Later in the evening, Aunt Sponge called, "Yoo-hoo! Come down here!"
As they came downstairs, James and Penelope were wearing their special clothes, James is wearing a bluish-black coat, tan Bermuda shorts, black shoes with black dress knee socks, a white collared shirt with buttons, and a multi-colored tie.
Penelope is dressed in a white shirt with puffed short sleeves, a black strapless sweetheart corset with black lacing in the back, a long dark purple skirt with a white petticoat underneath, around her waist is a wrapped purple sarong with silver moons and golden stars. Her silver pouch holding special items is held on her left side and her father's dagger is wrapped around her right calf, black sandals on her feet, silver dangling earrings, her mother's silver necklace with an amethyst pendant in the shaped of an oval, a silver bracelet on her right wrist, with a silver bangle on the left; a silver anklet on her left ankle, a silver ring with an amethyst gem on the right ring finger and her black hair is pulled back with a purple ribbon as a headband.
Jaelle followed behind with a small golden hoop earring in her left ear with a purple collar around her neck.
"Yes, Auntie Sponge?" Asked James.
"Is there anything you need Mistress?" Penelope asked.
"Ooohhh, both of you are all spiffed up!" Aunt Sponge said admiring the clothes the children are wearing. She and Spiker were wearing their robes counting the money they got today and Spiker is smoking a cigarette and both of them are still wearing their makeup and their hair-dos.
"I was hoping to play with the other children," said James.
"I was hoping to sing and dance to keep the guests entertained," Penelope said.
Sponge and Spiker looked at each other and said together, "Awww."
"The children and the guests have gone," said Aunt Spiker.
James and Penelope looked at each other from eye to eye glumly and knew what those wicked aunts are going to make them do.
"But you can play with their garbage!" Said Spiker as she gave us two wooden sticks.
Aunt Sponge laughed and smirked, "Heh, heh, heh! Garbage. Heh, heh, heh!"
As they took two baskets with their sticks, Aunt Spiker warned them, "And don't you two think of going near our peach."
" 'Cause if you do, remember, they never did catch that rhino," said Sponge as she and her sister laughed off and kept counting their money and James, Penelope, and Jaelle got outside and started to clean up the garbage.
As the children and the goat collected the garbage, Penelope felt horrible for herself and James living in this miserable life with those two stupid, ugly, and wicked aunts.
If it wasn't for the disease that killed Mama and Papa, they would have still been alive today, and we would have taken James in with us and he would have been happy.
As they cleaned up, James picked up the bag that used to hold to the crocodile tongues and three of the tongues scattered toward the peach and James, Penelope, and Jaelle chased them.
James cried, "No! Wait a moment!"
"Don't leave us!" Penelope cried.
The children and the goat tried to grab them but they got away. They both slipped near the peach and opened their hands and there was not a crocodile tongue in each of their palms. They both sighed deeply and they walked towards the peach and strongly inhaled the scent.
Penelope turned to James and Jaelle examined the area to see if Sponge and Spiker were around and they weren't.
"James, why don't we eat some of the peach?"
James with worried look said, "I don't think this is a good idea Penelope, what if our aunts spot us?"
"James," Penelope knelt down to his height. "I know you don't like them, but if they caught us, I'll lie to them that I ate the peach and they'll punish me instead of you. I promised your parents that I'd protect with my life, no matter how hard it is. Besides we haven't eaten something fresh for months. So are you hungry for something special?"
James knew that it was true that they were both hungry and said, "Yes."
Penelope pulled out her dagger and used it to grab a huge piece of the peach and cut it into two equal halves. She also cut another piece for Jaelle to eat. Penelope gave the other half to James and as she looked at the chunk, her mouth started to water a little.
They did not notice that the three crocodile tongues leaped into their halves as they bit into the chunks and it felt so refreshing. Even the third tongue jumped in Jaelle's mouth and she swallowed it, she bleated in confusion.
After they gulped, a giant hole came up at the bottom of the peach and the glow was bright green. They dropped their peach pieces and removed the cleaning tools and bend down on their knees and took a look in the hole.
