by Becket
Good looked at the book. “Show me what happens next,” she said. But the pages in the book remained blank. She shook it. “Show me what’s written on the next page,” she said. But still nothing happened.
“Try asking it nicely,” the bed goblin suggested as he ducked out of the way of a gremlin who was shooting staples at him out of a stapler.
“O book of the story of my life,” she said although she did not know if this was the nicest thing to say to it, “I am in desperate need. Would you please show me what happens next in my life?”
Very slowly, very majestically, with letters shimmering like starlight, words began to appear on the page. It was as if they were written and not written at the same time. Here is what they read:
She asked DIOS for help.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Dimensionally Intelligent Operating System
Good closed the book. She looked at the tall goblin by her side.
“What’s DIOS?” she asked him her eyes wide with curiosity and desperation.
“DIOS is the program that runs everything,” he answered. “The library, the Crinomatic, computers, everything.”
“The name DIOS is an acronym,” the clock goblin put in.
“Is an acronym like a headache?” the bug goblin asked, defending against a gremlin that was trying to pull out her antennae.
“Not quite,” the clock goblin answered. “An acronym makes a word out of the first letters of other words, such as AM and PM, or ASAP, or FURPLE, but I am not sure what that last acronym stands for. DIOS is four letters and each letter is the beginning of a word. D-I-O-S means Dimensionally Intelligent Operating System.”
Good looked all around the library. She looked for something called DIOS, but nothing was clearly marked.
“Where is DIOS so I can ask for help?” she inquired.
“She is all around us,” the cobble goblin said. “You could whisper and she would hear you.”
Good started to whisper, but all of a sudden Old Queen Crinkle shrieked at the top of her voice.
“Stop!”
All the gremlins stopped fighting and all the goblins stopped talking and Good looked up from her book. They all looked at the old queen who was slowly coming toward them, the sound of her cane knocking on the floor.
Old Queen Crinkle stood before Good and glared at her with a hateful expression.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
Good stepped forward, but before she could speak the other goblins came and stood before her.
“This is our queen,” they said ready to defend her at any moment. “You stay away from her!”
“Yeah!” said the frozen hobgoblin in a muffled voice.
The old queen sneered at them and cackled menacingly. Then she waved her bony hand and a powerful magic force threw the goblins aside. She came a little closer to Good and bent low.
“I have been a queen for hundreds of years,” she said with breath that smelled like death. “I know the sight of a queen when I see one, and I can tell you that she is no queen.”
Good gathered her courage and she straightened up, standing a little taller.
“I am the queen,” she said, “Queen of the Goblins. There has never been a queen like me and there never will be ever again.”
Old Queen Crinkle studied her for a very tense moment. Then she started cackling again.
“Puff and nonsense,” she said through her horrid cackles, waving dismissively. “Puff and nonsense.”
The gremlins started laughing wickedly too. Then they tore leaves of paper from their books, wadded them up, and began throwing them at the Goblin Queen.
Good turned her head, but they pelted her all over. Old Queen Crinkle cackled and cackled before she stopped them with a simple wave of her hand.
Good stood there, feeling uncomfortable and nervous. She started sweating and she shifted where she stood. “It’s not puff and nonsense,” she said under her breath, more for herself to believe than for anyone else. And she wondered what she could do.
“All queens have some kind of magic,” the old queen said to her. “If you are a queen, like you say, then show us all what kind of magic you might have.”
Good looked at the book in her hands again and she did the only thing she could do. She did what the book suggested.
“I am Good the Goblin Queen,” said Good the Goblin Queen sounding braver than she felt. “The magic I have is not something I can use on anyone else.”
“What sort of magic is that?” the old queen said in an annoyed tone.
“My magic cannot turn anyone into blocks of ice. It cannot push them away. It cannot give them warts or rashes or turn them to ashes. It cannot make them jump or give them lumps or bumps. It cannot—”
“Then you do not have any magic,” Old Queen Crinkle interrupted. “And my magic is going to destroy yours.”
“No, it won’t,” Good said, “because the kind of magic I have is the kind that asks for help.”
“That’s not magic!” the old queen snapped.
But it was, and Good showed her its power when she looked up and said, “DIOS, help me.”
There was a very long pause.
Old Queen Crinkle and the gremlins looked all around with wide, worried eyes.
And when it seemed like nothing was going to happen, the kind voice of an old man spoke.
“Hello, my dear. May I be of some assistance?”
Everyone turned around and saw the green, glowing presence of Mr. Fuddlebee.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Old Queen Crinkle’s Defeat
All the gremlins screamed in fear at the sight of the elderly ghost. Then they scrambled all over one another in the hope of getting out of the library—even out of the Goblin Kingdom.
“Look how fast they are fleeing,” the cobble goblin said. “They must really be afraid.”
“They know Mr. Fuddlebee works for SPOOK,” the tall goblin said. “They don’t want him to punish them for following Old Queen Crinkle.”
