Harry the Poisonous Centipede

by Lynne Reid Banks

  “Mama! Wow! Thanks! Can I eat it now?”

  “Of course you can, best-in-my-nest!” she said proudly.

  He ate the locust greedily, head first, although the head was the best bit and he usually saved it till last. By the time he’d crunched the last leg, he realised he wasn’t feeling very happy.

  You can guess why, of course. He felt bad because he’d lied to his mother. But he didn’t see how he could have told her he’d been so stupid and nearly got drowned.

  Still. It wasn’t as if she’d absolutely forbidden him to play near the water. She’d only forbidden him to go Up the Up-Pipe, to the Place of the Hoo-Mins. And he hadn’t done that.

  He wasn’t going to do it, either. Not him. No, never. He didn’t want to mess with those awful Hoo-Mins.

  And he probably wouldn’t have done, if it hadn’t been for Grnddjl.

  Don’t even try it. Let’s call him George.

  7. About George

  George was Harry’s best friend. They’d been best friends almost from the time they’d come out of their mothers’ baskets.

  George didn’t live with his mother. He’d run off and left her, as most centis do, as soon as he could run, and he called Harry a sissyfeelers for wanting to stick with his mother.

  George lived and hunted alone, and because he was still very young and couldn’t always catch anything, he often felt hungry.

  Then he saw the sense of having a mother.

  He would come creeping along to Belinda’s nest-tunnel and lie there, waving his front feelers feebly, looking really pathetic, until she would say, “Oh, all right then, George, you’d better come and have a bite of lizard with us. But stop teasing Harry for still living with his mama!”

  Belinda worried a lot about Harry being such good friends with George. Harry got himself into enough scrapes without George leading him into all sorts of adventures.

  “You don’t have to do everything Grnddjl does, you know,” she would often tell Harry. “He’s a very foolish and naughty centi.”

  “Don’t worry, Mama. I can think for myself,” Harry would say.

  But it’s very difficult, when your friend wants to do something that sounds exciting, to be a “dry sandbed” (which is like a wet blanket with us) and say you don’t want to join in because your mama wouldn’t like it.

  So when one day George suggested that it was time they climbed out on to the no-top-world to do a bit of real hunting, Harry only hung back a little. He was really very keen himself to go out and see the surface world outside.

  “Only we’ll have to watch out for flying-swoopers, and belly-wrigglers, and furry-biters and especially Hoo-Mins,” he said.

  George looked taken aback, but only for a moment.

  “Oh, I know all about those things,” he said in a pooh-poohing way. “They’re so big I don’t know how you can help smelling them coming, or feeling the vibrations. And we won’t go far from a hole. Well, come on then! Are you a scaredyant, or what?”

  8. The Thing

  Harry said no more and followed him along a tunnel that led to the no-top-world.

  It was night. The two young centis poked their feelers out, side by side, and felt around, and sniffed the outside air. It smelt wildly exciting. They couldn’t see much with their weak little eye-clusters, but their feelers told them there were lots of interesting things about.

  “I smell food!” whispered George.

  “Me too! What is it?” Harry whispered back.

  George crawled a little further out of the hole, and waved his feelers some more.

  “It’s something lovely and meaty, anyway! Let’s follow its smell and find out what it is!”

  They crawled swiftly out and ran across the ground. It was great to be outdoors! Harry wondered why his mother had never brought him before. He could feel the fresh air along his segments, and knew by instinct that he mustn’t stay out long – that air could make him Dry Out. Meanwhile, this was the best fun he’d ever had!

  George stopped so suddenly that Harry ran over the top of him.

  “Smell that!” George crackled quietly.

  The most wonderful, warm, juicy, meaty smell came to Harry’s feelers. It was very close!

  “What is it? A mouse?”

  “No. I don’t know what it is. It’s over there! Let’s go and get it!”

  “It might be too big…”

  “It’s not. Can’t you feel the vibrations from its feet? Its not much bigger than us! Come on, let’s go for it! Get your poisonpincers ready!”

  George started to run, and Harry, who was still on his back, fell off. He righted himself and ran after George. He didn’t want to be left behind!

  They turned a corner beside a large stone. And suddenly, they saw it!

  In fact they practically ran right into it.

  It was the fearsomest-looking creature they had ever seen. It was a thing called a molecricket: like an enormous furry cockroach armed with a pair of huge front paws like a bear’s.

  George reared up in terror, and his top half did a swift U-turn in the air. “Let’s get out of here!” he crackled shrilly, and turned to flee.

  As George spun round, The Thing turned as well, and came lumbering after him.

  George was well on his way, but Harry wasn’t. He was so frightened he just stood there, and The Thing came running towards him, looking like a charging rhinoceros would to us.

  At the last second, Harry tried to dodge out of its path, but The Thing turned its great ugly head, and its terrible clawpaws made a swipe at Harry.

  Harry instinctively whisked his tail and gave The Thing a clout. That made it jump, just long enough for Harry to stick his head under it and get in a good poisonous bite on its belly.

  It went stiff. Its clawpaws drooped to the ground. In another second, its thick jointed legs had collapsed under it, and it fell with a thud.

