Harry the Poisonous Centipede's Big Adventure

by Lynne Reid Banks

  The two centis were shocked by the word “dead”. To them it was the D-word.

  “So what else do you eat?” asked Harry.

  “We eat anything that’s dead,” she said casually. “Even side-runners, once the screaming-swoopers have cracked them open.”

  “Why do you need – er – screaming-swoopers? Can’t you bite through their carapaces?”

  “Carapaces? I’m talking shells. No centipedes, however big they are” – she gave them a sniffy look, as if being big made them somehow less centipede – “could bite through a shell. Of course, you can crawl in through their mouths,” she said thoughtfully, “but we don’t really care to do that.”

  The two centis shuddered. Harry suddenly remembered the caterpillars that would only eat leaves, the lady dung beetle who wouldn’t eat at all.

  Would he rather starve than eat blobby, jellified, salty sea cucumber eggs or stinking, putrid, long-stopped lugworms?

  11. The hunt

  Veronica led them back to the others.

  Harry and George didn’t feel terribly safe, out on the no-top-world with only a pile of seaweed on top of them. And the little sea centipedes were so many. Harry and George had never actually seen so many centipedes all in one place. Their kind of centipedes were rather solitary creatures – they didn’t live in groups. But it seemed this kind did.

  The sea centipedes had funny manners, too. They saw nothing wrong or strange about running all over Harry and George, examining them with their feelers, back and front, in the rudest way, and making remarks.

  “Aren’t they gross! And what an ugly colour they are!”

  “Yeah, funny smelling, too.”

  “Look at their long clumsy legs! Do you think they can run as fast as we can?”

  “No-o-o, course not! Too heavy. And look – why do they need these big front claw-things?”

  “They’re for biting our prey,” said George rather stiffly.

  “And for digging,” added Harry.

  “What do you dig for? Lugworms?”

  “We dig tunnels. To live in.”

  “You make tunnels – big enough for you?”

  “Of course. And we’re not full grown. You should see my mother,” said Harry proudly. “She’s as big as me and then as big as me again.”

  “That’s a not-so,” said a very small, cheeky sea centi.

  “I don’t tell not-sos,” said Harry loftily. “It’s true. A full-grown centipede of our sort is as big as an eyes-on-stalks – er – a side-runner. Spread out.”

  The little sea centipedes were obviously puzzled.

  “What kind of centipedes are you?”

  “Poisonous ones.”

  “Poisonous? What’s that?” asked a lot of voices.

  “What’s poisonous?” said George. “It’s – it’s—” But he couldn’t think how to explain.

  “It’s how we stop things for food,” said Harry. “We bite them and paralyse them with our poison-pincers.” He opened and closed his a few times to demonstrate.

  There was a stunned silence among the marine centipedes.

  At last, Danny, the leader of the group who had rescued George and Harry, multi-stepped forward.

  “Show us,” he ordered.

  “Fine. What shall we bite?”

  “We’ll have to go out. It’s all right – the side-runner’s gone.”

  They trooped out from under the wrack. As they went, their party was joined by many more centipedes that came running. Soon there were swarms of them, running around George and Harry like schools of little fish around two big sharks. The two centis could hear them crackling faintly to each other.

  “Did you hear? They say they kill things!”

  “They’re going to show us how!”

  George put his head close to Harry’s.

  “We’ll show ’em what’s what!” he crackled quietly. “Mouldy lugworms, indeed!”

  Danny led them away from the no-end-puddle. They had to cross the dry sand. The sea centipedes were so light on their tiny feet they didn’t even disturb the fine grains of sand, but Harry and George were slipping and sinking up to what we would call their knees. Luckily they soon found themselves under some palm trees where the sandy soil was quite firm.

  Danny stopped and so did all the others. When everyone was still, they could all feel the vibrations from some creature nearby.

  “What is it?” Harry signalled to Danny.

  “It’s a roll-a-lump! – Look! There he is!”

