Patches poofed in with a large bottle of turnip juice in her hands. "Here it is. Are you thirsty?"
"Not exactly." Elliot looked at Harold. "Now can you turn into a goat?"
Harold winked at Cami. "Goats are one of my better animals. I know you'll be impressed."
From the little that Elliot knew about girls, he guessed Cami wasn't likely to be impressed with Harold's changing into any farm animal. Except maybe a horse. He knew most girls liked horses.
Harold let out a deep breath, and his body immediately curved so that he stood on four hooves rather than hands and feet. White hair spread all over his body, and his face molded into that of a goat's.
"Ho-oww do you like me no-oww?" he asked Cami.
"Eww," Cami said.
Then he bleated to Elliot, "Wh-y do you ne-eed a goat?"
Elliot took the bottle from Patches and held it out to Harold. "Spit in this," he said. He wasn't sure whether Minthred's sleep recipe would work, but it was worth a try.
Harold the Goat gathered a big wad of spit in his mouth, then shot it into the bottle.
"Disgusting!" Patches cried. "No Brownie will drink that now."
"I don't want a Brownie to drink it," Elliot said, putting the lid on it again. "I have much bigger plans for this. There's just one more ingredient I need. Anyone know where I can get some earwax?"
Everyone in the room stared at one another, but no one seemed to have any earwax available at that moment.
"Can you get some here by magic?" Cami asked.
"Magic can't just create something from nowhere," Patches explained. "It has to exist somewhere first."
"We need to think of someone who would have a lot of earwax," Harold said, tapping his hoof on the floor.
"The Trolls?" Elliot suggested. "I've seen their ears, and there's got to be pounds of it in their heads."
"But Agatha told me they're all turned to stone," Patches said. "If we got any, it would be stone earwax."
They all froze when a roar boomed from the woods behind Elliot's house, rattling the windows and even shaking a few books from Elliot's bookshelf.
"What was that?" Cami whispered.
"Kovol," Elliot breathed. Kovol was looking for him.
"You've got to poof somewhere far away," Patches said. "Where Kovol won't think of looking for you."
"I can't," Elliot said. "When he couldn't find me before, he went after Reed. I have to go back and face him now, or he'll look for my family. Harold, will you stay here as me to protect them, just in case?"
"What if I mess up?" Harold asked.
"You won't," Elliot said. "I know this time you won't."
"What can I do?" Cami asked. "I promised you I'd help."
"This is my fight," Elliot said. "Just get that paper-mache doll into the woods." He pointed to the jar of turnip juice and goat spit. "Keep track of this too. It's really important now."
"It's also really gross now," Patches said. Then she added, "Be safe, Elliot."
Before Kovol had finished his second roar, Elliot closed his eyes, pictured Kovol so clearly it made his knees turn to rubber, and then poofed himself there, ready for the final battle.
Sometime last year Elliot had seen a cartoon about a kid who battled hundreds of alien invaders all by himself to save planet Earth. He had liked the movie, but that's all it was, just a story a bunch of writers had made up. Right before poofing back to the woods to face Kovol, Elliot tried to think of even one true story where a kid does battle with someone a lot stronger and wins.