Gregor the Overlander - 1 Read Free Page A

tugged on the neck of his shirt. "Beeeeg bug!" she insisted.

    "Yes, I see, Boots. Big bug!" said Gregor in a hushed voice, wrapping his arms tightly around her. "Very ... big ... bug."

    He tried hard to remember what cockroaches ate. Garbage, rotten food ... people? He didn't think they ate people. Not the little ones, anyway. Maybe they wanted to eat people but they kept getting stepped on first. At any rate, this wasn't a good time to find out.

    Trying to appear casual, Gregor slowly edged his way back toward the crack in the rocks.
    "Okay, Mr. Roach, so we'll just be going, sorry we bugged you -- I mean, bothered you, I mean
    -- "

    "Smells what so good, smells what?" a voice hissed, and it took Gregor a full minute to realize it had come from the cockroach. He was too stunned to make any sense of the strange words.

    "Uh ... excuse me?" he managed.

    "Smells what so good, smells what?" the voice hissed again, but the tone wasn't threatening. Just curious, and maybe a little excited. "Be small human, be?"

    "All right, okay, I'm talking to a giant cockroach," thought Gregor. "Be cool, be nice, answer the bug. He wants to know 'Smells what so good, smells what?' So, tell him." Gregor forced himself to take a deep sniff and then regretted it. Only one thing smelled like that.

    "I poop!" said Boots, as if on cue. "I poop, Ge-go!"

    "My sister needs a clean diaper," said Gregor, somehow feeling embarrassed.

    The roach, if he could read it right, acted impressed. "Ahhh. Closer come can we, closer come?" said the roach, delicately sweeping the space in front of it with a leg.

    "We?" said Gregor. Then he saw the other forms rising out of the dark around them. The smooth black bumps he had taken for rocks were actually the backs of another dozen or so enormous cockroaches. They clustered around Boots eagerly, waving their antennas in the air and shuddering in delight.

    Boots, who loved any kind of compliment, instinctively knew she was being admired.
    She stretched out her chubby arms to the giant insects. "I poop," she said graciously, and they gave an appreciative hiss.

    "Be she princess, Overlander, be she? Be she queen, be she?" asked the leader, dipping its head in slavish devotion.

    "Boots? A queen?" asked Gregor. Suddenly he had to laugh.

    The sound seemed to rattle the roaches, and they withdrew stiffly. "Laugh why, Overlander, laugh why?" one hissed, and Gregor realized he had offended them.

    "Because, we're, like, poor and she's kind of a mess and ... are you calling me Overlander?" he wound up lamely.

    "Be you not Overlander human, be you? No Under lander you," said the torchbearing roach peering closely at him. "You look much like but smell not like."

    Something seemed to dawn on the leader. "Rat bad." It turned to its comrades. "Leave we Overlanders here, leave we?" The roaches drew closely together in consultation and all began to talk at once.

    Gregor caught snippets of their conversation, but nothing that made sense. They were so immersed in their debate that he thought about trying to escape again. He looked at his surroundings. In the dim torchlight, they appeared to be in a long, flat tunnel. "We need to go back up," thought Gregor. "Not sideways." He could never scale the walls of the hole they'd fallen down with Boots in his arms.

    The roaches came to a decision. "You come, Overlanders. Take to humans," said the leader.

    "Humans?" said Gregor, feeling relieved. "There are other humans down here?"

    "Ride you, ride you? Run you, run you?" asked the roach, and Gregor understood it was offering him a lift. It didn't look sturdy enough to carry him, but he knew some insects, like ants, could carry many times their weight. He had a sickening image of trying to sit on the roach and crushing it.

    "I think I'll walk -- I mean, run," said Gregor.

    "Ride the princess, ride she?" said the roach hopefully, waving its antennas ingratiatingly and flattening itself on its stomach before Boots. Gregor would