[Part 2] "James and The Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl

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CHAPTER XV.

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Outside in the garden, at that very moment, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker had just taken their places at the front gate, each with a bunch of tickets in her hand, and the first stream of early morning sightseers was visible in the distance climbing up the hill to view the peach.

"We shall make a fortune today," Aunt Spiker was saying.

"Just look at all those people!"

"I wonder what became of that horrid little boy of ours last night," Aunt Sponge said.

"He never did come back in, did he?"

"He probably fell down in the dark and broke his leg," Aunt Spiker said.

"Or his neck, maybe," Aunt Sponge said hopefully.

"Just wait till I get my hands on him," Aunt Spiker said, waving her cane.

"He'll never want to stay out all night again by the time I've finished with him.

Good gracious me!

What's that awful noise?"

Both women swung around to look.

The noise, of course, had been caused by the giant peach crashing through the fence that surrounded it, and now, gathering speed every second, it came rolling across the garden toward the place where Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker were standing.

They gaped.

They screamed.

They started to run.

They panicked.

They both got in each other's way.

They began pushing and jostling, and each one of them was thinking only about saving herself.

Aunt Sponge, the fat one, tripped over a box that she'd brought along to keep the money in, and fell flat on her face.

Aunt Spiker immediately tripped over Aunt Sponge and came down on top of her.

They both lay on the ground, fighting and clawing and yelling and struggling frantically to get up again, but before they could do this, the mighty peach was upon them.

There was a crunch.

And then there was silence.

The peach rolled on.

And behind it, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker lay ironed out upon the grass as flat and thin and lifeless as a couple of paper dolls cut out of a picture book.

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CHAPTER XVI.

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And now the peach had broken out of the garden and was over the edge of the hill, rolling and bouncing down the steep slope at a terrific pace.

Faster and faster and faster it went, and the crowds of people who were climbing up the hill suddenly caught sight of this terrible monster plunging down upon them and they screamed and scattered to right and left as it went hurtling by.

At the bottom of the hill it charged across the road, knocking over a telegraph pole and flattening two parked automobiles as it went by.

Then it rushed madly across about twenty fields, breaking down all the fences and hedges in its path.

It went right through the middle of a herd of fine Jersey cows, and then through a flock of sheep, and then through a paddock full of horses, and then through a yard full of pigs, and soon the whole countryside was a seething mass of panic-stricken animals stampeding in all directions.

The peach was still going at a tremendous speed with no sign of slowing down, and about a mile farther on it came to a village.

Down the main street of the village it rolled, with people leaping frantically out of its path right and left, and at the end of the street it went crashing right through the wall of an enormous building and out the other side, leaving two gaping round holes in the brickwork.

This building happened to be a famous factory where they made chocolate, and almost at once a great river of warm melted chocolate came pouring out of the holes in the factory wall.

A minute later, this brown sticky mess was flowing through every street in the village, oozing under the doors of houses and into people's shops and gardens.

Children were wading in it up to their knees, and some were even trying to swim in it, and all of them were sucking it into their mouths in great greedy gulps and shrieking with joy.

But the peach rushed on across the countryside -- on and on and on, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Cowsheds, stables, pigsties, barns, bungalows, hayricks, anything that got in its way went toppling over like a nine-pin.

An old man sitting quietly beside a stream had his fishing rod whisked out of his hands as it went dashing by, and a woman called Daisy Entwistle was standing so close to it as it passed that she had the skin taken off the tip of her long nose.

Would it ever stop?

Why should it?

A round object will always keep on rolling as long as it is on a downhill slope, and in this case the land sloped downhill all the way until it reached the ocean -- the same ocean that James had begged his aunts to be allowed to visit the day before.

Well, perhaps he was going to visit it now.

The peach was rushing closer and closer to it every second, and closer also to the towering white cliffs that came first.

These cliffs are the most famous in the whole of England, and they are hundreds of feet high.

Below them, the sea is deep and cold and hungry.

Many ships have been swallowed up and lost forever on this part of the coast, and all the men who were in them as well.

The peach was now only a hundred yards away from the cliff -- now fifty -- now twenty -- now ten -- now five -- and when it reached the edge of the cliff it seemed to leap up into the sky and hang there suspended for a few seconds, still turning over and over in the air. . .