The bug goblin shuddered. “I wouldn’t want that either. I once made the mistake of terrorizing a group of tourists when I wasn’t on duty. Then SPOOK showed up.”
“What happened?” the cobble goblin asked.
“She broke the law of the Society of Mystical Creatures,” explained Mr. Fuddlebee. “I never like disciplining, but it had to be done.”
“So what happened?” everyone asked.
“I wasn’t always a bug goblin, you know,” the bug goblin said in a tone of shame. “Why, before that night, I used to be a bed goblin.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” the bed goblin said, “being changed into a bug goblin must have been awful!”
“It’s not that bad actually,” the bug goblin said with a little grin. “I kind of like my antennae and compound vision, and my wings are just lovely! Don’t you agree?”
Mr. Fuddlebee cleared his throat. “We in the Society of Mystical Creatures must live under a certain law,” he stated. “But true justice is not about punishment. True justice is meant to teach us to be better than what we are.”
“And I am a much better bug goblin than I ever was a bed goblin,” the bug goblin said proudly. “I just did not realize it until I changed.”
Old Queen Crinkle had taken this opportunity to try sneaking away. She had almost reached the Doorackle Alleyway when the elderly ghost turned to her.
“My dear Crinkle,” he said, “I hope you weren’t thinking about returning to the City of the Dead. You see, my SPOOK companions—Miss Broomble and Miss Key, and an immortal puppy wolf—are waiting for you on the other side. And between you and me, they do not delight in the traditional manners that you and I have become so accustomed to in our old age.”
Old Queen Crinkle wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“My dear Crinkle,” he went on, “you look a little confused. You recall Key, don’t you? You locked her in the Dungeon of Despair for hundreds of years. She has been free for some time now and she has b
een thinking of a few words to share with you. And some of those words are in the form of a very large punch in the face—which I have tried to talk her out of, goodness knows I have.”
The old queen looked to her right and left, but the goblins had already surrounded her, each of them drawing their weapons, prepared for any tricks she might try.
“Why did you invade our kingdom?” the tall goblin asked her.
She sneered at him and was about to throw a magic curse at him, but Mr. Fuddlebee stopped her with a polite clearing of his throat.
“Matilda,” he said, “you’re already in enough trouble. Do not make it worse. Please, give him an answer. I think you owe all of us that.”
Old Queen Crinkle frowned and looked down. “A queen needs a place to rule,” she said under her breath.
“And you thought that because you are no longer Queen of the Necropolis you could take over the Goblin Kingdom, and none of us would know about it?” asked Mr. Fuddlebee.
The old queen did not answer him.
“Before I do what I have come to do,” the elderly ghost went on, “I am asking you to please undo what you have done. Be mindful, I have asked politely.”
She waved her hand and unfroze the hobgoblin.
The instant he was free he charged at her with his sword waving savagely through the air. “Let me at her!” he shouted. The tall goblin and the clock goblin had to hold him back.
“Can she restore the rest of the kingdom?” asked Good.
“I’m afraid not,” Mr. Fuddlebee said with a heavy sigh. “That is your responsibility.”
“Mine?” asked Good in some surprise.
“That’s right,” Mr. Fuddlebee said. “A kingdom cannot control the things that hurt it since that always comes from the outside in. But it can control how it heals afterward since that always comes from the inside out.”
The seven goblins smiled at Good, even the hobgoblin who was screwing up his face in such a way that you might have mistaken his smile for a grimace of pain. They knew she was going to be the best queen they ever had.
“Yes,” said Good the Goblin Queen, smiling proudly on her goblin friends, “I think we can all work together to rebuild this kingdom.”
“You only think you can?” asked Mr. Fuddlebee with a little raise of his ghostly eyebrows behind his ghostly glasses.
Good smiled. “I know we can.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Hobgoblin’s Justice
Mr. Fuddlebee reached inside his ghostly jacket and fished in his ghostly pocket. A moment later he took out something that appeared to be as small as a grain of sand, but light shone from it that was as bright as a star. He held it over his head and the light grew brighter.
“Matilda Crinkle,” he said to the old queen in a strong voice, “you are no longer a vampire! You are no longer immortal! Your power is taken back by the Hand of DIOS.”
The light from the grain of sand became blinding. Good and the goblins covered their eyes, so did Old Queen Crinkle. The light surrounded all of them. But in the next moment it was gone.
Everyone except Mr. Fuddlebee stood blinking and rubbing their eyes. The light had not hurt, yet its brightness had surprised them, especially the old queen.
She was staring at her hands with wide eyes that were full of fear and disbelief. “No,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “It can’t be. It just can’t be.”
“I’m afraid it is,” the elderly ghost said. “You are mortal now.”
“Do you mean,” the hobgoblin said with a mischievous grin, “that she is not a vampire anymore?”
“That is correct. She is, for lack of a better word, a person, which means she must naturally have some respect.”
“But I can still chase her and bite her, right?” the hobgoblin said.
Mr. Fuddlebee sighed. “Oh I suppose so,” he said. “But just down the road.”