"I think we should go in!" James said to Penelope excitedly.
Penelope felt uneasy about the hole, "I'm not sure so James, it looks like a bad idea."
"Please Penelope!" James begged politely. "Let's a least have a look."
Penelope knew his curiosity would not give up and said, "Well okay, let's see what's in there."
James came in first and Penelope came in behind him, Jaelle came in after Penelope. After Jaelle got in the hole behind them vanished. They kept crawling through the tunnel and felt prickles on their skin and their heads were bigger and their bodies were smaller. The tunnel was darker green and they kept crawling.
" 'Ere, now. Where do think you're goin', Yank?" They heard a female voice with a Scottish accent asking.
"I'm goin' stir-crazy," A male voice with a Brooklyn accent spoke. "I gotta take a look around. Plan our escape from Spiker and Sponge."
"Yeah, lad but t'ey catch us before we 'ave t'e chance to escape," a medium Scottish accent said.
"Escape? To where?" Another male voice with an English accent said. "We'll all be squashed… swatted… smooched!"
As the children and goat got closer to where the voices were coming from, there was this screen and saw a silhouette that looked like almost like a person, but it was not human it looked more like a grasshopper.
"No one's going to smoosh you, my dear boy," he said calmly with a deep formal British accent. "You're six feet long now."
"Very true indeed," the silhouette had big eyes with large thin wings.
"Bigger target," Another silhouette said glumly. He looked like a giant snake wearing glasses.
The silhouette with many arms and the Brooklyn accent said, "Let the biddies come. I'll take 'em both on. I'm "indefeatable." I'm indivisible. I'm…"
James leaned in so close that he fell through the screen and broke it and landed in the room as he screamed, "Woah!"
The monster with the Brooklyn accent cried out, "In trouble!"
James landed on the monsters and Penelope fell after him through the screen and they landed on the multi-armed monster, then they flew over three monsters in the shape of a grasshopper, ladybug, and dragonfly ducked and they slid on the snake.
Jaelle toppled in and landed on her side, she got up and looked anxiously for Penelope and James, when she saw a tall male monster with wings, she charged at him in the gut.
"Ow," the monster with the Scottish accent clenched his stomach in pain. "Me gut hurts!"
After landing, Penelope fell backwards and felt the snake touching her back. She jumped and pointed her dagger at him.
"Don't touch me or I will cut you to pieces!" Penelope yelled.
He cried out, "IT'S SPIKER AND SPONGE! THEY FOUND US!"
Penelope grabbed James's hand and he is really scared and pale. When Jaelle reached them a lantern swung towards the children and another female monster in the lantern with a British accent yelled, "Hello!"
They were both hit by the lantern and fell to the ground, Penelope tried to keep James calm and she kept pointing her dagger to the monsters.
"No, no, no!" the tall monster with the British accent said calmly when he could see better to observe them. "It's the lad and the Gypsy girl from the house. And the goat, what were their names?"
"Miserable ticks!" The thing with the Brooklyn accent with many arms said rudely.
"Isn't it Lazy Little Bugs?" The tall monster with the thin wings jumped up.
"I thought it was rotten little grubs!" the giant snake with glasses said as he slithered to them.
All of a sudden another monster flew towards them causing the children to scream.
"No, that's what those horrible aunts call them," she said with the female Scottish accent. "Their real names are, well it's eh, eh-?"
Jaelle bleated angrily and glared at the monsters.
When James, Penelope, and Jaelle backed up to a wall, a giant monster came down from nowhere and replied with a French accent. "It's James and Penelope. And Jaelle the goat of course."
"Eek!" Penelope screamed and James shrieked "Aaah!"
Jaelle bleated in fright.
The children and the goat both fell back to the corner of the wall and the monsters walked closer to them.
"What are they gonna do with us?" Penelope wondered as the monsters coming closer to her.
"Now look what you've done now, miss," the female monster with the Scottish accent said scolding the other monster. "Scared the two and the pet to death."
The monsters cornered them closer to the wall and Penelope felt her heart beating faster and faster.
"Please, don't eat us!" James cried out timidly.
