Gregor the Overlander - 1 (11 page)

"Huh," said Gregor. Luxa had a way of putting him down even when she wasn't trying.

"It is easier for the babies," said Mareth quickly. "Like your sister, they have not yet learned much fear. We have a saying down here. 'Courage only counts when you can count.' Can you count, Boots?" Mareth held his fingers up before Boots, who was busy trying to tug off Gregor's sandal. "One ... two ... three!"

Boots grinned and held up her pudgy fingers in imitation. "No, me! One ... two ... free ...

four seven ten!" she said, and lifted both hands in the air at her accomplishment.

Henry scooped up Boots and held her at arm's length, the way someone might hold a wet puppy. "Boots has no fear, nor will she when she masters counting. You like to fly, do you not, Boots? Go for a ride on the bat?" he said mischievously.

"I ride!" said Boots, and wiggled to get out of Henry's uncomfortable hold.

"Then ride you!" said Henry, and tossed her right off the side of the pillar.

Gregor gasped as he saw Boots, as if in slow motion, sail out of Henry's hands and into the dark.

"Henry!" said Mareth, in shock. But Luxa was cracking up.

Gregor staggered to the side of the pillar and squinted into the darkness. The faint torchlight provided by the bats illuminated only a few yards. Had Henry really thrown Boots to her death? He couldn't believe it. He couldn't --

A happy squeal came from above his head. "More!"

Boots! But what was she doing up there? Gregor fumbled with his flashlight. The beam was strong and cut a wide swath of light through the blackness.

Twenty bats were wheeling around the cave, playing some kind of game of catch with Boots. One would take her up high and flip over, sending the toddler free-falling to the ground.

But long before she reached it, another bat would scoop her up gently, only to rise and flip her off again. Boots was giggling ecstatically. "More! More!" she ordered the bats each time she landed. And each time they dropped her, Gregor's stomach lurched into his throat.

"Stop it!" he snapped at the Underlanders. Henry and Luxa looked surprised. Either no one had ever yelled at these royal brats, or they hadn't seen Gregor lose his temper yet. He grabbed Henry by the front of the shirt. "Bring her in now!" Henry could probably cream him, but he didn't care.

Henry put up his hands in mock surrender. "Take ease, Overlander. She is not in danger,"

he said, grinning.

"In truth, Gregor, she is safer with the bats than in human hands," said Luxa. "And she is not afraid."

"She's two!" screamed Gregor, wheeling on her.

"She's going to think she can jump off anything and be caught!"

"She can!" said Luxa, not seeing the problem.

"Not at home, Luxa! Not in the Overland!" said Gregor. "And I don't plan on staying in this creepy place forever!"

They may not have known exactly what he meant by "creepy," but it was pretty clear it was an insult.

Luxa raised her hand, and a bat coasted by lightly flipping Boots into Gregor's arms. He caught her and squeezed her tightly. The Underlanders were no longer laughing.

"What means this 'creepy'?" said Luxa coolly.

"Never mind," said Gregor. "It's just something we Overlanders say when we see our baby sisters being tossed around by bats. See, for us, that's creepy."

"It was meant to be entertaining," said Henry.

"Oh, yeah. You guys should open a theme park. You'll have a line stretched from here to the surface," said Gregor.

Now they really had no idea what he was saying, but his tone was so sarcastic, they couldn't miss it.

Boots wriggled from his arms and ran toward the edge of the pillar. "More, Ge-go!" she piped.

"No, Boots! No, no! No jump!" said Gregor, catching her just in the nick of time. "See, this is just what I'm talking about!" he said to Luxa.

He stuffed Boots into the pack and heaved her onto his back.

The Underlanders were baffled by his anger and stung by his tone, even if they couldn't understand his words.

"Well, it was not Boots who needed the lessons, anyway," said Luxa. "It was you."

"Oh, abandon the thought, Luxa," Henry sneered. "The Overlander would never give himself to the bats. Why, when he returns home, he may forget he is no longer in our 'creepy'

land and jump from his own roof!"

Luxa and Henry gave an unfriendly laugh. Mareth just looked embarrassed. Gregor knew it was a dare, and one part of him itched to take it. Just run and jump into the darkness and leave the rest up to the bats. Another part of him didn't want to play this little game. Luxa and Henry wanted him to leap so they could laugh at him flailing around in the air. He guessed they both hated being ignored, though. So he gave them a look of contempt and walked away.

