Excerpt:
Gregor tripped out from between two smooth rock walls and landed on his hands and knees. When he raised his head, Gregor found himself looking into the largest cockroach he'd ever seen. Now, his apartment complex had some big bugs. But the creature in front of Gregor rose at least four feet in the air.

"Beeg bug!" cried Boots, and Gregor managed to close his mouth.

He pushed back onto his knees but he still had to tilt his head back to see the whole roach. It was holding some kind of torch. Boots scampered over to Gregor and tugged on the neck of his shirt. "Beeeg bug!" she insisted.

Yes, I see, Boots. Big Bug!" said Gregor in a hushed voice, wrapping his arms tightly around his little sister. "Very…big…bug."

He tried hard to remember what cockroaches ate. Garbage, rotten food…people? He didn't think they ate people. Not the little ones anyway. Maybe they wanted to eat people but they kept getting stepped on first. At any rate it wasn't a good time to find out.

Trying to appear casual, Gregor slowly edged his way back toward the crack in the rocks. "Okay Mr. Roach, so we'll be going. Sorry we bugged you—I mean, bothered you, I mean—"

Smells what so good, smells what?" a voice hissed. It took Gregor a full minute to realize it had come from the cockroach. He was too stunned to make any sense of the strange words.

"Uh…excuse me?" he managed.

"Smells what so good, smells what?" the voice hissed again, but the tone wasn't threatening. Just curious, and maybe a little excited. "Be small human, be?"

"All right, okay, I'm talking to a giant cockroach," thought Gregor. "Be cool, be nice, answer the bug. He wants to know 'Smells so good, smells what?' So tell him." Gregor forced himself to take a deep sniff and then regretted it. Only one thing smelled like that.

"I poop!" said Boots, as if on cue. "I poop, Ge-go!"

"My sister need a clean diaper, " said Gregor, somehow feeling embarrassed.

"Be she princess, Overlander, be she? Be she queen, be she?" asked the roach, dipping its head in slavish devotion.

"Boots? A queen?" asked Gregor. Suddenly he had to laugh