Harry the Poisonous Centipede's Big Adventure

by Lynne Reid Banks

  “No. He just stopped. He – he’d been here a long time. He wouldn’t eat. He didn’t want to go on moving.”

  Harry shuddered all along his cuticle. Could anything so awful happen to him and George?

  4. Captivity

  There followed a long, long time of misery. Sheer misery.

  Being in prison is horrible for anyone – or anything. Every creature alive hates it. But some prisons are worse than others.

  The Not-So-Big Hoo-Min probably thought he was treating the creatures in his collection quite well. But he wasn’t much of an expert, really. He liked catching things, and then keeping them to look at, but unfortunately he didn’t read much. So instead of studying in books how to look after his captive creatures, he just did what he thought was right.

  He wanted them to stay alive, so he put some earth into their jars (but not enough to tunnel in), and sometimes some leaves and twigs and things to make them feel more at home.

  He did give them water (which was just as well for Harry and George, as centipedes need to keep damp). But his idea about food was that all insects and other creepy things ate each other. So what he did was, he caught flies, or cockroaches (of which there were so many in his house he didn’t bother adding them to his collection) or else dug into ants’ or termites’ nests. Nearly every day he brought a whole mess of ants or termites and their eggs into his room on a shovel, and with the help of a large spoon, dumped them, along with bits of their nests, into the glass jars. Usually right on top of the prisoner underneath.

  This was fairly all right for Harry and George, though they got a bit tired of eating the same thing every day. But for the caterpillars, who ate leaves, and only the leaves they liked at that, it was starvation time, and all but one of them stopped. (The one that didn’t stop, stopped in another way: it turned into a pupa. George and Harry agreed that that caterpillar was lucky. Fast asleep and out of it.)

  The stopping of the caterpillars made all the other creatures – including those who would gladly have eaten the poor caterpillars, under ordinary circumstances – really angry with the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min.

  “It keeps us here in woe and fear, so feed us good is what it should!” signalled the lady dung beetle angrily. She wouldn’t eat the ants, or their eggs, or the flies either – what she liked was dung and all the tasty bits of seed that it contained, and she was having a pretty thin time.

  Harry, scoffing cockroaches and termites’ eggs, felt uneasy about her. To tell the truth, though he felt a little odd about it since he’d been brought up to think of her as food, he was getting to like her. It wasn’t very nice to think of waking up one night to find her on her back with her six legs in the air.

  He and George signalled endlessly about how to escape.

  They remembered the earth-pile that had helped them get Up the Up-Pipe. They piled the earth and remains of ants’ nests against the clear walls of their prisons, and tried to climb up it. But the lids were firmly in place and the holes in them were too small to creep through.

  “We’ll just have to stick it out,” Harry signalled to George. “At least we’ve got enough to eat.”

  “We’ll get out somehow!” said George staunchly.

  These signals, which some of the others picked up, had a cheering effect. Even the stick-insect sat up and grabbed a fly.

  The spiders, meanwhile, were all right (as long as the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min caught enough flies for them), except that they couldn’t fix their webs on to the slippery hard air, so they were bone idle and bored to death. But the tarantula – which was very big – simply wasn’t getting enough to eat.

  She would leap on everything that was dropped into her jar, becoming a blur of whirling stripy fur, and in a matter of moments, every fly, ant, termite, egg or cockroach had been seized and sucked dry or stuffed into her gaping jaws. Then she would fold her long hairy legs up under her and lie still until her snack was digested. Then she would rise slowly on to the tips of her legs and look around at them all through the hard-air and send this sinister signal:

  “I am still ravenous, and if I could get at you, I would gobble up every last one of you!”

  The scorpion would retort, “I’d like to see you try!” He would pinch his claws and bring his poison-tail up slowly and menacingly over his back as if he’d love to stick it into the tarantula’s body. Then they’d do a sort of threatening dance towards each other, while the others watched.