Then it began to fall. . .

Down. . .

SMACK!

It hit the water with a colossal splash and sank like a stone.

But a few seconds later, up it came again, and this time, up it stayed, floating serenely upon the surface of the water.

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CHAPTER XVII.

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At this moment, the scene inside the peach itself was one of indescribable chaos.

James Henry Trotter was lying bruised and battered on the floor of the room amongst a tangled mass of Centipede and Earthworm and Spider and Ladybug and Glow-worm and Old-Green-Grasshopper.

In the whole history of the world, no travelers had ever had a more terrible journey than these unfortunate creatures.

It had started out well, with much laughing and shouting, and for the first few seconds, as the peach had begun to roll slowly forward, nobody had minded being tumbled about a little bit.

And when it went BUMP!, and the Centipede had shouted, "That was Aunt Sponge!" and then BUMP! again, and ''''That was Aunt Spiker!" there had been a tremendous burst of cheering all around.

But as soon as the peach rolled out of the garden and began to go down the steep hill, rushing and plunging and bounding madly downward, then the whole thing became a nightmare.

James found himself being flung up against the ceiling, then back onto the floor, then sideways against the wall, then up onto the ceiling again, and up and down and back and forth and round and round, and at the same time all the other creatures were flying through the air in every direction, and so were the chairs and the sofa, not to mention the forty-two boots belonging to the Centipede.

Everything and all of them were being rattled around like peas inside an enormous rattle that was being rattled by a mad giant who refused to stop.

To make it worse, something went wrong with the Glow-worm's lighting system, and the room was in pitchy darkness.

There were screams and yells and curses and cries of pain, and everything kept going round and round, and once James made a frantic grab at some thick bars sticking out from the wall only to find that they were a couple of the Centipede's legs.

"Let go, you idiot!" shouted the Centipede, kicking himself free, and James was promptly flung across the room into the Old-Green-Grasshopper's horny lap.

Twice he got tangled up in Miss Spider's legs (a horrid business), and toward the end, the poor Earthworm, who was cracking himself like a whip every time he flew through the air from one side of the room to the other, coiled himself around James's body in a panic and refused to unwind.

Oh, it was a frantic and terrible trip!

But it was all over now, and the room was suddenly very still and quiet.

Everybody was beginning slowly and painfully to disentangle himself from everybody else.

"Let's have some light!" shouted the Centipede.

"Yes!" they cried.

"Light!

Give us some light!"

"I'm trying," answered the poor Glow-worm.

"I'm doing my best.

Please be patient."

They all waited in silence.

Then a faint greenish light began to glimmer out of the Glow-worm's tail, and this gradually became stronger and stronger until it was anyway enough to see by.

"Some great journey!" the Centipede said, limping across the room.

"I shall never be the same again," murmured the Earthworm.

"Nor I," the Ladybug said.

"It's taken years off my life."

"But my dear friends!" cried the Old-Green-Grasshopper, trying to be cheerful, "we are there !"

"Where?" they asked.

"Where?

Where is there?"

"I don't know," the Old-Green-Grasshopper said.

"But I'll bet it's somewhere good."

"We are probably at the bottom of a coal mine," the Earthworm said gloomily.

"We certainly went down and down and down very suddenly at the last moment.

I felt it in my stomach.

I still feel it."

"Perhaps we are in the middle of a beautiful country full of songs and music," the Old-Green-Grasshopper said.

"Or near the seashore," said James eagerly, "with lots of other children down on the sand for me to play with!"

"Pardon me," murmured the Ladybug, turning a trifle pale, "but am I wrong in thinking that we seem to be bobbing up and down?"

"Bobbing up and down!" they cried.

"What on earth do you mean?"

"You're still giddy from the journey," the Old-Green-Grasshopper told her.

"You'll get over it in a minute.

Is everybody ready to go upstairs now and take a look around?"

"Yes, yes!" they chorused.

"Come on!

Let's go!"

"I refuse to show myself out of doors in my bare feet," the Centipede said.

"I have to get my boots on again first."

