“No need to be so loud, no need for that,” said a voice from the trees in Elliot’s backyard. “I’m already here.”
Elliot trudged into the trees a little ways. He found Mr. Willimaker sitting on a fallen tree stump, his head in his hands and a wide frown on his face.
“I’m so sorry,” Mr. Willimaker said. “This is all my fault.”
Elliot pressed his eyebrows together, wondering why Mr. Willimaker might need to apologize. After all, he hadn’t scared Elliot half to death or made Elliot’s room disappear. Elliot didn’t know that Mr. Willimaker was actually thinking about how he had written Ellio
t’s name in as king. Queen Bipsy had been one of Mr. Willimaker’s last friends in the entire Brownie kingdom. She had believed in him when no one else did. That’s why she trusted him to choose the name of the next king. She would be so disappointed now to see that once again, instead of making things better for the Underworld, he had only made them worse.
The future wasn’t looking too rosy for Elliot now either.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” Mr. Willimaker repeated.
“You didn’t do this,” Elliot said. “Was it the Goblins?”
“It must have been, but I don’t understand how they could’ve done it on their own. Making an entire room disappear needs Pixie magic. But Goblins can’t use other creatures’ magic. They can only use their own. So they must’ve had help.”
“Whose?”
Mr. Willimaker sighed. “I wish I knew. I hate to say it, but I fear it might be a Brownie who has done this. We don’t have a lot of magic of our own, but we are very good at borrowing it from other creatures. If only we had Patches back. She could help us figure this out.”
“Can I help to get her back?” Elliot asked.
“I wish you could come with me to the Underworld. The Pixies could poof you there. But since they just helped the Goblins, I don’t think they’d help us.”
Elliot nodded. “I don’t think I’m allowed to go to the Underworld anyway. My parents don’t like me to go to new places by myself.”
Mr. Willimaker smiled sadly. “King of the Brownies, and you still need permission from your parents.”
“But if my parents knew why I was going to the Underworld, they’d probably understand,” Elliot said. “We can’t trust the Pixies to poof me there, but you could do it, right?”
Mr. Willimaker’s eyes widened. “No, sir. I wouldn’t dare, not even to rescue Patches. My magic isn’t strong enough to poof a human anywhere. I’d probably get your feet into the Underworld and your head and maybe a few of your fingers, but I’d lose the rest of your body. It’d be very hard to rescue Patches with only half of your body.”
“Oh,” Elliot said. His parents might understand if he had to go to the Underworld to rescue Patches. They definitely would not understand his having only half a body. “Then we have to think of a different way to save her.”
“We will.” Mr. Willimaker cocked his head. “Where is your crown, Your Highness?”
Elliot turned to where Cole and Kyle were now at the side of the house. “Wait one minute.”
He ran to his brothers. They had dug a ditch in a circle, filled it with water, and then had put several ants on the dirt island in the middle.
“What are you doing?” Elliot asked.
“We want to see what the ants will do,” Cole said. “They want to get off the island but can’t swim.”
“Oh. Where’s the cr—I mean, the bracelet you took from my room? You didn’t leave it in there, did you?”
“No,” Kyle said. “Cole, you had it last. Where’d you put it?”
“I left it in the kitchen. But next time I looked it wasn’t there. It’s pretty shiny. Maybe Uncle Rufus got it.”
Elliot ran back and knelt beside Mr. Willimaker. “My uncle won’t lose it or anything. He’ll just carry it around for a while, and then I can get it back later.”
Mr. Willimaker’s face went green, like the color of canned peas. Not a good color for either peas or Brownies. “Do you know why your room disappeared?”
“Because the Goblins knew it was my room. They hoped I’d be in it.”
“A king always wears his crown, and if your crown was in your room, then they thought you were in your room. Wherever your crown is now, when the Goblins try again, they’ll think they’re attacking you.”