James and the Giant Peach Page 4

  Would it ever stop?

  Why should it? A round object will always keep on rolling as long as it is on a downhill slope, and in this case the land sloped downhill all the way until it reached the ocean - the same ocean that James had begged his aunts to be allowed to visit the day before.

  Well, perhaps he was going to visit it now. The peach was rushing closer and closer to it every second, and closer also to the towering white cliffs that came first.

  These cliffs are the most famous in the whole of England, and they are hundreds of feet high. Below them, the sea is deep and cold and hungry. Many ships have been swallowed up and lost for ever on this part of the coast, and all the men who were in them as well. The peach was now only a hundred yards away from the cliff - now fifty - now twenty - now ten - now five - and when it reached the edge of the cliff it seemed to leap up into the sky and hang there suspended for a few seconds, still turning over and over in the air.

  Then it began to fall...

  Down...

  Down...

  Down...

  Down...

  Down...

  SMACK! It hit the water with a colossal splash and sank like a stone.

  But a few seconds later, up it came again, and this time, up it stayed, floating serenely upon the surface of the water.

  Seventeen

  At this moment, the scene inside the peach itself was one of indescribable chaos. James Henry Trotter was lying bruised and battered on the floor of the room amongst a tangled mass of Centipede and Earthworm and Spider and Ladybird and Glowworm and Old-Green-Grasshopper. In the whole history of the world, no travellers had ever had a more terrible journey than these unfortunate creatures. It had started out well, with much laughing and shouting, and for the first few seconds, as the peach had begun to roll slowly forward, nobody had minded being tumbled about a little bit. And when it went BUMP !, and the Centipede had shouted, 'That was Aunt Sponge!' and then BUMP! again, and 'That was Aunt Spiker!' there had been a tremendous burst of cheering all round.

  But as soon as the peach rolled out of the garden and began to go down the steep hill, rushing and plunging and bounding madly downward, then the whole thing became a nightmare. James found himself being flung up against the ceiling, then back on to the floor, then sideways against the wall, then up on to the ceiling again, and up and down and back and forth and round and round, and at the same time all the other creatures were flying through the air in every direction, and so were the chairs and the sofa, not to mention the forty-two boots belonging to the Centipede. Everything and all of them were being rattled around like peas inside an enormous rattle that was being rattled by a mad giant who refused to stop. To make it worse, something went wrong with the Glowworm's lighting system, and the room was in pitchy darkness. There were screams and yells and curses and cries of pain, and everything kept going round and round, and once James made a frantic grab at some thick bars sticking out from the wall only to find that they were a couple of the Centipede's legs. 'Let go, you idiot!' shouted the Centipede, kicking himself free, and James was promptly flung across the room into the Old-Green-Grasshopper's horny lap. Twice he got tangled up in Miss Spider's legs (a horrid business), and towards the end, the poor Earthworm, who was cracking himself like a whip every time he flew through the air from one side of the room to the other, coiled himself around James's body in a panic and refused to unwind.

  Oh, it was a frantic and terrible trip!

  But it was all over now, and the room was suddenly very still and quiet. Everybody was beginning slowly and painfully to disentangle himself from everybody else.

  'Let's have some light!' shouted the Centipede.

  'Yes!' they cried. 'Light! Give us some light!'

  'I'm trying,' answered the poor Glowworm. 'I'm doing my best. Please be patient.'

  They all waited in silence.

  Then a faint greenish light began to glimmer out of the Glowworm's tail, and this gradually became stronger and stronger until it was anyway enough to see by.

  'Some great journey!' the Centipede said, limping across the room.

  'I shall never be the same again,' murmured the Earthworm.

  'Nor I,' the Ladybird said. 'It's taken years off my life.'

  'But my dear friends!' cried the Old-Green-Grasshopper, trying to be cheerful. 'We are there!'

  'Where?' they asked. 'Where? Where is there?'

  'I don't know,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said. 'But I'll bet it's somewhere good.'

  'We are probably at the bottom of a coal mine,' the Earthworm said gloomily. 'We certainly went down and down and down very suddenly at the last moment. I felt it in my stomach. I still feel it.'