  Harry’s heart sank as he saw what it was. A dung beetle! – pushing its ball of dung along at a great rate, using its back legs.

  “Oh, no!” Harry thought. How could he sink his poison-pincers into something that had become a friend? But then he realised. Of course, this wasn’t the lady dung beetle that had shared his imprisonment and learnt to read his signals.

  This was a great big ugly male, fairly bullying his dung-ball along in front of him. He was signalling furiously in Beetle: “Out of my way, small creatures all – or I’ll squash the lot of you under my ball!” He really was asking for it.

  George didn’t hesitate. He not only wanted to show off – he was hungry. He went into a crouch, and then with a strong war-crackle he charged forward. Harry followed, but he wasn’t needed.

  George sank his poison-claws straight through the beetle’s shining black carapace and the next moment, it lay on its back, paralysed. The dung-ball rolled a little way and then stopped.

  The smaller centipedes were stunned for a moment. Then they rushed forward with centipedish crackles and signals of excitement.

  “He killed it! He killed that huge roll-a-lump with one bite!”

  They swarmed all over the prostrate dung beetle, and all over George too, not to congratulate him but because he was in their way.

  “Let’s eat it!” the younger ones crackled greedily.

  “Hey, hold on!” said George. “We don’t eat out in the open, it’s dangerous. Anyway,” he mentioned, “I – er – stopped it, so I think I should eat it.”

  This positively scandalised the marine centipedes.

  “What! You mean, it’s not for all of us?” asked several of the females reproachfully.

  George felt abashed. “Well, of course you can have some too,” he said. “Only, as I killed it—”

  “Grndd! You crackled the K-word!” muttered Harry.

  12. The Battle

  Hardly were the words out of George’s mouth about sharing his prize, than it disappeared under a wave of small, hungry centipedes. In a trice, everything except the thinnest of its legs had been eaten.

  Harry and George stood by, amazed and indignant, especially George.

  “What’s the matter with these centipedes?” he exclaimed. “Talk about bad manners! Your mama would have a centi-fit if she could see what they’re doing to my dung beetle!”

  Harry waded in and grabbed two discarded legs, which he carried back to George. “We might as well have a snack, anyway,” he said.

  But George was outraged.

  “Not me! I’m not touching their rotten leftovers!”

  “Well, let’s go and hunt something for ourselves,” said Harry sensibly. There wasn’t much meat on the spindly legs and he dropped them and set off at once, with George just behind him.

  But suddenly Danny was in his path.

  “Hold on!” he said in his bossy way. “Where do you two think you’re going?”

  “We’re going hunting,” said George shortly.

  “Fine. We’ll follow you.”

  “Oh, yeah? What for? You’re not much help as you won’t k-kill anything.” He was too angry to hold back the swearword.

  “The roll-a-lump really wasn’t enough, for all of us. We’ll share the next thing you kill.”

  Harry and George were flabbergasted.

  “Oh, I see!” said Harry. “So you lot are just going to run around after us, eating our prey! Is that the idea?”

  “What’s wrong with that?
We always eat what others kill.”

  “Forget it,” said Harry. “Thanks for saving us from the eyes-on-stalks but from now on, I’m going to eat alone.”

  “That goes for me, too!” said George, and the two centis set off at a run.

  Danny had to scuttle aside. But he was signalling like mad to his followers, who, leaving the shattered remains of the dung beetle, marshalled before him like soldiers. At Danny’s signal, they surged forward.

  It was amazing how quickly that brigade of centipedes could move!

  George looked back and saw them coming – a lot of them. Like the no-end-puddle racing to engulf them.

  “Faster, Hx! They’re after us!”

  George and Harry put on speed and fairly shot along the ground. But it was no use. The tiny centipedes split into two parties, encircled the fleeing centis with a pincer movement (the natural tactic for centipedes of course, a pincer movement) and before our heroes could dodge or find a hiding place, they were surrounded.

