Good the Goblin Queen

by Becket

  “Where does it lead?” Good wondered out loud.

  The hobgoblin pointed down Main Street where several chocolate cars were stuck in traffic, honking their chocolate horns. “If you start walking down that road,” he said, “you might get lost and never find your way out again.”

  “And the more time you spend there,” the bug goblin added, “the more you won’t want to leave.”

  “And that could lead you,” the tall goblin put in, “directly to Nightmare Hollow. It doesn’t always happen, but it could. And I’d like to avoid those nightmares if possible.”

  The bed goblin shivered. “Chocolate nightmares give me the creeps.”

  The seven other goblins started going on again. But Good stayed behind for a moment. The smell of the chocolate was positively delicious. She tried to resist the temptation to taste a little, but it was too powerful. She took one small step into Chocolate Heaven and broke off a bar of chocolate from the front gates. She put a tiny end in her mouth, and she tasted it…

  IT. WAS. HEAVENLY!

  In fact it was the most divine chocolate she had ever tasted. She ate the rest of the chocolate bar in one bite. The taste seemed even more amazing. She couldn’t stop. She knew she should catch up with the goblins, but she thought she might have one more taste of the delicious chocolate.

  She broke another bar off the chocolate gates and put the whole thing in her mouth. The delicious taste of the chocolate went down her throat like hot cocoa and filled her stomach.

  Suddenly she started laughing. She didn’t know what she was laughing at. She was just laughing. She felt wonderful. In fact it was the most wonderful feeling she had ever felt in her whole life. She didn’t want the wonderful feeling to stop, and she told herself that, if she ate more chocolate, she could feel even more wonderful.

  So she broke off another bar of chocolate from the main gate and started to eat that too.

  Before she knew what was happening, the world started to feel like a very dizzy place. She was not sure if she was dizzy or if the floor was rocking back and forth under her feet. She put another piece of chocolate in her mouth and it was then that the floor tilted up and she slid down it, right down Main Street into Chocolate Heaven.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Nightmare Hollow

  Good was sliding along Main Street at a very quick rate. She tried to grab on to a chocolate mailbox, but the leg broke off and she kept on sliding. She tried to grab a chocolate man but his leg broke off too!

  “Hey!” he shouted, hopping angrily after her. “Get back here with that! I’m going bowling later.”

  No one else seemed to be sliding down Main Street. And she couldn’t stop herself. But right before she fell into a chocolate dumpster, Good was able to hold on to a lamppost. But it could not hold her either; it broke too. She swung herself over to the side of a building and stood on the wall for a moment, thinking, I might be sideways, but at least I can’t fall anymore. This wall should hold me.

  But she was wrong. The whole building broke. It fell sideways into the building beside it. Chocolate people were leaping out of the windows as the two buildings crashed into a third. It crashed into another and soon more and more chocolate buildings were crashing into one another and falling over like dominoes.

  Good continued falling and falling and falling until—CRASH!—she fell right out of Chocolate Heaven and into the Haunted Fields of Nightmare Hollow.

  She landed on a haystack. But she could not rest there for long. Hands like claws reached out to grab her. She rushed off the haystack and ran on a dirt road down the middle of the Hollow. She did not think that anything could be stranger than the Dream Kingdom, but Nightmare Hollow was much stranger than anything she had ever imagined. It was filled with things that chased her, things like ghosts and wolves and zombies. There were hands coming out of shadows while faces without eyes were staring at her. Crows swooped down out of black clouds and pecked her head and snakes hissed at her feet as she ran past. And the trees were alive with faces carved in their trunks. They glared at her and threw their fruit at her and some picked themselves up by the roots and chased her. She fell through a hole in the ground and realized that it was a grave. The name on the tombstone was hers! But then, as if by magic, she fell through the bottom of the grave and landed on a street. Mobs of monsters surrounded her, all screaming and crying and pushing and pulling and tripping and dripping with blood and slime. It was complete madness and Good could not make any sense of it. She ran through them and thought she was going straight, but it turned out she was running backwards. She thought she was on her feet, but it turned out she was on her head. She looked for a way out, but every way looked like a dead end. She didn’t know which way to go. And soon she started to feel completely, utterly, hopelessly lost.