  Right on top of Harry!

  9. George to the Rescue

  Harry’s legs collapsed too. All forty-two of them.

  His head and his first four segments were pinned under the paralysed molecricket. He was stunned. He lay still for a minute and then began wriggling and writhing. He tried to pull backwards. He tried to lift his head and shift the weight off him.

  He couldn’t. The Thing was too heavy.

  He tried to call George. He couldn’t. But he did the next best thing.

  He lifted his back five segments clear off the ground and waved a desperate signal with his tail feelers.

  George, who was practically back at the hole, had felt the vibration as The Thing fell. Now he looked back. He caught the signal Harry was sending with his tail feelers.

  He hesitated.

  The signal Harry was sending said, “Help! Help! Help!” But the signal George was getting was more like, “Danger! Danger! Danger!”

  He wanted to keep on running, back down the hole, to safety.

  But Harry was his best friend. He couldn’t just leave him to the monster.

  He turned and raced back as fast as he could. Which was very fast.

  As soon as he saw what had happened, he crackled loudly: “Hang on, Hx! I’m here! I’ll soon have you out!”

  Then he caught hold of one of the molecricket’s legs in his mouth, and pulled. He twisted and turned and jerked his head. The molecricket was a dead weight. It was much heavier than anything George had ever tried to drag before.

  But at last it started to shift.

  As soon as Harry felt it begin to move, he made a strong effort himself, and soon got his head and front segments free.

  “Thanks, Grndd! Phew! If you hadn’t come back, I’d have just stayed there till I starved, or something got me!”

  10. The Feast

  George rubbed his round, hard head segment against Harry’s. “You were braver than me! You bit it! It’s ours now. What shall we do?”

  “Drag it home and eat it for dinner!”

  “Yes!”

  They started to drag and pull i
t with all their might.

  Between them they got it back to the hole and then went behind it and tipped it down. It started to slide down the tunnel. They ran after it and pushed and shoved some more.

  It slid right to the bottom. After that, they crawled over it and dragged it along to Belinda’s nest-tunnel.

  They arrived at last. They were tired out. Belinda was there. She didn’t say anything at first, just raised herself up and felt the molecricket all over with her front feelers.

  Then she dropped down on to all forty-two legs again. She turned right round in a tight circle several times, which is what she always did when she just didn’t know what to say or do.

  “Oh, you bad, brave, naughty, wonderful centis!” she said at last. “You’ve been up to the no-top-world, haven’t you? What am I to do with you?”

  “Could you just help us take The Thing’s fur off so we can all eat it for dinner?” asked Harry in a small, but proud, crackle.

  His mother wrapped her first seven pairs of legs round him and gave him a terrific hug.

  The she hugged George too.

  They had a feast. Belinda had never tasted molecricket before. She knew what they were, all right, and told the centis that they burrowed under the ground – making useful tunnels – and ate roots, mainly, but that they were so frightening-looking that she had never dared try to attack one.

  She said, though, that the two centis had been very foolish to go to the no-top-world without her and that they weren’t to do it again until they were grown up. “Now, promise me.”

  Harry was just going to promise, when George said, “Hey! What was that vibration? Was it a toad, or just a grasshopper?”

  Belinda rushed up to the nearest tunnel to see what it was, and forgot to make them promise.

  If centipedes could wink, George would have winked at Harry.

  11. George Wants a Thrill

  After their adventure with the molecricket, George wanted to do something even more exciting.

  Ordinary mischief was no good any more. He wanted another big thrill.

  Even if he had promised Harry’s mother not to go back to the surface, I’m afraid he might not have kept it. But anyway, he hadn’t. So he started to make regular trips.

  Harry didn’t go with him.

  “What’s the matter, sissyfeelers, scaredyant, why won’t you come?” taunted George, who didn’t like having adventures by himself.

  “I don’t want to worry Mama,” muttered Harry uncomfortably.

  George gave a great crackle and waved his front feelers crazily in all directions. (That is a centi’s way of laughing mockingly.)

  “Mama’s centi! Mama’s centi!” he teased.

  “Anyway, it’s silly,” said Harry, when he could make himself heard. “We don’t want to get hurt or killed.”

  “Last night I was chased by a hairy biter,” boasted George. “It jumped down out of a tree and chased me. But I felt it hit the ground and I ran straight between its legs and up the tree and into a crack where it couldn’t get me! I wasn’t scared! Big clumsy thing, I heard it coming a mile off!”

  Harry wasn’t sure whether to believe him. George was a big show-off.

  “Maybe you’re braver than me,” he said. “But I’ve got more sense than you, anyway!”

  And he turned and ran down a tunnel.

  After a bit, George came after him.

  “All right. All right. If you don’t want to go up to the no-top-world, think of something exciting to do down here.”

  Harry didn’t say anything. Something more than just exciting had popped into his head at once.

  He moved his front feelers about in a thoughtful way. George guessed that he had something interesting in his mind.

  “What? WHAT?” he crackled, waving his legs in ripples of excitement along his sides.

  “The Up-Pipe. But we mustn’t.”

  “What’s the Up-Pipe?”

