Patches also knew that at any minute the Goblins would come and try to get information about the human, but Patches had a plan. She wouldn’t help them hurt King Elliot, no matter what.
Her stomach growled at her, which she thought was a little rude, because there was nothing she could do to get more food. Before she could ask her stomach to stop complaining, a rope ladder swung down. “It’s Grissel,” growled a voice from up on top of her hole. “If you want to live, then you’ll cooperate with me.”
“Actually, you’d better cooperate with me,” Patches said. “I’ve got a big Flibberish test in school next week. If I’m not back to take the test, then my teacher will come here to give it to me, and trust me, you don’t want that. She’ll make you take it too.”
Grissel was quiet for a moment, and Patches wondered if he’d gone away. Then he called down, “In that case, you’d better tell me what I need to know. I have a question for you.”
“No, thanks,” Patches called up. “I’m pretty busy right now. Can you come back later?”
“If you help me, I’ll let you go.”
Patches shook her head. “You don’t have to let me go. I plan on escaping by myself.”
“I have carrots,” Grissel said. “Fat, juicy carrots boiled in turnip juice.”
Carrots. That changed everything.
Anyone who’s ever eaten carrots boiled in turnip juice will understand why Patches’s mouth began watering. Close your eyes and imagine the yummiest dessert ever. Now pour turnip juice all over it and let the flavors blend together. Mmmmm. It was a good thing Pa
tches already had a plan to help King Elliot, because who knows what she might have done otherwise.
This wasn’t the first time turnip juice had been used to lure a Brownie. Hundreds of years ago, human mothers could leave a bucket of turnip juice outside with a large pile of laundry. By morning, the turnip juice was gone and the laundry was clean and hung to dry on the line. The mothers thought their plan was pretty clever, but the Brownies always knew they had the better end of the bargain.
“Give me the carrot,” Patches said. The delicious smell was becoming too much for her. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
Grissel sent the carrot down tied to a string, but it was just out of reach, even when Patches jumped for it. Her short, chubby legs were usually one of her prettiest features, but what a curse they were at this moment!
“Okay, I give up. What’s your question?” Patches finally asked.
“How can the Goblins defeat King Elliot?”
Patches was quiet for a moment. Then she smiled. “You can’t,” she said. “Humans aren’t like Brownies. Humans don’t wait around for something to come and eat them. They fight back. They defend themselves.”
“We can scare the human to death,” Grissel said. “He can’t defend against that.”
Patches yawned loudly. “That old trick? I remember the good old days when Goblins were more creative in how they got humans. Do you think humans would’ve written all those fairy tales about you if you were as boring then as you are now?”
Grissel sighed. Things had been a little ordinary lately. “There’s a lot more that we can do,” he called down to Patches. “We have magic. And really sharp claws.”
“He expects you to use your magic and your claws. If you want to get him, you have to do what he doesn’t expect.” Patches didn’t actually think Elliot was expecting anything to happen, especially magic and claws.
“Oh, I have a plan he won’t expect,” Grissel said. “It’s foolproof.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! He expects the foolproof plan already. That’s how humans are. If you really want to get King Elliot, you have to use your not foolproof plan.”
Grissel sat back and rubbed his meaty hand along his prickly jaw. In a very strange way, that made sense to him. “Our not foolproof plan, yes, that’s clever.”
Grissel lowered the string to give Patches the carrot and then called to the other Goblins. They came quickly, pushing into a tight circle around Grissel and standing so closely together that it was hard to tell where one green Goblin started and the other ended. Patches pressed her body against the wall of her hole, because if one Goblin fell in, a bunch of them would fall with him, and she didn’t want to be crushed.
“I need three of you to come with me right away. We’re going to outsmart the king by not outsmarting him at all!”
That didn’t make sense to any of the Goblins, but they cheered anyway. After all, Grissel had never led them wrong before.
The moon was high in the sky when the Goblins poofed themselves into Elliot’s room. There were two beds on opposite sides of the room. One bed was empty, but several packets of pickle relish were on top of the blankets. The Goblins fought over them until Grissel won. This was because he knew the other Goblins’ ticklish spots, and for a Goblin, getting tickled just isn’t funny. He stuffed the packets into his mouth and swallowed them whole.
Then Grissel pointed to the other bed. Something in the shape of a human was underneath the blankets. Dangling on the bedpost was his crown. King Elliot was within their reach.
The Goblins smiled at each other, proud to be a part of the war against the human king. Grissel smiled the widest, unaware of the packet of pickle relish stuck between his pointy front teeth. This was almost too easy for a Goblin of his talents. In just a few minutes, he could return and tell Fudd Fartwick their Brownie king was no more.