"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.
Dear Reader, in this chapter, you're going to hear about Elliot's next visitor to his jail. You may wonder if his next visitor is Diffle McSnug, who has recently returned from an exciting trip to the Far East, where his hot air balloon became tangled in a flock of migrating geese. Of course, as you should well know, there is no character in this book named Diffle McSnug. Don't you think Elliot would be confused if a character who doesn't exist in this book suddenly showed up at his Pixie prison with a story about hot air balloons and migrating geese? It's too bad Diffle's not a character, though. You would bite off your fingernails with fright hearing how Diffle fell to the earth after the angry geese chewed through the ropes of his basket. And you'd be shocked to know the amazing way he survived. You wouldn't believe it, even if you heard the story.
Which of course, you won't, because this is Elliot's story. Diffle needs to get his own book.
Elliot only had to wait about twenty minutes before his next visitor (not Diffle McSnug) poofed in to see him.
Mr. Willimaker's daughter, Patches, ran forward, trying to hug Elliot through the thick tree root bars of his prison. This really meant that she hugged the bars more than she hugged Elliot, but, Dear Reader, you should not take this to mean that Patches loved the prison more than she loved Elliot. She just couldn't reach him, that's all.
Elliot had saved Patches from the Goblins twice. In her opinion, that made Elliot at least as cool as her great-great grandfather Willimaker, who had fought in the Demon wars a thousand years ago.
"Here," she said, pushing a wrapped-up bundle to Elliot.
"What's this?" he asked.
"Food. Carrots and beets and some turnip juice. And a couple of pickles."
Elliot already knew about the pickles. Pickle juice was leaking from the bundle onto his brother Reed's slippers, which were pretty much ruined by now.
"Thanks," Elliot said, although ever since he'd learned the Pixies planned to kill him, he hadn't felt very hungry, not even for pickles. He set the bundle on the ground for when Tubs woke up. Tubs would be hungry no matter who wanted to kill him. Elliot had once seen Tubs so hungry at the Quack Shack that he ate his entire duck burger without taking the paper wrapping off it first. And rumor had it that Tubs had once buttered his lunch tray at school. He'd broken off a tooth trying to take a bite from it.
"Nice clothes," Patches said with a giggle.
Elliot glanced down at his checkered pajamas. "I didn't have time to change into clothes before we were kidnapped."
"Pixie led."
"Huh?"
"You were Pixie led, not kidnapped exactly. Did you see a mist last night?"
"Yeah."
"That was the Pixies leading you to their snare."
Elliot folded his arms. "Tubs was Pixie led. I was Tubs led."
Patches frowned. "Humans know how to escape being Pixie led, right?"