  “It’s a kind of tunnel. But we can’t go up it.”

  “Mama said not to, I suppose!” jeered George.

  “Yes, she did. Because it leads to the Place of Hoo-Mins.”

  George stopped making ripples. “Hoo-Mins? What’s that?”

  “I thought you said you knew about Hoo-Mins.”

  George looked uncomfortable.

  “I thought they were just another kind of hairy biter,” he said. “Go on then.

  Tell me what they are.”

  Harry told him, as well as he could. He’d never seen one himself.

  “Well, you know we sometimes hear very big vibrations. And you know how Mama never, ever goes up to see what they are. That’s them. They’re giant twolegses. As big as trees. Each one of their feet is as big as a whole hairy biter. And they’re fast. They try to Get you by smashing you with their shadows.” (Harry had got in a bit of a muddle.)

  “Can you eat them?”

  “Eat them? Oh, sure, of course! A nice little snack!” George looked blank. “Well, could you drag a tree home, stupid?”

  They both started laughing. They laughed till they rolled on their backs. Then suddenly George jerked himself right side up and said, “I want to see one.”

  “They only come out in the bright-time,” Harry said.

  “We could stay awake and go up in the bright-time.”

  “Up the Up-Pipe?” asked Harry in a shocked crackle.

  “Are they only up the Up-Pipe?”

  “No. Mama told me one chased her on the no-top-world.”

  “So, we could just peep at them through a hole,” said George. “But show me the Up-Pipe first.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, go on! It can’t hurt to look! I dare you to show it to me.”

  Harry couldn’t resist a dare. So he said, “All right then. But remember. It’s not the Up-Pipe that’s dangerous. It’s the Hoo-Mins who live at the top.”

  12. Looking at the Up-Pipe

  Harry led George along the forbidden tunnel to the pool. As before, there was a faint light in the earth-cave. The two centis stood under the light and stared up.

  “The Up-Pipe!” breathed George. He was impressed.

  “Mama says the sides are slippery and hard to grip,” said Harry.

  “I bet we could climb it!” said George.

  “How could we reach it?”

  “Easy. We could pile up some earth. Then if you stood on the pile with most of your segments upright, I could climb up you and get hold with my front four or six feet. When I’d got a good grip, you could climb up the rest of my segments. I’d leave them hanging down for you.”

  “What would you hold on to?”

  “See that rough place near the beginning of the pipe? I’d hold that. We could do it. I know we could. Oh, come on, Hx, let’s!”

  Harry shook his round little head.

  “And what when we got to the top? What if a Hoo-Min saw us?”

  “We’d turn right round and go back down! If they’re as big as you said, they couldn’t possibly follow us!”

  And George at once started scuffling about with his front eight pairs of legs and his head, pushing loose earth into a pile like a platform, under the Up-Pipe.

  Suddenly, far above their heads, they heard something.

  It was a thumping. A noise of something heavy, coming down bump, right over where they were!

  They both went tense. Harry said, “It’s a Hoo-Min! Let’s go!”

  George said, “Wait!”

  They crouched there on the earth-pile. The thumping went on. It wasn’t regular. There was a thump.

  A pause. Another thump.

  Nothing else happened. At first.

  “It’s walking! When it stops, we’ll go up!” crackled George.

  And he would have too. Only suddenly there was another noise.

  It was a swish. A pattering like rain on the surface. And then—!

  A great gurgle!

  A WHOOSH!

  And before they could think what to do, something came plummeting d
own towards them!

  13. Harry Learns to Swim

  What came down the Up-Pipe now was like a post that Harry had once seen, being driven down into the earth. Only this post wasn’t made of wood.

  It was made of water.

  When it hit them it nearly knocked them out. They were washed off the mound of earth. The mound of earth was swept away. The water began to carry them along in a gurgling, bubbling torrent.

  Harry recovered first. He managed to grab George with his poisonpincers as he was swept past. Of course he didn’t inject his poison. He just used the pincers to hold on to his friend.

  They clung together. The water-post was still coming down, but they weren’t under it any more.

  The water was all around them like a living thing, but for Harry, this wasn’t new. He’d been through it before. He knew what to do.

  “Swim!” he crackled. “Ripple your legs! Make for the earth!”

  The water was rushing, pulling, carrying them. George just thrashed around uselessly. But Harry swam! He actually swam, just as if he’d been a true marine centi! When he had to, he found he could. If he hadn’t, George would have drowned.

  He managed to signal to George to keep upright so his breathing holes didn’t get swamped. He even managed to hold George up till he got the idea. He dragged him along, fighting the strong current.

  And by swimming his hardest, Harry made it to the edge of the water.

  They dragged themselves on to the black, muddy shore. They lay there, exhausted.

  George couldn’t make even a faint crackle. He just lay there.

  Harry got up slowly and shook the water off his cuticle. He rubbed the water out of his eyes with his pincers. He pushed George.

  “Come on! Get up! You’re all right.”

  George lifted his head. Centipedes can’t cry, but if they could, George would have been crying.

  “No, I’m not. I’m not,” he said, and dropped his head again. His feelers stretched miserably along the ground. “I think I’m dead.”