by Becket
Soon they could no longer feel the tremors of the dancing giant and they knew he was gone.
“How is the Crinomatic?” Good asked when she came over to the clock goblin. He still had it in his hands and he showed it to her. “After making so many Gossamingles for such large clothes, I fear it might be finished for good.”
It certainly seemed like it would never work again. Black smoke was billowing out of the rim more than ever.
“But let me take another look at it,’ the clock goblin added. “Perhaps I can repair it once more.”
He pulled down a thick lens that made his eye ten times larger. He turned the Crinomatic over in his hands and inspected every part of it. He took out from the bobgoblin’s survival tools a device that looked like several screwdrivers bolted together, end after end, each one smaller than the last, until the point appeared to be a very teeny tiny screwdriver for an even teenier-tinier screw.
The other goblins grew silent with nervousness and they crowded together around the clock goblin while he worked.
“If it is working again, could it make me a comfy mattress,” the bed goblin said wiping sleep away from his eyes.
But no one said anything else. They all looked on, hoping that the Crinomatic was still working in case there were any more giants who liked new dancing clothes.
“I am almost done,” the clock goblin said as he swiveled up the lens and swiveled down another, this one looking like a backwards telescope. He took out another tool; it looked like a cross between a stapler and a potato peeler. When he finished he held the Crinomatic out for everyone to see.
“Tell us,” said the tall goblin. “Is it broken? Will it ever work again?”
The clock goblin handed it back to Good. It was no longer smoking and nothing was rattling inside. That was a relief to hear and see. But the clock goblin did not have a satisfied expression on his face.
He raised the lens away from his eye. “I am deeply sorry, Your Highness,” he said to Good. “I am a clock maker, not a Crinomatic repairman. I don’t think it will ever work again.”
Good sighed. A part of her had hoped that the repaired Crinomatic might change her back to the way she was, that it might remove her green skin, her red eyes, and her long crow-like fingernails. Yes, she had hoped that it might change her from the Goblin Queen and turn her into another kind of queen, perhaps Queen of the Fairies. Yes, that sounded very nice to her.
But she could see that the clock goblin was very down. And he was beating himself up—literally. He had taken out a wrench and was smacking himself in the face.
“Bad goblin,” he was shouting at himself. “Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad goblin.”
“It’s all right,” Good said to him, putting her arm around him, comforting him. “You did your best. I know it!”
He stopped beating himself up and he looked at her with large sorrowful eyes.
“You did great work,” Good went on saying. “You helped us stop a giant from doing any more damage to the Goblin Kingdom.”
The clock goblin sniffled a little. “Was I good?”
“You were marvelous,” she said with the gentlest smile.
The hobgoblin sighed crankily. “This is getting a little too mushy for me. Besides, we might have stopped the giant, but we don’t know why he was here.”
“That’s right,” the tall goblin said. “Someone else must have brought him here.”
“Why do you say that?” the bed goblin asked.
“Because,” said Good, now understanding something new about the mystery, “a giant that big could not have locked the door.”
The goblins all looked at her.
“That must be another clue,” the clock goblin said.
“That’s right,” Good said. “Someone must have come here, brought the giant, and locked the door to the Goblin Kingdom so that no one else could get in.”
“Or get out,” the tall goblin added, seeing her point.
“How can you be certain that this is what happened?” the bug goblin asked her.
“I can’t,” Good admitted. “It is called a working theory. I have seen the facts, and now I am making an educated guess based on those facts.”
“How can we know for certain that your theory is correct?” the clock goblin asked.
“We cannot know anything for certain until we do some more investigation,” Good answered.
“Great!” the cobble goblin put in. “That means more donuts!”
Just then the hobgoblin brought his hand to his eyes and looked out into the distance. “What is that?”
“What?” they all asked. “Where?”
“There,” he said, pointing to what appeared to be grass that was picking itself up and moving over the countryside.
“I don’t know what that could be,” the bed goblin said. “Maybe the Bounding Bluegrass of Bellwood?”
“I think it’s the Moving Mulch of Montana,” the bug goblin put in.
“No, it’s the Slithering Sod of the Sudan,” the cobble goblin said.
“Maybe it’s the Leaping Lawns of London,” the clock goblin offered.
“Wait,” the tall goblin said in awe. “I know that that is. That isn’t grass. Those are gremlins.”
“Gremlins!” they all shouted.
“It’s a whole troop of them!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Real Bravery
Good had never seen a gremlin before. “Are they similar to goblins?” she asked.
“Similar to goblins?” they asked her, all of them looking completely offended.
“As queen, you of all goblins should know the difference,” the hobgoblin snorted with contempt.
“Your Royal Highness,” the tall goblin remarked, “there is a great deal of difference between goblins and gremlins.”
“For one thing they are spelled differently,” the bed goblin said. “Gremlins is spelled with two silent Ws, I think.”
“And you might call them imps,” the bug goblin put in.