He could feel Luxa positively steaming behind him.

"I could have you thrown off the side, Overlander, and have no one to answer to!" said Luxa.

"So, do it!" said Gregor, holding out his arms. He knew it was a lie. She'd have Vikus to answer to.

Luxa bit her lip in vexation.

"Oh, let the 'warrior' be, Luxa," said Henry. "He is no good to us dead ... yet... and even the bats may not be able to compensate for his clumsiness. Come, I will race you to the pitch pool." She hesitated for a moment, then ran for the edge. She and Henry launched into the air like a pair of beautiful birds and vanished, presumably on their bats.

Gregor stood there, hands on his hips, hating them. He had forgotten Mareth was behind him.

"You must not take what they say to heart," said Mareth softly. Gregor turned and saw the conflict on Mareth's face. "They were both kinder as children, but when the rats took their parents, they changed."

"The rats killed Henry's parents, too?" said Gregor.

"Some years before Luxa's. Henry's father was the king's younger brother. After the Overlanders, the rats would most like to see the royal family dead," said Mareth. "When they were killed, Nerissa became as frail as glass, Henry as hard as stone."

Gregor nodded. He could never hate people very long because he always ended up finding out something sad about them that he had to factor in. Like this kid at school everybody hated because he was always pushing little kids around and then one day they found out his dad had hit him so much, he was in the hospital. With stuff like that, all Gregor could feel was bad.

When Vikus arrived a few minutes later, Gregor got onto his bat without a word. As they took off, he realized how tightly his legs clutched the bat's sides, and tried to loosen up. Vikus rode with his legs swinging free. Gregor let his legs go and found it was actually easier to stay on. More balanced.

"Now we must visit the crawlers," said Vikus. "Do you wish to continue dissecting the prophecy?"

"Maybe later," Gregor answered. Vikus didn't press it. He probably had plenty on his mind with the war and all.

Something else was eating at Gregor now that he had his temper under control. He knew he hadn't refused to jump off the pillar only to make Luxa and Henry mad. And it wasn't only because they'd laugh at him. No mystery why he'd mentioned theme parks. Roller coasters, bungee jumps, parachute drops -- he hated them. He went on them sometimes because everybody would think he was a chicken if he didn't, but they weren't fun. What was fun about feeling the world drop out from under your feet? And those rides at least had seat belts.

They flew through dark tunnels for hours. Gregor felt Boots's little head sink down on his shoulder and he let her go. You couldn't let her nap too long during the day or she'd wake up in the middle of the night wanting to play, but how could he keep her awake when it was dark and she couldn't move? He'd deal with it later.

The gloom brought all Gregor's negative thoughts back. His dad imprisoned by rats, his mom crying, the dangers of taking Boots on this unknown voyage, and his own fear at the pillar.

When he felt the bat coasting down for a landing, he was relieved at the distraction, although he disliked meeting up with Luxa and Henry again. He was sure they would be more smug and patronizing than ever.

They dipped into a cavern that was so low, the bats' wings brushed both the ceiling and floor. When they landed, Gregor dismounted but couldn't straighten up without bumping his hard hat. The place reminded him of a pancake, round and large and flat. He could see why the cockroaches had chosen it. The bats couldn't fly well, and the humans and rats couldn't fight properly with four-foot-high ceilings.

He roused Boots, who seemed to enjoy her new surroundings. She toddled around, standing on tiptoe to touch the ceiling with her fingers. Everyone else just sat on the ground and waited. The bats hunched over, twitching at what Gregor supposed were sounds he couldn't even hear.

A delegation of roaches appeared and bowed low. The humans got to their knees and bowed back, so Gregor did the same. Not one to stand on ceremony, Boots ran up with her arms extended in greeting. "Bugs! Beeg bugs!" she cried.

A happy murmur ran through the group of roaches. "Be she the princess, be she? Be she the one, Temp, be she?"

Boots singled out one roach in particular and patted it between the antennas. "Hi, you! Go ride? We go ride?"

