Harry the Poisonous Centipede (12 page)

The Hoo-Min had found something to hit them with. It was a rolled-up newspaper, but they didn't know that. All they knew was that something came down – CRASH! – just behind them as they ran.

They shot forward, faster than ever.

The Hoo-Min could see them quite plainly. He saw the way they were running. There was nothing wrong with his eyes, or his aim. Yet he kept missing them.

The reason was, he just couldn't believe how fast they were running. He aimed at where he thought they would be, but by the time the newspaper landed, they were always a little bit further on.

They reached the door of the showerroom. The newspaper came down WHACK! against the crack under the door. It just caught Harry's back feelers as he raced under it. He felt it, and it hurt, but it didn't stop him.

Before the Hoo-Min could get the door open and follow them, they had shot across the tiles to the drainage hole and dropped down it.

What would you have done if you'd been the Hoo-Min? If you'd burst into the shower-room and seen those two centis disappearing down the drainage hole?

You'd have turned on the shower – right?

Right. And that's just what the Hoo-Min did.

Harry and George had had some good luck and they'd had some bad luck on their adventures. Now they had the best bit of luck they'd had so far.

They just didn't know it.

What happened when the Hoo-Min turned the tap on full was that –
nothing happened.
Not a thing. Where this Hoo-Min lived, things didn't always work properly. And sometimes there was no water for a while.

By a wonderful piece of good luck
(for the centis) no water came out of the shower to wash them away and maybe drown them. Not a single drop.

So they shot down the Up-Pipe and fell on the earth-pile together in a tangle, and no jet of water shot down after them. A lot of noise did follow them. It was the Hoo-Min saying bad words in a very loud voice, but the centis didn't know that.

They untangled themselves and stood up. Most of the white-choke was gone and they felt terrific. Triumphant! They'd done it! They'd actually climbed on a Hoo-Min and survived! They felt like a pair of the bravest centis who ever lived!

“Wait till we tell Mama!” crackled Harry. “Wait till—”

And then they saw her.

She was lying at the bottom of the earth-pile. They saw her in the light coming down the Up-Pipe.

She was lying in a crumpled heap. She looked like – she looked like – a very dead centipede.

“Mama!”

They ran their front feelers all over her body, and Harry tried to make her wake up by pushing her head with his.

“Is she dead?” asked George in a whispering crackle.

“No! No! She can't be! Mama! Wake up, wake up!”

But Belinda didn't move.

“We've got to get her home!”

“How can we? She's so big!”

“She's no heavier than the mole-cricket!

Come on!”

George didn't say anything more. But what he was thinking was that the mole-cricket was
much
smaller than Belinda, and that when they brought home the mole-cricket, it was almost all downhill. The long way back to the nest was nearly all uphill.

But they had to try.

They got hold of Belinda's front feet and dragged her, and when they couldn't drag her any more they tried getting behind and
pushing her, but that didn't work, so they had a rest and then dragged her some more.

It was by far the hardest thing either of them had ever done, and it just went on and on. When they thought of the length of the tunnel still to come, they both wanted to lie down and give up.

What kept them going?

Harry kept going because Belinda was his mother. George kept going because Harry did.

They both kept going because they knew they shouldn't have put themselves first, and left Belinda at the bottom of the Up-Pipe in the white-choke.

They both kept going because they could imagine how they would feel, for the rest of their lives, if they didn't.

But the worst thing they each thought of, though neither of them said it, was that perhaps it was for nothing.

Perhaps she was dead all the time.

At last, just as they thought they were going to have to give up, something wonderful happened.

As the centis were dragging Belinda along, they felt her get a little lighter. They looked along the length of her body and saw that her back legs were moving. A bit of her was walking, helping.

“Mama! You're alive! You're alive!”

Belinda's head moved. They felt her front feet moving too.

“Try to walk, Mama! Help us get you home!”

And she did. Slowly at first, and then, as more and more of her legs started to work again, she moved by herself.

The centis danced at her side, encouraging her. It wasn't that much
further anyway – they'd nearly got her back all by themselves.

Soon they came out of the tunnel to the nest.

Belinda fell to the ground and the centis pulled her leaf over her. She stopped moving and her feelers drooped, but they knew she was just asleep this time.

The air in the nest-tunnel was almost clear again. The white-choke was gone, though they could still smell it a little, enough to remind them how awful it had been.

Harry and George crept about, being quiet.

“Aren't you hungry?”

“Starving! What I couldn't do to a lizard right now!”

There were no lizards, but luckily Belinda had caught a couple of beautiful fat spiders, four ants and a grasshopper
the night before. The two hungry centis ate the lot, sharing the grasshopper between them.

Although they were tired, they decided to go hunting for something for Belinda to eat when she woke up.

They went to the no-top-world.