Gregor And The Code Of Claw (11 page)

"Okay," said Lizzie. Gregor could feel her shaking start to subside. There was nothing like a puzzle to get Lizzie's attention. He thought of the puzzle book that he had bought her on the street that time. She had volunteered to stay with their sick dad while he'd taken Boots sledding in Central Park, and he had wanted to get her a present. That big, thick puzzle book. She had loved it.

Ripred settled down in a comfortable position a few feet in front of Lizzie. "All right. Let's see. Boots, you go stand by Temp."

"Oh, a game!" said Boots, and scurried excitedly over to Temp.

"Now, Lizzie, from where you're sitting, you can see seven creatures. Two humans, one of whom is an Overlander and one of whom is an Underlander, one bat, one mouse, one cockroach, one spider, and one rat. We've just had lunch and we've each eaten our favorite food. No two of us have the same favorite food. The things eaten were fish, cheese, cake, cookies, bread, mushrooms, and shrimp in cream sauce. Now ready for the clues?" asked Ripred.

"I'm ready," said Lizzie, and clasped her hands before her. She no longer even needed the bag. Ripred spoke quickly and distinctly. "The bat's favorite food is either mushrooms or cake. Cookies are not the cockroach's favorite food. The mouse will eat cheese, but she didn't today. The Underlander's favorite food is either cookies or shrimp in cream sauce. The mushrooms and cookies were not eaten by mammals. The Overlander's favorite food is either cake or bread. So the question is, who ate the cheese?"

"Well, that's totally unfair," thought Gregor. No one could figure that bunch of gibberish out. But it really had settled Lizzie down.

She was staring at the floor, squeezing her hands so tightly her knuckles were white. About thirty seconds passed, then she met Ripred's eyes and gave a small triumphant grin. "You did, "she said.

"Wrong," thought Gregor. Ripred's favorite food was shrimp and cream sauce.

"Hmm," said Ripred, and his tail flicked so hard it made a snapping sound. But his voice was casual. "Temp, suppose you take Boots down to the nursery and let her feed the baby mouses. Would you like that, Boots?"

"Ye-es!" said Boots. Temp pattered out from under the table and she hopped upon his back. Ripred followed them out the door calling, "And no need to come back until I send for you!"

Gregor could hear the other creatures murmuring around the room. They seemed more relaxed and even a little excited. Min, the cockroach, poked her head out of her arch, and Daedalus kept fluttering his wings. Could it be they were just relieved to have Boots out of their hair? No, it seemed like something more had happened. But what exactly?

Just then Ripred strode back into the room. The rat was actually smiling at Lizzie. "So," he said. "So, so, so." He sat up on his haunches and then tipped his head forward in an elaborate bow. "Welcome to the Underland, Princess."

***

Ripred's implication hit Gregor like a ton of bricks. Princess! That could only mean one thing: The rat thought Lizzie was the princess in the prophecy, not Boots, and now he would want to keep her here. "No! No way, Ripred! You can't have her!" He stood up, putting Lizzie on her feet, and then pulled her by the hand toward the door. "Come on, Liz, we've got to get you home."

Ripred planted his big, ratty self in front of the door. "Well, I can't let you go now. It wouldn't be safe."

"This is true," put in Daedalus. "Hermes and your sister were ambushed at the bottom of the shaft that leads to your home. The rats surely have soldiers guarding it now."

"Then she'll go back up through Central Park," said Gregor.

"Even if we had a spare flier at the moment, that wouldn't be advisable. There's probably a patrol posted there as well. And do you really want to drop off poor Lizzie under Central Park alone? How will she move the stone? How will she get home in the dark?" asked Ripred.

Gregor had no idea what time it was, either in the Overland or the Underland. But he couldn't just send Lizzie up to Central Park by herself no matter what time of day it was. He would have to arrange for his dad to meet her. Wait, that wouldn't work. His dad was sick again and, if they couldn't send a bat with a message up the laundry room shaft, how would they even get word to him? There was only one way to get her home. "I'm taking her myself," said Gregor.