  It was extraordinary how well they could understand each other’s signals now. Harry began to feel it might be rather difficult for him, if he ever got out, to make a meal of certain creatures, ever again – dung beetles for instance. He was very glad that there were no crickets or locusts (his favourite food) in the collection, or he might have got to like them.

  Being a prisoner certainly made him think differently about all kinds of things.

  For one thing – his mother.

  He found himself thinking about her a lot. The comfortable, safe home she’d made for him. All the treats she’d brought him. And he thought about the not-so-good things too, how she fussed about danger, and her crossness when he fussed about his food (he hated termite eggs and wouldn’t touch them at home. Now he had to eat them and had realised they weren’t so bad after all).

  He thought about all her warnings, which had seemed so tiresome at the time. How many times had she told him never to go out to the no-top-world without her? But George did, so Harry did, whenever Belinda’s back was turned. And now look what had happened. She’d been right all along.

  He only wished he had the chance to tell her that. To say he was sorry. Because she must be so worried about him! Harry hated thinking about that because he knew it was his own fault he’d been caught.

  Now it was Too Late.

  But what Harry did most was, he watched all the other creatures in their clear prisons, where they had no way to hide themselves and no proper, natural life. And sometimes he despaired. Unless something happened, the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min would keep them all in prison until they stopped, and he would never see his mama or his home again.

  This was a terrible thought.

  5. Crash!

  And then quite suddenly everything changed.

  Since Harry was caught, only the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min had ever come into the room where the collection was. The Big Hoo-Min never did. But one day – and it was daytime, Harry and George were asleep, their heads dug into the earth to hide them from the light – another Hoo-Min did come in.

  It was the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min’s mother.

  The reason she didn’t come into this room much was because she was scared to death of all the creepy and poisonous creatures in her son’s collection. She hated them.

  But she was a very house-proud woman. She couldn’t go on for ever, not cleaning her son’s room, which was just as messy and dirty as most boys’ rooms are if they’re not cleaned.

  So in she came with her broom and bucket and mop and other cleaning stuff and stood looking around with a frown and muttering tut-tut-tut. She got to work right away, tidying and sweeping and mopping, keeping as far as possible from the long shelf where the jars were.

  But over this shelf was a window, and the window was filthy. She looked at the dirt on it (and the spiders’ webs – the free spiders, of course, not the prisoners) and decided she simply had to do something about it.

  So, sucking her stomach in and reaching with very long arms over the tops of the jars, she started washing the window.

  Now, what she didn’t know was that the window frame was rotten. This happens a lot in hot, damp countries (did I mention that Harry lived in the tropics?). Termites and woodworm can eat away at wood under the paint, or it can rot from the wet. And you don’t even notice it until one day it just falls to bits.

  So while the woman was busily washing the window, taking care not to touch the jars, there was a sudden crash and a cloud of dust.

  The woman jumped back. Part of the frame had fallen down on to the collec
tion shelf, knocking two jars off it. Of course the jars broke on the hard tiles of the floor.

  Now I know what you’re expecting. You think those jars just happened to be the ones that held Harry and George.

  Well, that’s just where you’re wrong.

  They were the ones that held the scorpion and the tarantula.

  You can’t imagine the effect this accident had on the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min’s mother. She let out a piercing shriek and jumped backwards. As she did so, she slipped on the wet tiles that she’d just washed, and sat down heavily on the floor.

  In doing this, she kicked the bucket over on its side. A tide of soapy water flooded across the floor, carrying the scorpion and the tarantula with it – right up against the legs of the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min’s mother!

  The tarantula did just what you would do, if you were being swept along by water and felt something solid beneath your feet. She at once clambered out of the flood. She scuttled towards the high ground, which happened to be the woman’s stomach.

  The woman screamed again and swiped the tarantula as hard as she could, making her briefly into a flying tarantula.