“They are smaller than us,” the cobble goblin added.
“They crouch more than us,” the bed goblin also added.
“And they’re certainly much grouchier than us,” the clock goblin said.
“I’m not grouchy!” the hobgoblin said in an angry tone. “I’m just a little cranky before my coffee in the morning.”
“Then it must be that time of the morning for you every hour of every day,” the cobble goblin joked, elbowing the hobgoblin in the ribs, and all the other goblins snickered too.
“What I don’t understand is this,” the tall goblin said. “Why are they here? We made a truce with them long ago. They were never to come on our side of the kingdom and we were never to go on theirs.”
“That’s right!” the hobgoblin said. “We even painted a yellow line and everything.”
“We’ve kept this truce for many years,” the clock goblin said. “Why would they break it now?”
“I have a question,” Good said. “Would they hire the giant to come destroy your kingdom?”
The other goblins stared at her with wide eyes and wonderment. The idea had not occurred to them. They looked at one another and all nodded together.
“I’m not sure,” the tall goblin said, thinking about this, but looking a little doubtful. “They might.”
“It’s what I would do if I were going to break a treaty with my neighbors and invade their land,” the hobgoblin said. Then he took out his little sword again and started waving it around and jabbing it at imaginary gremlins. “I’ll poke them,” he muttered. “I’ll pinch them. I’ll stick them. I’ll prick them. They won’t know what hit them until I’m laughing in their scrunchy little gremliny faces.”
“Isn’t he a hoot,” the clock goblin said to Good, whispering close to her ear. “He’s always poking and pinching and sticking and pricking nothing but air. He’s all talk and no show. That’s usually what hobgoblins do.”
“That’s a relief!” Good said. “I wouldn’t want
anyone to get hurt.”
“Oh, no one does,” threw in the cobble goblin who was nearby, “at least not with him. He couldn’t hit a dead fish.”
“I could!” the hobgoblin shouted. “I could hit two! Maybe three.”
“I’ve never known anyone as brave as you all,” Good said. “In fact I wish I had your kind of bravery. Perhaps I could have had a happier life if I had been braver.”
“My dear,” the clock goblin said, putting his arm around her. “We are all brave in different ways. You see the hobgoblin there? His bravery is not with his sword, but it comes from a deeper place and it works a different kind of magic. His bravery is telling everyone just how brave he actually is, when in reality he is just as frightened as everyone else.”
“Wouldn’t that be lying?” the bug goblin asked, eying the hobgoblin.
“Not a bit. You see, sometimes when you tell others you are brave, you are actually telling yourself those words. You might not act brave, but bravery must begin somewhere. After a while, when you have told others and yourself that you are brave, you might actually become what you have said. Sometimes we have to fake it until we make it, as they say.”
“I’m not faking it!” the hobgoblin shrieked, hopping all over in a hot temper. “I’m brave, I tell you! I’m brave! I’m brave! I’m—”
“We all have different kinds of bravery,” the clock goblin said to Good. “You see the bed goblin over there? His bravery is the way he cares for himself. He knows that sleep is very important for his health. So he makes sure he sleeps at least twenty-three hours a day.”
“The twenty-fourth is spent napping,” the bed goblin said through a wide yawn.
“And do you see the bug goblin over there?” the clock goblin said. “She is brave because she does not care what others think about the way she looks.”
Good thought she herself might feel a little uncomfortable if she looked like a ladybug. But the bug goblin did not seem to mind it all. She appeared to love her bug eyes and antennae and two spotted wings down her back. Good considered other girls who would have hated becoming the Goblin Queen, but something in her was beginning to enjoy it.
My green skin is kind of pretty, she thought.
“The bravery of the cobble goblin is that he is not afraid to express himself,” the clock goblin added. “Do you see all his wonderfully colorful clothes and boots?”
Good nodded and the cobble goblin blushed as he brushed some dirt off his shoulders.
The clock goblin pointed to the bobgoblin and then to the tall goblin. “The bravery of the bobgoblin is that he is not afraid to be kind. And the bravery of the tall goblin is that he is not afraid to listen.”
“And what is your bravery?” asked Good as she looked into the clock goblin’s eyes.
But he looked down. “I do not believe I am very brave,” he admitted in a quiet voice.
“That’s not true,” the tall goblin said. “He is brave when he is fixing things. Most of us are afraid that we are going to break the broken thing more. But he does not have that fear.”
Good looked at the clock goblin intently. “Is that true?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I believe that might be true,” he said with his cheeks blushing a deeper shade of green.
Then all the goblins turned their eyes toward Good, as if expecting her to say something next.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Investigating Good’s Unhappiness
Good had no idea why the goblins were looking at her like that and she could not guess what they might want. She started to back away from them. Perhaps they saw that she did not have any bravery. Perhaps they were going to poke her and boil her and eat her like a lobster.
“And what kind of bravery do you think you have?” the clock goblin ask her.
