Elliot and the Last Underworld War by Jennifer A. Nielsen Page B

stone creatures are my friends too. I didn’t think you would care about us, but I was wrong. I will not allow harm to come to anyone in the cave until you find a way to save them.”
    “Thank you, Grissel,” Elliot said.
    “No, King Elliot,” Grissel said. “Thank you .” After a short bow, Grissel disappeared.
    Elliot waited only a moment before calling for Harold. He didn’t know how far away the explosion had carried Kovol, but they didn’t have much time. He waited a moment, sure that the Shapeshifter must not have heard him. Then he yelled, “Harold!” again.
    He had expected to see Harold arrive in his human form, but instead a mosquito popped onto Elliot’s nose. If Elliot could have seen it with a magnifying glass, he would have noticed the small white patch of hair on the mosquito’s head—a sign that this was his friend. But Harold the Mosquito only buzzed, “No! Leave me alone!” Then he gave Elliot a bite, because that’s what mosquitoes do. And he poofed away.
    Elliot itched his nose, then said, “Harold, get back here right now! I have to talk to you!”
    A small spider monkey appeared in the tree above Elliot. Same white patch of hair, same Shapeshifter. “No!” the monkey howled. It looked around for a bunch of bananas, but since this was not a banana tree, it threw some pinecones at Elliot’s head and poofed away again.
    Elliot stood up and put his fists on his hips. “Harold! You will come here right now, or I will tell Cami that we never want to see her again.”
    Several seconds passed when Elliot thought even that threat wouldn’t be enough to bring Harold back. Finally he poofed in front of Elliot, in his human form. But his arms were folded, and the look on his face was somewhere between upset and furious.
    “Don’t ask me for anything else, because I won’t do it,” Harold said. “You gave me one job, to keep Kovol away from Demon Territory. I didn’t do that right. And then down in Kovol’s cave, I should have transformed into a Hag and tried to put off enough light to chase the Shadow Men away, but I didn’t do that either. All I did was turn into an orange rock. Not diamond or gold or some useful metal. Just a dumb orange rock. I don’t dare to do anything else to help. I might be more dangerous to our side than Kovol.”
    Truthfully, that same thought had occurred to Elliot. But he hoped this time he had found something so harmless that even Harold couldn’t ruin it. Elliot sighed as he stared at his friend. Who was he kidding? Nothing was too harmless to be safe from Harold.
    “Just come with me, please,” Elliot said, and then quickly added, “And before you tell me no again, it’s something with Cami.”
    Harold’s eyebrows lifted. “Cami?”
    Elliot smiled. “Cami with Warts—I mean, Cami Wortson, the love of your life.”
    “I’d do anything for the love of my life,” Harold said. “You know I would. But I can’t risk making any more mistakes.”
    “Are you kidding?” Elliot said. “Do you know how many mistakes I’ve made since becoming king? Maybe you made a mistake by bringing Kovol back to Demon Territory, but it was really my mistake for having us go in there unprepared. Everyone makes mistakes. But my dad says that’s always okay, if you’re willing to fix them.”
    Harold sighed. “How do I fix this?”
    “Let’s go back to my house,” Elliot said. “We’ll poof straight to my room.”
    “Okay,” Harold said glumly. “I just hope you know what you’re doing letting me make mistakes around your family.”
    “Uh—” Elliot began. But it was already too late. Harold had poofed away.

When Elliot and Harold poofed into Elliot’s bedroom, they found Cami on the floor reading a book. She jumped to her feet, startled. “Oh, you scared me!” Once her heartbeat started up again, she said, “I’ll never get used to you doing that.”
    “I’ll never get used to doing it either,” Elliot said, although he had already begun to