Elliot and the Pixie Plot (6 page)

“Only on the best human television show ever,
Surfer Teen.
It’s so totally the awesomest show of the whole universe!”

Dear Reader,
Surfer Teen
so totally is not the awesomest show in the universe. In the first place,
awesomest
is not even a word, but the actors in
Surfer Teen
don’t seem to know that, since they use the word in almost every sentence. And in the second place, the show was only on for one season, because it so totally was the stupidest show in the history of television, which is quite an accomplishment. But it is Fidget Spitfly’s favorite show, and she has watched every episode at least 458 times. She has watched the episode where the awesomest boy first kisses the hottest-to-the-max girl at least 873 times. Totally.

Elliot rolled his eyes. His sister, Wendy, used to watch
Surfer Teen.
Now he felt like he was talking to one of the characters on the show. “Listen,” he said to Fidget, “I’m the one you want. This other human here with me can’t do anything for you. Send him home, and then you and I can talk.”

“Just wait one minute,” Tubs said, getting to his feet. “Let me understand something first. Am I having the weirdest dream ever or not?” Then he punched himself in the eye. “Ow! I hate it when I do that.”

“Why did you?” Elliot asked.

Tubs glared at him. “It proved that I’m awake, didn’t it?”

“You are awake,” Elliot said. “We’re being held by the Pixies in the Underworld.”

“Oh,” Tubs said, as if that sort of thing happened all the time.

Fidget eyed Tubs, who was now busy picking his nose. “I’m just hungry,” Tubs muttered. “My parents are out of town anyway, so if you get me something to eat, I don’t care if you send me back or not.”

Fidget smiled and said to Tubs, “Like, get your friend to release Grissel, and I’ll give you anything to eat that you want.”

“Anything?” Tubs asked. At the moment, all he had to eat was whatever he’d pulled from his nose, so he seemed to like this idea. “Anything, like a big bowl of hot fudge topping for breakfast?”

“Totally,” Fidget whispered.

Tubs grabbed Elliot by the neck and shoved his face into the tree root bars. “Tell her you’ll do what she wants, jerk.”

Elliot kicked his foot out behind him and sank it into Tubs’s chubby stomach. Tubs released him with a gasp, and Elliot fell to the ground. He rubbed his neck, then said to Fidget, “Before I can do anything, I have to talk to Mr. Willimaker. If I can’t call him, then will you send someone to let him know I’m here?”

“You can’t call him,” Fidget said, “but I can.”

She flicked her wand, and immediately Mr. Willimaker appeared beside her. Unfortunately, he seemed to be just getting out of his bath. He had a towel around his waist, and his gray hair was still wet and sticking up in all directions. Most Brownies liked the just-stepped-out-of-a-tornado look, but Mr. Willimaker always tried to keep his hair neatly combed.

“Another Pixie?” Tubs asked.

“Brownie,” Elliot said.

“He looks like a gopher with hands,” Tubs whispered. Luckily, Mr. Willimaker was so confused, Elliot didn’t think he heard.

“What—” Mr. Willimaker gasped, then he saw Elliot. “Oh, Your Highness.” He tightened the towel around himself and then turned to Fidget. “Princess Fidget, I demand an explanation.”

“Like, chill out,” she said. “You release Grissel, and I’ll let you have your king back.”

“Elliot’s a king? But he’s such a dork!” Tubs started laughing so hard that tears rolled down his face.

“He happens to be a very good king,” Mr. Willimaker said. Then to Fidget, he added, “You know I can’t release him without King Elliot’s orders.”

“Duh! So make him give the order.”

“I won’t,” Elliot said.

“Is there someplace he and I can talk?” Mr. Willimaker asked Fidget. “Somewhere private?”

Fidget waved her wand again. In an instant, Elliot and Mr. Willimaker found themselves perched at the top of a lofty tree. They were so high up that Elliot couldn’t see the ground. He only assumed it was somewhere far down below him. He grabbed the branch beneath him and held on tightly. Mr. Willimaker seemed more concerned about keeping his towel wrapped around himself than with falling.

“I’m so sorry, Your Highness,” Mr. Willimaker began. “I knew she was talking to Grissel in the prison, but I didn’t know they were planning something like this.”

“Grissel never said anything?”

“A few days ago Grissel told his guards that the Pixies were forming a plot for his escape. I just didn’t know it would be something like
this.
”

Elliot rolled his eyes. “And you didn’t think you should’ve told me about that?”

“Yes, obviously I should have told you. Forgive me.”

“It’s too late to worry about that now. Can you help me escape?”

“Pixie magic is more powerful than mine. I can’t stop her from keeping you here.” He twisted his hands together. “What are we going to do?”

Elliot grabbed Mr. Willimaker’s hands and untwisted them, then said, “I’ll figure a way out of this mess, but I’m not going to release Grissel.”

“I think you have to, Your Highness.”

“Why?”

Mr. Willimaker looked up at Elliot with a frown. “If you don’t, she’ll kill you.”

