We began to walk towards the Underground. Guava led the way while the Chinese elephant resolutely held one way conversations with me. I was still uneasy about leaving grandpa with the eerie merpeople and I kept shooting nervous glances behind me. Soon, however, we reached a giant landmass. It floated in the water serenely, like a lotus in a pond. I breathed hard. This was it. Without anyone saying a word, I knew we had reached Anunirva. Despite the cold of the ocean, I felt my face becoming hot. All that we could see from our position underwater were the roots of trees and the beginnings (or ends?) of passages- some so narrow that they merely looked like holes, others so large that I could easily crawl into one of them. That was the plan, of course. To break into Anunirva in secret. But who knows what awaited me in those dark, dank passages that I had to crawl through? I tried to remember the names of extinct underground creatures, but I couldn’t think of even one. Should have paid more attention in Science class, I thought to myself wryly.
Lemon pushed aside the seaweeds that hid a yawning cave and gestured towards us.“Let Robin loose,” she said to the dinosaur sisters. A small wave broke through her mouth and I closed my eyes. A ball of iron dread began to grow larger and larger inside my stomach. Robin, however, was his cheery cockroach self. The dinosaur gently placed him on the mouth of the cave and he waved his feelers at me. “Stop lookingso dead, boy!” heyelled. “We’re taking such pains to ensure that you don’t stay with us ever! You could at least be a little thankful!
”I tried to arrange my face into a grateful smile but merely winced. Guava said in a stern voice, “This isn’t the time for speeches, Robin. You have a job to do.” Robin made a face, but obeyed. Guava wasn’t one to fool around and the cockroach, for all his drunken tomfoolery, knew that, too. He scurried away and one of the dinosaurs said softly,“I hope he manages to convince the ghost frog. He’s a good talker.”
“A ghost frog?! So apart from dead creatures, you have ghosts too?” I spluttered. “We are not dead, boy!” hissed Omen. “Don’t go around saying that in Anunirva or you will be history in no time,” said Lemon. “You’re one to talk!” I said. “It wounds…err…it wounds our sensitivities to be told we’re dead,” explained Guava. She pointed silently at the Chinese elephant whose salty tears were falling in torrential speed.