  Oh, it was an absolutely horrible experience.

  Yet just when she was about to give up hope altogether, a voice spoke that she had not heard in what seemed like years, when in reality it was hardly an hour. It was the soft voice of an old man.

  No, not an old man, Good realized. An old ghost!

  “Hello, my dear,” said Mr. Fuddlebee. “What brings you to this neck of the nightmare?”

  Good looked and saw the elderly ghost, still wearing his begoggled bowler hat and pinstripe suit, his eyes still covered with dark square glasses, the dandelion still pinned to his lapel, and the umbrella still in his hands. And he was still as see-through as a green bottle and glowing.

  “Mr. Fuddlebee?” she asked.

  “Why, yes,” he replied with a kind smile, “but I hardly recognize you. Did you change your hair?”

  “My skin is green,” she said in a sad tone. “I’m a goblin.”

  “A goblin,” he said with some alarm. “I thought you were wishing to be a—what was it?—a spleen?”

  “A queen,” she said. “I think I broke my Crinomatic.”

  “Did you now?” he said musingly. “And your broken Crinomatic made you the Goblin Queen?”

  “I—I’m not sure. It changed me into—into this,” she stammered, pointing to her clawed hands and her tall crown. Her bright red eyes were wide with fear and concern.

  “Well,” the elderly ghost said sympathetically, “a broken Crinomatic would explain all that. But tell me, this isn’t the Goblin Kingdom, so why are you here?”

  Good looked down with a shameful expression. “I tasted a little chocolate bar off the gates of Chocolate Heaven. And then I destroyed it all and fell into this nightmare.”

  She looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

  “What have I done?” she asked in a piteous voice.

  Mr. Fuddlebee chuckled to himself. “Oh, my dear, do not bother yourself about that. Someone destroys Chocolate Heaven at least once a day.” He lowered his voice down to a whisper. “Why, I’ve been known to have a few earthshattering tastes of that delicious chocolate myself. No, don’t worry one bit. It gets rebuilt as often as it’s destroyed.”

  Good smiled, feeling relief wash over her. But then she looked at the elderly ghost with a questioning expression.

  “Mr. Fuddlebee,” she said, “why are you here?”

  He turned and pointed with his umbrella down a very dark road.

  “I was just visiting my aunt Myrtle who lives a few houses down,” he remarked. “A charming woman, although her biscuits are a little dry. I don’t have the heart to tell her they expired a few centuries before the printing press.”

  “Would you mind taking me out of here?” she asked. “I fear I’m lost.”

  “My dear,” he said with a proud smile, “it would be my honor to escort the Goblin Queen.”

  They walked side by side. And soon after several twists and turns, the elderly ghost led her out of Nightmare Hollow and back into the Dream Kingdom, right behind the seven goblins who had not noticed she was gone.

  “This is where I must leave you, my dear,” he said. “I have some rather urgent matters to attend to for SPOOK—the Subcommittee Pr
eventing Oddly Odious Kerfuffles. And if you are going to ask me what kerfuffles means I can only tell you it has nothing to do with fuffling kers. I made that mistake once. Never again,” he added with a shudder. “Tonight we are very close to catching a vampire queen who must be turned back into a mortal. Well then, until the next time. Ta-ta.”

  The elderly ghost bowed low and kissed her hand. His ghostly lips felt like ice. Their brief brush across her hand made Good shiver all over.

  Then he disappeared once more in another puff of green smoke.

  Good turned and ran after the goblins who had added a new verse to their song.

  The pots, the pots,

  it’s the Pots and Pans Parade.

  We giggle, we wiggle

  like squiggles on piggles

  in the Pots and Pans Parade!

