“I knew you’d come, Fartwick,” Grissel said, licking his lips. “Your smell arrived faster than you did.”
Fudd wanted to point out that Goblins—who avoided water because of the welts it left on their skin—were the worst smelling of any Underworld creature (except perhaps for Trolls, who often create their own swimming holes with how much they sweat). But rather than insult someone who had the ability to swallow him whole, he said, “It’s an honor to speak with you, Grissel.”
Grissel didn’t act like he was honored to speak with Fudd. Instead, he looked at Fudd like he wasn’t sure whether to eat him headfirst or feet first.
“What do you want with the Goblins?” Grissel finally asked.
Fudd’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe you heard about our queen. She died the other night. Something scared her to death.”
Grissel couldn’t hold back the smile on his face. “I did hear that. I planned to send flowers, but since it was me who scared her to death, I thought flowers would seem insincere.”
A shiver ran up Fudd’s spine. “Er, yes, good reasoning. Well, shortly before Queen Bipsy’s death, she gave the name of our next king.”
“And you’re mad because it wasn’t you.”
Fudd shook his head. “No, I’m mad because it’s a human boy. His name is Elliot Penster.”
“Why should the Goblins care?”
“Because you know this boy. Do you remember Halloween three years ago?”
Most Goblins have trouble remembering anything from three minutes ago, but deep in the cobwebs of Grissel’s mind, he did recall the night when a human got between two of his Goblins and their Brownie dessert. Grissel’s shriveled heart pounded in his bony chest like it had in the good old days. The war with the Brownies had become boring lately. They never tried to fight back anymore. So there was no challenge, no glory. A human sounded more interesting. Especially a human who had already interfered with the Goblins once before. His pointed ears warmed as he thought of how he’d tell the Goblins about their new enemy.
“And you say this boy is the king of the Brownies now?” Grissel asked.
“If he agrees to be king, he’ll be a ruler in the Underworld!” Fudd said. “Do you want that?”
Grissel leaned forward and thought about Fudd’s question. It took a very long time, because Goblins aren’t that smart, but Fudd waited patiently. Finally, Grissel looked up at him. “No, the Goblins do not want any humans ruling here, but especially not the human named Elliot Penster.”
Fudd smiled and took a seat on a smaller rock near Grissel. Like everything else in Flog, the rock was pointy and made sitting very uncomfortable, so he stood again and rubbed his bottom. Then he said, “I’m going to Elliot’s home tonight. I’ll let him know what dangerous things can happen to an Underworld king. In the meantime, I need you to cause a little trouble down here.”
Of all causes that Goblins support, trouble is their favorite. Grissel’s face widened into a crooked smile, and he said, “How can we help?”
Fudd and Grissel made an unusual team. It was true they shared a deep, driving thirst for power. It was also true that each had gained his power through a talent for being the scariest of his kind.
But the tales of how they rose to power are very different.
Fudd had been born to the two nicest Brownies in all of Burrowsville. It’s true. His parents even received an award for niceness once, although they hid it away so it didn’t make other Brownies feel bad. They taught Fudd always to act politely and speak kindly. They taught him so well that through most of his first thirty-eight years of childhood, he didn’t know what a mean Brownie was. The first time he heard someone sneeze and not say “excuse me, please,” he ran home crying.
Grissel had not been born to the nicest Goblins in all of Flog. In fact, his father tried to eat him for Christmas dinner every year, which sort of ruined the holidays.
One day in school, Fudd kindly asked a Brownie girl if he could have a turn on the swing. He’d waited in line for five whole hours, but every time he got to the front of the line, someone else would push ahead of him. He’d never gotten a turn on the swing, no matter how many times he asked. Not even once.
“You can’t make me,” the Brownie girl told him with a sneer.
So Fudd pulled out the strongest weapon he had, the one thing his parents said would always work. Very politely, he said, “Please.”
His parents were wrong, however. It didn’t work. She laughed and kept on swinging.
I’m sure you know, Dear Reader, that Fudd could stand up for himself and still be a kind person. You could probably think of at least three ways in which Fudd could solve this problem. Fudd couldn’t even think of one.
Something changed in Fudd that day. The swing didn’t matter. Saying “please” didn’t matter. All that mattered was power, so that no one, ever again, would tell him that he couldn’t make them do what he wanted. One day that girl on the swing would see how powerful he’d become, and then she’d be sorry for not sharing. He would work his way up in power until he was king of Burrowsville. No—king of the Underworld.
Unlike Fudd, Grissel had never gone to school. No schools existed in Flog, because there was nobody smart enough to teach in one. Unless you count the Flog Academy of Fear-Making, in which Goblins practiced the art of causing fear in others. With his natural talents, Grissel quickly growled, attacked, and clawed his way to the top of his class. He was especially good at blowing things up. In fact, for graduation he blew up the Flog Academy of Fear-Making. The academy wanted to give him a medal for having done such a good job at it, but the medal had been inside the school and also blasted to smithereens. Grissel’s father was so proud, saying that next Christmas he could eat at the table instead of being eaten on the table.
Not long after that, the humans opened a mining operation that caused them to dig very deep into the earth. Their drills came close to Flog, too close. The Goblins tried everything they could think of to stop the humans, such as kicking in their tunnels and breaking their drills with rocks. Nothing worked. They just made wider tunnels and stronger drills.
One day Grissel decided it was time to stop the humans once and for all. He led a group of Goblins to the surface one night. They blew a giant hole into the earth and drove all the human machines into the hole. With another explosion, Grissel buried the machines. The humans decided the ground wasn’t stable enough for mining, and all drilling stopped. Grissel was a hero.