James and the Giant Peach (3 page)

The two women and the small boy stood absolutely still on the grass underneath the tree, gazing up at this extraordinary fruit. James’s little face was glowing with excitement, his eyes were as big and bright as two stars. He could see the peach swelling larger and larger as clearly as if it were a balloon being blown up.

In half a minute, it was the size of a melon!

In another half-minute, it was
twice
as big again!

‘Just
look
at it growing!’ Aunt Spiker cried.

‘Will it ever stop!’ Aunt Sponge shouted, waving her fat arms and starting to dance around in circles.

And now it was so big it looked like an enormous butter-coloured pumpkin dangling from the top of the tree.

‘Get away from that tree trunk, you stupid boy!’ Aunt Spiker yelled. ‘The slightest shake and I‘m sure it’ll fall off! It must weigh twenty or thirty pounds at least!’

The branch that the peach was growing upon was beginning to bend over further and further
because of the weight.

‘Stand back!’ Aunt Sponge shouted. ‘It’s coming down! The branch is going to break!’

But the branch didn’t break. It simply bent over more and more as the peach got heavier and heavier.

And still it went on growing.

In another minute, this mammoth fruit was as large and round and fat as Aunt Sponge herself, and probably just as heavy.

‘It
has
to stop now!’ Aunt Spiker yelled. ‘It can’t go on for ever!’

But it didn’t stop.

Soon it was the size of a small car, and reached halfway to the ground.

Both aunts were now hopping round and round the tree, clapping their hands and shouting all sorts of silly things in their excitement.

‘Hallelujah!’ Aunt Spiker shouted. ‘What a peach! What a peach!’

‘Terrifico!’ Aunt Sponge cried out, ‘Magnifico! Splendifico! And what a meal!’

‘It’s still growing.’

‘I know! I know!’

As for James, he was so spellbound by the whole thing that he could only stand and stare and murmur quietly to himself, ‘Oh, isn’t it beautiful. It’s the most beautiful thing I‘ve ever seen.’

‘Shut up, you little twerp!’ Aunt Spiker snapped, happening to overhear him. ‘It’s none of your business!’

‘That’s right,’ Aunt Sponge declared. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you whatsoever! Keep out of it.’

‘Look!’ Aunt Spiker shouted. ‘It’s growing faster than ever now! It’s speeding up!’

‘I see it, Spiker! I do! I do!’

Bigger and bigger grew the peach, bigger and bigger and bigger.

Then at last, when it had become nearly as tall as the tree that it was growing on, as tall and wide, in fact, as a small house, the bottom part of it gently touched the ground – and there it rested.

‘It can’t fall off now!’ Aunt Sponge shouted.

‘It’s stopped growing!’ Aunt Spiker cried.

‘No, it hasn‘t!’

‘Yes, it has!’

‘It’s slowing down, Spiker, it’s slowing down! But it hasn’t stopped yet! You watch it!’

There was a pause.

‘It has now!’

‘I believe you’re right.’

‘Do you think it’s safe to touch it?’

‘I don’t know. We’d better be careful.’

Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker began walking slowly round the peach, inspecting it very cautiously from all sides. They were like a couple of hunters who had just shot an elephant and were not quite sure whether it was dead or alive. And the massive round fruit towered over them so high that they looked like midgets from another world beside it.

The skin of the peach was very beautiful – a rich buttery yellow with patches of brilliant pink and red. Aunt Sponge advanced cautiously and touched
it with the tip of one finger. ‘It’s ripe!’ she cried. ‘It’s just perfect! Now, look here, Spiker. Why don’t we go and get a shovel right away and dig out a great big chunk of it for you and me to eat?’

‘No,’ Aunt Spiker said. ‘Not yet.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Because I say so.’

‘But I can’t
wait
to eat some!’ Aunt Sponge cried out. She was watering at the mouth now and a thin trickle of spit was running down one side of her chin.

‘My dear Sponge,’ Aunt Spiker said slowly, winking at her sister and smiling a sly, thin-lipped smile. ‘There’s a pile of money to be made out of this if only we can handle it right. You wait and see.’

The news that a peach almost as big as a house had suddenly appeared in someone’s garden spread like wildfire across the countryside, and the next day a stream of people came scrambling up the steep hill to gaze upon this marvel.

Quickly, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker called in carpenters and had them build a strong fence round the peach to save it from the crowd; and at the same time, these two crafty women stationed themselves at the front gate with a large bunch of tickets
and started charging everyone for coming in.

‘Roll up! Roll up!’ Aunt Spiker yelled. ‘Only one shilling to see the giant peach!’

‘Half price for children under six weeks old!’ Aunt Sponge shouted.

‘One at a time, please! Don’t push! Don’t push! You’re all going to get in!’

‘Hey, you! Come back, there! You haven’t paid!’

