James and the Giant Peach

and down and back and forth and round and round, and at the same time all the other creatures were flying through the air in every direction, and so were the chairs and the sofa, not to mention the forty-two boots belonging to the Centipede. Everything and all of them were being rattled around like peas inside an enormous rattle that was being rattled by a mad giant who refused to stop. To make it worse, something went wrong with the Glow-worm's lighting system, and the room was in pitchy darkness. There were screams and yells and curses and cries of pain, and everything kept going round and round, and once James made a frantic grab at some thick bars sticking out from the wall only to find that they were a couple of the Centipede's legs. 'Let go, you idiot!' shouted the Centipede, kicking himself free, and James was promptly flung across the room into the Old-Green-Grasshopper's horny lap. Twice he got tangled up in Miss Spider's legs (a horrid business), and toward the end, the poor Earthworm, who was cracking himself like a whip every time he flew through the air from one side of the room to the other, coiled himself around James's body in a panic and refused to unwind. Oh, it was a frantic and terrible trip! But it was all over now, and the room was suddenly very still and quiet. Everybody was beginning slowly and painfully to disentangle himself from everybody else.

'Let's have some light!' shouted the Centipede.

'Yes!' they cried. 'Light! Give us some light!'

'I'm trying,' answered the poor Glow-worm. 'I'm doing my best. Please be patient.'

They all waited in silence.

Then a faint greenish light began to glimmer out of the Glow-worm's tail, and this gradually became stronger and stronger until it was anyway enough to see by.

'Some great journey!' the Centipede said, limping across the room.

'I shall never be the same again,' murmured the Earthworm.

'Nor I,' the Ladybug said. 'It's taken years off my life.'

'But my dear friends!' cried the Old-Green-Grasshopper, trying to be cheerful, 'we are there!'

'Where?' they asked. 'Where? Where is there?'

'I don't know,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said. 'But I'll bet it's somewhere good.'

'We are probably at the bottom of a coal mine,' the Earthworm said gloomily. 'We certainly went down and down and down very suddenly at the last moment. I felt it in my stomach. I still feel it.'

'Perhaps we are in the middle of a beautiful country full of songs and music,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said.

'Or near the seashore,' said James eagerly, 'with lots of other children down on the sand for me to play with!'

'Pardon me,' murmured the Ladybug, turning a trifle pale, 'but am I wrong in thinking that we seem to be bobbing up and down?'

'Bobbing up and down!' they cried. 'What on earth do you mean?'

'You're still giddy from the journey,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper told her. 'You'll get over it in a minute. Is everybody ready to go upstairs now and take a look around?'

'Yes, yes!' they chorused. 'Come on! Let's go!'

'I refuse to show myself out of doors in my bare feet,' the Centipede said. 'I have to get my boots on again first.'

'For heaven's sake, let's not go through all that nonsense again,' the Earthworm said.

'Let's all lend the Centipede a hand and get it over with,' the Ladybug said. 'Come on.'

So they did, all except Miss Spider, who set about weaving a long rope-ladder that would reach from the floor up to a hole in the ceiling. The Old-Green-Grasshopper had wisely said that they must not risk going out of the side entrance when they didn't know where they were, but must first of all go up onto the top of the peach and have a look around.

So half an hour later, when the rope-ladder had been finished and hung, and the forty-second boot had been laced neatly onto the Centipede's forty-second foot, they were all ready to go out. Amidst mounting excitement and shouts of 'Here we go, boys! The Promised Land! I can't wait to see it!' the whole company climbed up the ladder one by one and disappeared into a dark soggy tunnel in the ceiling that went steeply, almost vertically upward.

18

A minute later, they were out in the open, standing on the very top of the peach, near the stem, blinking their eyes in the strong sunlight and peering nervously around.

'What happened?'

'Where are we?'

'But this is impossible!'

'Unbelievable!'

'Terrible!'

'I told you we were bobbing up and down,' the Ladybug said.

'We're in the middle of the sea!' cried James.

And indeed they were. A strong current and a high wind had carried the peach so quickly away from the shore that already the land was out of sight. All around them lay the vast black ocean, deep and hungry. Little waves were bibbling against the sides of the peach.

'But how did it happen?' they cried. 'Where are the fields? Where are the woods? Where is England?' Nobody, not even James, could understand how in the world a thing like this could have come about.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said, trying very hard to keep the fear and disappointment out of his voice, 'I am afraid that we find ourselves in a rather awkward situation.'

'Awkward!' cried the Earthworm. 'My dear Old Grasshopper, we are finished! Every one of us is about to perish! I may be blind, you know, but that much I can see quite clearly!'

'Off with my boots!' shouted the Centipede. 'I cannot swim with my boots on!'

'I can't swim at all!' cried the Ladybug.

'Nor can I,' wailed the Glow-worm.

'Nor I!' said Miss Spider. 'None of us three girls can swim a single stroke.'

'But you won't have to swim,' said James calmly. 'We are floating beautifully. And sooner or later a ship is bound to come along and pick us up.' They all stared at him in amazement.

'Are you quite sure that we are not sinking?' the Ladybug asked.

'Of course I'm sure,' answered James. 'Go and look for yourselves.'

They all ran over to the side of the peach and peered down at the water below.

'The boy is quite right,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said, 'We are floating beautifully. Now we must all sit down and keep perfectly calm. Everything will be all right in the end.'

'What absolute nonsense!' cried the Earthworm. 'Nothing is ever all right in the end, and well you know it!'

'Poor Earthworm,' the Ladybug said, whispering in James's ear. 'He loves to make everything into a disaster. He hates to be happy. He is only happy when he is gloomy. Now isn't that odd? But then, I suppose just being an Earthworm is enough to make a person pretty gloomy, don't you agree?'

'If this peach is not going to sink,' the Earthworm was saying, 'and if we are not going to be drowned, then every one of us is going to starve to death instead. Do you realize that we haven't had a thing to eat since yesterday morning?'

'By golly, he's right!' cried the Centipede. 'For once, Earthworm is right!'

'Of course I'm right,' the Earthworm said. 'And we're not likely to find anything around here either. We shall get thinner and thinner and thirstier and thirstier, and we shall all die a slow and grisly death from starvation. I am dying already. I am slowly shriveling up for want of food. Personally, I would rather drown.'

'But good heavens, you must be blind!' said James.