Fudd and Grissel made an unusual team. It was true they shared a deep, driving thirst for power. It was also true that each had gained his power through a talent for being the scariest of his kind.

But the tales of how they rose to power are very different.

Fudd had been born to the two nicest Brownies in all of Burrowsville. It’s true. His parents even received an award for niceness once, although they hid it away so it didn’t make other Brownies feel bad. They taught Fudd always to act politely and speak kindly. They taught him so well that through most of his first thirty-eight years of childhood, he didn’t know what a mean Brownie was. The first time he heard someone sneeze and not say “excuse me, please,” he ran home crying.

Grissel had not been born to the nicest Goblins in all of Flog. In fact, his father tried to eat him for Christmas dinner every year, which sort of ruined the holidays.

One day in school, Fudd kindly asked a Brownie girl if he could have a turn on the swing. He’d waited in line for five whole hours, but every time he got to the front of the line, someone else would push ahead of him. He’d never gotten a turn on the swing, no matter how many times he asked. Not even once.

“You can’t make me,” the Brownie girl told him with a sneer.

So Fudd pulled out the strongest weapon he had, the one thing his parents said would always work. Very politely, he said, “Please.”

His parents were wrong, however. It didn’t work. She laughed and kept on swinging.

I’m sure you know, Dear Reader, that Fudd could stand up for himself and still be a kind person. You could probably think of at least three ways in which Fudd could solve this problem. Fudd couldn’t even think of one.

Something changed in Fudd that day. The swing didn’t matter. Saying “please” didn’t matter. All that mattered was power, so that no one, ever again, would tell him that he couldn’t make them do what he wanted. One day that girl on the swing would see how powerful he’d become, and then she’d be sorry for not sharing. He would work his way up in power until he was king of Burrowsville. No—king of the Underworld.

Unlike Fudd, Grissel had never gone to school. No schools existed in Flog, because there was nobody smart enough to teach in one. Unless you count the Flog Academy of Fear-Making, in which Goblins practiced the art of causing fear in others. With his natural talents, Grissel quickly growled, attacked, and clawed his way to the top of his class. He was especially good at blowing things up. In fact, for graduation he blew up the Flog Academy of Fear-Making. The academy wanted to give him a medal for having done such a good job at it, but the medal had been inside the school and also blasted to smithereens. Grissel’s father was so proud, saying that next Christmas he could eat at the table instead of being eaten on the table.

Not long after that, the humans opened a mining operation that caused them to dig very deep into the earth. Their drills came close to Flog, too close. The Goblins tried everything they could think of to stop the humans, such as kicking in their tunnels and breaking their drills with rocks. Nothing worked. They just made wider tunnels and stronger drills.

One day Grissel decided it was time to stop the humans once and for all. He led a group of Goblins to the surface one night. They blew a giant hole into the earth and drove all the human machines into the hole. With another explosion, Grissel buried the machines. The humans decided the ground wasn’t stable enough for mining, and all drilling stopped. Grissel was a hero.

He had lived a quiet life in Flog until three years ago when that human boy, Elliot Penster, stopped the Goblins from catching the Brownie, Patches Willimaker. Then he knew it was time to be the Goblins’ hero once again. He had led them in a war against the Brownies ever since.

Fudd wanted to be the Brownies’ hero. He had spent his life trying to become the most powerful of all Brownies. It cost all of his gold to buy the only existing copy of The Guidebook to Evil Plans, which clearly stated, “Commit to your beliefs. No super villain ever rose to the top by doing things halfway (page 2).” Queen Bipsy had stood in his way before. Now it was King Elliot who kept him down.

But Fudd couldn’t kill King Elliot on his own. Very deep inside, Fudd knew that just wasn’t nice. And by nature, Brownies are usually peaceful creatures. But now that he and Grissel had joined together, things were different. With Fudd’s superior mind and Grissel’s ability to create trouble, Fudd was sure that nothing could stop them.

“If we’re going to get Elliot, then we need to know more about humans,” Fudd said to Grissel. “There’s only one Brownie smart enough to help us. Patches Willimaker.”

“Where is she now?”

“Probably in school,” Fudd said. “Probably in room twelve on the fourth row, probably coming back from lunch right about now.” Grissel stared at him, but Fudd just shrugged. “What? It’s just a guess. How would I know?”

Oddly enough, that was exactly where Patches was when the Goblins showed up.

Patches was just about to raise her hand and answer the teacher’s question about her favorite food when her teacher cried out in fear and pointed to the back of the classroom.

Patches knew what was happening just by the nasty smell that she’d detected. Goblins. Luckily, the school had conducted a Goblin drill only last week, and she remembered what to do. She jumped to her feet and yelled to her classmates, “Don’t look at them. Just run!”

Despite her own warning, Patches snuck a look behind her. Three Goblins had come. They looked confused by all the Brownies who were frantically running in every direction. Confused and hungry.

The smelliest of them all focused a stare on her, and his eyes narrowed. Patches ran for the fish tank at the back of the room. She scooped the one fish inside into a cup and then pulled the rest of the tank over on its side. Water splashed across the ground, making instant mud. Two of the Goblins backed away from the water. As long as the ground was wet, they wouldn’t touch her.

Two Goblins? Wait, where was the third?

“Gotcha!” a voice said, and as she looked up a claw reached down from the ceiling and snatched her off her feet. A Goblin lifted Patches into the air, hanging her by her pants. She squirmed and kicked but could not make him let go.

“Put me down or you’ll be sorry,” Patches said.

The Goblin laughed as he crawled across the ceiling. “What could a weak Brownie ever do to make a Goblin be sorry?”

Patches had no answer for that. And she had bigger problems right now than coming up with a clever reply. Like staying alive for the next five minutes.

Usually when Brownies are afraid, they get very quiet and worry until they have upset tummies. Sometimes they get loud hiccups and can’t stop sneezing. When Patches was afraid, she talked. Even more than usual. “I didn’t know Goblins could crawl on the ceiling,” Patches said to the Goblin who carried her. “How do you do that?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s pretty fun,” Grissel replied.

“If I could crawl on the ceiling, then I’d just live there all the time. I’d do everything on the ceiling except drink from a cup, because the water would just spill out onto the floor.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Grissel said. “Goblins don’t drink water. Now be quiet, because all this talking makes it harder to steal you.” Keeping hold of Patches, he nimbly dropped to the ground. “Let’s go,” he said to the other Goblins. Then he threw Patches over his shoulder and walked away.

If you’ve never been carried over a Goblin’s shoulder, you should know that it’s as uncomfortable as it sounds. Goblin shoulders are made of muscles so hard you might as well be carried by a rock, so even a thick layer of Brownie fat isn’t enough to protect against them. And poor Patches didn’t have as much fat as the usual Brownie, since her favorite food was carrots.

“Where are we going?” Patches asked.

“Flog. You’ll be our guest there for a while. And don’t even think about poofing yourself away. I order you not to do it.”

Patches frowned. Most Goblins wouldn’t have remembered to do that. She tried another idea. “I’ve got a bad case of burps. If you eat me, you’ll get them too.”

“I’m not going to eat you. We have some questions for you.”

“About what?”

“About how to get rid of your human king.”

“He’s my friend. I won’t help you do that.”

Grissel laughed. “Yes, you will. You will, or else I’ll stop your burping for good.”

Which normally would’ve been a good thing. But something told Patches that Grissel had meant what he said in the very worst way possible.