The hobgoblin laughed wickedly and started snapping at the old queen’s heels. She shrieked and ran for her life out of the library with the hobgoblin nipping at her rump.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Bobgoblin’s Wisdom
Good and the goblins came out of the Goblin City Library followed by Mr. Fuddlebee. You would have had to be there to believe the size of the crowd of goblins that had gathered outside. There were more bug goblins and more bed goblins, more cobble goblins, clock goblins, and more hobgoblins. There were more tall goblins and more short goblins. There were biggle goblins and sniggle goblins. There were snuggle goblins and huggle goblins; snicker goblins and bicker goblins; nag goblins, lag goblins, and bag goblins. There were happy goblins, snappy goblins, and sappy goblins; scary goblins, merry goblins, and hairy goblins; sly goblins, lie goblins, and cry goblins. There were goblins of all kinds and at least one of every kind. But there was none quite like the bobgoblin who walked a little higher beside his queen, Good.
Everyone was cheering loudly as Good stood before them.
“Who is that?” one goblin said in the crowd.
“She looks like royalty,” another answered.
“She looks like a princess,” another added.
“Whoever she is,” said a few more, “she is the most beautiful goblin I have ever seen.”
“My fellow goblins,” announced the tall goblin over the crowd and they all fell silent to listen to him, “don’t you know who you are looking at? This is your queen.”
They all bent down on one knee and looked up at her with awe.
“I present to you,” the tall goblin went on, “Good the Goblin Queen.”
Everyone started cheering and leaping and dancing for joy!
The pots, the pots,
it’s the Pots and Pans Parade.
We prance, we dance,
like ants in pants
in the Pots and Pans Parade!
SQUEAK! SQUEAK!
Goblin cars and goblin carriages came from all over the city just to see who this was coming out of the library. They were all staring and marveling and pointing at her, and for the first time, Good did not feel that they were pointing and laughing at her. But they were pointing at her and laughing because of her. She had done something good that had made them all very happy! Everyone was saying how she had defeated Old Queen Crinkle and saved the city.
“But I didn’t save Goblin City,” she said to Mr. Fuddlebee, who was now floating by her side. “You did. You saved the city when you turned Old Queen Crinkle into a mortal.”
The elderly ghost thought for a moment, rubbing his ghostly fingers through his ghostly goatee. “Well, my dear, that all depends on how you look at it,” he said after a moment. “I might be the Keeper of the Hand of DIOS. Yet it was her power that turned Crinkle into a mortal. Also, none of that could have happened if you had not done what you did.”
Good wondered what he meant. “What did I do?” she asked at last.
The bobgoblin tugged on her sleeve. She looked down and he gestured for her to come closer. She lowered and in a very tiny voice he whispered in her ear, “You asked for help.”
He was gazing at her with a twinkle of admiration in his eyes.
Mr. Fuddlebee chuckled. “This clever little goblin is absolutely correct. You did ask for help, my dear. And not only that, but you also asked it from DIOS, who is a power much greater than all of us.”
“Did she bring you to the Goblin City Library?” asked Good.
“In a way, yes,” Mr. Fuddlebee admitted philosophically. “She did not take me from where I was to where you were. On the contrary, before you even asked for help, she showed me in very small ways where I needed to be. She did not show me that you needed help, but that someone would need help. I had to act like a detective, look for clues, and investigate so that I might find my way to you. That’s usually how DIOS works. She prefers it when we use the gift of our minds to puzzle out the puzzles of the universe.”
The elderly ghost bent a little lower to her.
“The puzzle you had to figure out was muc
h greater than mine, I assure you,” he said.
“What puzzle did I have to figure out,” she asked.
“My dear, you had to figure out if you could ask for help.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Good Day
The mayor of Goblin City came forward and silenced the rejoicing crowd.
“My fellow goblins,” he said, “this is a marvelous day! Our kingdom and our city are saved because we have the best queen in the Society of Mystical Creatures! So I declare that this day shall be a holiday.”
Then he remembered himself, turned to Good, and bowed low. “That is, this day will be a holiday with your permission, Your Cryness.”
“Highness!” the other goblins hissed at him.
“Yes, sorry,” he stammered nervously. “That is what I meant. Your Highness.”
She smiled on him and laughed with delight.
“Yes of course,” she said merrily. “Today would make a very fine holiday!”
“Excellent!” he said and turned back to the crowd. “Today will be forever called Good Day! So whenever you see a fellow goblin in the street, you must wish them Good Day!”
All the goblins cheered and applauded, although they felt a little silly. You see, all goblins have always been wicked creatures, always playing tricks, always being mischievous. They had never wished anything or anyone a good day before. So it was quite awkward at first as they turned to one another. Some wished each other a “Gob Day” while others wished some a “Grump Day.” Their mouths had never shaped the word good before, so they had to practice all day long. They would take off their hats and bow to one another, yet they kept knocking each other in the head because they had never done that before either.
Good watched them and smiled to herself. Then she turned to the tall goblin. “I think the final mystery is solved,” she said.