"Knows me, the princess, knows me?" said the roach in awe, and all the other roaches gave little gasps. Even the humans and bats exchanged looks of surprise.

"We go ride? More ride?" said Boots. "Beeg Bug take Boots ride!" she said, patting him more vigorously on the head.

"Gentle, Boots," said Gregor, hurrying to catch her hand. He placed it softly on the bug's head. "Be gentle, like with puppy dogs."

"Oh, gen-tle, gen-tle," said Boots, lightly bouncing her palm on the roach. It quivered with joy.

"Knows me, the princess, knows me?" the roach whispered. "Recalls she the ride, does she?"

Gregor peered closely at the roach. "Oh, are you the one who carried her to the stadium?"

he asked.

The roach nodded in assent. "I be Temp, I be," he said.

Now Gregor knew what all the fuss was about. To his eyes, Temp looked exactly like the other twenty roaches sitting around. How on Earth could Boots have picked him out of the crowd? Vikus looked at him with raised eyebrows as if asking for an explanation, but Gregor could only shrug in reply. It was pretty weird.

"More ride?" pleaded Boots. Temp fell on his face reverently, and she clambered onto his back.

For a minute, everybody just watched them pattering around the chamber. Then Vikus cleared his throat. "Crawlers, we have grave matters to place before you. Take us to your king, take us?"

The roaches reluctantly tore themselves away from watching Boots and led Vikus and Solovet away.

"Oh, great," thought Gregor. "Here we are again." He felt even less comfortable than when Vikus had left the first time. Who knew what Henry and Luxa might do now? And then there was the matter of the giant roaches. He didn't feel particularly safe in the bugs' land. Just yesterday they had considered trading him and Boots to the rats. Well, at least there was Mareth, who seemed decent enough. And the bats weren't too bad.

Temp and one other roach named Tick had stayed behind. They completely ignored the rest of the party while they took turns giving the toddler rides.

The five bats gathered together in a clump and fell asleep, exhausted from the day's flight.

Mareth placed the torches together to make a small fire and put on some food to warm.

Henry and Luxa sat apart speaking in low voices, which was fine with Gregor. Mareth was the only one he felt like talking to, anyway.

"So, can you tell the crawlers apart, Mareth?" asked Gregor. He dumped all his batteries on the ground to sort out the dead ones while they talked.

"No, it is most rare that your sister can. Among us are few that can make distinctions.

Vikus is better than most. But to pick one from so many ... it is passing strange," said Mareth.

"Perhaps it is a gift of the Overlanders?" he suggested.

"No, they look identical to me," said Gregor. Boots was really good at those games where they gave you four pictures that looked alike except one had a tiny difference. Like there were four party hats and one had seven stripes instead of six. And if they were all drinking from paper cups, she always knew whose was whose even if they got mixed up on the table together. Maybe every roach really did look distinctly different to her.

Gregor opened up the flashlight. It took two D-size batteries. He swapped the other batteries in and out, trying to determine which ones still had power. As he worked, he inadvertently flipped the switch on when the flashlight was pointing at Luxa and Henry. They jumped, unaccustomed to sudden bursts of light. He did it a couple more times on purpose, which was childish, but he liked seeing them flinch. "They'd last about five seconds in New York City," he thought. That made him feel a little better.

Of the ten batteries, all but two still had juice. Gregor opened up the compartment on his hat and found it ran on some special rectangular battery. Not having any replacements, he would have to use it sparingly. "Maybe I should save this for last. If I lose the others or they go dead, I'll still have this on my head," he thought. He clicked off the light on the hat.

Gregor put the good batteries back in his pocket and set the other two aside. "These two are duds," he said to Mareth. "They don't work."

"Shall I burn them?" asked Mareth, reaching for the batteries.

Gregor caught his wrist before he could toss them in the flames. "No, they might explode!" He didn't really know what would happen if you put a battery in the fire, but he had a vague memory of his dad saying it was a dangerous thing to do. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Luxa and Henry exchanging uneasy glances. "You could blind yourself," he added, just for effect.

Well, that
might
happen if they exploded.

Mareth nodded and gingerly set the dead batteries back by Gregor. He rolled them around with his sandal, making Luxa and Henry nervous. But when he saw that Mareth looked nervous, too, he stuck the duds in his pocket.