Elliot and the Pixie Plot (Underworld Chronicles 2)

She grinned. "You will."

Elliot took the bundle from Patches. Whatever she'd put in there, it smelled good. And Elliot had the flashlight from Agatha tucked in his belt. Maybe this trip wouldn't be such a big deal after all.

"Are we ready then?" Fudd asked. "Ready to go to our deaths, no doubt, but we'll see some nice sights along the way."

"Only Mr. Willimaker and I are going," Elliot said.

"But Your Highness," Fudd protested. "I owe this to you."

"You can owe it to me later. I need Mr. Willimaker to show me the way, but if I don't come back, then someone will need to stay here as king."

Fudd shook his head. "I don't want to become king that way. Not anymore."

Elliot smiled and tapped Agatha's flashlight. "Don't worry. I have the flashlight, and Kovol is asleep. I'm sure it won't be as hard as everyone thinks."

"Let me come with you," Patches said.

"No," Mr. Willimaker and Elliot said together. Mr. Willimaker added, "Besides, you have school tomorrow, and no Shapeshifter is available to take your place."

Elliot and Patches both groaned, although for very different reasons. Then Patches slumped to the ground and folded her arms. "Fine, but I could've helped."

To his right, Elliot noticed a winding road paved in yellow bricks. "Oh. A yellow brick road. I suppose we should follow it out of Burrowsville, right?"

Mr. Willimaker grabbed his arm to hold him back. "Are you crazy? Don't you know where that leads?"

Elliot shook his head. "No. Where?"

Mr. Willimaker shuddered. "No Brownie who's walked that path has ever returned. We call it the Yellow Brick Road of Doom." He pointed to a hill leading in the opposite direction. "We go that way, Your Highness."

"Then let's go." Elliot took his first steps, and Mr. Willimaker quickly caught up to walk beside him. "How long will it take for us to get there?"

Mr. Willimaker pulled a map out of his pocket. "If we don't stop to see any sights along the way and we keep up a good pace, maybe a week."

"A week?" Elliot asked. "That long?"

"I said maybe," Mr. Willimaker said. "I could be wrong. It might take us much, much longer than that."

Before Elliot had become king of the Brownies, he'd done a lot of running. Mostly running away from Tubs, who would have left bruises on any part of Elliot's body he could catch. Reasons like that help a kid run away fast.

But Tubs hadn't chased Elliot since the end of the Goblin war, and Elliot was a little out of shape. Now he was thinking that Burrowsville had a lot of hills. Going down them wasn't bad, except the next hill up always seemed to be a little taller than the one before it. At least the bright colors of the Underworld trees and flowers kept things interesting. Obviously there was no sun above them, but everything was warm and light, and the sky had a cool, pastel yellow glow.

It took them a while to get out of Burrowsville. As they walked the winding road through the town, Brownies came out to greet Elliot and to thank him for what he'd done in ending the Goblin war. Mr. Willimaker pointed out that many of the younger Brownies had never seen a human up close before. After a few hours they left the border of Burrowsville and entered what Mr. Willimaker called the "Underworlderness."

There weren't a lot of trees here, but the narrow trail was lined with blueberry bushes even taller than Elliot. For nearly a mile, the thick bushes marked the trail. Elliot and Mr. Willimaker ate a lunch of them as they walked.

Mr. Willimaker tried to talk with Elliot that afternoon, but Elliot was deep in thought. It was cool to have seen Burrowsville, and Elliot was proud of the fact that he'd beaten Grissel in the time-out--not that he could tell any of his family that--but he still wished he were home. He wondered whether the twins had dug any more mud pits, or whether his Uncle Rufus had returned to his habit of stealing shiny things, or what Wendy had burned for dinner last night. Funny that he missed her burned food. Maybe she'd messed up his taste buds, and burned food was starting to taste normal to him.

And something in his stomach had been rumbling for a while, as though his own personal volcano were trapped inside. He took two more steps, and then the volcano erupted in the form of a gigantic burp. Mr. Willimaker ducked, and the burped-out air hit a large blueberry bush that promptly wilted and died.

"Did I do that?" Elliot asked.

"More correctly, your Mushroom Surprise drink did that. Better a bush than me, I always say." Mr. Willimaker brushed off his clothes and continued walking. "Warn me the next time you feel that coming, please."

"Sorry," Elliot said, although he secretly thought his toxic burp was pretty cool.

"Your Highness, if I may--" Mr. Willimaker began.

"We've got a long walk ahead of us," Elliot said. "