  Meanwhile the scorpion, which didn’t mind the water so much but was finding everything rather alarming, had scuttled out of sight underneath the woman’s apron. There he found a nice little pocket into which he crept. (Scorpions love the dark, and this scorpion hadn’t been able to hide properly since he was caught.)

  The woman scrambled hastily to her feet, her mouth agape, her eyes on the large hairy tarantula now scurrying across the floor. Little did she know, poor thing, that she had a very big yellow scorpion in the pocket of her dress. (Yellow scorpions, I ought to mention, are by far the most dangerous kind. Their stings can be fatal.)

  The woman, shaking with fright, picked up her mop and attacked the tarantula, which raced for the shelter of the bed and hid under it. Luckily for her (the tarantula I mean), that space was full of all kinds of boxes and toys and bits and pieces – a hundred good hiding places, and the tarantula soon vanished from sight.

  The woman prodded and banged about with her mop, shoving the things here and there, but, finding nothing, she leant against the wall. She felt quite faint. She was sweating, or maybe she was crying. Anyway she reached into her pocket for a handkerchief.

  Not a good move.

  The next second she snatched her hand out with another piercing shriek. The scorpion was clinging to it with his claws. His sting was stuck into her finger.

  And that was when the big prison-break happened.

  6. The Big Prison-Break

  The noise and commotion had, of course, alerted the prisoners that something was going on. They had all woken up and were trying to make sense of what they could see. But they didn’t have much time to consider it because the next moment everything started to happen.

  The woman was screaming and throwing herself all round the room. The scorpion let go and dropped to the ground, where her trampling feet (I’m sorry to have to tell you this) soon put an end to him.

  In her pain, she forgot about the shelf with the collection on it and banged into it. It rocked, swayed, and tilted, and all the jars fell – or rather, slid – to the ground. Most of them broke. Not all of them. But Harry’s did.

  The prisoners fled in all directions.

  Harry was in a terrible state. The fall, and the vibrations of the glass breaking, had scared him to death. Now he ran like mad away from the broken pieces of his hard-air prison.

  He followed one of the millipedes and, for all its extra legs, soon overtook it. He knew about doors from his other adventure among Hoo-Mins, and anyway, this door was open, so Harry dashed through it.

  He was hunting desperately for a tunnel – a crack – a hole – anything. Then he remembered. The Up-Pipe! From this end, it was a Down-Pipe. If only he could reach it! He’d be home in no time!

  He stopped running just for a moment to try to get his bearings. Behind him was terrible noise, vibrations, confusion. He looked round. He saw the lady dung beetle lumbering along, some way behind him, spiders scurrying up walls, the millipedes’ myriad legs rippling like mad… And then he realised.

  Where was George?

  Every instinct told him to go on running away, away from what had been his prison. Find the pipe. Zip down it. Home! Home was calling – pulling – dragging at him to keep going.

  But he stood still.

  The lady dung beetle, closely followed by the rhinoceros beetle, drew closer. They had not fled without looking – they couldn’t, they moved so slowly. As they drew level with him, Harry sent a signal.

  “Other one like me – where?”

  The rhinoceros beetle lumbered on, not even turning his head. But the lady dung beetle, whose signals he could read quite well now, said, “He’s not free like you and me!”

  Harry made up his mind. George had never left him in mortal danger. He could not leave George.

  He turned back.

  A millipede ran right over him and sent him a muddled signal: “Are you crazy? The other way!” But Harry ignored this and kept going, back into the room, back into danger.

  The woman, whom Harry now thought of as the Big-Noise Hoo-Min, was slumped on the floor now, clutching its feeler. Its noises were not as sharp as before, just a sort of whining sound like the wind down a tunnel. Harry sensed, with relief, that it could not attack him.

  He passed the squashed remains of the poor scorpion. Harry paused to pay his respects. Without the scorpion, none of them would be free. He had stopped like a hero. Like Harry’s own dad, who had stopped because he attacked a Hoo-Min to save Harry’s mother, while Harry was still in his egg.