"For heaven's sake, let's not go through all that nonsense again," the Earthworm said.

"Let's all lend the Centipede a hand and get it over with," the Ladybug said.

"Come on."

So they did, all except Miss Spider, who set about weaving a long rope-ladder that would reach from the floor up to a hole in the ceiling.

The Old-Green-Grasshopper had wisely said that they must not risk going out of the side entrance when they didn't know where they were, but must first of all go up onto the top of the peach and have a look around.

So half an hour later, when the rope-ladder had been finished and hung, and the forty-second boot had been laced neatly onto the Centipede's forty-second foot, they were all ready to go out.

Amidst mounting excitement and shouts of "Here we go, boys!

The Promised Land!

I can't wait to see it!" the whole company climbed up the ladder one by one and disappeared into a dark soggy tunnel in the ceiling that went steeply, almost vertically upward.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

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A minute later, they were out in the open, standing on the very top of the peach, near the stem, blinking their eyes in the strong sunlight and peering nervously around.

"What happened?"

"Where are we?"

"But this is impossible !"

"Unbelievable!"

"Terrible!"

"I told you we were bobbing up and down," the Ladybug said.

"We're in the middle of the sea!" cried James.

And indeed they were.

A strong current and a high wind had carried the peach so quickly away from the shore that already the land was out of sight.

All around them lay the vast black ocean, deep and hungry.

Little waves were bibbling against the sides of the peach.

"But how did it happen?" they cried.

"Where are the fields?

Where are the woods?

Where is England?"

Nobody, not even James, could understand how in the world a thing like this could have come about.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the Old-Green-Grasshopper said, trying very hard to keep the fear and disappointment out of his voice, "I am afraid that we find ourselves in a rather awkward situation."

"Awkward!" cried the Earthworm.

"My dear Old Grasshopper, we are finished!

Every one of us is about to perish!

I may be blind, you know, but that much I can see quite clearly!"

"Off with my boots!" shouted the Centipede.

"I cannot swim with my boots on!"

"I can't swim at all!" cried the Ladybug.

"Nor can I," wailed the Glow-worm.

"Nor I!" said Miss Spider.

"None of us three girls can swim a single stroke."

"But you won't have to swim," said James calmly.

"We are floating beautifully.

And sooner or later a ship is bound to come along and pick us up."

They all stared at him in amazement.

"Are you quite sure that we are not sinking?" the Ladybug asked.

"Of course I'm sure," answered James.

"Go and look for yourselves."

They all ran over to the side of the peach and peered down at the water below.

"The boy is quite right," the Old-Green-Grasshopper said, "We are floating beautifully.

Now we must all sit down and keep perfectly calm.

Everything will be all right in the end."

"What absolute nonsense!" cried the Earthworm.

"Nothing is ever all right in the end, and well you know it!"

"Poor Earthworm," the Ladybug said, whispering in James's ear.

"He loves to make everything into a disaster.

He hates to be happy.

He is only happy when he is gloomy.

Now isn't that odd?

But then, I suppose just being an Earthworm is enough to make a person pretty gloomy, don't you agree?"

"If this peach is not going to sink," the Earthworm was saying, "and if we are not going to be drowned, then every one of us is going to starve to death instead.

Do you realize that we haven't had a thing to eat since yesterday morning?"

"By golly, he's right!" cried the Centipede.

"For once, Earthworm is right!"

"Of course I'm right," the Earthworm said.

"And we're not likely to find anything around here either.

We shall get thinner and thinner and thirstier and thirstier, and we shall all die a slow and grisly death from starvation.

I am dying already.

I am slowly shriveling up for want of food.

Personally, I would rather drown."

"But good heavens, you must be blind !" said James.

"You know very well I'm blind," snapped the Earthworm.

"There's no need to rub it in."

"I didn't mean that," said James quickly.

"I'm sorry.

But can't you see that --"

"See?" shouted the poor Earthworm.

"How can I see if I am blind?"

James took a deep, slow breath.

"Can't you realize," he said patiently, "that we have enough food here to last us for weeks and weeks?"

"Where?" they said.

"Where?"

"Why, the peach, of course!

Our whole ship is made of food!"