Mr. Willimaker finally left Elliot with the agreement that he would speak to Grissel to find out what he knew about the Pixies’ plot. As soon as Mr. Willimaker poofed away, Elliot was poofed back into the jail. Princess Fidget wasn’t there anymore. In her place was another Pixie girl, also with blond hair but with bright blue eyes.

“Who are you?” Elliot asked.

“Claire. Princess Fidget’s advisor. She asked me to tell you that she is ‘so totally tired of waiting around’ that I could ‘gag her with a spoon.’”

Elliot smiled. “So did you?”

“What?”

“Gag her with a spoon?”

Claire shook her head. “There’s a pretty strict no-gagging-the-princess-with-a-spoon rule here. Even when she deserves it.”

Elliot glanced behind him where Tubs was sleeping peacefully, his thumb in his mouth.

“What’d you do to him?” Elliot asked.

“Nothing,” Claire said. “He just got tired of waiting too. He said his brain hurt from trying to figure everything out.” Claire used a tiny hand to push some hair off her forehead, revealing a thin streak of white hair underneath the rest.

“You don’t talk like the princess,” Elliot said, eyeing the Pixie suspiciously.

“I bet you think all Pixies talk the same,” Claire said. “Wanna bet they don’t?”

Elliot stared carefully at Claire. “Harold, is that you?”

Harold the Pixie looked around to be sure nobody else was there and then flew in closer to Elliot. “I don’t have long, but I wanted to come see you. Because if you really think about it, this could be a little bit my fault.”

“A little bit?”

“Okay, a lot. I feel guilty. But I’ll try to help you now.”

Elliot pushed at the tree root bars of the jail. “Can you get me out of here?”

“I can imitate the Pixie look, but not their magic. Elliot, you have to release Grissel.”

“Why does Fidget want Grissel released anyway? Are they friends?”

“As Fidget would say, ‘That’s so grody.’ No, you’ve heard of the Totally Tubular Turf War, right?”

Elliot shook his head.

Harold folded his short Pixie arms. “I don’t mean to lecture, because I’ll only sound like my mother, but if you’re going to be king of the Brownies, you should at least take ten minutes to learn about the Underworld.”

“Sorry,” Elliot said. “I’ve been busy with this science fair project.”

Claire—or Harold—continued. “Ever since creatures entered the Underworld, Fairies and Pixies have battled over the land known as the Glimmering Forest. Woodland is hard to find down here, and this is the best in all the Underworld. Streams and rivers flow from beautiful waterfalls. Flowers of every color and variety grow wild. And the trees live forever in the Glimmering Forest.”

“Sounds nice,” Elliot said.

“Nice? That’s like saying turnip juice is only pretty good. The Fairies want Glimmering Forest, and the Pixies want it too, but neither of them will share the land. Grissel promised Fidget that if she gets him free from Brownie prison, he’ll blow up all the Fairy settlements that border the Glimmering Forest. Then the Pixies think they can take the rest of the forest for themselves.”

“I can’t help Fidget get a bunch of Fairies hurt. Do her parents know about this?”

“The king and queen of the Pixies are on vacation. They told Fidget if she solved the Fairy problem before they came back, they’d let her take surfing lessons.”

“Mr. Willimaker says that if I don’t release Grissel, the Pixies will kill me,” Elliot said.

“Probably.” Harold fluttered down on a rock and rested his head on his hands. “I love flying, but it’s tiring.”

“Can we get back to fixing my problem?” Elliot asked.

“Huh? Oh, I can’t fix your problem. I’m a Shapeshifter, not a miracle maker. But I can do one thing for you. It’ll be morning soon at your house. Until you get this all worked out, I’ll go to the surface and pretend to be you.”

“No thanks,” Elliot said.

“It’ll be fine,” Harold said. “I’ve imitated humans plenty of times before. No one will even notice a difference.”

“Don’t,” Elliot said.

“You’d rather your mom wakes up and finds you missing?”

“My family might not care. I wasn’t very nice to them before I left.”

Harold grabbed a root to get closer to Elliot in his jail. “You want the whole town of Sprite’s Hollow out looking for you, your picture in the paper? All that homework you’d miss?”

Elliot sighed. “Okay, fine. But you can’t change things or do anything different from what I would do. Just stay in my room as much as you can, and don’t talk to anyone unless you have to.”

“No problem,” Harold said.

Elliot gestured at Tubs, who was still sleeping. “What about him?”

Harold shrugged. “I already put his clothes over a bucket and mop in the corner of your kitchen. So far nobody’s noticed that it’s not him. Just do what the Pixies want, and you’ll both be home soon.”

With that, Harold snapped his fingers and poofed away. Tubs was taking up the entire space on the ground of their cell, so there was no room to sit. Elliot leaned against the wall at the edge of the jail and closed his eyes to think. He didn’t know what worried him most—that the Pixies were going to kill him, or that Harold the Shapeshifter was going to take his place at home.