Harry the Poisonous Centipede (5 page)

George reared up in terror, and his top half did a swift U-turn in the air. “Let's get out of here!” he crackled shrilly, and turned to flee.

As George spun round, The Thing
turned as well, and came lumbering after him.

George was well on his way, but Harry wasn't. He was so frightened he just stood there, and The Thing came running towards him, looking like a charging rhinoceros would to us.

At the last second, Harry tried to dodge out of its path, but The Thing turned its great ugly head, and its terrible clawpaws made a swipe at Harry.

Harry instinctively whisked his tail and
gave The Thing a clout. That made it jump, just long enough for Harry to stick his head under it and get in a good poisonous bite on its belly.

It went stiff. Its claw-paws drooped to the ground. In another second, its thick jointed legs had collapsed under it, and it fell with a thud.

Right on top of Harry!

Harry's legs collapsed too. All forty-two of them.

His head and his first four segments were pinned under the paralysed molecricket. He was stunned. He lay still for a minute and then began wriggling and writhing. He tried to pull backwards. He tried to lift his head and shift the weight off him.

He couldn't. The Thing was too heavy.

He tried to call George. He couldn't. But he did the next best thing.

He lifted his back five segments clear off the ground and waved a desperate signal with his tail feelers.

George, who was practically back at the hole, had felt the vibration as The Thing fell. Now he looked back. He caught the signal Harry was sending with his tail feelers.

He hesitated.

The signal Harry was sending said, “Help! Help! Help!” But the signal George was getting was more like, “Danger! Danger! Danger!”

He wanted to keep on running, back down the hole, to safety.

But Harry was his best friend. He couldn't just leave him to the monster.

He turned and raced back as fast as he could. Which was very fast.

As soon as he saw what had happened, he crackled loudly: “Hang on, Hx! I'm here! I'll soon have you out!”

Then he caught hold of one of the molecricket's legs in his mouth, and pulled. He twisted and turned and jerked his head. The mole-cricket was a dead weight. It was much heavier than anything George had ever tried to drag before.

But at last it started to shift.

As soon as Harry felt it begin to move, he made a strong effort himself, and soon got his head and front segments free.

“Thanks, Grndd! Phew! If you hadn't come back, I'd have just stayed there till I starved, or something got me!”

George rubbed his round, hard head segment against Harry's. “You were braver than me! You bit it! It's ours now. What shall we do?”

“Drag it home and eat it for dinner!”

“Yes!”

They started to drag and pull it with all their might.

Between them they got it back to the hole and then went behind it and tipped it down. It started to slide down the tunnel. They ran after it and pushed and shoved some more.

It slid right to the bottom. After that, they crawled over it and dragged it along to Belinda's nest-tunnel.

They arrived at last. They were tired out. Belinda was there. She didn't say anything at first, just raised herself up and felt the mole-cricket all over with her front feelers.

Then she dropped down on to all forty-two legs again. She turned right round in a tight circle several times, which is what she always did when she just didn't know what to say or do.

“Oh, you bad, brave, naughty, wonderful centis!” she said at last. “You've been up to the no-top-world, haven't you? What am I to do with you?”

“Could you just help us take The Thing's fur off so we can all eat it for dinner?” asked Harry in a small, but proud, crackle.

His mother wrapped her first seven pairs of legs round him and gave him a terrific hug.

The she hugged George too.

They had a feast. Belinda had never tasted mole-cricket before. She knew what they were, all right, and told the centis that they burrowed under the ground – making useful tunnels – and ate roots,
mainly, but that they were so frightening-looking that she had never dared try to attack one.

She said, though, that the two centis had been very foolish to go to the no-top-world without her and that they weren't to do it again until they were grown up. “Now, promise me.”

Harry was just going to promise, when George said, “Hey! What was that vibration? Was it a toad, or just a grasshopper?”

Belinda rushed up to the nearest tunnel to see what it was, and forgot to make them promise.

If centipedes could wink, George would have winked at Harry.

After their adventure with the molecricket, George wanted to do something even more exciting.

Ordinary mischief was no good any more. He wanted another big thrill.

Even if he had promised Harry's mother not to go back to the surface, I'm afraid he might not have kept it. But anyway, he hadn't. So he started to make regular trips.

Harry didn't go with him.

“What's the matter, sissyfeelers, scaredyant, why won't you come?” taunted
George, who didn't like having adventures by himself.

“I don't want to worry Mama,” muttered Harry uncomfortably.

George gave a great crackle and waved his front feelers crazily in all directions. (That is a centi's way of laughing mockingly.)

“Mama's centi! Mama's centi!” he teased.