Harry the Poisonous Centipede (10 page)

“Mama!” he crackled.

From the door-crack George signalled, “Come on!”

“I can't! I can't leave her!”

“If she wanted to come up, she could, easily.”

“But why would she stay down there? – MAMA!”

“She told us to keep going, that she'd be all right! She knows all the tunnels. She's probably found another tunnel to go home by!”

“She wouldn't leave us. I'm going back down!” said Harry.

George dashed back to the drainage hole and grabbed Harry by a back leg.

“You are not going back down there!”
he said. “She helped us get up here, that's what she wanted! She wants you to obey her. Do what you're told for once! Come on, we must find another way to get out before a Hoo-Min comes!”

Very unwillingly, Harry took his head out of the hole and let George pull him to the door. They didn't know it was a door, of course. They went under the bottom of it and found themselves in an enormous black-dark place. It wasn't no-top, but the top was so far away that at first they thought they must be outside. But there was no earth under their feet and it all smelt strange and horrible.

It smelt of Hoo-Min, and Hoo-Min food, and shut-in-ness, and it scared them silly. It also mixed them up.

They ran for a long time, alongside a straight-up-hard-thing. They were trying
to find a hole or any way out, but they couldn't find one.

They were getting very, very tired.

The hard cold stuff began to hurt their feet. But that wasn't the worst.

It was warm in that place. And dry. And into the hearts of the two centis came a great fear. Not just that they would never escape. But that they would Dry Out.

“I think – I think we should go back down the Up-Pipe,” said Harry.

“If we can find it,” said George.

Harry stopped running.

“It's over that way,” he said.

“No, it's not. It's over that way.”

George waved his feelers in the opposite direction.

They looked at each other.

“Hx,” said George slowly. “I think we're lost.”

They huddled together in a corner of the room.

“I hate this awful place!” said George.

“It stinks so badly I can't smell where there's water,” said Harry.

“Listen,” said George. “Do you hear anything?”

They both listened. It was very silent. In the earth-tunnels there are always little noises, but not here. It was very spooky, not being able to hear or see, or sense anything familiar.

“What shall we do?”

“I don't know.”

“I wish Mama was here!”

“So do I!”

But she wasn't. So they had to think of something to do by themselves.

“Let's – let's get away from this straight-up-hard-thing,” said George.

They turned inwards and started cautiously towards the middle of the room.

They felt terribly scared. While they'd been next to the straight-up-hard-thing, at least
they had felt protected on one side. Now they could be Got-at from all around. The silence and the unknown smells added to the awful scariness.

They kept bumping into each other, not by accident. Just to feel that the other one was there.

At last George whispered, “There's something just ahead.” He couldn't see anything, but his feelers knew it.

They found it. It was hard and cold. It too went straight up, but it wasn't a wall.

It was shaped like the water-post. They could walk all around it.

“It's like – it's like the outside of the Up-Pipe,” said Harry, which was a very clever thing for him to say because what it actually was, was a hollow metal bedleg.

“Let's climb it,” said George. “Maybe there's water up there.” He was beginning to feel very dry.

It was hard to climb, but no harder than the Up-Pipe. Quite soon they found themselves climbing something much easier. It was soft and loose, like lots of spiders' webs put together, only not sticky. They scrambled up it and found themselves on a flat surface. It was made of the same soft, warm stuff.

They almost liked it. It was kinder to their feet. They ran about on it and would have even played, if they hadn't still been
so scared, and they hadn't been feeling so dry. Besides, the smell was suddenly much stronger.

Harry ran up a hill and down the other side. The hill was even warmer. George followed. They kept running and exploring in the dark.

“Hx! Here's a tunnel!” crackled George excitedly.

They ran into a deep, warm tunnel. It was nothing like earth; it was made of warmweb stuff.

Still, it felt wonderful after the openness of the floor. They felt covered and safe. They ran along, one behind the other, George first. Harry, behind him, ran faster, and ran right over George so he could be in the lead.

But the smell was very, very strong in here.

Harry stopped suddenly. George bumped into him.

“What?”

“There's something strange here.”

George came alongside and they felt the strange thing with their feelers.

“Well, it's meat, that's for sure,” said George.

Suddenly the two centis realised that the smell they'd been smelling was a foody smell. But it was something they'd certainly never eaten.

“I'm hungry,” said Harry.

“Me too,” said George.

“Shall we—?”

But they didn't. Something stopped them from having a bite. They kept feeling the meaty thing, which blocked the tunnel. It rose steeply in front of them – a meatcliff. They felt and felt. George felt in one direction, Harry in the other. After a while they ran back to each other.

“This meat-cliff is only part of it, whatever it is,” said Harry.

“It's huge,” said George.

“It goes on and on,” said Harry.

“No end to it,” said George.

“It's got bumps and hollows,” said Harry.

“Some parts are hairy,” said George. “It must be some kind of hairy biter.”

“Maybe,” said Harry. But the most ghastly thought had come into his head. He dared not say it.

They were quiet for a moment. Then George said, “Let's climb up it!”

Harry said slowly, “You know what I think it is?”

But George didn't want to listen. “We can't stay here!” he said. He began scrambling up this big warm meat-mountain.

Harry couldn't bear to be left behind. He scrambled up after him.

They climbed up a straight place that had wrinkles on it which made it easy to climb. It was the sole of a foot, but they didn't know that.

When they got to the top, they slipped between two knobbly things. These were toes. But they didn't know that.

They ran down a gentle slope, dodging between the stiff hairs, and came to a long thing like a branch, except that it was hairy too. Here, the roof of the warm tunnel lay right on top of them and they had to push
through. But they were used to burrowing, and this was easier than that.

At the other end of the branch – which was a long way – they came to a smoother part. It was like a big flat warm meaty floor. No hairs here.

“Stop a minute,” said Harry.

“What?” panted George.

“Why is it going up and down?”

“I don't know!”

“I do,” said Harry. “It's breathing.”

That stopped George, but only for a moment.

“Let's go on!”

“Grndd,” said Harry.

“Oh, what?” said George crossly. He sensed that Harry was going to say something he didn't want to hear.

“I think – I think – we may be climbing on a Hoo-Min,” said Harry quietly.

At these dreadful words, they both crouched down in terror. But after a while, George stood up again.

“Well, it's not doing us any harm,” he said. “Maybe it's dead.”

“I sometimes think you're stupid,” said Harry. “It's not dead. It's warm and it's breathing. If you ask me, it's asleep.”

That made George brave again.