James and the Giant Peach Read online

  Went up around the Empire State,

  Let's get them down at once! Why WAIT?')

  Thirty-eight

  Five minutes later, they were all safely down, and James was excitedly telling his story to a group of flabbergasted officials.

  And suddenly - everyone who had come over on the peach was a hero! They were all escorted to the steps of City Hall, where the Mayor of New York made a speech of welcome. And while he was doing this, one hundred steeplejacks, armed with ropes and ladders and pulleys, swarmed up to the top of the Empire State Building and lifted the giant peach off the spike and lowered it to the ground.

  Then the Mayor shouted, 'We must now have a ticker-tape parade for our wonderful visitors!'

  And so a procession was formed, and in the leading car (which was an enormous open limousine) sat James and all his friends.

  Next came the giant peach itself. Men with cranes and hooks had quickly hoisted it on to a very large truck and there it now sat, looking just as huge and proud and brave as ever. There was, of course, a bit of a hole in the bottom of it where the spike of the Empire State Building had gone in, but who cared about that - or indeed about the peach juice that was dripping out of it on to the street?

  Behind the peach, skidding about all over the place in the peach juice, came the Mayor's limousine, and behind the Mayor's limousine came about twenty other limousines carrying all the important people of the City.

  And the crowds went wild with excitement. They lined the streets and they leaned out of the windows of the skyscrapers, cheering and yelling and screaming and clapping and throwing out bits of white paper and ticker-tape, and James and his friends stood up in their car and waved back at them as they went by.

  Then a rather curious thing happened. The procession was moving slowly along Fifth Avenue when suddenly a little girl in a red dress ran out from the crowd and shouted, 'Oh, James, James! Could I please have just a tiny taste of your marvellous peach?'

  'Help yourself!' James shouted back. 'Eat all you want! It won't keep for ever, anyway!'

  No sooner had he said this than about fifty other children exploded out of the crowd and came running on to the street.

  'Can we have some, too?' they cried.

  'Of course you can!' James answered. 'Everyone can have some!'

  The children jumped up on to the truck and swarmed like ants all over the giant peach, eating and eating to their hearts' content. And as the news of what was happening spread quickly from street to street, more and more boys and girls came running from all directions to join the feast. Soon, there was a trail of children a mile long chasing after the peach as it proceeded slowly up Fifth Avenue. Really, it was a fantastic sight. To some people it looked as though the Pied Piper of Hamelin had suddenly descended upon New York. And to James, who had never dreamed that there could be so many children as this in the world, it was the most marvellous thing that had ever happened.

  By the time the procession was over, the whole gigantic fruit had been completely eaten up, and only the big brown stone in the middle, licked clean and shiny by ten thousand eager little tongues, was left standing on the truck.

  Thirty-nine

  And thus the journey ended. But the travellers lived on. Every one of them became rich and successful in the new country.

  The Centipede was made Vice-President-in-Charge-of-Sales of a high-class firm of boot and shoe manufacturers.

  The Earthworm, with his lovely pink skin, was employed by a company that made women's face creams to speak commercials on television.

  The Silkworm and Miss Spider, after they had both been taught to make nylon thread instead of silk, set up a factory together and made ropes for tightrope walkers.

  The Glow-worm became the light inside the torch on the Statue of Liberty, and thus saved a grateful City from having to pay a huge electricity bill every year.

  The Old-Green-Grasshopper became a member of the New York Symphony Orchestra, where his playing was greatly admired.

  The Ladybird, who had been haunted all her life by the fear that her house was on fire and her children all gone, married the Head of the Fire Department and lived happily ever after.

  And as for the enormous peach stone - it was set up permanently in a place of honour in Central Park and became a famous monument. But it was not only a famous monument. It was also a famous house. And inside the famous house there lived a famous person -

  JAMES HENRY TROTTER

  himself.

  And all you had to do any day of the week was to go and knock upon the door, and the door would always be opened to you, and you would always be asked to come inside and see the famous room where James had first met his friends. And sometimes, if you were very lucky, you would find the Old-Green-Grasshopper in there as well, resting peacefully in a chair before the fire, or perhaps it would be the Ladybird who had dropped in for a cup of tea and a gossip, or the Centipede to show off a new batch of particularly elegant boots that he had just acquired.

  Every day of the week, hundreds and hundreds of children from far and near came pouring into the City to see the marvellous peach stone in the Park. And James Henry Trotter, who once, if you remember, had been the saddest and loneliest little boy that you could find, now had all the friends and playmates in the world. And because so many of them were always begging hhn to tell and tell again the story of his adventures on the peach, he thought it would be nice if one day he sat down and wrote it as a book.

  So he did.

  And that is what you have just finished reading