Suzanne Collins - Gregor the Overlander

As they neared the main entrance of the stadium, Vikus dropped back and fell in step with Gregor. "You must feel as if you are trapped in a dream, Overlander."

"I was thinking nightmare," said Gregor evenly.

Vikus chuckled. "Our bats and crawlers -- no, what is it you call them? Cockhorses?"

"Cockroaches," corrected Gregor.

"Ah, yes, cockroaches," agreed Vikus. "In the Overland, they are but handfuls while here they grow largely."

"How do you know that? Have you been to the Overland?" said Gregor. If Vikus could get there, then so could he and Boots.

"Oh, no, such visits are as rare as trees. It is the Overlanders who come at times to us. I have met six or seven. One called Fred Clark, another called Mickey, and most recently a woman known as Coco. What are you called, Overlander?" asked Vikus.

"Gregor. Are they still here? Are the other Overlanders still here?" asked Gregor, brightening at the thought.

"Sadly, no. This is not a gentle place for Overlanders," said Vikus, his face darkening.

Gregor stopped, pulling Boots up short. "You mean you killed them?"

Now he'd insulted the guy.

"We? We humans kill the Overlanders? I know of your world, of the evils that transpire there. But we do not kill for sport!" said Vikus severely. "Today we have taken you in among us. Had we denied you, count on it, you would not be breathing now!"

"I didn't mean you ... I mean, I didn't know how it worked here," stammered Gregor. Although he should have guessed that it wasn't very diplomatic to suggest Vikus was a murderer. "So, the roaches would have killed us?"

"The crawlers kill you?" said Vikus. "No, it would give them no time."

There was that expression again. What did it mean to give the roaches time?

"But no one else even knows we're here," said Gregor.

Vikus looked at him gravely. Concern had replaced his anger. "Believe me, boy, by this time, every creature in the Underland knows you are here."

Gregor resisted an impulse to look over his shoulder. "And that's not a good thing, is it?"

Vikus shook his head. "No. That is not in any manner a good thing."

The old man turned to the exit of the stadium. Half a dozen pale, violet-eyed guards flanked two gigantic stone doors. It took their combined efforts to push the doors open a few feet and to allow Vikus to pass.

Gregor led Boots through the doors, and they closed immediately behind him. He followed Vikus down a tunnel lined with stone torches to a small arch filled with something dark and fluttery. Gregor thought it might be more bats, but on closer inspection he saw it was a cloud of tiny black moths. Was this what he had passed through when he stumbled into the stadium?

Vikus gently slid his hand into the insects. "These moths are a warning system peculiar to the Underland, I believe. The moment their pattern of flight is disturbed by an intruder, every bat in the area discerns it. I find it so perfect in its simplicity," he said. Then he vanished into the moths.

Behind the curtain of wings, Gregor could hear his voice beckoning. "Gregor the Overlander, welcome to the city of Regalia!"

Gregor glanced down at Boots, who had a puzzled look on her face. "Go home, Ge-go?" she asked.

He picked her up and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring hug. "Not now, baby. We have to do some things first. Then we'll go home."

The velvety wings brushed past his cheek, and he caught his first sight of Regalia. "Wow!" he said, stopping in his tracks.

Gregor didn't know what he'd expected. Maybe stone houses, maybe caves -- something primitive. But there was nothing primitive about the magnificent city that spread before him.

They stood on the edge of a valley filled with the most beautiful buildings he'd ever seen. New York was known for its architecture, the elegant brownstones, the towering skyscrapers, the grand museums. But compared with Regalia, it looked unplanned, like a place where someone had lined up a bunch of oddly shaped boxes in rows.

The buildings here were all a lovely misty gray, which gave them a dreamlike quality. They seemed to rise directly out of the rock as if they had been grown, not made by human hands. Maybe they weren't as tall as the skyscrapers Gregor knew by name, but they towered high above his head, some at least thirty stories and finished in artful peaks and turrets. Thousands of torches were placed strategically so that a soft, dusky light illuminated the entire city.

And the carvings ... Gregor had seen cherubs and gargoyles on buildings before, but the walls of Regalia crawled with life. People and cockroaches and fish and creatures Gregor had no name for fought and feasted and danced on every conceivable inch of space.

"Do just people live here, or roaches and bats, too?" asked Gregor.

"This is a city of humans. The others have their own cities, or perhaps 'lands' might be a more accurate word," said Vikus. "The majority of our people live here, although some dwell in the suburbs, if their work so dictates. There stands our palace," said Vikus, directing Gregor's eye to a huge, circular fortress at the far edge of the valley. "There we are headed."

The lights shining from the city's many windows gave it a festive look, and Gregor felt his heart lightening a little. New York City glittered all night long, too. Maybe this place wasn't so foreign after all.

"It's really great," he said. He would have loved to explore it, if he didn't need to get home so badly.

"Yes," said Vikus, as his eyes took in the city fondly. "My people have much love of stone. Had we time, I think we might create a land of rare beauty."

"I think maybe you already have," said Gregor. "I mean, it's way more beautiful than anything in the Overland."

Vikus seemed pleased. "Come, the palace has the fairest view of the city. You will have time to admire before we dine."

As Gregor followed him down the road, Boots tilted back her head, turning it from side to side. "What'dyou lose, Boots?"

"Moon?" said Boots. Usually you couldn't see the stars from where they lived, but the moon was visible on clear nights. "Moon?"

Gregor looked up into the inky black sky and then realized that, of course, there was no sky. They were in some kind of gigantic underground cavern. "No moon, little girl. No moon tonight," he said.

"Cow jump moon," she said matter-of-factly.

"Mm-hm," agreed Gregor. If roaches talked, and bats played ball games, then probably there was a cow jumping a moon somewhere, too. He sighed as he pictured the tattered nursery rhyme book in the box by Boots's crib at home.

People stared openly at them from the windows as they passed. Vikus acknowledged a few, nodding or calling out a name, and they'd raise their hands in greeting back.

Boots noticed and began to wave. "Hi!" she called. "Hi!" and while none of the adults answered her, Gregor saw a few little kids wave back.

"You hold great fascination for them," said Vikus, indicating the people in the windows. "We do not get many visits from the Overland."

"How did you know I was from New York?" asked Gregor.

"There are but five known gateways to the Underland," said Vikus. "Two lead to the Dead Land, but you would never have survived those. Two gateways open into the Waterway, but your clothing is quite dry. You are alive, you are dry, from this I surmise you have fallen through the fifth gateway, the mouth of which I know to be in New York City."

"It's in my laundry room!" Gregor blurted out. "Right in our apartment building!" Somehow the fact that his laundry room connected to this strange place made him feel invaded.

"Your laundry room, yes," said Vikus thoughtfully. "Well, your fall coincided most favorably with the currents."

"The currents? You mean that misty stuff?" asked Gregor.