Penelope held out her dagger in front of her, James and Jaelle. She pointed it at the monsters and felt prepared to die.
"Don't you dare touch us you monsters!" She snapped angrily at the monsters.
"Eat you?" Asked the female monster with the Scottish accent, "Us monsters?"
With her jaw dropping, the monsters started to laugh, Penelope was confused why they laughed about eating them and the thing with the Brooklyn accent called out, "Hey Glowworm turn up your lights!"
He clapped two times and after the light turned on, James, Penelope, and Jaelle realized they were not monsters, they were bugs. GIANT bugs to be exact!
The one with the British accent was a towering, elderly dark green grasshopper clothed in a black coat, a white dress shirt, light grey pants, and white shoes with a monocle on his right eye.
The tall, slender, muscular male dragonfly with the deep Scottish accent had blue-green skin, hazel eyes, four light blue wings outlined in green, six arms, short red hair with a beard and mustache and a green tail with a dark blue tip. He is dressed in a white dress shirt, a dark blue coat, a black belt with a gold buckle, a plaid kilt, a cap with a green feather, and tunic with the colors: blue, green, red, and yellow. Two golden broaches, a grey sporran with black tassels, white knee length socks, dark blue garters at the socks, and black shoes.
The snake creature was a blind light brown earthworm and he had black glasses over his eyes, with a white collar, and a red bow.
The thing with the Brooklyn accent is a yellow-orange centipede with blue eyes, with a cigar in his mouth and he is wearing a white shirt, a flat green cap, brown overalls, and he has brown boots on his feet.
The female ladybug with the female Scottish accent was wearing a bright red hat with a black ribbon with white dots and a flower, black hair, a spotted top over her light blue dress, she has pale blue skin with black dress shoes and she is holding a red purse.
The female spider with the French accent had a white face with four golden eyes with her black hair in a bob, a white and black striped abdomen with a roll of thread, tall black boots at the end of her six legs, black gloves on her hands, with a light green bandana around her neck and a dark blue beret.
There was also a glowworm in a lantern with white hair, pale blue skin, a brown dress with a grey twisted shawl with a plastic sun, ruby earrings, she has a light bulb on her tail and she is holding a pair of spectacles.
"I'm a vegetarian," Mr. Grasshopper replied.
"Same here," Dragonfly replied.
"I eat dirt," Earthworm said.
"No one will be eating you, James, Penelope and Jaelle," Miss Spider said to Penelope and James calmly as she lowered herself and smiled at them.
Centipede bumped into her and swung her around and he said to them sarcastically, "Yeah, she'll puncture your heads and suck out the brains."
Miss Spider swung back to him with an angry face, "That I am saving for you."
Miss Spider tried to hit Centipede but he slipped under her and ended up behind her and said. "Woah! Pretty fast, long legs!"
She angrily turned around and hissed at him. It caused Centipede to go up the ladder and jumped out of his skin, "Oh-oo-oo!"
"Oh! Such rude behavior!" said Mrs. Ladybug as she frowned. She turned to James and smiled as she kindly wiped the dirt off of James's face with her handkerchief and she wiped the dirt off of Penelope's face too and said kindly, "There's nothing to be frightened of dearies."
"But you're enormous bugs!" Penelope cried out with astonishment and was filled with shock.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" Mr. Grasshopper replied to the Gypsy as he smiled.
"We've all changed," Mrs. Ladybug said as she dug into her purse. "And so did you James, Penelope, and Jaelle." She pulled out a mirror and the children gasped as they saw their reflections in the mirror, they were no longer their real selves but they turned into china doll like people. James took the mirror and looked at himself and said, "The old man who gave us the green things, he said marvelous things will happen."
"Maybe he was right all along," Penelope said as she looked in the mirror. Jalle hopped out to look at the mirror.
"Did he say marvelous pigs in satin?" Glowworm asked.
"No my dear lady," Mr. Grasshopper said to Glowworm, Mrs. Ladybug handed him a megaphone and called to her, "Marvelous things will happen."
"Is she all right?" Penelope asked Mr. Grasshopper filled up with curiosity, he exhaled.