"Just try to set one toe outside Regalia and you'll be back in that dungeon so fast you won't know what hit you," said Ripred. "And your bat, as well."

Gregor felt desperation growing inside of him. There was no way Lizzie could manage down here! He had to get her home. But everything Ripred was saying was true. "Why do you even want her? What's this 'princess' stuff? She didn't even get the puzzle right! I know you had shrimp for lunch!"

Ripred rolled his eyes at Lizzie. "You see? This is the sort of thing I've been dealing with for the past year. Enlighten him, won't you?"

"It was just a puzzle, Gregor, not what really happened," said Lizzie. "In the puzzle the rat ate the cheese."

"How did you know that? Did you just guess?" asked Gregor.

"No, it was just the only answer left. He said the mouse didn't eat the cheese. And the two animals who ate mushrooms and cookies weren't mammals, so that means the spider and the cockroach didn't eat the cheese. And cheese wasn't one of the favorite foods of the Overlander, the Underlander, or the bat. So, that only leaves the rat. See?" said Lizzie.

Even her explanation made his head spin. "No, I don't see, Liz," said Gregor. "All I see is I've got to get you home."

"Maybe she doesn't want to go," said Ripred.

"Of course she does!" said Gregor.

"Let's ask her," said Ripred. "Lizzie, if you knew that all the humans in the Underland might die if you didn't help us solve a puzzle, would you stay or go?"

"What?" asked Lizzie, immediately distressed. "Would that happen?"

"Don't tell her that!" said Gregor. "She's not even the princess! Boots is the princess!"

"And if a princess has a sister, you call them a ... ?" asked Ripred.

"Okay! A princess!" said Gregor. "But that's just some junk the cockroaches made up. Nobody's going around calling me a prince."

"Well, if that's what's bothering you, you'll be Prince Gregor from now on," said Ripred.

"My mom and my sister and my brother, too?" broke in Lizzie, who had not yet answered Ripred's question. "Would they die, too?"

"They may even if you stay. You may, too. Then again, they may live. But if you are the princess in the prophecy and you leave us, none of us stands a chance," said Ripred. "I think everyone in this room would back me up on that."

"IN THE NAMING IS THE CATCHING," said Nerissa suddenly. "That is what the line from 'The Prophecy of Time' must mean. We had a princess, but not the one with the right name. That was the catch. The true princess must be you, Lizzie. You are the one who will help us break the Code of Claw."

"Then I have to stay, Gregor," said Lizzie. "I can't leave and let everybody die."

"What about Dad?" asked Gregor.

"I don't know," said Lizzie. Her breathing began to get short again. "I don't know."

"I'll send money up there. And instructions. Your nice Mrs. Cormaci can hire a nurse, can't she? There are people who do that, right?" said Ripred.

"If you can get a note up there, just have Mrs. Cormaci meet Lizzie in Central Park," said Gregor.

"But I'm not going, Gregor," Lizzie said unhappily. "I have to stay." She turned to Ripred. "How will you get it to Mrs. Cormaci? The rats? The small ones who live up there?"

"Exactly. Such a relief not to have to explain myself all the time," said Ripred.

"I will write the note and have the money collected," said Nerissa. "Then, Ripred, have you need of me?"

Nerissa had turned so white her veins looked purplish-black against her skin. The strain of Lizzie's arrival must have beeri too much for her. Surely she would pass out at any moment.

"No," said Ripred. "Go, see to the nurse, and then rest."

"Yes," Nerissa said, making her way to the door by supporting herself against the wall. "Yes."

"Nerissa, you have been invaluable today," added Ripred, and she acknowledged this with a nod.

Boy, the rat really was in good spirits if he was complimenting Nerissa! If Ripred was happy, Gregor was not. But he knew that arguing with Lizzie at this point was no good. And Ripred had made up his mind to keep her.

