Suzanne Collins - Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane

"Fine by me," said Gregor. "What about the others?"

"I believe charges will not be reinstated against Andromeda and Howard. Your testimony of their innocence was quite convincing," said Vikus.

"And Ares?" said Gregor.

Vikus sighed. "He is at greater risk. But if he is to be charged again, I will get word to him so that he may flee. He can at least escape execution."

Gregor nodded. That was about as much as he could hope for.

"Is there anything you would like to take back with you?" Vikus asked, gesturing to the shelves.

"I don't want anything but our stuff," said Gregor.

"If not for yourself, perhaps for your parents," said Vikus. "How does your father...does he teach again?"

"No, he's still too sick," said Gregor.

"How so?" Vikus asked, frowning.

Gregor choked out a list of his dad's symptoms. His father's health was just one more thing the Underland had stolen from them.

Vikus tried to question him in more detail, but he couldn't take it. "You know, maybe I will take that clock," he said, pointing to the cuckoo clock he had seen when he was collecting batteries. He had said it to change the subject, but he knew someone who might like it.

"I will have it wrapped for you," said Vikus.

"Great, so I guess I'll see if Ares is up for flying yet, and like you said, get out of here," said Gregor. He scooped up his clothes and left the museum. Vikus could learn a thing or two from Nerissa. Sometimes people just didn't want to talk.

He got all turned around on his way back to Howard's room. The route was unfamiliar, and the tears that had started back in the museum were streaming down his cheeks. Well, maybe it was better to break down here than in front of his parents. He turned left, then right, then backtracked. Where was he? Where was his sister? She had just been here, he had her clothes, he could feel her in his arms...Boots!

He gave up and pressed his forehead into a stone wall, sobbing as he let the pain in. Images of her swarmed back into his mind. Boots on the sled...Boots showing him how she could hop on one foot...Boots's eyes, upside down, their foreheads pressed together....

Two rows Tiny, tiny toes

Boots ten ...wiggle my nose Whew!

He could even hear her voice trying to do the silly bath rhyme Howard had coaxed her out of her tears with.

Wiggle nose Nine, ten toes

She couldn't get it right. The words were too complicated....

Give them bath so ten toes goes.

And then she gave a sneeze.

Gregor looked up. That didn't make sense. He heard a second sneeze. Not in his head. In the palace. He started to run.

Two rows Tiny, tiny toes

Either he was completely losing it...

Boots ten ...wiggle my nose Whew!

...or that sound was real! He flew down the halls, crashing into walls and a couple of guards who called for him to halt. He didn't.

Wiggle nose Nine, ten toes

Gregor ran into the room just in time for the last line.

Give them bath so ten toes goes.

She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by six big cockxoaches, rubbing her toes with both hands to show how she washed them. He stumbled across the room and grabbed her up in his arms and held on tight as a happy voice squeaked in his ear. "Hi, you!"

"Hi, you," Gregor said, thinking he would never let go of her. "Oh, hi, you! Where've you been, little girl?"

"I go swim, I go ride. Flutterfly," said Boots.

"Okay, all right," laughed Gregor. "That sounds great." He'd have to ask the others what happened. "Hey, Temp," he said, turning to the roaches, and then he realized something was wrong. Before him stood six roaches with two perfect antennas each and six solid legs. Maybe he was finally learning to tell them apart, because he knew, anyway, that none of them was Temp.

"Where's Temp?" he asked, and six pairs of antennas drooped.

"We do not know, not we," said one of the roaches. "I be Pend, I be." Gregor turned in a full circle, just to be sure. It was the room where you could ride the platform down to the ground. Temp wasn't there. Neither were Luxa and Aurora. He tightened his grip on Boots.

About this time, Vikus came hurrying into the room, followed by several guards. His face lit up when he saw Boots. "They have returned!" he said to Gregor.

"Just Boots, Vikus. I'm sorry," Gregor said, and watched the color drain out of the old man's face.

Vikus turned to the roaches. "Welcome, Pend. Many thanks for the return of the princess. Tell us, will you, tell us the fate of the others?"

Pend tried to fill him in, but the roaches knew very little. A moth — that must have been Boots's flutterfly — had arrived in their land carrying Boots. It had been flying in the Dead Land when it had discovered the little girl and Temp hiding in the rocks. Temp was very weak and unable to travel farther. He begged the moth to take Boots back to the other crawlers. Since the moths and cockroaches were allies, the moth had agreed. When the crawlers sent a party back to rescue Temp, he was nowhere to be found.

"Did they make any mention of my granddaughter?" asked Vikus. "Queen Luxa?"

"Run you, Queen Luxa said, run you," said Pend. "Many gnawers, there were. Temp said no more."

Vikus reached out and fumbled with Boots's hair. "Temp seepy," she said. "He shut eyes. I ride flutterfly." She looked around. "Where Temp?"

"He's still sleeping, Boots," said Gregor. Sleeping like Tick was sleeping, probably.

"Shh," Boots said, putting her finger to her lips.

Someone had wakened Dulcet. When she tried to take Boots out of Gregor's arms, he resisted. "It is all right, Gregor. I will bathe her and bring her back directly," said Dulcet. Since it was Dulcet, he made his hands let go.

He followed Vikus to the dining room, where they'd last eaten with Ripred, and they both took a seat. Gregor tried to piece it together in his head.

"It seems," Vikus said at last, "they did not perish in the Tankard."

"No," said Gregor. "But Twitchtip was sure there was water between us, and they didn't answer Ares."

After a while, Dulcet came in with a clean and shiny Boots. Vikus sent for food. Gregor held her on his lap while she gobbled up enough dinner for ten toddlers.

"Boots," said Gregor, "you know when we saw the big..." He didn't know what to call those things. "Serpents" wasn't a word she knew. "Those big dinosaurs."

"I no like," said Boots. "I no like dinosaws."

"Me, either," said Gregor. "But remember when we saw them. And they knocked us off the bat. And Luxa caught you and Temp. Where did you go?"

"Oh, I swim. Too cold. I bump head," Boots said, rubbing the top of her head.

Gregor separated her curls with his fingers. He could see little scrape marks on the delicate skin of her scalp. Where had she been? Not in the Tankard. "Was it a big pool, Boots?"

"Baby pool," said Boots. "I bump head."

Gregor suddenly remembered the tunnel Twitchtip had been guiding them to. The one half under water. If Luxa had dived for that tunnel and made it, the entrance soon would have been flooded with the waves churned up by the serpents. Maybe that was the water between them. At some point they all must have been floating in water, or Boots wouldn't have said she'd been swimming. How had they kept from drowning? Then he remembered the life jackets. Boots was not wearing hers when she came in, but she had had it on at the Tankard.

He told his theory to Vikus. "Yes, something of that nature must have occurred. But then they would have been trapped in the Labyrinth," said Vikus. "Boots, did you see rats?"

Boots put her hand to her nose. "Ow," she said. At first Gregor thought she had hurt her nose, but when she said, "Bandidge. No touch. I no touch it. Ow," he knew.