"Jumping Jehoshophat!" they cried.

"We never thought of that!"

"My dear James," said the Old-Green-Grasshopper, laying a front leg affectionately on James's shoulder, "I don't know what we'd do without you.

You are so clever.

Ladies and gentlemen -- we are saved again!"

"We are most certainly not!" said the Earthworm.

"You must be crazy!

You can't eat the ship!

It's the only thing that is keeping us up!"

"We shall starve if we don't!" said the Centipede.

"And we shall drown if we do!" cried the Earthworm.

"Oh dear, oh dear," said the Old-Green-Grasshopper.

"Now we're worse off than before!"

"Couldn't we just eat a little bit of it?" asked Miss Spider.

"I am so dreadfully hungry."

"You can eat all you want," James answered.

"It would take us weeks and weeks to make any sort of a dent in this enormous peach.

Surely you can see that?"

"Good heavens, he's right again!" cried the Old-Green-Grasshopper, clapping his hands.

"It would take weeks and weeks!

Of course it would!

But let's not go making a lot of holes all over the deck.

I think we'd better simply scoop it out of that tunnel over there -- the one that we've just come up by."

"An excellent idea," said the Ladybug.

"What are you looking so worried about, Earthworm?" the Centipede asked.

"What's the problem?"

"The problem is. . ." the Earthworm said, "the problem is. . . well, the problem is that there is no problem!"

Everyone burst out laughing.

"Cheer up, Earthworm! they said.

"Come and eat!"

And they all went over to the tunnel entrance and began scooping out great chunks of juicy, golden-colored peach flesh.

"Oh, marvelous!" said the Centipede, stuffing it into his mouth.

" Dee -licious!" said the Old-Green-Grasshopper.

"Just fabulous!" said the Glow-worm.

"Oh my!" said the Ladybug primly.

"What a heavenly taste!"

She looked up at James, and she smiled, and James smiled back at her.

They sat down on the deck together, both of them chewing away happily.

"You know, James," the Ladybug said, "up until this moment, I have never in my life tasted anything except those tiny little green flies that live on rosebushes.

They have a perfectly delightful flavor.

But this peach is even better."

"Isn't it glorious!" Miss Spider said, coming over to join them.

"Personally, I had always thought that a big, juicy, caught-in-the-web bluebottle was the finest dinner in the world -- until I tasted this."

"What a flavor!" the Centipede cried.

"It's terrific!

There's nothing like it!

There never has been!

And I should know because I personally have tasted all the finest foods in the world!"

Whereupon, the Centipede, with his mouth full of peach and with juice running down all over his chin, suddenly burst into song:

"I've eaten many strange and scrumptious dishes in my time, Like jellied gnats and dandyprats and earwigs cooked in slime, And mice with rice - - they're really nice When roasted in their prime. (But don't forget to sprinkle them with just a pinch of grime.)

"I've eaten fresh mudburgers by the greatest cooks there are, And scrambled dregs and stinkbugs' eggs and hornets stewed in tar, And pails of snails and lizards' tails, And beetles by the jar. (A beetle is improved by just a splash of vinegar.)

"I often eat boiled slobbages.

They're grand when served beside Minced doodlebugs and curried slugs.

And have you ever tried Mosquitoes' toes and wampfish roes Most delicately fried? (The only trouble is they disagree with my inside.)

"I'm mad for crispy wasp-stings on a piece of buttered toast, And pickled spines of porcupines.

And then a gorgeous roast Of dragon's flesh, well hung, not fresh - - It costs a buck at most, (And comes to you in barrels if you order it by post.)

"I crave the tasty tentacles of octopi for tea I like hot-dogs, I LOVE hot-frogs, and surely you'll agree A plate of soil with engine oil's A super recipe. (I hardly need to mention that it's practically free.)

"For dinner on my birthday shall I tell you what I chose: Hot noodles made from poodles on a slice of garden hose - - And a rather smelly jelly Made of armadillo's toes.

(The jelly is delicious, but you have to hold your nose.)

"Now comes," the Centipede declared, "the burden of my speech: These foods are rare beyond compare - - some are right out of reach; But there's no doubt I'd go without A million plates of each For one small mite, One tiny bite Of this FANTASTIC PEACH! "

Everybody was feeling happy now.

