Star Wars - Episode I Journal - Anakin Skywalker by Todd Strasser

attending to the Queen.
    That’s when my dream came back to me. Once again I saw Padmé leading that huge army, and I knew that she could do it.
    Padmé seemed surprised to see me. But pleased, too. She told me the Queen had given her my message back on Coruscant. Then she asked what had happened at the Jedi Temple.
    I told her the bad news. It appeared that the Council might not allow me to be trained as a Jedi. I could tell she was disappointed. And she looked worried, too. I asked her what was wrong and she said that the Queen had decided that her people had to go to war against the Trade Federation. I told Padmé that I might not be a Jedi, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help.
    Padmé smiled at me. It was a sad smile.
    The ship landed with a slight jolt. When the hatch opened, I expected to see a landing pad and some sort of city, but I was in for a surprise.
    Because all I saw was a swamp.

Eleventh Entry
Another Surprise

    For a kid who grew up on the dry planet of Tatooine, seeing a lake for the first time was even more amazing than seeing the Queen. I couldn’t believe that there were places where water actually lay on the ground without being instantly evaporated!
    I looked around in shock. Here plants could grow wild and out in the open, not in some carefully managed subterranean farm.
    Here it was so moist that you could actually feel the dampness on your skin and breathe the heaviness of the water vapor in the air!
    Clouds blanketed the sky above and the mist hanging over the lake was the gray of twilight. Surrounding the lake was a swamp. In the distance I could see vast, grassy hills. All in all, this seemed an even stranger sight than the vast city-world of Coruscant.
    Suddenly I felt homesick and alone. Why couldn’t Mom be here to see this? And what about Kitster? Mom would look around in wonder. Kitster and I would be running around like crazy, touching the plants and splashing in the lake.
    The lake may have been a strange and exotic place to me, but to Jar Jar it was home. With a giant splash he disappeared into the water. Someone said Jar Jar was Gungan. Gungans lived in a city deep below the surface. It seemed the Gungans and the Queen’s people had never been friendly. But now Jar Jar was going on behalf of the Queen to plead for help in the battle she was about to face.
    It wasn’t long before Jar Jar returned to the surface. With lake water dripping off his ears and head, he gave us the bad news. He’d gone to the city, but it was deserted. I saw the worry in the faces around me. Obi-Wan feared that the Gungans had already been wiped out by the Trade Federation forces, but Jar Jar said it was more likely that his people had gone into hiding.
    Jar Jar thought he knew where they were and began to lead us through the swamp. As we followed in a line behind him I kept my eyes on Padmé and Qui-Gon. I would have been glad to speak to either of them, but both seemed lost in thought.
    Meanwhile, I could tell by the grumbling around me that not everyone believed that Jar Jar knew where he was going. After all, this was the creature who seemed incapable of staying out of trouble no matter where he went.
    It wasn’t long before he stopped, sniffed the air, and said we’d arrived. I looked around, but to me it still looked like a swamp. Jar Jar made some strange chattering sounds and suddenly, out of the dense green undergrowth, half a dozen Gungans appeared wearing uniforms and riding two-legged creatures I later learned were named kaadu.
    They were armed with spearlike weapons that looked like long stun guns or electropoles. I assumed they were on patrol. And they didn’t look pleased to find Jar Jar. I was starting to wonder if anyone was ever pleased to run into him. Even worse, when Jar Jar explained that we were there to speak to the boss of the Gungans, the leader of the patrol rolled his eyes and warned him that if we went to the boss Gungan, we would all be in serious trouble.
    But Jar Jar