”

“Yeah.”

“That was the Pixies leading you to their snare.”

Elliot folded his arms. “Tubs was Pixie led. I was Tubs led.”

Patches frowned. “Humans know how to escape being Pixie led, right?”

Obviously, Elliot didn’t know. “How?” he asked.

“Just turn your clothes inside out. It confuses them.”

“I wasn’t going to turn my clothes inside out in front of a bunch of Pixie girls,” Elliot said.

“Don’t worry. Princess Fidget would’ve gotten you here one way or another,” Patches said, as if that should have made him feel better. “She always gets what she wants. What we must do now is figure out how to fix this.”

“Do you think I should release Grissel?” Elliot asked.

“No!” Patches said. “Before long, he’d get the Goblins to start eating us again.”

Which, Elliot agreed, would be bad. No matter what, releasing Grissel was not an option. “Any advice?” he asked.

Patches shrugged. “I don’t know about them, but in school my teacher told us that hundreds of years ago, if two Pixies couldn’t settle an argument, they took a ‘time-out.’ The winner won the argument, and it was done.”

“Time-out,” Elliot mumbled. “I know about those. So I guess to win, I just have to stay in time-out the longest?”

At just that moment, Mr. Willimaker appeared. His bushy gray eyebrows were pressed close together, telling Elliot he had not made any progress with Grissel. Princess Fidget poofed in immediately after. On either side of her were two larger Pixies with sour looks on their faces.

“Like, get rid of the Brownie king first,” Fidget said to the Pixies with her. “Mind wipe the other boy if you can, and totally return him to the surface. If you can’t, then get rid of him too.”

The Pixies pulled out their wands and pointed them at Elliot, who backed up and stumbled over Tubs on the ground. He said, “Wait! Princess Fidget, I demand a time-out.”

Her eyes narrowed. “A time-out?”

“Yeah. Me and Grissel together. If I win, you set me free. If he wins, I’ll set him free.”

“No, Your Highness,” Mr. Willimaker cried, but it was too late.

Stretching her hand to study her nails, Fidget said, “Under the terms of a time-out, if you lose, Grissel goes free. And if he decides to leave you alive, which he probably won’t, then you must remain here as my servant for, like, forever.”

Elliot glared at Patches. She might have mentioned that. Still, it was better than being killed in here. “Okay,” Elliot said. “I want a time-out.”

Fidget clasped her tiny hands together. “What-ever. I’ll prepare the battle zone. If you somehow survive the time-out with Grissel, which you probably won’t, I’ll totally have you for a servant, human.”

“It looks like the rules are in Grissel’s favor,” Elliot said.

“Nobody ever said time-outs were fair,” Fidget said, and then with a mischievous shrug added, “especially when I get to make the rules!”

When she poofed away, Elliot rushed to the bars. “Mr. Willimaker, what happens in a time-out?”

“It’s a fight. When the time runs out, someone’s usually dead. Isn’t that what time-out means in your language?”

“No,” Elliot said, slumping to the ground. “No, it isn’t.”

Elliot’s twin brothers had spent most of their first six years of life either in time-out or doing something that deserved a time-out. Elliot had done his share of time-outs too. Something told him, however, that this time-out would be very different from sitting alone on a stool in the corner.

For one thing, no one had ever tried to kill him in time-out before, and Elliot’s parents were very strict about not letting Elliot kill anyone, whether in time-out or not.

For another thing, time-outs were usually done alone, and Elliot was pretty sure every Pixie, Brownie, and Goblin in the Underworld had gathered around the Battle Zone to watch.

The Battle Zone was about as big as Elliot’s schoolroom, but it was round and fenced in with thorny tree branches and had a dirt floor. Elliot had removed Reed’s slippers for the fight. He’d never seen anyone win a battle to the death while wearing house slippers. He’d never seen anyone win a battle in red-checkered pajamas either, but he couldn’t do anything about that.

Directly across from Elliot, Grissel paced in preparation for the fight. He hadn’t changed much since Elliot had last seen him. A little rounder around the middle, maybe, due to his eating a lot of chocolate cake lately. But still the same shade of green skin, same bony face, same hatred of humans reflected in his eyes. He’d barely looked at Elliot since he was poofed here, but he was already drooling, hungry for revenge. The Goblins cheered loudly for him. The Brownies sat behind Elliot, cheering for him. The Pixies seemed to be cheering for a long battle, no matter who won. Then from somewhere nearby, Elliot heard, “You can take this one, Penster. Win it for the humans!”

Elliot turned. Even Tubs was cheering for him. Then Tubs yelled, “Besides, if you die, how will I get home?”

That was less helpful. Although just before Elliot was poofed to the Battle Zone, Tubs had given him some good advice: “If you can’t beat him, just move around a lot until he gets tired of chasing you. I always hated it when you did that to me.”

“Grissel doesn’t need to chase me. Goblins scare you to death.”

“But that only works if you’re scared, right? Just think funny things and you’ll be fine.”

“Wow, Tubs,” Elliot had said. “That’s actually a good idea.”

Tubs had stuck out his chest. “I’m smarter than all the kids in the whole first grade.”

“But you’re a seventh-grader.”

“Duh.” Tubs snorted. “I didn’t say I was in their grade, I just said I’m smarter than them. And it
is
a good idea, so use it or else!”

Now Elliot waved at Tubs, who shook a fist back at him. Threatening to beat Elliot up if he didn’t win was Tubs’s style of cheering him on.

Fidget fluttered in from above them and landed in the center of the Battle Zone. For the time-out, she had chosen a bright yellow shirt with a hot pink skirt. She looked like she was dressed for a disco party. “Like, welcome to all Pixies, Goblins, and everyone else,” she began, clearly forgetting that other than Tubs, “everyone else” was the Brownies. “We are so blown away by having a time-out today, which has totally not happened for over a hundred years.”

A cheer rose from the Pixies. Not sure whether they should be celebrating this or not, the Goblins clapped a little, then lowered their hands when Grissel turned to glare at them. The Brownies remained silent.

Fidget continued, “So here are the rules. The time-out will last for ten minutes, because the awesomest stylist ever is coming to do my hair. If Grissel kills Elliot faster than that, it would be so radical, because then I’ll have time to get my nails done too. If Elliot’s still alive after the ten-minute time-out, he’ll totally be my servant. Either way, Grissel goes free, and then he keeps his promise to me, and we’ll, like, totally blow the Fairies to dust!” She forgot to mention what happened if Elliot survived. Maybe she didn’t think there was any chance he would.

Both the Pixies and Goblins cheered loudly. The Brownies squirmed in their seats. Even they didn’t expect Elliot to win.

“Happy thoughts, happy thoughts,” Elliot mumbled. But his brain was in a fuzz. For some reason, all he could remember was the awful theme song to Fidget’s favorite show,
Surfer Teen.

Surfer Teen,

Awesomest kid on the scene.

Rockin’ muscles lean and mean.

You’re Surfer Teen.