2 The Messenger

Chapter Two The Messenger Abigail put her fingers to her lips. "Do you want us to stay quiet, Abigail?" asked Foggy. Psssstt. The sound came again. "Yes, that's what she meant," said Finn. "But that doesn't matter anymore." He pointed at the grass. It started to wave, like something was moving through it. "Stay behind me," said Vale. "I got this." Vale was determined to be the hero on this planet. He felt like he hadn't been able to use his training on past missions. And Finn was always getting credit for doing things like stopping planets from exploding. Vale wanted his time in the spotlight. He reached out and parted the grass.

"Aaaahhh!" he shouted. He leapt back into Foggy's arms. Foggy flew him about ten feet off the ground. "Are you okay?" asked Foggy. "Were you attacked?" "I'm fine," said Vale. "But look." He pointed down at the grass. A large, buglike creature was poking out its head. It looked like a beetle, but was the size of a beagle. "Yeesh, I said psssstt," grimaced the beetle. "Don't you know what psssstt means?" No one answered. They were too shocked by this enormous, talking beetle. "It means keep things quiet, ya know?" said the beetle. "On the qt. The down low. Small ball. Mini talkie."

No one said anything, but Foggy and Vale flew down to the ground to investigate. "See?" said the bug. "Even that. Too loud. You need to take it down a notch. Inside voices. Whisper misters. Soft vocals. The down low." "You said that one already," whispered Abigail. "But why do we have to stay so quiet?" The beetle seemed to laugh at this. "Duh," it whispered. "So you don't wake up the boss. The big cheese. The head honcho. The top dog." "And who is that?" whispered Finn. "Who is the big kahuna?" asked the beetle. "The heavyweight? The muckety-muck and the luckety-luck?" "Yes," sighed Finn. "Who is that?" The beetle took another step out of the grass. Its body was even bigger than they expected. On another day, on another planet, Finn could probably ride it like a pony. "You're telling me you don't know where you are?" asked the beetle. Everyone shook their heads. "You wanna know who the top banana is? You're standing on her."

The explorers all looked at each other, and then down at the ground. The turf was rough and brown, but it wasn't that strange. They'd been on much weirder planets. Vale picked up his foot and looked at the bottom of his shoe as if he were checking for dog

poop. "Is she like you?" asked Elias. "Is she a... um." Elias caught himself. The beetle probably didn't think of itself as a bug. "A bug?" asked the beetle. "No. Saphrite is not a bug. Saphrite is the planet eater, the colossus, the giant that all giants fear." "I'm sorry," said Foggy. "Who is this Saphrite?" "Yeah," said Finn. "And where is she, exactly?" "Oh, I see," said the beetle. "You really don't know. Bubs, you're not standing on a planet. You're standing on Saphrite. She is this planet."

该页暂无翻译