Harry the Poisonous Centipede's Big Adventure: Another Story to Make You Squirm

by Lynne Reid Banks

  He rose up high on his last four segments. “You show or we attack!” he signalled fiercely.

  The tarantula gave a jump of fright. George got quickly in front of Harry.

  “Hx! You can’t break the rule!” he crackled. Harry sank back, trying to get hold of himself. Once a creature says “I’m not hunting,” he can’t go back on it without first giving clear warning that now he is hunting. It’s one of the first rules among hunters.

  George was not much good at other creatures’ signals. He said to Harry, “Tell her she ought to help us because we were caught together.”

  “That’s too hard, I can’t signal that!” said Harry. “Anyway, she wouldn’t, she’s horrible.”

  While they were arguing, the tarantula seized her chance, turned, and fled down the tree as fast as she could, zigzagging among the sticking-out bits.

  Seeing she had a good sporting lead, Harry signalled after her: “We’re hunting!” He wasn’t sure if she’d got it, but anyway now the peace was broken. The two centis shot down the tree after her.

  When they reached the ground they saw her making off at speed between the roots and rotting stuff on the ground, almost dancing along. She couldn’t run as fast as they could.

  They could catch her easily. But if she turned on them, one of them at least might be stopped. She was poisonous too.

  Should they follow her?

  They looked at each other. She was heading the way they’d been heading! Maybe she would lead them home!

  As one centi, they ran after her. But not too fast. Just fast enough to keep her in sight.

  18. An Old Friend

  It should have been easy to keep the tarantula in sight. She was so large, so stripy – so easy to spot. But somehow they lost her.

  It was all the rough dead stuff on the ground – a million good hiding places. Tarantulas are very good at hiding – they have to be because their enemies can see them so easily. One minute she was there, running ahead of them. The next, she’d disappeared.

  They hunted around for her, poking about under bits of bark and stones – any place a large spider might hide. But they had to give up in the end.

  “Well, anyway, we’re much closer to home than we were,” said George.

  “Only if she was running the right way,” said Harry. “Be like her to run a different way, just to fool us. She’s a mean horrible creature!” he added, hoping the tarantula would get the signal somehow. (She didn’t, and if she had, she wouldn’t have cared. She’d run up a tree and was looking down at them, and if tarantulas could laugh, she’d have been laughing.)

  There was nothing for it but to keep going in the same direction. They’d been on the move all night, and now it was nearly time for them to sleep. But first they needed to eat. They hadn’t eaten for two nights!

  They could smell dampness nearby. They headed towards it. It turned out to be a boggy place in the forest. It smelt very strong when they got up close to it.

  “Phew!” said George. “It stinks worse than those sea cucumber eggs!”

  “Never mind,” said Harry sensibly. “We don’t have to swim in it.” The great-dropping-damp had dampened them beautifully so they didn’t even have to roll in it. And beside it they found two lovely fat slugs, big orange-coloured ones, which were very soon in their tummies. One each.

  They were just going to dig themselves a day-nest when they heard a sort of trundling sound.

  “I know that noise!” said Harry.

  “I know that vibration!” said George.

  They watched and waited. After a short time, a figure came in sight. It was familiar – as familiar as the tarantula – but much less alarming.

  It was the lady dung beetle! She walked on her back legs and pushed in front of her a large ball of dung, bigger than herself. She looked very happy.

  Harry ran up to her. She saw him coming, and cowered behind her ball. She knew, poor thing, that there was no escape if this monster-centi was hungry and wanted to eat her. (She didn’t recognise him yet.)

  But Harry was quick to put her at her ease.

  “I’m not hunting!” he signalled cheerily. And then, as she cautiously peeped out from behind her big dung-ball, he added, “It’s me! Remember?”

  “Good to see you! I needn’t flee you!” she signalled in Beetle (which, if you recall, always rhymes).

  He didn’t understand Beetle well enough to get the rhyme but he got the message.

  “Nice dung-ball!” he signalled politely, waving his feelers at it approvingly.

  “Yes, indeed! It’s what I need,” she replied. “Bigger than most, and warm as toast.” (That’s the best I can do. Of course beetles don’t know about toast, but what she actually said referred to dung and I really would rather not translate it.)

  “Good, you got away from the Hoo-Mins all right,” Harry signalled. He did this by signalling “good” and “escape” and “you” and “Hoo-Min”. She got it at once.

  “Hoo-Mins bad. Made me sad. Good we fled or we’d be –” She stopped on the awful word.

  George gave Harry a nudge.

  “Ask her how far she’s come.”

  Harry at once understood George’s idea.

  “You come far?” he signalled.

  The lady dung beetle waved a feeler over her back. “Gathered my ball, that is all,” she said, patting untidy bits of dung with her front legs so that the ball was nice and round.

  Harry felt himself growing excited. He planned his signal carefully before making it.

  “You – show – us – Hoo-Min nest?”

  The lady dung beetle reared back. “Go back there? I wouldn’t dare! Forward, me. Safe, you see.” And she rose on her back legs again and started to heave the ball forward.