“Me?” she asked, feeling a little fearful. “Brave? No, I don’t think I’m brave. In fact—” she started to stammer, “—in fact I think I’m a coward.”
“Why in the name of DIOS would you say that?” they all asked.
Good did not know what to say. “I feel I have not been happy for much of my life, and I have not been brave enough to say anything about it.”
“Your Highness,” the clock goblin said, “just saying, ‘I am not happy,’ can be very brave words.”
“How could that be?”
“Investigation!” the hobgoblin shouted.
“Investigation?” Good asked. “I don’t understand.”
“You taught us,” the tall goblin said, “when we do not understand something, we must investigate it.”
“Yes,” the bug goblin added, “you said that we must investigate the clues to solve the mystery.”
“What mystery?” Good asked.
“Your unhappiness,” they all said.
The bobgoblin stood by her and stroked her sleeve sympathetically.
“The great mystery is why you could be unhappy,” the bed goblin added.
“And the first clue is your statement,” the cobble goblin said.
“What statement?” Good asked.
“I am unhappy,” the hobgoblin said.
Good was surprised. “I did say that, didn’t I? I guess I never realized that I had.”
“I wasn’t talking about you,” the hobgoblin snapped. “I was talking about me! I’m unhappy. Let’s change this silly conversation. We have gremlins to poke!”
“Your Highness,” the clock goblin said, “that is the first clue to solving your mystery. It is naming the problem.”
“And the problem is that I have been unhappy,” Good said more to herself than to the others.
The tall goblin placed his hand on her shoulder. “That is part of your bravery,” he told her. “You are brave enough to say that there is a problem. But that’s not the only way you are brave.”
“Really?” Good asked.
“That’s right,” the clock goblin added. “You also showed much bravery when you told us how to defeat the giant. You took control, you told us what to do, and we listened to you because we saw how smart and brave you are.”
Good blushed. “I never thought of myself as brave,” she said.
“The really brave ones never do,” the bug goblin told her.
“That’s what makes you our queen,” the cobble goblin said.
And all the goblins bowed low before her.
They all rose up a moment later. Then the tall goblin said, “Should we solve the mystery of our Queen’s unhappiness now or later?”
“Now,” most of the goblins said while the hobgoblin shouted, “Later!”
“No,” Good said. “Let’s solve the first mystery first. Let’s solve who locked the door and who destroyed the Goblin Kingdom.”
“Are you sure?” the others asked her, all except the hobgoblin, who crossed his arms and humphed.
“Very sure,” she declared. “You know, I don’t feel unhappy right now. In fact, this is the happiest I’ve ever felt in my life!”
The others all applauded and cheered. “Hooray! Our Queen is happy! Hooray!”
“It’s kind of nice being a goblin,” she said.
“Of course it is!” the hobgoblin said through a prideful snort as he walked away from all this merriment.
“Oh no!” cried Good, her eyes going wide with surprise. “Hobgoblin, watch out!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Saving the Hobgoblin
The hobgoblin had been so eager to run off and get the gremlins that he did not notice he was walking backwards into a part of the Hall of Mirrors that had not been destroyed. None of them were supposed to wander into the Hall alone without a map because if you did you would get lost among the many mirrors, reflecting many images, images going on and on forever, and you would never find your way out again. But before anyone could stop the hobgoblin, and before he could turn around, he walked right into the Hall of Mirrors and was swallowed up by all the bewildering reflections.
“What will we do?” the bed goblin shrieked.
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br /> “Oh no! He will be lost forever,” the clock goblin cried out.
“He might be all right,” the bug goblin remarked. She did not seem to like the hobgoblin very much.
The bobgoblin started biting his nails nervously.
But Good had an idea. “Cobble goblin,” she said, going over to him, “you make lots of shoes and clothes, right?”
“I do,” he said, “and hats and socks and stuffed animals.”
“How much string do you have?”
“Let’s see,” he said as he opened his bag and started searching through it. “I have yarn and twine and shoe laces and—”
“Excellent!” said Good with a smile. “We’ll need all of it!”
“What do you plan on doing?” the tall goblin asked her.
“We are going to tie all this string together,” she said. “I’m going to take one end while you all hold on to the other end and—”
“Wait,” the tall goblin said, stopping her. “You can’t go in after him.”
“But I must,” she said.
“Help!” the voice of the hobgoblin could be heard shouting from inside the Hall of Mirrors. “Help! Help! I’m looking at an image of myself laughing at me. I think I’m really lost!”
“You think you’re lost?” the bug goblin said mischievously. “We know you are. Completely lost! In fact we all agree that you’ll never come out again and we are talking about adding a new verse to the Pots and Pans Parade that sings about the foolish hobgoblin.”
“Help!” the hobgoblin shouted even louder. “Help! Help! Help!”
“Oh, can’t you hear him?” Good said to the tall goblin. “We have to go in and get him out.”