In James's dream, he was a light green caterpillar with black and white stripes, with orange spots, rosy cheeks and red antennas. As he was eating a peach, he heard a loud sound and he looked up and gasped as he saw an old car driving on a bridge and it stopped and he saw Spiker looking at him and she said to Sponge,
"Look! The little maggot is stuffing his face with our peach! Get him Sponge."
"Ahhh!" James screamed as he jumped behind the peach.
"You can't crawl away from us!" Sponge said as she proofed out some smoke filled with lightning and it started to follow James.
James ran for his life on the stone wall, and the smoke was gaining on him. He jumped on a tree branch and kept sprinting from the smoke. He heard he aunts chanting, "The rhino will get you! The rhino will get you!"
He ran through a broken can and jumped in a hole to hide. He was trapped and the smoke headed straight towards him and there was the rhino charging towards him with his yellow eyes staring at him, the very same rhino that killed his mother and father.
James screamed as the dreamed ended.
The next morning, Penelope woke up and rubbed her eyes and felt very cold. She noticed snow was coming down.
The girl turned around and saw James shuddering from his dream, she gently shook him and he woke up and gasped.
"James are you okay?" she asked hugging James.
"Yes, I think so," James hugged her.
"Don't worry, it was only a dream," she said.
James sat up freezing. He put his coat on to stay warm and Penelope put her sandals on. She put her dagger back on the side wrapping around her calf. Jaelle shook the frost off of her coat and stretched her legs.
The children looked up at the lantern and saw Glowworm shivering. Penelope wrapped her sarong around her shoulders to keep warm. James, Penelope and Jaelle climbed out of the hole to see where they are. They were both shocked to see that they were not in New York City.
They were in the Arctic filled with icebergs, a graveyard of sunken pirate ships that were broken and the wood was rotting away and ships made of steel also.
Penelope felt shivers coming up and down her spine at the sight. She saw the pieces of cracked ice in the water and looked up to see the seagulls still flying with their bodies and wings frozen almost like frozen statues.
"This is an outrage!" James and Penelope were startled by the shouting, which reminded them of Spiker and Sponge yelling at them.
The voice was none other than Mr. Grasshopper. The boy, girl, and goat looked over and saw Mr. Grasshopper, Mrs. Ladybug, Dragonfly and Earthworm cornering Centipede on the fence pathway.
"You are a disgrace to your phylum, class, order, genus, and species!" Mr. Grasshopper shouted to Centipede in a way to scold a person.
"Say it in English!" Centipede shot back at Mr. Grasshopper.
"You, sir, are an ass!" Mr. Grasshopper shouted back at Centipede.
"Where are we?" asked James. "What's going on?"
"What is the meaning of this?" Penelope asked the others as she tightened her sarong around her shoulders.
"I found this dime-store Timmy asleep at the helm," Mr. Grasshopper said to them evenly as he raised his voice as he poked Centipede in the chest. "Now we're lost!"
"We are not lost!" Centipede snapped back.
"Then where are we?" asked Mr. Grasshopper impatiently.
"Somewhere north, or possibly very, very far south."
"What's your latitude? What's your longitude?"
"W'at is ye north, south, east and west?" Dragonfly asked.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Centipede yelled. "That's personal, bub."
"You said you could navigate!" Said Mr. Grasshopper sharply.
"You said you traveled the world," said Mrs. Ladybug.
"You said you'd been to Bora Bora!" said Earthworm.
"Well, not Bora Bora, per se, uh—" Centipede trailed off as he backed up from Mr. Grasshopper, Dragonfly, Mrs. Ladybug, and Earthworm.
"What about the shores of Tripoli?" Miss Spider asked.
"Did I say Tripoli?" asked Centipede and he chuckled. "I meant the Halls of Montezuma."
"That's what you said," said Earthworm angrily.
"Never have I heard such mendacity!" shouted Mr. Grasshopper, who is getting angrier.
"Charlatan!" shouted Mrs. Ladybug.
"Liar!" Dragonfly shouted.
"Wait!" shouted James and tried to reason with Centipede.
"Enough!" Penelope yelled.
"If he says he's seen the world, then he's seen the world. Right, Mr. Centipede? Right?"
"Is this true Mr. Centipede?" Penelope asked firmly.
"Well… I did used to live between two pages of a National Geographic."
"Huh?" Asked James.
"What?" Penelope asked as her green eyes widened. "Are you kidding me?"
Everyone gasped and learned that Centipede lied to them about traveling around the world.
"Very informative magazine, National Geographic," Centipede said. "Wonderful pictures."
"You incompetent, blithering nitwit!" Mr. Grasshopper lost his temper.