  “Please! Wait!” Harry flung himself in her path. “Me – us – home – back there! Under – Hoo-Min nest! Lost! Please! Help!”

  If centipedes could fall down and beg, Harry would have done it. The lady dung beetle stopped. She was leaning against the ball, obviously longing to start trundling it away. There was a long signal-less-ness (which we’d call a silence).

  “I can’t go, that I know,” she signalled at last. “But ball makes track. Take you back.” And she gave a mighty push and started her ball rolling forward again.

  The centis didn’t stop her. They watched her until she disappeared.

  George was thoughtful. “I sort of hope,” he said, “that that big ugly dung beetle I stopped wasn’t a friend of hers.” Then he forgot her.

  They concentrated on the ground. Yes! There was a track! A long, faint, flattened mark in the soft earth near the bog. And now they knew that the nasty tarantula had been leading them astray. The track led off at right angles to the way she’d been going.

  “Follow the dung-ball track!” they crackled together.

  19. The Dung-Ball Track

  The track wasn’t easy to follow.

  On soft earth it was quite clear. But the dung beetle had pushed it over dry leaves and all the natural litter (not the sort dirty Hoo-Mins drop) that lay rotting on the ground. Sometimes she’d pushed it over flat stones. But usually there were traces of dung left behind which they could smell.

  (Dung, as I’m sure you realise, is quite noisome, which oddly enough doesn’t mean noisy, it means smelly. Nasty-smelly at that.)

  Nevertheless, sometimes they lost it. Then they had to quest to and fro, feelers feeling, till one of them found it again.

  They had their heads so close to the ground, following the beetle’s dung trail, that they didn’t realise they were also following the bog. They came to a little rise in the ground and the bog stayed below. Suddenly Harry raised his head and tested the air with his feelers.

  “Grndd! Smell that!”

  “I am smelling it.”

  “Not the dung, the bog smell! It’s gone!”

  “Well, what do you expect? We’ve left it behind.”

  “No, but now it’s gone, don’t you notice something?” />
  “Oh, what?” said George crossly.

  “You know what I think?”

  “I wish you’d tell me!”

  “That wet stuff. I think that’s where the Hoo-Min’s water comes out. You know, when the water-post came down the Up-Pipe and nearly washed us away – I think it comes out here, because before, I could smell Hoo-Min. I was so busy with the dung smell, I didn’t notice it till it stopped!”

  George was listening hard now.

  “If that’s true,” he said, “we should be very close to the Hoo-Min nest.”

  With hope in their hearts, they ran on, up the slope. As they came to the top of a little sandy hill, they stopped. If centipedes could whoop with joy, they would have whooped! – because just ahead of them was the Hoo-Min nest. It jutted out of the ground, and looked to them like a huge termites’ nest with straight sides and a flat top with a little tree-thing on it with white-choke (as they called smoke) coming out of it.

  And they knew that underneath the Hoo-Min nest, down the Up-Pipe (which we would call a shower-drain) was – home.

  First, they did a little circle-dance around each other for sheer joy and relief. Then they twisted their feelers together, which meant: “We made it and we did it together!”

  Then they raced onward and downward. They knew their home-tunnels would come into smell any minute! Soon, soon, they would be safe, they would be with Belinda, eating good food and sleeping again under their damp, comfortable leaves!

  But it was not to be.

  As they drew level with the Hoo-Min nest, their way was suddenly – shockingly – barred.

  Something came down in front of them. A straight-up-hard-thing. They pulled up sharply. They turned. They tried to flee. But there was a straight-up-hard-thing there, too!

  In front of them, behind them – and, yes! – on either side – their escape was blocked.

  “Hx! What’s happening?” crackled George in a panic.

  “I don’t know! Let’s climb out!”

  But when they tried, they found the top was blocked. Wherever they tried to climb the straight-up-hard-thing, they were pushed back and they fell.

  It was horrible. They hurt themselves. After a while they stopped trying to climb out. They went into a corner of the closed-in-place and tried to hide.

  Their journey had been made much more tiring and difficult by all the dead leaves, branches, palm fronds, and other dry litter that they’d had to climb over. But all those things would have made good hiding places if they’d needed one. Only they didn’t, because nothing was trying to get them. Not then.

  Now they were on open, smooth ground. There was nowhere to hide. And they knew – they just knew – that they were in a trap.

  They tried to dig a tunnel but before they could get started, the sandy soil under them was scooped up (by a spade, as it happened, but the centis didn’t know that). Then they were turned head over back feelers. The centis found themselves covered with earth. When they dug themselves out and felt around, their hearts simply sank.

  They were back in prison.

  20. Wanted-for Squashing

  It wasn’t hard-air this time. It was worse.

  There was no light – not that they minded the dark, but they couldn’t see out and they couldn’t signal. The sides of their prison were solid. They were in a cardboard box, but they didn’t know that. They just knew they were caught. Again! Just when they’d nearly got home!

  The box prison jounced and jolted as they were carried along, under the arm of a Hoo-Min. Not that they knew they were under his arm, but they guessed a Hoo-Min had caught them because they could smell the strong, sharp, frightening smell of one. Besides, what other creature was strong, big and cunning enough to slam the trap down on top of them, cutting off their escape in every direction?