  “Keep going, Grndd, they can’t stop us!” signalled Harry.

  But that’s just where he was wrong.

  The little sea centipede army could stop them, and did. How they did it was simple – they overwhelmed them with numbers. They piled up in front and behind, they swarmed over them, they nipped them with their tiny, non-poisonous pincers. In a very short time, George and Harry, bitten all over and weighted down with small bodies, had to give up the struggle – though I have to tell you that by the time they did, a number of their distant cousins had been stopped by poisonous bites given, reluctantly, in the heat of battle.

  Danny stood before them, triumphant but furious.

  “You killed some of us!” he crackled ominously. “That settles it. You’re staying with us. You’ll hunt for us and make sure none of us goes hungry. And don’t think of trying to escape. We may be small, but we have powerful friends.”

  “Like who, for instance?” panted George defiantly from underneath ten or fifteen small centipedes.

  “Never you mind. Let’s just say, not all side-runners and screaming-swoopers are our enemies.”

  “That’s the biggest not-so I’ve ever heard!” crackled Harry.

  “Are you prepared to take a chance on it?” asked Danny nastily. “All right, everyone. Back to the wrack with them!”

  13. Sink or Swim

  Harry and George were chivvied and hustled back down the beach. George tried to make a break for it – just once. A mass of centipedes rushed on top of him and nipped his rear-end until he came back into line.

  They were heading back for their home-wrack when suddenly Danny halted them.

  “Look out! Screaming-swoopers ahead!”

  The sounds of seagulls filled the air. A number of the big birds were standing in the wrack, stabbing it with their beaks. What were they eating? Sea cucumber eggs, or –?

  “Quick! That wrack over there!” signalled Danny.

  The tide of marine centis made a dash for a dark patch of seaweed almost at the edge of the no-end-puddle. They had to run a long way to reach it and the screaming-swoopers had a field day, screaming, swooping, and pecking. About a quarter of the marine centipedes were snapped up. But clearly the screaming-swoopers didn’t feel like tackling George and Harry, who, with every screaming pass by the attackers, rose up threateningly to defend themselves.

  As soon as they were under the wrack, they spread out to make a smaller target for the gulls. But Danny (who had survived) ordered them to guard the prisoners.

  The little sea centipedes started running around them like mad, forming a sort of living fence so that they couldn’t run away.

  “This is worse than the hard air,” said Harry. “At least it didn’t bite you, and we had enough to eat. I’m starving!”

  “Me too. I might even be able to eat those disgusting sea cucumber eggs!”

  Veronica, who’d been put in charge of them, heard this. “So you’ve given up your fussy eating habits, have you?” she asked. “Come along then, I’ve just seen a lovely rotting swimmer you can have.”

  She herded them ahead of her till they came to a stinking dead fish.

  “It’s no use,” crackled Harry very softly. “I can’t face it.”

  “I can,” said George, and proceeded to tear into the putrid flesh, eating as much as ten marine centipedes could have, and in half the time.

  “You are a very greedy centi,” scolded Veronica when she saw how much he’d eaten.

  “That’s a good one, coming from a sea centipede!” muttered George, wiping his mouth-parts with his front legs. “Ugh, that is filthy muck! What I wouldn’t give for a good locust! Hx, we have got to get out of here!”

  “Don’t worry, we will,” said Harry, with a confidence he didn’t really feel. “Next-night. I’m too tired to think about it now.” He turned to Veronica. “Where are our leaves?”

  “Your whats?”

  “Our leaves, to sleep under.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We just sleep wherever we are.”

  “How uncentipede,” muttered George. “Really, these creatures are so worm,” he added privately to Harry, using the Centipedish expression for the lowest form of life. “I’m ashamed to be related to them.”

  Danny came hurrying through the tangle of wrack. “You’d better sleep here for today,” he said. “You can leave them, Vrptkk. We’ll guard them from the land side – they can’t escape into the Big Lap. Then next-night we’ll take them out hunting. They’re going to be really useful! We’ll all have some new tastes.” He didn’t seem at all upset at having lost so many of his followers to the screaming-swoopers.

