Harry the Poisonous Centipede’s Big Adventure

His father had been killed by a Hoo-Min. So you can understand it. Even if Hoo-Mins had not been the biggest, fastest, weirdest, scariest things around.

“Walking about on two legs like that,” crackled Harry to himself. “It’s not natural. They’re not like anything else. They’re not like hairy-biters or belly-crawlers or flying-swoopers. They don’t belong.”

He had the vague idea that maybe they’d come from some other world. Not that he had any idea about planets and things like that. With his little weak eye-clusters he’d never even seen the stars. He just felt certain that Hoo-Mins were not part of the proper order of things.

They were just too much.

After a while, when Belinda didn’t come back, Harry gave a centipedish sigh (which he did by making a ripple go all along his back where his breathing-holes were) and got to his forty-two feet. He wandered up the nearest tunnel and when he got to the end, poked his head idly out into the night air of the no-top-world.

If he hadn’t been feeling rather dopey and full of food, he might have sensed something wrong and ducked back down again. But he didn’t. The darkness was sweet-smelling and the noises were all the ones he was used to – the faint sighing of palm fronds rubbing together, the rustle of little night-creatures skittering about. Not even a night-bird’s cry alerted him to danger.

He crawled forward until half of him was outside the hole.

Suddenly the most awful thing happened.

Something tightened around his middle!

He almost jumped into the air with fright. He instinctively turned and tried to run back down the tunnel. But he couldn’t. Something was holding him. Something was dragging him! SOMETHING WAS LIFTING HIM INTO THE AIR! He threshed all his legs frantically. He twisted his head and closed his poison-pincers again and again, trying to bite.

But there was nothing to bite. Only air.

The thing that had caught him was a loop of strong thread. It had been laid around the mouth of his exit tunnel. When he came out, the thread had been pulled sharply. The loop had tightened around him, between his tenth and his eleventh segments. Now he was dangling in midair on the end of the thread.

He was so frightened he didn’t even try to see what had caught him. He felt himself twirling, first in one direction, then back again in the other. High above the ground. If centipedes could be sick, Harry would have thrown up.

Then he felt himself moving through the air. He was being carried on the end of the thread, but he didn’t know that. All he knew was that never, since he had nearly drowned, had he felt so helpless and doomed.

“I’ve been picked up by a flying-swooper!” he thought despairingly. “I’m done for! Oh, Mama!”

But there was no Belinda to come to his rescue.

2. The Hard-Air Prison (#ulink_08ae445e-5c99-5f52-9fe7-e528876be374)

Harry was carried, dangling and twisting, for some distance. Then there was a change.

Harry was used to the dark. He lived underground, and he was a night-creature, so he liked darkness.

And, except for that one time when he had been in a Hoo-Min’s home, he had never been indoors. But that one time had made such an impression that when the sudden brightness came, and the smells all changed, and the natural night-noises stopped, Harry knew immediately that he was once again in a Place of Hoo-Mins.

The most frightening place in the world.

He heard terrible, loud, un-understandable noises. They were Hoo-Mins’ voices, but he didn’t know that. He just knew he’d never heard anything like them. They were so loud they hurt his ear-holes.

Of course he couldn’t know what they were saying. But you can know, because I’ll tell you.

A little boy’s voice said, “Look, Dad! I got another one!”

And a man’s voice said, “Good for you, son! I told you you’d catch one with the thread if you were patient.”

“Is there a spare jar?”

“Yes. Your mother washed out a big pickle-jar. Put him in here.”

And Harry felt himself going down. Down and down. But when his forty-two feet touched something, it wasn’t lovely friendly soft earth. It was something hard and cold.

The loop was still round his middle. It was tight. It hurt him and scared him. But then there was a snapping sound and he felt the pull of the loop go slack. It was still there, around him, but at least it wasn’t pulling any more.

The thread had been cut.

He tried to flee. He thought he could escape because he couldn’t see anything in his way. But as he ran forward, he banged his head.

He turned and ran the other way. After a very few steps, he banged his head again!

He turned sideways and ran. He found he was running in a circle. Every time he tried to turn out of it, he bumped into something – something he couldn’t see.

He stopped, and touched the barrier with his feelers. It was weird. He could feel it but he couldn’t see it. It was under him and all around him. It was like hard air.

He tried to climb it but it was too slippery. His little claw-feet couldn’t get a grip on it. He slid back.

“He can’t get out of there,” said the man. “But put the lid on just in case. I’ve punched a hole in it so he can breathe.”

The little boy said happily, “I’ve got two centipedes in my collection now!”

A shadow fell on Harry, down in the bottom of the hard-air place. It was the lid going on, but he didn’t know that. He crouched down till his tummy touched the cold stuff.

Harry had never heard a Hoo-Min talk before. But he began to guess that was what was happening. He could see them now, two of them, a big one – huge, enormous, vast, gigantic, the biggest live thing he’d ever seen – and a not-so-big one which was still huge, enormous, vast and gigantic to Harry. He was terrified. If he could have understood their speech he would have been even more terrified than he was.

A great big horrible face appeared on the other side of the hard-air wall. Harry turned his back so as not to see it.

The big man said, “Now you take care he doesn’t get out. And don’t dream of touching him. They’re very dangerous. He’s a nice big one, though, isn’t he? Not as big as the one that bit me, though! That was twice his size.”

The man didn’t realise he was talking about Harry’s mother!

“I hate the things!” the man went on with a shudder. “Take him to your room, quick, before I tip him on the floor and squash him to a pulp!”

“I think he’s great,” said the boy. “Almost as good as my yellow scorpion.”

“You know what your mother thinks about all those creepy-crawlies in the house. Just don’t let him out of the jar.”

“Of course I won’t,” said the boy scornfully.

Then Harry saw a big pinky-brown THING wrap itself around the hard-air place. He looked down, and his weak little eyes could see the ground (it was a table, actually) sinking far away below him as the boy picked up the jar. It was awful, because Harry felt as if there were nothing underneath him to stop him falling.

He knew – he knew for certain – he was going to get his wish for a major adventure. And he wished with all his little centipedish heart that he was safely back in his home-tunnel.

3. The Collection (#ulink_72112cfa-0476-534d-a45c-8aa7fd365544)

Harry in his pickle-jar was carried along for a short way and then he felt a jolt and saw that there was something solid underneath the floor of the hard-air place. He lost his head and started trying to escape again, running round and round inside the jar. It was useless, of course.