  They huddled together. This time they were both close to despair. Neither could comfort the other. It was awful.

  The trap stopped moving as it was laid on the ground.

  The centis rushed around inside it, looking for a way out. They reached upward, standing on their last four pairs of legs. They smelt, they felt, they feelered. There was no escape. None at all.

  They heard those funny loud sounds – Hoo-Min voices. No way could they hope to understand Hoo-Min noise-signals, but the vibrations from them were so scary that they crouched down close together.

  “What are they signalling?”

  Harry didn’t bother to answer. How could they possibly know what the Hoo-Mins were saying?

  But you can know, because I’ll tell you.

  “Well, I’ve found what I was looking for,” said the Hoo-Min that had trapped them. “A pair of them, half-grown, very fine specimens. I was lucky to catch them both at once, they don’t usually run in pairs.”

  “Well, don’t bring them indoors, that’s all. My wife will have a fit if she sees them, after her accident with the scorpion. And don’t tell my son, either.”

  “Why, is he scared of poisonous centipedes?”

  “No. Not at all. I wish he were! Then perhaps he wouldn’t be so keen on collecting them. What do you want them for, anyway?”

  “Oh, it’s just an experiment. I’ve read that centipedes let off a terrible smell when you squash them, and I want to see if it’s true.”

  “Interesting! What are you going to do, step on them?”

  “No, I thought I’d hit them with a mallet. On a table or something, so I can put my face over them and get the full effect of the smell, close-to.”

  “Not in my house, I hope!”

  “No, no. I’ll take them back to my place. First thing tomorrow morning.”

  Aren’t you glad Harry and George couldn’t understand that? They were frightened enough already.

  The Hoo-Mins went into the house and closed the door. The box was left on the porch. On the floor.

  It was the middle of the night, the centis’ most active time. They couldn’t keep still. They ran around for hours inside the box, trying in vain to escape. This made a noise that could be heard for quite a long way – a rustling sound, telling the world there was something alive in that box.

  And that noise attracted a hungry hairy-biter.

  Hairy-biter was the centipedes’ word for anything large and hairy that prowled about looking for prey. Dogs. Cats. Rats. Monkeys. And the creature that heard them rustling and now came moseying along to investigate.

  It was a big, shambling, dirty, greedy old honey badger.

  Oh, I know, badgers are supposed to be lovely animals. But let me tell you that if one of them tore or dug his way into your chicken-run and gobbled up all your baby chicks, you wouldn’t be very pleased. (It happened to me, so I know.)

  And if you were a frightened centi, trapped in a box, you wouldn’t think badgers were so lovely if you heard one slowly shuffling its way towards you with its snout snuffling and its great claw-studded front paw reaching out to see if it could break the box or knock the lid off and get to you.

  21. Who Goes There?

  There was a pause, which seemed like a lifetime to the two centis huddled in the box.

  Then the box moved! The top of it lifted, and the big ugly snout of the hairy-biter was stuck up under it. The lid fell off and the centis could feel the cool night air blow in on them.

  They cowered. They could smell the creature now as well as feel its vibrations. Its great head was hanging over the top of the box. It was an enormous hairy monster! They backed in terror into the farthest corner.

  “This is it, Grndd. This is the end of us,” crackled Harry despairingly.

  “Looks like it,” said George. “Thanks for being my friend, Hx.”

  The hairy-biter rose up on its hind legs and put its heavy front paws on the top edge of the box. The whole box fell on its side.

  They could escape now! They could run straight out of the box.

  “Run, Grndd!” crackled Harry.

  But neither of them moved. They were afraid to. The hairy-biter was th
ere. One move and it would grab them. It was looking at them with its little piggy eyes, as if trying to decide which of them to eat first.

  What it was actually doing was thinking, “Those things taste bad. Am I hungry enough to eat them?”

  But suddenly something happened that changed everything.

  Badgers don’t have much of a voice; normally they just grunt. But now it squealed and reared up. Something had bitten it, right where it hurt! And the creature that had bitten it had to move fast to avoid being bitten in turn, as the badger’s teeth snapped right behind it.

  Luckily that creature – the thing that had bitten the badger’s bottom – was something that could move very fast indeed.

  What runs fast? Well, who doesn’t know that by now! What else but a centipede?

  But why should a passing centipede risk biting a dirty great badger’s hairy bottom?

  Well you see, it wasn’t just any centipede.

  It was a centipede who had heard rumours that two centis were trapped in a straight-side-thing outside the Hoo-Min’s nest. A special centipede who for days had been searching and hunting and asking and doing everything she could to find Harry and George. A brave mother centipede who had never given up hope.

  Belinda.

  And as she crept up to the box in the night to see if the trapped centis could be her centis, she saw the badger topple the box. She smelt her own dear son Harry and her own dear adopted son George. It was them! She’d found them at last! But almost too late!

  Without a thought for her own safety, she dashed to the rescue. She swarmed up the badger’s long black furry tail, and pushed her way among its thick bristly hairs.