Harry the Poisonous Centipede Goes to Sea (5 page)

They were in a garden. But they didn’t know that.

All they knew was that there was lots of earth here: nice, loose, easy-to-tunnel-in earth. They settled on a place and began to burrow.

They burrowed all night, taking it in turns. The two at the top of the tunnel cleared away the soil as it came back. When the centeen who was digging got tired, one of the others would go down and continue the work.

None of them had ever dug a tunnel from scratch before. They’d always used tunnels dug by others, so it was a real challenge.

At first, George didn’t want Josie to dig.

“I’ll do your share,” he said gallantly.

Harry stood by, mouth-parts agape. “Why?” he said.

“Why what?” asked George snappishly.

“Why will you do her share?”

“Because – well – because she’s a centeena.”

“So what? Can’t centeenas dig?”

“Of course they can!” said Josie. If centipedes could blush, she’d have been blushing. “I don’t need anyone to dig for me. Thank you just the same.”

So they dug turn and turn about, and it was soon clear that Josie could indeed dig, and keep on digging longer than either of the others.

“Of course, she’s younger than us,” George whisperckled as the soil came spraying back up the tunnel from Josie’s energetic digging.

Harry didn’t say anything. He thought it was silly to offer to do Josie’s share just because she was female, but at the same time wondered if
he
should have offered. George seemed to know a lot more about females than Harry did. Which was strange, because George had never had a mother of his own to guide him.

And thinking of that reminded Harry of Belinda.

He’d thought a lot about her when their journey first began. But he hadn’t had time since they arrived in this strange
place. Now, as they worked through the dark-time, he thought of the cosy, safe home Belinda had made for him – and for George, when he visited them. He thought of how much Belinda warmhearted him. How she’d risked her life for him several times. How she worried about him…

What must she be going through now, as dark-time followed dark-time and he didn’t come back?

And who would look after her when she got too old to hunt?

What if she got so old she
stopped,
with no one beside her? It didn’t bear thinking about!

“Do you think we can ever get home, Grndd?” Harry asked, in a very subdued crackle.

“I doubt it, Hx,” said George. “I don’t see how we can.”

“Oh, cheer up!” said Josie, her head coming clear as she backed out of the new tunnel. “We’ll be fine right here. Nothing wrong with this! There are lots of little snacks in the earth here for you meat-feeding lot, and as for me, I can smell plenty of good tree-droppings. We’ll be fine,” she said again in her up-beat way. “Go on, Grndd, your turn to dig.”

By the time Big-yellow-ball came back, they were safe and damp in their new nest-tunnel. Josie had even crept up to the no-top-world one last time, to bring them each a leaf to sleep under.

“When we’ve had a good sleep, we must go on digging,” Harry said. “We must have an other-way-out tunnel, in case anything comes down to get us.”

“Belly-crawlers,” said George gloomily. “There are bound to be belly-crawlers. Smaller than at home, like the ants are
smaller. Easy for them to get down our tunnel. If they do, we’re Dried-Out for sure!”

Harry felt worried. He wasn’t used to George being a scaredy-feelers, thinking they were Dried-Out every time there was some little problem.

“Listen, Grndd,” Harry said. “Don’t make out you’re such a poor thing just because you got a bit of a bump. Look at me – I’ve had to cast off three legs and I won’t get them back till the next time I shed my cuticle.”

“Who said I was a poor thing?” said George. “Not me!”

“So what’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

After a moment, he couldn’t help adding, “Of course, shedding a few legs doesn’t hurt the way something hitting you does.”

The three of them curled up together under their leaves. Harry’s last thoughts were about Belinda, and home.

Next dark-time when they woke, Harry’s first thought was food.

“Come on,” he said to the others. “Let’s hunt.”

“I’m not hungry,” said George. “I’ll stay here. Maybe dig a little on the other-way-out tunnel.”

Harry was amazed. George – not hungry? Unheard of!

“Shall I bring you something?” he said. “A few ants – a beetle?”

“No thanks. I couldn’t face anything.”

Josie and Harry set off together, back up the tunnel they’d dug the night before. “What’s the matter with Grndd, do you think?” asked Harry uneasily.

“He’s nest-sick.”

“Grndd? I don’t think so! He hasn’t got a real nest of his own. He just borrows mine when he feels hungry or lonely.”

Josie didn’t crackle for a bit. They reached the entrance to the tunnel and poked their heads out one at a time. The night was still and scented with flowers.

“It’s nice here,” said Josie. “If only it were a bit warmer. I don’t really want to go back. But maybe Grndd does. What was that thing you told me about – warm-heart? Maybe he’s missing your mother.”

