To speak Neptunian is not difficult. You have to speak in a very thin voice and to say the words and sentences backwards. For example, if you want to say “hello” then it is “olleh” and if you want to say “hungry” then it is ”yrgnuh”. But if you want the monsters to hear you, you have to say everything in a very high pitched voice. Try it! I am sure that you can do it from the first try.
Color learnt very quickly what he had to say. Lumi, Selfi and Music wrote down a very interesting speech. Music even invented a song which he would sing while Color held his speech. He said that in the movies there is always music in the background when something important is happening.
The monsters signaled that the third challenge is about to start. They called us into another room, which was smaller than the last one. There, two Neptunians were waiting for Color to come in front of them and say the speech. When Color started talking, we almost burst out laughing. He sounded very funny speaking in Neptunian. After he was done with his speech the room became silent.
The Neptunians were so silent that we thought they were mad at us. They kept on looking at us as if we were coming from another planet. (Well… we were coming from another planet, Pluto.) Exactly when we were sure that we failed the last challenge, the biggest monster stood up and bowed in front of us. Then he told us something that Selfi translated:
“ Until now, a lot of humans from a lot of planets have visited us. They all went through the challenges and they all lost. When we first saw you, we were sure that we would win again. We are very bored of winning and for this reason we almost did not want to talk to you at all. However, during the first challenge, your pet showed us that you want to win fair and square. That was the real challenge: to see if you come back after our Neptunian, who pretended to be stuck in the bottleneck. Timok went back for the Neptunian and also cared for him when he looked sick. None of the other visitors went back to help their opponent and because of that they were never able to find the button. You see, once you show greediness and you don’t offer your help, the button disappears. So, you can only win if you are kind and helpful.”
“After the first challenge, we were very impressed by your kindness. You became dear to us and we wanted you to win. Selfi also impressed us with how fast she was able to speak our language. You know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, on Neptune arrived a human whose ship broke down while he was on his way to Pluto. He was a kind and helpful person and we became good friends.
Before he left, he wrote down all the words of your language. Back then, we were not able to speak. We communicated by moving our hands, arms, legs, ears and even noses. However, the Plutonian taught us that it is important to be able to communicate properly.
He wrote everything on transparent pieces of papers and ever since we thought that we speak the same language as you do on Pluto. However, Selfi told us that probably our ancestors have read everything backwards because of the transparent foil.
So, for hundreds and hundreds of years, we have learnt your language but backwards. We don’t know why but our ancestors also spoke in a high pitched voice. So we just learnt how to speak the same way our parents and grandparents did. I know that it looks funny when you see some huge, scary monsters and then you hear them speak in a mousy voice. We sound like small and scared mice. It is very funny!”
Now I liked the monsters a lot. They were very kind and friendly. Really! I like them even more because they mentioned my effort from the first challenge.
After this, we all hugged the monsters and then went into their most festive and important room. We were about to become the first ones to receive the sealed document from Neptune.
Whoaaa.. I was so happy that my entire fur exploded.