  'Perhaps we are in the middle of a beautiful country full of songs and music,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said.

  'Or near the seashore,' said James eagerly, 'with lots of other children down on the sand for me to play with!'

  'Pardon me,' murmured the Ladybird, turning a trifle pale, 'but am I wrong in thinking that we seem to be bobbing up and down?'

  'Bobbing up and down!' they cried. 'What on earth do you mean?'

  'You're still giddy from the journey,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper told her. 'You'll get over it in a minute. Is everybody ready to go upstairs now and take a look round?'

  'Yes, yes!' they chorused. 'Come on! Let's go!'

  'I refuse to show myself out of doors in my bare feet,' the Centipede said. 'I have to get my boots on again first.'

  'For heaven's sake, let's not go through all that nonsense again,' the Earthworm said.

  'Let's all lend the Centipede a hand and get it over with,' the Ladybird said. 'Come on.'

  So they did, all except Miss Spider, who set about weaving a long rope-ladder that would reach from the floor up to a hole in the ceiling. The Old-Green-Grasshopper had wisely said that they must not risk going out of the side entrance when they didn't know where they were, but must first of all go up on to the top of the peach and have a look round.

  So half an hour later, when the rope-ladder had been finished and hung, and the forty-second boot had been laced neatly on to the Centipede's forty-second foot, they were all ready to go out. Amidst mounting excitement and shouts of 'Here we go, boys! The Promised Land! I can't wait to see it!' the whole company climbed up the ladder one by one and disappeared into a dark soggy tunnel in the ceiling that went steeply, almost vertically, upward.

  Eighteen

  A minute later, they were out in the open, standing on the very top of the peach, near the stem, blinking their eyes in the strong sunlight and peering nervously around.

  'What happened?'

  'Where are we?'

  'But this is impossible!'

  'Unbelievable!'

  'Terrible!'

  'I told you we were bobbing up and down,' the Ladybird said.

  'We're in the middle of the sea!' cried James.

  And indeed they were. A strong current and a high wind had carried the peach so quickly away from the shore that already the land was out of sight. All around them lay the vast black ocean, deep and hungry. Little waves were bibbling against the sides of the peach.

  'But how did it happen?' they cried. 'Where are the fields? Where are the woods? Where is England?' Nobody, not even James, could understand how in the world a thing like this could have come about.

  'Ladies and gentlemen,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said, trying very hard to keep the fear and disappointment out of his voice, 'I am afraid that we find ourselves in a rather awkward situation.'

  'Awkward!' cried the Earthworm. 'My dear Old Grasshopper, we are finished! Every one of us is about to perish! I may be blind, you know, but that much I can see quite clearly.'

  'Off with my boots!' shouted the Centipede. 'I cannot swim with my boots on!'

  'I can't swim at all!' cried the Ladybird.

  'Nor can I,' wailed the Glow-worm.

  'Nor I!' said Miss Spider. 'None of us three girls can swim a single stroke.'

  'But you
won't have to swim,' said James calmly. 'We are floating beautifully. And sooner or later a ship is bound to come along and pick us up.'

  They all stared at him in amazement.

  'Are you quite sure that we are not sinking?' the Ladybird asked.

  'Of course I'm sure,' answered James. 'Go and look for yourselves.'

  They all ran over to the side of the peach and peered down at the water below.

  'The boy is quite right,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said. 'We are floating beautifully. Now we must all sit down and keep perfectly calm. Everything will be all right in the end.'

  'What absolute nonsense!' cried the Earthworm. 'Nothing is ever all right in the end, and well you know it!'

  'Poor Earthworm,' the Ladybird said, whispering in James's ear. 'He loves to make everything into a disaster. He hates to be happy. He is only happy when he is gloomy. Now isn't that odd? But then, I suppose just being an Earthworm is enough to make a person pretty gloomy, don't you agree?'

  'If this peach is not going to sink,' the Earthworm was saying, 'and if we are not going to be drowned, then every one of us is going to starve to death instead. Do you realize that we haven't had a thing to eat since yesterday morning?'

  'By golly, he's right!' cried the Centipede. 'For once, Earthworm is right!'