The sun was shining brightly out of a soft blue sky and the day was calm.

The giant peach, with the sunlight glinting on its side, was like a massive golden ball sailing upon a silver sea.

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CHAPTER XIX.

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"Look!" cried the Centipede just as they were finishing their meal.

"Look at that funny thin black thing gliding through the water over there!"

They all swung around to look.

"There are two of them," said Miss Spider.

"There are lots of them!" said the Ladybug.

"What are they?" asked the Earthworm, getting worried.

"They must be some kind of fish," said the Old-Green-Grasshopper.

"Perhaps they have come along to say hello."

"They are sharks!" cried the Earthworm.

"I'll bet you anything you like that they are sharks and they have come along to eat us up!"

"What absolute rot!" the Centipede said, but his voice seemed suddenly to have become a little shaky, and he wasn't laughing.

"I am positive they are sharks!" said the Earthworm.

"I just know they are sharks!"

And so, in actual fact, did everybody else, but they were too frightened to admit it.

There was a short silence.

They all peered down anxiously at the sharks who were cruising slowly round and round the peach.

"Just assuming that they are sharks," the Centipede said, "there still can't possibly be any danger if we stay up here."

But even as he spoke, one of those thin black fins suddenly changed direction and came cutting swiftly through the water right up to the side of the peach itself.

The shark paused and stared up at the company with small evil eyes.

"Go away!" they shouted.

"Go away, you filthy beast!"

Slowly, almost lazily, the shark opened his mouth (which was big enough to have swallowed a perambulator) and made a lunge at the peach.

They all watched, aghast.

And now, as though at a signal from the leader, all the other sharks came swimming in toward the peach, and they clustered around it and began to attack it furiously.

There must have been twenty or thirty of them at least, all pushing and fighting and lashing their tails and churning the water into a froth.

Panic and pandemonium broke out immediately on top of the peach.

"Oh, we are finished now!" cried Miss Spider, wringing her feet.

"They will eat up the whole peach and then there'll be nothing left for us to stand on and they'll start on us!"

"She is right!" shouted the Ladybug.

"We are lost forever!"

"Oh, I don't want to be eaten!" wailed the Earthworm.

"But they will take me first of all because I am so fat and juicy and I have no bones!"

"Is there nothing we can do?" asked the Ladybug, appealing to James.

"Surely you can think of a way out of this."

Suddenly they were all looking at James.

"Think!" begged Miss Spider.

"Think, James, think!"

"Come on," said the Centipede.

"Come on, James.

There must be something we can do."

Their eyes waited upon him, tense, anxious, pathetically hopeful.

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CHAPTER XX.

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"There is something that I believe we might try," James Henry Trotter said slowly.

"I'm not saying it'll work. . ."

"Tell us!" cried the Earthworm.

"Tell us quick!"

"We'll try anything you say!" said the Centipede.

"But hurry, hurry, hurry!"

"Be quiet and let the boy speak!" said the Ladybug.

"Go on, James."

They all moved a little closer to him.

There was a longish pause.

"Go on !" they cried frantically.

"Go on!"

And all the time while they were waiting they could hear the sharks threshing around in the water below them.

It was enough to make anyone frantic.

"Come on, James," the Ladybug said, coaxing him.

"I. . . I. . . I'm afraid it's no good after all," James murmured, shaking his head.

"I'm terribly sorry.

I forgot.

We don't have any string.

We'd need hundreds of yards of string to make this work."

"What sort of string?" asked the Old-Green-Grasshopper sharply.

"Any sort, just so long as it's strong."

"But my dear boy, that's exactly what we do have!

We've got all you want!"

"How? Where?"

"The Silkworm!" cried the Old-Green-Grasshopper.

"Didn't you ever notice the Silkworm?

He's still downstairs!

He never moves!

He just lies there sleeping all day long, but we can easily wake him up and make him spin!"

"And what about me, may I ask?" said Miss Spider.

"I can spin just as well as any Silkworm.

What's more, I can spin patterns."

"Can you make enough between you?" asked James.

"As much as you want."

"And quickly?"