  SQUEAK! SQUEAK!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Hall of Mirrors

  Good and the goblins did not travel much farther. They had come to a tall green gateway that had no gate or doors. It was completely open for anyone to come in or go out as they pleased.

  “Here is the border of the Goblin Kingdom,” said the tall goblin.

  “Hooray!” the other goblins cheered.

  “At last!”

  “About time.”

  “I can’t wait to get home again,” the bed goblin said with a yawn. “I miss my bed.”

  “I miss my bugs,” the bug goblin said.

  “And I miss my hob,” the hobgoblin said although he still did not seem to know what a hob actually was.

  Good came forward and looked out over a land filled with night skies and brown hills. On the hills were not pumpkin patches, but jack-o-lantern patches, with a little candle inside each jack-o-lantern, flickering behind the carved eyes and nose and mouth. And over the hills, around the jack-o-lantern patches, was a large labyrinth. In the heart of the kingdom was a tall black castle that looked like Good’s queenly crown.

  From the gateway onward was a long tunnel that led all the way to the castle. The inside was made entirely of mirrors.

  “The Hall of Mirrors,” the Tall Goblin said with awe.

  Just before they arrived the goblins had been telling Good all about this Hall of Mirrors, that it was risky, that it was misty, that it was never adorable but always wonderfully horrible, always entertaining, sometimes into maiming, and many creatures—humans and goblins alike—had gotten lost in there and never found their way out again. Good had imagined all sorts of horrors before they arrived. She dreaded going through there. What if she got lost again? Would the goblins even look for her? They might ignore her the way other people had ignored her too.

  But all her fears turned to questions when she saw that the Hall of Mirrors had become a field of broken glass.

  “The Hall,” the clock goblin said, “the mirrors have been shattered to shards!”

  All the goblins stared at the fields of broken glass in disbelief.

  “How could this have happened?” the cobble goblin asked.

  “Who could have done this?” the bug goblin asked next.

  “I believe,” the tall goblin said, eying the kingdom with great suspicion, “whatever locked us out was the same thing that shattered the Hall of Mirrors.”

  The goblins marched slowly into their kingdom. They were looking at their homeland with heavy hearts. They could not believe that something could have come there and destroyed it so badly. What in the world could have done this? No one had any answers. And no one had the heart to sing or bang their pots and pans.

  The more destruction they saw the sadder they became. Soon they started dragging their feet.

  The tall goblin turned to them and tried to speak in an encouraging tone. “My fellow goblins, it seems we have found ourselves in a mysterious situation.”

  “Mysterious situation?” the hobgoblin said in a mocking tone. “We’ve been attacked. There’s no doubt about it. Something or someone has attacked us and we must attack back. So let’s go get them!”

  He held up his little sword and started running around in circles because he didn’t know which way to go.

  “Oh I don’t want to go to war,” the bed goblin said shivering all over with fright. “I’m more of a sleeper than a fighter.”

  “I can’t fight,” the clock goblin said holding up his hands. “These fingers fit inside clocks and watches, not pistols and cannons.”

  “None of us are fighters,” the cobble goblin said. “I’m a shoemaker. Not a crusader. I’ve never used a weapon. I just carry it for show.”

  They all started bickering and fighting amongst themselves. Some said they were goblins and that all goblins had to fight. But most said they did not know how to do so.

  Good stepped forward and raised her voice. “You do not need to fight anyone, at least not yet. We do not know what happened and we won’t know until we investigate.”

  All the goblins blinked at her in disbelief.

  “You want us to put a vest on a gate?” the hobgoblin said, wrinkling his nose in doubt.

  “No,” Good said to them. “Investigate. We must look at the clues and try to figure out all the actions that took place when we weren’t looking.”

  “And that’s what investigate means?” the tall goblin asked.

  “Yes,” Good said excitedly, “and we will call ourselves investigators because we will be investigating.”

  “That,” the bug goblin said, “is a mouthful.”