  'Of course I'm right,' the Earthworm said. 'And we're not likely to find anything around here either. We shall get thinner and thinner and thirstier and thirstier, and we shall all die a slow and grisly death from starvation. I am dying already. I am slowly shrivelling up for want of food. Personally, I would rather drown.'

  'But good heavens, you must be blind!' said James.

  'You know very well I'm blind,' snapped the Earthworm. 'There's no need to rub it in.'

  'I didn't mean that,' said James quickly. 'I'm sorry. But can't you see that - '

  'See?' shouted the poor Earthworm. 'How can I see if I am blind?'

  James took a deep, slow breath. 'Can't you real ize,' he said patiently, 'that we have enough food here to last us for weeks and weeks?'

  'Where?' they said. 'Where?'

  'Why, the peach of course! Our whole ship is made of food!'

  'Jumping Jehoshophat!' they cried. 'We never thought of that!'

  'My dear James,' said the Old-Green-Grasshopper, laying a front leg affectionately on James's shoulder, 'I don't know what we'd do without you.

  You are so clever. Ladies and gentlemen - we are saved again!'

  'We are most certainly not!' said the Earthworm. 'You must be crazy! You can't eat the ship! It's the only thing that is keeping us up!'

  'We shall starve if we don't!' said the Centipede.

  'And we shall drown if we do!' cried the Earthworm.

  'Oh dear, oh dear,' said the Old-Green-Grasshopper. 'Now we're worse off than before!'

  'Couldn't we just eat a little bit of it?' asked Miss Spider. 'I am so dreadfully hungry.'

  'You can eat all you want,' James answered. 'It would take us weeks and weeks to make any sort of a dent in this enormous peach. Surely you can see that?'

  'Good heavens, he's right again!' cried the Old-Green-Grasshopper, clapping his hands. 'It would take weeks and weeks! Of course it would! But let's not go making a lot of holes all over the deck. I think we'd better simply scoop it out of that tunnel over there - the one that we've just come up by.'

  'An excellent idea,' said the Ladybird.

  'What are you looking so worried about, Earthworm?' the Centipede asked. 'What's the problem?'

  'The problem is...' the Earthworm said, 'the problem is...well, the problem is that there is no problem!'

  Everyone burst out laughing. 'Cheer up, Earthworm!' they said. 'Come and eat!' And they all went over to the tunnel entrance and began scooping out great chunks of juicy, golden-coloured peach flesh.

  'Oh, marvellous!' said the Centipede, stuffing it into his mouth.

  'Dee-licious!' said the Old-Green-Grasshopper.

  'Just fabulous!' said the Glow-worm.

  'Oh my!' said the Ladybird primly. 'What a heavenly taste!' She looked up at James, and she smiled, and James smiled back at her. They sat down on the deck together, both of them chewing away happily. 'You know, James,' the Ladybird said, 'up until this moment, I have never in my life tasted anything except those tiny little green flies that live on rosebushes. They have a perfectly delightful flavour. But this peach is even better.'

  'Isn't it glorious!' Miss Spider said, coming over to join them. 'Personally, I had always thought that a big, juicy, caught-in-the-web bluebottle was the finest dinner in the world - until I tasted this.'

  'What a flavour!' the Centipede cried. 'It's terrific! There's nothing like it! There never has been! And I should know because I personally have tasted all the finest foods in the world!' Whereupon, the Centipede, with his mouth full of peach and with juice running down all over his chin, suddenly burst into song:

  'I've eaten many strange and scrumptious dishes in my time,

  Like jellied gnats and dandyprats and earwigs cooked in slime,

  And mice with rice - they're really nice

  When roasted in their prime.

  (But don't forget to sprinkle them with just a pinch of grime.)

  'I've eaten fresh mudburgers by the greatest cooks there are,

  And scrambled dregs and stinkbugs' eggs and hornets stewed in tar,

  And pails of snails and lizards' tails, And beetles by the jar.

  (A beetle is improved by just a splash of vinegar.)