This was a very unexpected idea. Harry was missing his mother. But George? Harry had always thought George just sort of used her.

“You mean, maybe he warm-hearts her like I do?”

“Well, I don’t know a thing about it, but something’s certainly biting him inside,” she said. “Maybe it’s this warm-heart thing.”

They were creeping carefully about the no-top-world, questing with their feelers. Harry caught a whole raft of promising meaty smells – he hardly knew where to go first. As for Josie, she suddenly turned off at an angle and raced towards a big bush. She quickly climbed one of its stems and was soon tucking into a lot of small round red things with a sharp smell that didn’t appeal to Harry at all.

But there was something up the same stem that did. Harry followed Josie and found a big fat caterpillar curled up under a leaf. When he bit it, it dropped to the ground and he ran down and found it. It was covered with bristly hairs, which was
a nuisance, but he managed to get through them and suck the juicy part out, getting only a couple of the hairs in his mouth-parts.

The next thing he found was a snail.

Snails are nocturnal – that’s night creatures – like centipedes. This one was very busy eating some round leaves. Harry found it by following its slime-trail. But stopping it was another matter. The moment it sensed him, it shrank into its shell and stuck its underside to a leaf. Harry didn’t waste time trying to bite the shell.

“Jgn!” he signalled up into the bush. “Can you come and help me?”

She scurried down to him. “What do you want?”

“Could you eat through this leaf for me so I can get at this slime-crawler?”

She took a bite out of the round leaf, but spat it out. “Ugh, I don’t like it, it burns my mouth-parts!”

“I’ll stand on the leaf to hold it down. You just tear it away from the slime-crawler.”

So they did that, and Harry got a good feast. He soon found another snail and bit this one before it could disappear into its shell.

Josie had another nibble and decided she did like the hot plant after all – especially the flower, which had a sort of
tail with sweetness in it. Harry looked at her and thought how sweet
she
looked with this big orange-coloured flower in her mouth-parts. It occurred to Harry that it might indeed be warm-heart that was taking George’s appetite away, but not for anybody’s
mother.

“I’m going to take this other slime-crawler back to Grndd,” he said hastily. “He must be hungry, whatever he says.”

“Oh, all right. I’ll follow you later,” said Josie, munching.

When he got back to the nest, he found Grndd had cheered up a bit.

“Is that meat for me?” he said at once, when he saw the snail. “Good, I’m starving. I’ve been working. I dug
forward,” he added, showing a tunnel. “We’ve got an other-way-out tunnel now. But it’s funny up there. Go up and look.”

Harry scurried up the new tunnel George had made. He emerged into a place that was much, much warmer. After he’d eaten, George came up behind him.

“See? It’s more like at home.”

The air was moist and there were lots of strong plant smells. Harry said, “This is good. I like this. It’s the first time I’ve been really warm enough since we left home.” They ran about and explored. After a while Josie joined them.

“Oh, this is great, Grndd! How did you find this? It’s as if you’d dug a tunnel to where we came from!” She stopped. “You didn’t, did you?”

“I don’t think so,” said Grndd.

“No, of course not,” said Josie quickly. “Stupid of me.”

“The smells are different,” said Harry. “Nice, though.”

Josie was questing upward.

“I don’t think this is the no-top-world,” she said.

“Yes, it is,” said George. “I can see White-Ball.”

“But there’s something between him and us,” said Josie.

She swarmed up a thing like a tree and found herself on a shelf. She ran about, sensing with her feelers. She bumped into something she couldn’t see, but which was definitely there.

She ran her feelers over it. It stretched a long way.

“There’s some stuff here like hard-air,” she crackled to the others.

Harry came up and joined her. “That’s what it is,” he said. “It’s hard-air. Grndd and I were shut up in some once. You can see through it and signal through it, but you can’t sense through it or go through it. It’s awful stuff. I hope we’re not in another can’t-get-out!”

“Of course not. We can always get out through our tunnel,” said Josie.

Then George said something really clever.

“Maybe the hard-air’s what makes this place so warm,” he said. “Because it stops cold air getting in.”

No doubt by now you’ve guessed that George’s tunnel had come up into a greenhouse. The whole idea of greenhouses is to keep the air warm and moist so plants will grow better. The air in them can be just about as hot as in the tropics, so no wonder the centeens were feeling at home.

“I’m not going back to our nest,” announced George. “I’m going to dig a bright-time nest and stay here – I’m sick of being cold all the time. There’s plenty of earth.”

“Good idea,” said Josie. “I’ll join you.”

