Harry the Poisonous Centipede (9 page)

Belinda shot out from under her own new leaf, and so did Harry.

They didn't have to ask what the terrible thing was. They could immediately smell it and sense it and even see it, despite the darkness.

Even Belinda, who had lived the longest and seen all the seasons round, had never seen this before.

It was all around them, in their breathing holes, in their eyes, tickling their feelers. They were dreadfully frightened. Yes, Belinda too. It was so strange, so uncomfortable, so – George hadn't exaggerated – so terrible!

It was smoke. But they didn't know that. They had no word for it, and no word
for “mist” or “fog” or “cloud” – nothing to compare it with. Things are so much more frightening when you don't have words for them… They just knew it was something to run away from.

They left their cosy nest and ran.

They ran blindly, without thinking.

Lots of others were running too – other centipedes, and hundreds of other underground creatures – ants and beetles and bugs, and bigger things too. Things the centis would normally hunt, or be hunted by. Now none of them were thinking about eating each other. They were just fleeing from the smoke that was drifting down the tunnels from the surface.

It was coming from a bonfire that a
Hoo-Min had lit, to burn the leaves. But what do centipedes know about bonfires?

They only knew they were choking and terrified.

They ran. Their many swift legs carried them fast and far along the tunnels. They kept together. They ran instinctively along down-sloping tunnels because these were freer from smoke.

That was how they found themselves in the water-cave under the Up-Pipe.

There they stopped. They were too tired to run any more. The smoke in their breathing holes made them weak. But down here there wasn't any smoke. At least, not yet.

“Maybe we'll be safe here,” said Belinda.

Safe? Safe, under the Up-Pipe?

“Mama, we're not safe here!” said Harry. “The Hoo-Mins send water down the Up-Pipe to Get us! Last time we were here, we nearly—”

Belinda turned round slowly and looked at Harry.

“The last time you were
here?”
she said. “The
last
time you were here? How many times have you been here, since I told you NEVER NEVER NEVER to come here?”

“Two times,” said Harry at last, hanging his little round head.

Belinda sank to the ground.

“You might as well have left when my other centis did,” she said sadly. “You don't love me. You don't listen to me. You don't care what I say. I might as well not be your mother.”

Harry threw himself on top of her.

“Mama! That's not true! Of course I love you, of course I care! It was just…”

But he couldn't think what it was “just”. He couldn't remember now why he had disobeyed his mother.

George said bravely, “It was my fault. I talked him into it,” but Belinda hardly heard him.

She just kept lying there, shaking her head sorrowfully and saying, “You came to this worst-place-in-the-world. You didn't believe me. I was trying to keep you safe.”

Harry kept touching her gently with his front feelers, trying to tell her how sorry he was.

“Please, Mama,” he said at last, “let's get out of here. It's dangerous, honestly! The white-choke stuff is safer than this! At least it doesn't drown you!”

But even as he crackled, some of the white-choke came creeping down the tunnels after them. It began to fill the water-cave.

(In case you're interested, the Hoo-Min on the surface had been pumping smoke down a hole to kill snakes and other
things, and it was spreading right through the network of tunnels. But the centipedes didn't know that.)

Belinda jumped up on to her forty-two feet.

“We can't go back up that tunnel!” she said. “Let's run alongside the water-channel – maybe there are other tunnels at the other end!”

But even as she crackled, they felt that smoke was coming stealing towards them from the far darkness at the other end of the cave!

It was coming thicker and thicker, spreading itself all around them. It had even reached the bottom of the Up-Pipe and was beginning to creep upward!

George and Harry remembered at the same moment.

“The earth-pile! Quick!”

Belinda watched, puzzled, as the two centis began frantically pushing and shoving at the loose earth with their heads and front legs.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “We must run! We must—” But she had to stop because the smoke was getting thicker.

And suddenly she understood.

“NO!” she crackled as loudly as she
could. “Not that! Not Up the Up-Pipe, I tell you, NO!”

But George and Harry took no notice. They had quite a high pile of earth now. It was nearly tall enough for George to reach the bottom rim of the Up-Pipe with his front four pairs of legs.

Not quite, though.

Now each time they shoved a bit of earth to the top of the pile, to make it higher, it rolled back down. They were not going to make it!

Suddenly Harry stopped digging and piling and looked at his mother.

“Mama,” he said. “Come here. Come quickly.”

Belinda wasn't stupid. She saw what Harry wanted. As the white-choke got thicker, it overcame all her other fears.

She ran up the side of the earth-pile. She stood upright on the top. She easily reached the rim of the Up-Pipe.

She got a good grip on the inside of the pipe with her front eight pairs of legs.

“Climb!” she said.

Her segments were as good as a ladder. The two centis ran up her body faster than you could run upstairs.

They were inside the Up-Pipe.

Belinda's urgent signal crackled after them: “Keep going! Hide up there and come down when it's safe! Don't look back, I'm all right!”

Once they were in the pipe, they just kept climbing.

The inside of the pipe was smooth and it was wet. Every now and then, they slipped. But their sharp little feet found places to grip on to and always they kept struggling upward.

Neither of them looked back. They just kept going.

Luckily the pipe was not very long. Quite soon they were at the top. They came up through a little hole. It was a drainage hole
for a shower, but they didn't know that. The shower was in a shower-room, and the shower-room was in the home of a Hoo-Min. But they didn't know that, either.

The two centis scrambled out. They were not standing on earth. They were standing on something smooth and hard. They listened. Nothing! They crept further from the hole and began to explore.

They ran around two sides of the small room (not that they knew about rooms). Then they found a long opening – a crack – that they could run through. They were so muddled up and frightened and tired that it was only when they were about to run through this crack that Harry thought to look around for Belinda.

She wasn't there.

He rushed back to the hole and looked down. It was dark down there. A trickle of white-choke came up. He couldn't see anything.