  “I’m not sure if we are cut out for investigating,” the tall goblin said. “I mean, we’re goblins. You know—biting, fighting, clawing, sawing, brawling, name-calling, pillaging, plundering, sundering—goblins.”

  “Yeah,” the hobgoblin added. “We don’t know the first thing about investigating or finding clues or whatever else investigators do.”

  “Do they eat donuts?” the cobble goblin asked in a hopeful voice. “Because if they do, then I think I might be able to do it.”

  “Me too!” the bug goblin said excitedly.

  “Well,” Good said, considering this, “yes, I believe some do eat donuts.”

  The cobble goblin and the bug goblin smiled and nodded at each other.

  “I’ve been around lots of places,” the bug goblin said, “and I think I’ve seen these investigators eating a mountain of donuts.”

  “Oh good,” the cobble goblin said with a smile. “I’ll have jelly-filled, please.”

  “Oh you’re always thinking about your stomach, cobbler,” the hobgoblin said.

  “That’s because it’s always reminding me that it’s there,” he replied as it grumbled in agreement.

  “All right,” the tall goblin said. “Let’s say for a moment that we become investigators and we investigate what happened to the kingdom. What will happen after that?”

  “We fight!” the hobgoblin said enthusiastically, taking out his sword and waving it through the air.

  “Oh, we won’t get donuts then,” the cobble goblin sighed sadly. “Not even a sprinkle.”

  “That’s right,” the tall goblin said. “Tighten your belt, cobbler. We are going to war!”

  “To war!” the hobgoblin cheered.

  “I think we are getting ahead of ourselves,” Good said, trying to calm them down.

  But the hobgoblin wouldn’t calm down. “A head?” he asked, his voice rising to a feverous pitch. “A head! Of course we’re getting a head. Whoever did this to our beloved kingdom, we are going to take their head and put it on a polliwog!”

  “I think we are jumping to conclusions again,” Good said.

  “Here we go with that Conk Lesions place again,” the bug goblin whispered to the bed goblin.

  Good spoke more slowly and kindly. “It would be best in the end if we tried to understand what’s going on because if we are confused now, then we will really be confused in the future.”

  “The Queen has a good point,” the tall goblin said in a thoughtful tone. “We don’t know who did this, so we don’t kno
w who to attack. And if we do not know who to attack, then we might attack someone who did not do this to us.”

  The other goblins nodded in agreement. “That sounds…good,” they said to one another.

  “I hope we will not attack anyone,” Good said. “But we might not have to once we investigate to learn what really happened.”

  The tall goblin bowed on one knee before her. “My dear queen,” he said in a respectful voice, “I am so glad you have come back to us. If you had not been here, I don’t know what we would have done. Why, we might have attacked the Trolls of Tasmania or the Witches of West End or the Vampires of the Necropolis. And we would have never heard the end of it then.”

  “I wouldn’t mind attacking all of them, the lazy bunch of sausage faces,” the hobgoblin said crankily under his breath. “They don’t know their face from their fangs.”

  “None of us do,” the bug goblin said to him.

  “And they think the same of us,” the bed goblin put in.

  “That’s why we should attack all of them for ransacking the Goblin Kingdom!” the hobgoblin exclaimed, waving his sword again.

  “Oh then we definitely won’t get to taste any donuts,” the cobble goblin said. “My tummy is grumbling just thinking about them.”

  “You won’t have to attack trolls or witches or vampires,” Good answered. “I do not think any of them have been here.”

  “How do you know that?” the tall goblin asked.

  Good pointed to the ground. They had not realized it but they had been standing in something that looked like a small crater.

  “Trolls, witches, and vampires are not very large, are they?” Good asked.

  “Why do you ask?” the tall goblin said.

  “If they were giants, some of you might not be so eager to attack them,” she suggested, glancing at the hobgoblin.

  “That might be a little true,” the hobgoblin admitted sulkily. “I don’t like giants.”