I tried out my thought-speak. "You guys still there?"

"Yeah," Jake replied. "Let's take cover inside this box." I hadn't really looked at the box to notice what was inside. But I could see an open seam that looked as if it was six feet wide. In reality it was probably an inch. But an inch to a roach is way more space than necessary. A roach can squeeze through a space no wider than the thickness of a nickel.

The final changes were taking place. The hard, fingernail material that made up my outer body replaced the last vestiges of human flesh. The tiny remaining shreds of my liver and heart and lungs all disappeared to be replaced by the utterly primitive organs of the cockroach.

My dim, blurry, distorted roach vision wasn't great, but I was used to it and could more or less make sense out of things as long as they were close. And in addition, I had my antennae. They were tingling with information that seemed like some weird mix of touch and smell. I felt the air currents around me. I felt the vibrations as the cook lifted a heavy load and trudged away. I sensed Marco and Jake, two fellow roaches, although their presence didn't matter much to the roach brain.

But mostly, I smelled food.

Lots and lots of food. Very close by. Sweet. An overpowering smell-touch. Right beneath me.

I powered my six legs and went jerking forward.

ZOOM!

It's gross being a roach, but being a running roach is amazing. Your face is about a millimeter from the ground. And you feel like you're going two hundred miles an hour. It's as if someone strapped rockets on your back and shot you off across the ground, with your nose practically skinning on the dirt.

I zoomed over to the big seam in the box. Now I could see Marco and Jake fairly clearly. We were all standing next to the edge. We couldn't see down inside and it looked like a big, rectangular well or something.

"What do you think is down there?" Marco wondered.

"I don't know," I said. "But it's some kind of food, and it smells sweet." Suddenly, vibrations. The men were coming back, and I felt a massive, jarring thud as they stuck the edge of the dolly beneath our stack of boxes.

"Let's do it!" I yelled. I powered straight out into the darkness and fell through the perfumed air.

"I hate when she says that," Marco groaned. "Anytime Rachel says "let's do it" in that insane, suicidal, rock-and-roll way of hers, disaster can't be far away."

I fell!

Down and down and down. Probably at least three inches.

I hit bottom, only bottom wasn't flat. It was curved and pitched. I grabbed with the tiny claws at the ends of my legs, but I slipped farther before I could latch on.

Jake and Marco dropped not far away.

I looked around as well as I could in the gloom. I was standing on something almost cylindrical, except that it was also curved. And pressed in right beside this curved cylinder was another, each maybe ten times my own body length. And wait! Others, all around. In addition to being cylindrical and curved, now I could see that they tapered down to a blunt tip.

Some of these curved things were gathered together at one end, like a bunch of...

"Bananas," Marco said. "We're in a crate of bananas."

"0h. That must be what we were smelling. The sweet smell," Jake said.

"Good. This should be easy. They're moving us now. In a few seconds we'll be inside."

"Gross. Roaches on bananas," I said, making conversation while we waited. "Maybe that's why Cassie always washes her bananas before she peels them."

"No," Jake said. "lt's because of pesticides. You know, poisons."

"Poison?" Marco said nervously. "l don't feel sick. At least, I don't think I feel sick."

"lt would just be trace amounts," Jake said. "But I suppose they spray poison on the bananas down in wherever. Ecuador or wherever."

"Ecuador? That just popped into your head? Ecuador?" Marco demanded.

"Besides, Cassie's probably wrong. What's going to eat through banana skin? This skin is like foot-thick leather."

"l think it's for the spiders," I said. "Haven't you ever heard how sometimes there are tarantulas crawling around bananas? Happens all the time. They come up in the holds of ships and -"

"Excuse me? Tarantulas?" Marco squeaked.

"0h, come on. What are the odds that there's a tarantula in this particular crate of bananas?"

Unfortunately, right at that moment I got the answer. The crate was out of the truck and a bright beam of sunlight shone down through the opening in the box. A brilliant shaft illuminated the bananas. It was a bizarre landscape. Curves everywhere. Like someone with a protractor had drawn an endless jumble of arcs.

It was about eight inches away. Sitting comfortably atop a bunch of bananas. It was, no exaggeration, as big as an elephant to me.

"Um, guys? Don't anyone make any sudden movements, okay?"

"0h, puh-leeze," Marco said. "How lame do you think we are, Rachel? Now you're going to pretend there's a tarantula in here? So I'm supposed to go screaming around like a nitwit while you laugh yourself sick?"

"Marco. Jake. Just look behind you."

I guess they looked.

"Aaaaahhhh!"

"Aaaaahhhh!"

They ran. The spider moved.

Roaches are fast. Tarantulas are faster.

I would have never believed something that big could move that fast.

But I guess it had been a long, hungry boat ride up from Ecuador for the tarantula.

"Rachel! Where are you?" Jake yelled.

Eight hairy legs were a blur. All I could focus on was a huge, ripping beak like a hawk's, and eight eerie eyes all in a cluster in that huge hairy face.

It was after me!

I motored. I leaped as well as my roach legs could leap. In some tiny corner of my tiny roach brain I heard the cockroach instincts screaming, Fly! Fly!

I fluttered open the hard shell that covered my gossamer roach wings and I flew. I flew nowhere! Maybe two inches! Roaches can't fly worth a -