  'I often eat boiled slobbages They're grand when served beside

  Minced doodlebugs and curried slugs. And have you ever tried

  Mosquitoes' toes and wampfish roes Most delicately fried?

  (The only trouble is they disagree with my inside.)

  'I'm mad for crispy wasp-stings on a piece of buttered toast,

  And pickled spines of porcupines. And then a gorgeous roast

  Of dragon's flesh, well hung, not fresh -

  It costs a pound at most.

  (And comes to you in barrels if you order it by post.)

  'I crave the tasty tentacles of octopi for tea

  I like hot-dogs, I LOVE hot-frogs, and surely you'll agree

  A plate of soil with engine oil's

  A super recipe.

  (I hardly need to mention that if s practically free.)

  'For dinner on my birthday shall I tell you what I chose:

  Hot noodles made from poodles on a slice of garden hose -

  And a rather smelly jelly

  Made of armadillo's toes.

  (The jelly is delicious, but you have to hold your nose.)

  'Now comes,' the Centipede declared, 'the burden of my speech:

  These foods are rare beyond compare - some are right out of reach;

  But there's no doubt I'd go without

  A million plates of each

  For one small mite,

  One tiny bite,

  Of this FANTASTIC PEACH!'

  Everybody was feeling happy now. The sun was shining brightly out of a soft blue sky and the day was calm. The giant peach, with the sunlight glinting on its side, was like a massive golden ball sailing upon a silver sea.

  Nineteen

  'Look!' cried the Centipede just as they were finishing their meal. 'Look at that funny thin black thing gliding through the water over there!'

  They all swung round to look.

  'There are two of them,' said Miss Spider.

  'There are lots of them!' said the Ladybird.

  'What are they?' asked the Earthworm, getting worried.

  'They must be some kind of fish,' said the Old-Green-Grasshopper. 'Perhaps they have come along to say hello.'

  'They are sharks!' cried the Earthworm. 'I'll bet you anything you like that they are sharks and they have come along to eat us up!'

  'What absolute rot!' the Centipede said, but his voice seemed suddenly to have become a little shaky, and he wasn't laughing.

  'I am positive the
y are sharks!' said the Earthworm. T just know they are sharks!'

  And so, in actual fact, did everybody else, but they were too frightened to admit it.

  There was a short silence. They all peered down anxiously at the sharks who were cruising slowly round and round the peach.

  'Just assuming that they are sharks,' the Centipede said, 'there still can't possibly be any danger if we stay up here.'

  But even as he spoke, one of those thin black fins suddenly changed direction and came cutting swiftly through the water right up to the side of the peach itself. The shark paused and stared up at the company with small evil eyes.

  'Go away!' they shouted. 'Go away, you filthy beast!'

  Slowly, almost lazily, the shark opened his mouth (which was big enough to have swallowed a perambulator) and made a lunge at the peach.

  They all watched, aghast.

  And now, as though at a signal from the leader, all the other sharks came swimming in towards the peach, and they clustered around it and began to attack it furiously. There must have been twenty or thirty of them at least, all pushing and fighting and lashing their tails and churning the water into a froth.

  Panic and pandemonium broke out immediately on top of the peach.

  'Oh, we are finished now!' cried Miss Spider, wringing her feet. 'They will eat up the whole peach and then there'll be nothing left for us to stand on and they'll start on us!'

  'She is right!' shouted the Ladybird. 'We are lost for ever!'

  'Oh, I don't want to be eaten!' wailed the Earthworm. 'But they will take me first of all because I am so fat and juicy and I have no bones!'

  'Is there nothing we can do?' asked the Ladybird, appealing to James. 'Surely you can think of a way out of this.'

  Suddenly they were all looking at James.

  'Think!' begged Miss Spider. 'Think, James, think!'

  'Come on,' said the Centipede. 'Come on, James. There must be something we can do.'

  Their eyes waited upon him, tense, anxious, pathetically hopeful.

  Twenty

  'There is something that I believe we might try,' James Henry Trotter said slowly. 'I'm not saying it'll work...'

  'Tell us!' cried the Earthworm. 'Tell us quick!'

  'We'll try anything you say!' said the Centipede. 'But hurry, hurry, hurry!'