Centipede put down his cigar and got himself ready to fight Mr. Grasshopper.
"All right hoppy! Them's fightin' words. Put 'em up! Put 'em up! Come on!" Centipede yelled and made punching moves with encouragement, "Gimme your best shot."
Then all of a sudden, Mr. Grasshopper kicked Centipede hard in the jaw with his left leg.
"Whoa. Good shot," Centipede fell back and said while rubbing his cheek, He spit out a loose tooth and looked at Penelope and James. "Did you see what he did to me?"
"Hmph! Serves ya right," Mrs. Ladybug sternly as she, Mr. Grasshopper, and Earthworm turned around without helping Centipede up. Dragonfly stood there glaring at him.
"Dragonfly…." Centipede said. "Please… I."
"I can't believe ye," Dragonfly snapped. "I t'ought ye were me best friend. Ye are an idiot!" He then stormed off.
Jaelle came up to him and charged at him in the stomach. The goat then ran back up and tears leaked from her eyes.
"What do we do now?" James asked. "Which way do we go?"
"Is there any other way we can get out of this frozen hole?" Penelope asked.
"Oh it's very simple, really," Mr. Grasshopper said. "All we need to do is to determine our coordinates, then use triangulation to chart a direct route to New York."
"Then there's hope," said Earthworm.
"Don't be ridiculous," said Mr. Grasshopper as he poked Earthworm in the nose and finished his sentence. "There's no hope at all! We don't have a compass."
"We'll never reach New York," Earthworm said sadly. "We're gonna be stuck here forever. We're gonna be frozen like living statues."
"Dead living statues," said Mr. Grasshopper.
"No dark hiding places," said Ms. Spider sadly.
"No new inventions," Dragonfly said sadly.
"No cozy leaf in the park," replied Mrs. Ladybug with sadness in her voice.
"No city where dreams come true," said James sadly.
"No freedom, hope, and a new life," Penelope said as tears were rolling down her cheeks. She took out her handkerchief and dried her eyes
"Don't ships have compasses?" James asked.
"No doubt. But to brave those icy waters…" Mr. Grasshopper said. "Would mean certain death. Only a fool would do it."
The Romani girl walked over to the side to see Centipede filled with regret at every word the others said. Filled with determination, he put his cap on his head and his cigar in his mouth.
"Geronimo!" he dove off the pathway fence and landed in the water. The others heard the splash and came over to where the girl was standing.
"What? What was that?" cried Earthworm.
"The Centipede jumped in!" Penelope cried.
The others gasped in shock, "Good heavens!" cried Mr. Grasshopper. "He's committed pesticide. Oh, this is all my doing."
He leaned forward sadly and as he blamed himself for what he did with Centipede.
"Don't take all the credit," said Earthworm and blamed him self too and said, "I helped too."
"Don't blame ye selves, I did it too!" Dragonfly said.
"I have to go after him!" said James with determination.
"Not on your life," but Mrs. Ladybug put her hand on James's shoulder. "You'll catch your death in cold."
"But he's my friend," James said and Penelope knew he was advocating for himself.
"Of course he's our friend, James," Penelope said. "We must save him, or he'll freeze to death down there."
"James and Penelope are right," Miss Spider agreed. "Centipede is one of us. Get on my back. I'm going with you."
"I'm coming with you too," Penelope said as James climbed on Miss Spider's back.
Penelope wrapped took the sarong off and wrapped it around her waist and she climbed on Miss Spider's back.
"Come on Jaelle," the goat hopped into Penelope's arms.
"You had better take good care of them," Mrs. Ladybug said.
"This I promise," said Miss Spider. Penelope helped James with the string from Miss Spider and they tossed it to Mrs. Ladybug and the others, and they started to tie the string up to the stem.
"Stay by the line," James said. "And when you feel two tugs, pull us up."
"We'll be back in fifteen to twenty minutes," Penelope said.
Miss Spider jumped off the peach and we were lowered into the water.
Once James, Penelope, Jaelle, and Miss Spider were in the water, they could see and breathe underwater. The girl felt that the crocodile tongues were helping them breathe underwater.
Miss Spider swam deeper into the water. James, Penelope, and Jaelle looked around and saw a figurehead that looks exactly like Spiker and Sponge.
They kept swimming and a thought came into the girl's head.
"You don't suppose that Centipede was trying to find a compass right?" Penelope asked. "He must have felt bad for himself after lying to us and wanted to make things right and prove himself. With all those sunken ships, I remember that pirates use compasses to help navigate in seas."
"You could be right Penelope," James said. "No matter what mistakes he or we make, he still counts as our friend."
"Let's keep going, I can sense him nearby," Miss Spider said and they swam down into the deep dark sea.