"Of course! Of course!"

"And would it be strong?"

"The strongest there is!

It's as thick as your finger!

But why?

What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to lift this peach clear out of the water!" James announced firmly.

"You're mad!" cried the Earthworm.

"It's our only chance."

"The boy's crazy!"

"He's joking!"

"Go on, James," the Ladybug said gently.

"How are you going to do it?"

"Skyhooks, I suppose," jeered the Centipede.

"Seagulls," James answered calmly.

"The place is full of them.

Look up there!"

They all looked up and saw a great mass of seagulls wheeling round and round in the sky.

"I'm going to take a long silk string," James went on, "and I'm going to loop one end of it around a seagull's neck.

And then I'm going to tie the other end to the stem of the peach."

He pointed to the peach stem, which was standing up like a short thick mast in the middle of the deck.

"Then I'm going to get another seagull and do the same thing again, then another and another --"

"Ridiculous!" they shouted.

"Absurd!"

"Poppycock!"

"Balderdash!"

"Madness!"

And the Old-Green-Grasshopper said, "How can a few seagulls lift an enormous thing like this up into the air, and all of us as well?

It would take hundreds. . . thousands. . ."

"There is no shortage of seagulls," James answered.

"Look for yourself.

We'll probably need four hundred, five hundred, six hundred. . . maybe even a thousand. . . I don't know. . . I shall simply go on hooking them up to the stem until we have enough to lift us.

They'll be bound to lift us in the end.

It's like balloons.

You give someone enough balloons to hold, I mean really enough, then up he goes.

And a seagull has far more lifting power than a balloon.

If only we have the time to do it.

If only we are not sunk first by those awful sharks. . ."

"You're absolutely off your head!" said the Earthworm.

"How on earth do you propose to get a loop of string around a seagull's neck?

I suppose you're going to fly up there yourself and catch it!"

"The boy's dotty!" said the Centipede.

"Let him finish," said the Ladybug.

"Go on, James.

How would you do it?"

"With bait."

"Bait! What sort of bait?"

"With a worm, of course.

Seagulls love worms, didn't you know that?

And luckily for us, we have here the biggest, fattest, pinkest, juiciest Earthworm in the world."

"You can stop right there!" the Earthworm said sharply.

"That's quite enough!"

"Go on," the others said, beginning to grow interested.

"Go on!"

"The seagulls have already spotted him," James continued.

"That's why there are so many of them circling around.

But they daren't come down to get him while all the rest of us are standing here.

So this is what --"

"Stop!" cried the Earthworm.

"Stop, stop, stop!

I won't have it!

I refuse!

I -- I -- I -- I --"

"Be quiet!" said the Centipede.

"Mind your own business!"

"I like that!"

"My dear Earthworm, you're going to be eaten anyway, so what difference does it make whether it's sharks or seagulls?"

"I won't do it!"

"Why don't we hear what the plan is first?" said the Old-Green-Grasshopper.

"I don't give a hoot what the plan is!" cried the Earthworm.

"I am not going to be pecked to death by a bunch of seagulls!"

"You will be a martyr," said the Centipede.

"I shall respect you for the rest of my life."

"So will I," said Miss Spider.

"And your name will be in all the newspapers.

Earthworm gives life to save friends. . ."

"But he won't have to give his life," James told them.

"Now listen to me.

This is what we'll do. . ."

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CHAPTER XXI.

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"Why, it's absolutely brilliant!" cried the Old-Green-Grasshopper when James had explained his plan.

"The boy's a genius!" the Centipede announced.

"Now I can keep my boots on after all."

"Oh, I shall be pecked to death!" wailed the poor Earthworm.

"Of course you won't."

"I will, I know I will!

And I won't even be able to see them coming at me because I have no eyes!"

James went over and put an arm gently around the Earthworm's shoulders.

"I won't let them touch you," he said.

"I promise I won't.

But we've got to hurry!

Look down there!"

There were more sharks than ever now around the peach.

The water was boiling with them.

There must have been ninety or a hundred at least.

And to the travelers up on top, it certainly seemed as though the peach were sinking lower and lower into the water.

"Action stations!" James shouted.

"Jump to it!