"Poor Glowworm, she's a little deaf."
"I, however, have exquisite hearing," Earthworm said proudly.
"Yeah?" Centipede said. "Well, listen to this." He made whoopee cushion sounds with his arms and he took the megaphone and shouted in an ear-piercing voice. "LET'S GET OUTTA HERE!"
"You mean leave the hill?" Asked James, "We can't! The rhino will get us!"
"Rhino?" Earthworm got scared and hid himself in a giant glove with his long tail still outside.
"I say, dear boy," Mr. Grasshopper said. "I lived on this miserable hill for decades. There are no rhinoceri here."
"Except for Sponge," Centipede said to them. "She's twice as big as a rhino, eh, kids?"
They started to laugh at that funny joke and Penelope knew it is true that Sponge is like a rhino.
Jaelle stood behind Centipede and started to chew on his pants.
"What the?" Centipede felt his pants moving, and turned around to see Jaelle biting into his pants. "Hey! Let go of my pants kid!"
"Jaelle!" Penelope said strictly. "You do not eat new people's clothes."
Jaelle let go and backed up glaring at him.
"Didn't know ya had a kid," Centipede said.
"Oh, she doesn't trust strangers immediately," Penelope said.
Jaelle snuck behind Dragonfly and kicked his butt with her hind legs.
"Ow!" Dragonfly rubbed his butt where he was kicked. "Your goat is tough lass."
"Thanks, Jaelle always wants to head butt Sponge and Spiker, she definitely hates them too."
"And twice as dangerous," Miss Spider said as she crawled on her web. "My life hangs by a thread every day."
"I've had to send all 300 hundred of me children to safer pastures," said Mrs. Ladybug.
"Hah!" Earthworm popped his head out of the glove. "You think hiding in solid rock is fun?" Jaelle came up to Earthworm and sniffed his nose.
"I can't even remember what fun is," James said as Mr. Grasshopper knelt down to his height.
"Same here," Penelope replied.
"Well, it's just 'cause you two've been stuck here for too long," Centipede said to the children. "Listen to me, kids, I know of a place that'll refresh your memory."
Centipede leaped onto Glowworm's lantern and swung around as he broke into song.
"Bright lights, big city;
That's were we gotta go!"
He leaped off the lantern and went back to them.
"Where the food is great, And the bugs are so pretty;
I'd like to get my arms around a hundred or so!"
He danced with Mrs. Ladybug and spun her around.
"I'd hug 'em,
Squeeze 'em,
Hold 'em tight!"
After throwing Earthworm on Mrs. Ladybug, he grabbed Penelope around the waist, and gave her a back flip and after landing on her feet, he spun her around in a fast circle. She felt dizzy and giddy as she spun on her toe as they all watched Centipede do backward somersaults and show-offs.
"Sleep all day,
Dance all night!
I want the bright lights
And the big city:
That's the life for me,
Yeah!
That's the life for…"
He then landed in Miss Spider's web and Miss Spider ignited Centipede's cigar.
"You little maggot!" She outlined a crescent moon.
"Have you never seen the moon
Gliding 'cross the western sky?"
She then drew a dead oak tree.
"A dead oak tree by the waterside?
Putrid vapors rising…" She gusted some of the smoke and she exhaled it out into the air. James and Penelope started to hack. Even Jaelle tried to inhale the smoke but coughed.
"That sounds lovely dear. I'm sure we all agree," Mrs. Ladybug spoke and sang as she shook her fan.
"But I prefer the sunshine,
A little park right in the center of the town…"
Glowworm sang with Mrs. Ladybug, she threw out some flowers from her purse and tossed them up in the air and kept a white flower and red flower.
"Flowers everywhere,
Children all around me: I'd love it!
Landing a baby's cheek so warm…
It's wonderful, wonderful!"
She held out the flower for James to sniff and placed a red flower in Penelope's black hair.
"That's the life for me…"
"La la la la la!" Sang Glowworm.
"That's the life for me…" Penelope spun around as James danced.
"La la la la la!" sang Glowworm.
"That's the life,
That's the life for me…"
"If I had a dream," Dragonfly sang.