  Danny and Veronica hurried away, and a number of centi-guards took their place. They made a double semicircle around them on the land side. On the sea side, the waves were lapping the seaweed, moving and lifting it, then letting it sink back on the sand. It was as if the water breathed, like something alive wanting to eat them.

  They briefly considered trying to run away, but they knew the guards only had to signal, and help would arrive in endless numbers.

  “We can’t escape now, not with the no-end-puddle against us,” muttered George to Harry. But Harry surprised him.

  “I don’t see why not,” he said. “We could just make a dash for it.”

  “A dash for it? Where?”

  Harry stiffened himself. “Straight into the no-end-puddle.”

  14. A Short Chapter with a

  Surprise at the End

  Now you may remember that in the first story, Harry taught himself to swim, and managed to rescue George from a flood. Once you can swim, you never forget it.

  Without giving himself time to get scared, Harry rushed forward, straight into the oncoming waves.

  He was at once out of his depth. But he refused to panic. His little legs threshed, sending him forward. It’s much easier to stay afloat in the sea than in fresh water. He soon swam clear of the seaweed.

  He didn’t exactly forget about George. He just forgot George couldn’t swim.

  Poisonous centipedes are not natural swimmers. And George was terrified of water because of having once nearly drowned. When he saw Harry’s back feelers disappearing into the lapping wave, he felt completely abandoned.

  “Hx! Hx! Don’t (glug, blub) leave me!” he spluttered as the salty water pushed him backwards. But Harry had gone.

  Did George dare follow him?

  George backed up until he was belly-deep in rotting fish bones. Behind him his escape was blocked. The centi-guards started nipping at his back segment. They had already sent runners to announce that Harry had escaped. Soon many more sea centipedes would arrive and move George to a place far away from where he’d last seen Harry.

  They might never find each other again!

  There was only one thing for George to do, and he did it. He didn’t let himself think about it. With great bravery, he threw himself forward into the no-end-puddle.

  The next second he was in the
sea! He was drowning!

  But no! He felt his body shoot to the top of the water. He blew the horrible salty stuff out of his breathing holes. Just then, he heard Harry’s crackle: “Wriggle your legs, Grndd! Swim! Go for it, it’s not far to the edge!”

  George wriggled his legs like mad. His one aim was to keep his back out of the water. His head went under a couple of times but that didn’t matter. He was moving forward! He was swimming!

  And at last he felt himself seized and dragged. Harry, already on shore, had seen him coming and had plunged back in to help him. In a very short time, both centis were sprawled on the sand just above the water line, their breathing holes popping with tiny bubbles as they breathed. George was amazed at how far they’d swum. The wrack was a long way off.

  “We made it, Grndd! We can swim as well as any marine centipede!”

  And then they looked at each other.

  “Why didn’t they swim after us?” they asked each other.

  Harry had always thought of marine centipedes as wonderful fearless swimmers, but he was wrong. This kind couldn’t swim at all. If Harry and George had but known, their cousins were, at that moment, running around in a complete panic. There’s very little tide in tropical waters but there is some, and the sea centipedes always hid under wrack that was high above the water line. Now they were scurrying about frantically under the seaweed, which was beginning to float away. I’m afraid not all of them managed to escape. A number of them were carried away by the waves.

  Of course, it was rather worm of them to treat Harry and George so badly. I’m not saying they deserved to drown (most of them, including Danny and Veronica, were all right) but don’t you think it’s rather interesting that it was the two non-marine centipedes who were able to save themselves by swimming, while the marine centipedes couldn’t?

  15. The Long March Begins

  The two centis dragged themselves up the beach. If an eyes-on-stalks, a screaming-swooper, or anything else, had attacked them at that moment, they couldn’t have put up much of a fight, or even run away very fast. But luck was with them – nothing did.