“I’m not so sure about this—” began Harry. But the others were already
digging in the soft earth in one of the wooden seed trays that were on the shelf. They couldn’t dig down far because the trays were shallow. But they felt so happy and damp and warm that they refused to worry.

And Harry, though he privately thought they should go back to their other nest deep under the ground, didn’t want to be left alone. So he joined them. And when white-ball left and Big-Yellow-Ball came back, shining on the glass roof of the greenhouse and making the air inside hotter than ever, the three centeens crawled just a little way under the soil and went peacefully to sleep.

They had a rude awakening.

Harry felt it first – a disturbance in the soil near him. Then something touched his cuticle. This made him jump, but he was still only half-awake when a mini-earthquake heaved him, and the others, to the surface.

The next second they were a wriggling, writhing heap, each one trying to discover what had happened. When they’d righted themselves (Josie had been well and truly upside-downed) they all reared
up, instinctively looking for something to bite. They stood tall and clicked their poison-claws menacingly and turned their heads to see what had disturbed them.

Harry saw the Hoo-Min first. It was standing right in front of him, motionless, its huge hand poised in the air over the seed tray.

“It’s a Hoo-Min!” he crackled in terror. “Run!”

They ran, as usual, in different directions. But each one was seeking the same thing – the entrance to their tunnel. They ran wildly about, trying to find the tree-thing that they’d climbed to get on to
the shelf. George found it and shot down it. Josie ran right to the far glass wall. She tried to climb down that, but there were no claw-holds and she simply slid, or fell, to the ground. As for Harry, he was so frightened he lost his wits and ran hither and thither, over one seed tray after another, until something closed over him.

The Hoo-Min had clapped a large flowerpot on top of him.

Josie and George were running around the floor of the greenhouse looking for the entrance to their other-way-out tunnel.
But by sheer bad luck, the Hoo-Min was standing on it.

They met beside the Hoo-Min’s huge foot.

“Quick! To the darkest place!” crackled George.

They fled under the lower shelf of the greenhouse into a dark corner. There was no way out. They couldn’t dig – it was concrete here. They were can’t-get-outed, and they knew it. It was only a matter of time before they were caught, if the Hoo-Min decided to catch them.

And he already had decided to catch them.

Now I must interrupt this thrilling story to tell you what had happened.

This Hoo-Min was the one who owned the garden and the house, complete with drainpipe, kitchen and hairy-yowler. He
also owned the greenhouse, and had been working happily in it, sowing seeds in his seed trays, when he saw Harry’s rear end, which was sticking up out of the earth.

A centipede’s behind is rather like his front end. It has a sort of crescent-shaped bit which is his back pincer (that can also deliver a nasty, though non-poisonous, nip), and it’s attached to his last segment. The Hoo-Min immediately spotted it. Suspecting nothing more than some interesting beetle or chrysalis, he thrust
his bare fingers
into the earth to dig it out.

When the centipedes, rudely unearthed and exposed to the light, rose up against him, he got the fright of his life.

He snatched his hand away and jumped back, staring in amazement. What he saw were three enormous centipedes, at least ten times as big as
any centipede he’d ever seen before. He thought he was seeing things! But when he got over his shock, he swiftly reached for a flowerpot and trapped Harry. He put a piece of brick on top. Then he took a deep breath and started hunting for the other two.

He knew enough about centipedes to guess that they would head for the darkest place. So it wasn’t long before he found them.

The problem for him now was to capture them. Their problem was to avoid being captured.

It was quite a chase. They ran from one end of the greenhouse to the other along the wall under the lower shelf. The Hoo-Min was lying on the ground with his head under the shelf trying to trap them between two flowerpots, which he held facing each other like a pair of cymbals.
It was fairly easy for George and Josie to dodge these, at first. But the Hoo-Min kept them very active and after a while their oxygen got low. First Josie lost her head and rushed into one flowerpot which was quickly up-ended, trapping her underneath. Then George, sensing that she was no longer near him, doubled back on himself and ran straight into the other.

“Gotcha!”

The Hoo-Min crawled backwards out from under the shelf. He was covered with earth and cobwebs, and sweating heavily, but triumphant. He dragged the two flowerpots along the ground, holding them down firmly so the centipedes under them couldn’t escape.

He clambered to his feet and stared around him. Three flowerpots. Three centipedes. He’d done it. Now what? He decided he simply had to tell someone about this amazing discovery! He left the greenhouse, closing the door carefully behind him.

…While under the pots our centeens were running desperately in circles, looking for a way of escape. Unable to crackle to each other. Scared out of their wits.

They thought their stopping-time had come.