There's not a moment to lose!"

He was the captain now, and everyone knew it.

They would do whatever he told them.

"All hands below deck except Earthworm!" he ordered.

"Yes, yes!" they said eagerly as they scuttled into the tunnel entrance.

"Come on!

Let's hurry!"

"And you -- Centipede!" James shouted.

"Hop downstairs and get that Silkworm to work at once!

Tell him to spin as he's never spun before!

Our lives depend upon it!

And the same applies to you, Miss Spider!

Hurry on down!

Start spinning!"

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CHAPTER XXII.

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In a few minutes everything was ready.

It was very quiet now on the top of the peach.

There was nobody in sight -- nobody except the Earthworm.

One half of the Earthworm, looking like a great, thick, juicy, pink sausage, lay innocently in the sun for all the seagulls to see.

The other half of him was dangling down the tunnel.

James was crouching close beside the Earthworm in the tunnel entrance, just below the surface, waiting for the first seagull.

He had a loop of silk string in his hands.

The Old-Green-Grasshopper and the Ladybug were further down the tunnel, holding onto the Earthworm's tail, ready to pull him quickly in out of danger as soon as James gave the word.

And far below, in the great hollow stone of the peach, the Glow-worm was lighting up the room so that the two spinners, the Silkworm and Miss Spider, could see what they were doing.

The Centipede was down there, too, exhorting them both frantically to greater efforts, and every now and again James could hear his voice coming up faintly from the depths, shouting, "Spin, Silkworm, spin, you great fat lazy brute!

Faster, faster, or we'll throw you to the sharks!"

"Here comes the first seagull!" whispered James.

"Keep still now, Earthworm.

Keep still.

The rest of you get ready to pull."

"Please don't let it spike me," begged the Earthworm.

"I won't, I won't.

Ssshhh. . ."

Out of the corner of one eye, James watched the seagull as it came swooping down toward the Earthworm.

And then suddenly it was so close that he could see its small black eyes and its curved beak, and the beak was open, ready to grab a nice piece of flesh out of the Earthworm's back.

"Pull!" shouted James.

The Old-Green-Grasshopper and the Ladybug gave the Earthworm's tail an enormous tug, and like magic the Earthworm disappeared into the tunnel.

At the same time, up went James's hand and the seagull flew right into the loop of silk that he was holding out.

The loop, which had been cleverly made, tightened just the right amount (but not too much) around its neck, and the seagull was captured.

"Hooray!" shouted the Old-Green-Grasshopper, peering out of the tunnel.

"Well done, James!"

Up flew the seagull with James paying out the silk string as it went.

He gave it about fifty yards and then tied the string to the stem of the peach.

"Next one!" he shouted, jumping back into the tunnel.

"Up you get again, Earthworm!

Bring up some more silk, Centipede!"

"Oh, I don't like this at all," wailed the Earthworm.

"It only just missed me!

I even felt the wind on my back as it went swishing past!"

"Ssshh!" whispered James.

"Keep still!

Here comes another one!"

So they did it again.

And again, and again, and again.

And the seagulls kept coming, and James caught them one after the other and tethered them to the peach stem.

"One hundred seagulls!" he shouted, wiping the sweat from his face.

"Keep going!"they cried.

"Keep going, James!"

"Two hundred seagulls!"

"Three hundred seagulls!"

"Four hundred seagulls!"

The sharks, as though sensing that they were in danger of losing their prey, were hurling themselves at the peach more furiously than ever, and the peach was sinking lower and lower still in the water.

"Five hundred seagulls!" James shouted.

"Silkworm says he's running out of silk!" yelled the Centipede from below.

"He says he can't keep it up much longer.

Nor can Miss Spider!"

"Tell them they've got to!" James answered.

"They can't stop now!"

"We're lifting!" somebody shouted.

"No, we're not!"

"I felt it!"

"Put on another seagull, quick!"

"Quiet, everybody!

Quiet!

Here's one coming now!"

This was the five hundred and first seagull, and the moment that James caught it and tethered it to the stem with all the others, the whole enormous peach suddenly started rising up slowly out of the water.

"Look out!

Here we go!

Hold on, boys!"

But then it stopped.