"I would definitely
Tell t'e world o' me ideas," he spun Penelope around.
"I'm crazy!" Jaelle jumped as he shouted and she hopped around.
"Create new inventions!
In order to impress the world.
With eccentricity! Eccentricity!
An' t'at's t'e life for me!
T'at's t'e life for me!
T'at's t'e life for me!"
Mrs. Ladybug threw a cane and a tall hat to Mr. Grasshopper and he caught them. He walked down the steps and every time Centipede interrupts him.
"Elegant conversation…" Mr. Grasshopper sings.
"Bright lights, big city…" Centipede cuts in.
"An elevated point of view..." Mr. Grasshopper sang, as he bonked Centipede's head with his cane.
"That's where I'd go," Centipede appears and sings.
"Intellectual stimulation…" Mr. Grasshopper sang as he kicks him.
"Yeah, maybe for you," Sang Centipede and moved just in time as Mr. Grasshopper tried to hit him.
Mr. Grasshopper hands the hat to James "And someone you love to share it with you!"
They kept singing and dancing.
"It would be wonderful,"
Wonderful,
That's the life for me!"
"You call that a life?" Earthworm asked.
"That's the life for me!" They sang.
"It's no pile of dirt," Earthworm said.
"That's the life," Mrs. Ladybug sang underneath the yellow spotlight.
"That's the life," Mr. Grasshopper sang underneath the blue spotlight.
"That's the life," Centipede sang underneath the red spotlight.
"That's t'e life," Dragonfly sang underneath the green spotlight.
"That's the life for-"
"Where are you hiding miserable ticks?" Everyone went silent as they heard the yell. It was Aunt Sponge.
Centipede walked straight over to the ladder.
"Hup! Time to go make a pest of myself! Heh-heh!" he said mischievously and laughed as he disappeared.
Outside the peach, Sponge and Spiker were holding lanterns and they were walking around looking for James, Penelope and Jaelle.
"Look at this place!" Sponge looked at the area and said in disgust. "It's still filthy!"
Inside the peach, everyone, even James, Penelope, and Jaelle got very frightened by Sponge and Spiker.
"Where are you, detestable little worms?" Spiker called out.
Earthworm shrieked and fainted.
"Not you! US!" James cried.
"You better not be near our peach!" Aunt Sponge called out.
"Oh please! Don't let them spray us!" begged Mrs. Ladybug.
"We won't let them harm you at all," Penelope said to her calmly as she held Mrs. Ladybug's hand gently.
"Spray us?" cried Earthworm. "They'll see the Yank up there and come after us with a shovel! It happened to my brother!"
"How awful!" cried James and Earthworm finished his story in a nutshell, "Split him right down the middle. Now I have two half brothers!"
"Shh! They'll hear us!" whispered Mr. Grasshopper.
Jaelle got near Penelope and bleated gently.
Penelope stoked her goat and hugged her.
"Don't worry Jaelle," Penelope said. "They won't find us in here. I do hope we don't get caught and punished."
Penelope felt her body tense up, and her heart started to beat faster. The Gypsy girl then felt two hands on her shoulders and they were gently helping her calm down. Penelope turned around and it was Dragonfly, he noticed that the girl needed to calm down and know they're safe.
He hugged Penelope close and she rested her head against his chest and heard his heart beating against her ear.
"No worry lass," He said gently while one of his hands gently stroked my long black hair. "We'll protect you and James from them hags."
"Thank you," Penelope said sweetly and looked into his kind eyes. "You are very kind. I can't let those cruel aunts get me and James. They always beat us starve us, insult us, and they never regretted being cruel to us."
"As long as if ye are wit' us," he said. "Ye are safe."
James walked over to Penelope and he rested his head against her chest. She wrapped her arms around the boy for comfort.
"I'm scared of my aunts," James said.
"Yes, I know," Penelope looked into his sweet brown eyes. Jaelle came near Miss Spider and the huge bug stroked the goat's head.
Penelope's emerald eyes turned up to where Centipede ascended outside and she prayed.
"Please be careful Centipede. Don't get spotted by our aunts."