By lunchtime, the whole place was a seething mass of men, women, and children all pushing and shoving to get a glimpse of this miraculous fruit. Helicopters were landing like wasps all over the hill, and out of them poured swarms of newspaper reporters, cameramen, and men from the television companies.

‘It’ll cost you double to bring in a camera!’ Aunt Spiker shouted.

‘All right! All right!’ they answered. ‘We don’t care!’ And the money came rolling into the pockets of the two greedy aunts.

But while all this excitement was going on outside, poor James was forced to stay locked in his bedroom, peeping through the bars of his window at the crowds below.

‘The disgusting little brute will only get in everyone’s way if we let him wander about,’ Aunt Spiker had said early that morning.

‘Oh,
please!
’ he had begged. ‘I haven’t met any other children for years and years and there are going to be lots of them down there for me to play with. And perhaps I could help you with the tickets.’

‘Shut up!’ Aunt Sponge had snapped. ‘Your Aunt Spiker and I are about to become millionaires, and the last thing we want is the likes of you messing things up and getting in the way.’

Later, when the evening of the first day came and the people had all gone home, the aunts unlocked James’s door and ordered him to go outside and pick up all the banana skins and orange peel and bits of paper that the crowd had left behind.

‘Could I please have something to eat first?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t had a thing all day.’

‘No!’ they shouted, kicking him out of the door. ‘We’re too busy to make food! We are counting our money!’

‘But it’s dark!’ cried James.

‘Get out!’ they yelled. ‘And stay out until you‘ve cleaned up all the mess!’ The door slammed. The key turned in the lock.

Hungry and trembling, James stood alone out in the open, wondering what to do. The night was all around him now, and high overhead a wild white moon was riding in the sky. There was not a sound, not a movement anywhere.

Most people – and especially small children – are often quite scared of being out of doors alone in the moonlight. Everything is so deadly quiet, and
the shadows are so long and black, and they keep turning into strange shapes that seem to move as you look at them, and the slightest little snap of a twig makes you jump.

James felt exactly like that now. He stared straight ahead with large frightened eyes, hardly daring to breathe. Not far away, in the middle of the garden, he could see the giant peach towering over everything else. Surely it was even bigger tonight than ever before? And what a dazzling sight it was! The moonlight was shining and glinting on its great curving sides, turning them to crystal and silver. It looked like a tremendous silver ball lying there in the grass, silent, mysterious, and wonderful.

And then all at once, little shivers of excitement started running over the skin on James’s back.

Something else
, he told himself,
something stranger than ever this time, is about to happen to me again soon
. He was sure of it. He could feel it coming.

He looked around him, wondering what on earth it was going to be. The garden lay soft and silver in the moonlight. The grass was wet with dew and a million dewdrops were sparkling and twinkling like diamonds around his feet. And now suddenly, the whole place, the whole garden seemed to be
alive
with magic.

Almost without knowing what he was doing, as though drawn by some powerful magnet, James Henry Trotter started walking slowly towards the giant peach. He climbed over the fence that surrounded it, and stood directly beneath it, staring
up at its great bulging sides. He put out a hand and touched it gently with the tip of one finger. It felt soft and warm and slightly furry, like the skin of a baby mouse. He moved a step closer and rubbed his cheek lightly against the soft skin. And then suddenly, while he was doing this, he happened to notice that right beside him and below him, close to the ground, there was a hole in the side of the peach.

It was quite a large hole, the sort of thing an animal about the size of a fox might have made.

James knelt down in front of it, and poked his head and shoulders inside.

He crawled in.

He kept on crawling.

This isn’t a hole
, he thought excitedly.
It’s a tunnel!

The tunnel was damp and murky, and all around him there was the curious bittersweet smell of fresh peach. The floor was soggy under his knees, the walls were wet and sticky, and peach juice was dripping from the ceiling. James opened his mouth and caught some of it on his tongue. It tasted delicious.

He was crawling uphill now, as though the tunnel were leading straight towards the very centre of the gigantic fruit. Every few seconds he
paused and took a bite out of the wall. The peach flesh was sweet and juicy, and marvellously refreshing.

He crawled on for several more yards, and then suddenly –
bang
– the top of his head bumped into something extremely hard blocking his way. He glanced up. In front of him there was a solid wall that seemed at first as though it were made of wood. He touched it with his fingers. It certainly felt like wood, except that it was very jagged and full of deep grooves.

‘Good heavens!’ he said. ‘I know what this is! I‘ve come to the stone in the middle of the peach!’

Then he noticed that there was a small door cut into the face of the peach stone. He gave a push. It swung open. He crawled through it, and before he had time to glance up and see where he was, he
heard a voice saying, ‘
Look
who’s here!’ And another one said, ‘We‘ve been
waiting
for you!’

James stopped and stared at the speakers, his face white with horror.

He started to stand up, but his knees were shaking so much he had to sit down again on the floor. He glanced behind him, thinking he could bolt back into the tunnel the way he had come, but the doorway had disappeared. There was now only a solid brown wall behind him.