  Harry found himself in the midst of big sharp pieces of hard-air and little piles of earth. He ran over and among them, hunting for George’s prison.

  And there it was! There it was! It was lying on its side. He could see George twisting and turning and butting with his head against the lid and the unbroken hard-air. His every signal said, “Help! Help! Get me out!”

  Harry came alongside him and put his front ten feet against the hard-air. George saw him and stopped twisting and turning.

  “What shall I do?” asked Harry frantically.

  “How do I know! Just don’t leave me!” answered George, who, if centipedes could cry, would have been crying.

  Harry didn’t know what to do. All the other prisoners had escaped. He and George were the only ones left. Harry wanted to run. He needed to. He felt home pulling almost as strongly as the thread that had trapped him. He felt Belinda calling him.

  But he wouldn’t leave George alone. He couldn’t.

  He curled up on a tile, under the curved side of the jar. George curled up practically on top of him. They put their pincers together through the glass and tried to signal comfort to each other.

  It was all they could do.

  7. Flying Through Space

  They lay there together for a long time.

  Things happened. The Big Hoo-Min came in and lifted the Big-Noise Hoo-Min up in his front legs and carried her away. The room was empty and quiet. Then after a long time the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min came in.

  Even the centis could see from the way he walked that he was not happy. He crouched down by the fallen shelf and picked up some pieces of hard-air.

  Suddenly he saw the one unbroken prison, the one with George in it – the one with Harry under its curve. He picked up the jar. Then he saw Harry, and fell over backwards.

  Harry uncurled himself and faced the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min. He knew that if that Hoo-Min put its feeler out to touch him, he would bite it rather than be taken prisoner again. But then he would be stamped on like the scorpion. He would be stopped. How would he rescue George then?

  He didn’t have long to think about it. Before he knew what was happening, something dark came slamming down over the top of him.

  He was trapped!

  I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to catch a bee that was buzzing against your window
, by putting a glass over the top of it, then sliding a card between the glass and the window. This was what the boy did, only instead of a glass jar (they were all broken) he used a box.

  Soon, something thin slid under Harry’s feet, and then the box with him in it was being lifted. The next thing was, he was sliding – falling! But not far. What he fell on was George.

  The boy had slid him off the card, into George’s jar.

  The lid was smacked back on. The two centis in the bottom of the hard-air prison looked out and saw the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min making a very loud noise out of a tunnel in its head. It sounded to them something like:

  YHRT MMTHR! HT Y! MGNG TPNSHY!

  Which, if you work it out, is Centipedish for: “You hurt my mother! I hate you! I’m going to punish you!” (Of course he didn’t talk Centipedish, that was just the way the centis heard it.)

  Now, you’ll say at once, “But it wasn’t the centis who stung his mother at all, it was the yellow scorpion!” The thing is, when something bad happens to someone you love, you don’t always get back at the right person (or creature). You just want to get back at someone.

  The Not-So-Big Hoo-Min carried the jar, now holding both George and Harry, out of doors. It shouted at them a bit more. They noticed that the front of its big, round head was all wet and shiny.

  (He was crying because his mother had been taken off to the local hospital and was very ill with the scorpion poison. In case you’re worried about her, don’t be. The doctors had the antidote and she didn’t die. But of course her son, the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min, couldn’t know that then. All he knew was that his father was furious with him for keeping the collection in the house at all. Well. I told you the wrong person sometimes gets blamed.)

  All right. So the Not-So-Big Hoo-Min stood in front of its house and held the jar in its feeler and threw it with all its strength, as far and as high as it could.

  Imagine the terror of the two centis as their hard-air prison went hurtling through the air! They’d sort of flown once before, when the Big Hoo-Min spat them out of its mouth (if you remember, from their first adventure) but this time they flew higher and farther than before, in fact they seemed to go on flying for ever, with the jar turning over and over and making them tumble and bump around inside.