This seemed to make more sense to her. When the oil heater worked in their building, sometimes scalding water came from the tap.
"Ow?" she said.
"Right. Ow." He picked her up and carried her back to the others. "You going to ride Temp?" said Gregor.
"Ye-es!" said Boots. She wiggled out of Gregor's arms and onto the cockroach's back. "You don't touch water, Temp!"
That made Gregor feel a little better. "Or plants!" he added.
"Or plants!" Boots told Temp severely.
The humans had also left behind several packs of supplies. One contained first aid supplies and fuel for Gregor to carry. Three larger packs of food were designed for the rats to haul. They had straps for the rodents' forelegs and a belt that fastened under their bellies. Nike was in charge of several heavy leather water bags.
Gregor surveyed the dense tangle of vines doubtfully. "How are you going to get along in there, Nike?" She would not be able to fly much, and travel on foot was very taxing on the bats.
"Up higher, there are places where the foliage is not so heavy," said Nike. "I will fly above the vines when I must, and join the party when I can. Will you and your sister ride?"
Gregor didn't think it would be fair to ask her to carry him and Boots along with all the water bags. Besides, Temp wouldn't want to be left on the ground without them. "We'll just walk," he said. He lit a lamp and prepared to travel. As a backup to the lamp, he hung a flashlight from a belt loop at his waist. The big pack with the first aid supplies and oil went on his back. The smaller backpack that Mareth had filled with flashlights and stuff, he wore on his chest. It also contained some items Dulcet had included for Boots — a change of clothes, a blanket, some toys, some cookies, a hairbrush. Gregor took the mirror Nerissa had given him from his pocket and put it in the backpack, too. He didn't even have a copy of the prophecy with him, but Boots liked to play with mirrors, and she might need a distraction. He slung the wineskin full of shrimp and cream sauce around his neck. Initially, he'd asked for the shrimp as a treat for Ripred. He still intended to give it to the rat, but now he thought it might make a good bargaining tool. It would be nice to pull out the rat's favorite dish if he needed a favor in the jungle.
Gregor thought he was done when he felt Temp nudging him. He turned to see the cockroach holding a sheathed sword in his mouth. "Not this, forget, not this," said Temp.
Where had that come from? Gregor hadn't even seen it until this moment. Solovet must have left it for him. He clumsily buckled the wide leather belt around his hips and tried to slide the sword around to the most accessible position. Somehow he ended up with it on his right hip, the tip angled forward. That seemed wrong. He finally wriggled it around to his left hip with the tip pointing behind him. Now he could grab the hilt and pull the blade out with his right hand easily.
"Worked that out, have you, Warrior?"
Gregor looked up to find Hamnet watching him. He wasn't wearing a sword, just a short knife in a sheath on his leg.
"Guess I'll find out if I have to use it," said Gregor, hitching up the belt like he knew what he was doing. The sword banged awkwardly against his leg.
"How old are you, anyway?" said Hamnet.
Gregor thought of saying thirteen or fourteen. He was tall even if he was on the skinny side. If he were older, maybe Hamnet would treat him with more respect. No, probably not.
"Eleven," said Gregor.
"Eleven," said Hamnet, and the expression on his face changed. He looked almost sad.
"I'll be twelve real soon," said Gregor. He said that as if it had some significance, but what did it mean, really? The only thing he could think of was he'd have to start paying full price at the movies. And that wasn't a very warrior-like thought. "Why?"
"I was just thinking, it did not take long for my mother to get her claws into you," said Hamnet.
Gregor felt himself bristling again. "Look, I don't know what's going on with you and Solovet. But I'm not here for your mother. I'm here for mine. She's got the plague." Mentioning his mom made him feel upset. To his surprise, he felt his eyes filling with tears. Blinking them back, he looked down and adjusted his belt again. He did not want Hamnet to see. "So, maybe you could just back off, okay?" he said gruffly.
There was a pause. "I will back off, if you keep that sword in your belt," said Hamnet. "Agreed?"
Gregor nodded. He took another few moments to compose himself. When he looked up, Hamnet had moved away to fix a strap on Ripred's shoulder. Gregor actually felt a little better. He did not want to head into the jungle at odds with Hamnet. It was enough to have three rats picking on him. And he had no plans to draw his sword, anyway. It wasn't until everyone was loaded up that Frill slid out of her spot in the vines to join them in the open circle. She wasn't fifteen feet tall, as she had seemed at first. In fact, she just about looked Gregor in the eye. He realized she must have been standing up on her hind legs. Even on all fours, she was still an impressive creature. Twenty feet long from nose to tail, with that shimmery blue-green skin covering every inch of her. The ruff had had several other colors in it, but you couldn't see it much now that it had folded down. Frill had wonderful feet, too, each with five long toes that could wrap around anything.
"You've got a good-looking lizard," Gregor said to Hazard. The boy looked up at him with surprise.
"Thaaaaank yoooouuuuu," said Frill in a long breathy hiss.
Gregor should have known better than to treat Frill like she was some kind of pet. He had made the same mistake with the bats on his first visit. Frill was no more a pet than Ares was. She knew what was being said. Hadn't she spit back the ball when Hamnet had asked her to?
"Sorry," said Gregor. "I didn't know you could..."
"Thiiiink?" hissed Frill. Hazard turned to Frill and made a long, freaky series of hissing sounds. Frill hissed back unintelligibly, and the two laughed. Gregor had never seen a human speak anything but English in the Underland.
Frill dipped her head and Hazard hung a large, reptile-skin pack around her neck. They continued hissing back and forth as Hazard adjusted the pack under Frill's ruff.
"What's he doing?" Ripred asked Hamnet with a frown. "Can he speak to that hisser?"
"Hazard can speak to anything. Well, at least he will try, if it will give him a chance," said Hamnet with a gleam of pride. "Go ahead, squeak at him."
"What?" said Ripred.
"Greet him in Rat," said Hamnet.
Ripred eyed the little boy and then let out a high-pitched squeak. Almost immediately, Hazard parroted back a sound that was indistinguishable from Ripred's own.
"What's that mean? Does that mean hello? I've talked to mice sometimes, but they say hello like this...." Hazard let out an even higher-pitched squeak that caused all three rats to grimace.
"Well, it's about time one of you made a little effort to communicate outside your own tongue," said Ripred. "Gets a little tedious for the rest of us, having to learn Human if we want to talk with you. Can you do it, too?"
"I can get by in Hisser," said Hamnet. "A word here and there of other creatures. I do not have Hazard's ear."
"You learned too late. See, this one, start her off now, and she'll be fluent in Crawler by the end of the trip," said Ripred, poking Boots with the tip of his tail. "Even the warrior — no, forget the warrior. He's been trying to master basic echolocation for months with no result. Just keep knocking your head against that one, okay, boy? Don't want to overload your massive brain with too many tasks at once."
Gregor said nothing but decided he would dump the shrimp in the stream before Ripred would get one bite. Stupid rat.