A couple of Underlanders came in wheeling carts of steaming food, and Gregor realized how hungry he was. He made a gigantic roast beef sandwich smothered in mushrooms and sat back against the wall to try to figure out another plan while he washed it down with a quart of milk.

Lizzie, whose stomach was also empty, took a slice of buttered bread at Ripred's insistence. "Now come and meet the rest of the code team," said the rat, wrapping his tail around her and guiding her around the room. "I know they all must look very strange to you, but believe me, you've got more in common with them than you do with Prince Gregor over there."

"Why?" asked Lizzie, shooting a nervous look back at Gregor.

"Because you think alike," said Ripred. "Oh, by the way, you don't sing, do you?"

"Not much. I don't like music with words," said Lizzie.

An audible sigh of relief came from around the room.

"Good. Good," said Ripred. Then he leaned and whispered in Lizzie's ear so Gregor could barely hear it. "You'll have to be patient with some of them. They're very shy."

It was the perfect thing to say to Lizzie, who could be almost crippled by shyness herself. She'd always had great difficulty making friends. To be honest, she'd only ever had one friend, a weird kid named Jedidiah. He was in her grade at school and, like Lizzie, way beyond the other kids academically. He was just eight, but he could tell you how anything worked. A car, a telephone, a computer. Once, when he'd come over for a play date, he'd spent, like, an hour talking about their oven. Gregor had finally taken the pair of them out to the playground and tried to get a game of kick-ball going. Lizzie got cold and Jedidiah became fascinated with a traffic light. It was hopeless. Also, Jedidiah always insisted on calling Lizzie by her full name, Elizabeth, and got very upset if you called him Jed or something. Listening to the two of them having a conversation made Gregor feel like he was hanging out with a couple of Pilgrims. "What do you think, Jedidiah?" "I do not know, Elizabeth." Still, the whole family was grateful for Jedidiah. If it weren't for him, Lizzie would have no friends at all.

The fact that the other code-breakers were also shy seemed to give Lizzie courage. She gave them each a polite "hello" as they were introduced. They must have liked her, because they began to come out of their rooms. Daedalus fluttered out almost at once, but bats and humans were most comfortable with one another. Min emerged slowly. She was an old cockroach, so old in fact that she made creaking noises when she walked, and her shell had a funny grayish tint to it. Heronian struggled to her feet, dragged herself up to Lizzie, and gave her a little bow, to which Lizzie gingerly bowed back. And finally, Reflex delicately stepped out, greeted her, and scurried back to his web. Then Ripred took her over to the tree carved on the wall. "This is the Tree of Transmission. It was created years ago to make communication easier over long distances. Humans, rats, mice, spiders, cockroaches, and bats developed it together, which was, in itself, an extraordinary achievement. It was in one of our rare times of peace, you see. We can all still use it today, though. Look at it a moment and tell me your impressions," he said.

Gregor gave the tree a hard look and this is what he saw:

"It looks like a Christmas tree decorated with the alphabet," was Gregor's first thought. But even he could see it must be related to the code.

"I think ..." began Lizzie hesitantly.

"Go on, don't worry about being wrong," said Ripred.

"Well, maybe you use these sounds ... click, scratch, tap ... to make letters," said Lizzie. "One click is an
E,
one scratch is an
A,
and one tap is an
I.
Right?"

"Exactly right," said Ripred. "So what if you heard one scratch and then two taps?"

Lizzie followed the tree branches with her finger as she spoke. "One scratch takes you up to
A,
the first tap takes you to the right to
D,
and the second tap takes you to the right to the letter O." Her eyes lit up. "It's sort of like Morse code. The way we use sounds to send messages on a telegraph. With dots and dashes."

"Yes, except Morse code only uses two sounds and we use three sounds. How do you know about Morse code?" asked Ripred.

"My dad showed me," said Lizzie. "Only he didn't have a tree; he had a chart with dashes and dots next to each letter."

"More like this?" asked Ripred, nodding to the floor.

For the first time Gregor noticed the chart carved into the floor. He stood up to get a better view of it.