And there it hung.

It hovered and swayed, but it went no higher.

The bottom of it was just touching the water.

It was like a delicately balanced scale that needed only the tiniest push to tip it one way or the other.

"One more will do it!" shouted the Old-Green-Grasshopper, looking out of the tunnel.

"We're almost there!"

And now came the big moment.

Quickly, the five hundred and second seagull was caught and harnessed to the peach-stem. . .

And then suddenly. . .

But slowly. . .

Majestically. . .

Like some fabulous golden balloon. . .

With all the seagulls straining at the strings above. . .

The giant peach rose up dripping out of the water and began climbing toward the heavens.

----------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XXIII.

----------------------------------------------------------

In a flash, everybody was up on top.

"Oh, isn't it beautiful!" they cried.

"What a marvelous feeling!"

"Good-by, sharks!"

"Oh, boy, this is the way to travel!"

Miss Spider, who was literally squealing with excitement, grabbed the Centipede by the waist and the two of them started dancing around and around the peach stem together.

The Earthworm stood up on his tail and did ja sort of wriggle of joy all by himself.

The Old-Green-Grasshopper kept hopping higher and higher in the air.

The Ladybug rushed over and shook James warmly by the hand.

The Glow-worm, who at the best of times was a very shy and silent creature, sat glowing with pleasure near the tunnel entrance.

Even the Silkworm, looking white and thin and completely exhausted, came creeping out of the tunnel to watch this miraculous ascent.

Up and up they went, and soon they were as high as the top of a church steeple above the ocean.

"I'm a bit worried about the peach," James said to the others as soon as all the dancing and the shouting had stopped.

"I wonder how much damage those sharks have done to it underneath.

It's quite impossible to tell from up here."

"Why don't I go over the side and make an inspection?" Miss Spider said.

"It'll be no trouble at all, I assure you."

And without waiting for an answer, she quickly produced a length of silk thread and attached the end of it to the peach stem.

"I'll be back in a jiffy," she said, and then she walked calmly over to the edge of the peach and jumped off, paying out the thread behind her as she fell.

The others crowded anxiously around the place where she had gone over.

"Wouldn't it be dreadful if the thread broke," the Ladybug said.

There was a rather long silence.

"Are you all right, Miss Spider?" shouted the Old-Green-Grasshopper.

"Yes, thank you!" her voice answered from below.

"I'm coming up now!"

And up she came, climbing foot over foot up the silk thread, and at the same time tucking the thread back cleverly into her body as she climbed past it.

"Is it awful?" they asked her.

"Is it all eaten away?

Are there great holes in it everywhere?"

Miss Spider clambered back onto the deck with a pleased but also a rather puzzled look on her face.

"You won't believe this," she said, "but actually there's hardly any damage down there at all!

The peach is almost untouched!

There are just a few tiny pieces out of it here and there, but nothing more."

"You must be mistaken," James told her.

"Of course she's mistaken!" the Centipede said.

"I promise you I'm not," Miss Spider answered.

"But there were hundreds of sharks around us!"

"They churned the water into a froth!"

"We saw their great mouths opening and shutting!"

"I don't care what you saw," Miss Spider answered.

"They certainly didn't do much damage to the peach."

"Then why did we start sinking?" the Centipede asked.

"Perhaps we didn't start sinking," the Old-Green-Grasshopper suggested.

"Perhaps we were all so frightened that we simply imagined it."

This, in point of fact, was closer to the truth than any of them knew.

A shark, you see, has an extremely long sharp nose, and its mouth is set very awkwardly underneath its face and a long way back.

This makes it more or less impossible for it to get its teeth into a vast smooth curving surface such as the side of a peach.

Even if the creature turns onto its back it still can't do it, because the nose always gets in the way.

If you have ever seen a small dog trying to get its teeth into an enormous ball, then you will be able to imagine roughly how it was with the sharks and the peach.

"It must have been some kind of magic," the Ladybug said.

"The holes must have healed up by themselves."

"Oh, look!

There's a ship below us!" shouted James.

Everybody rushed to the side and peered over.

None of them had ever seen a ship before.

"It looks like a big one."

"It's got three funnels."

"You can even see the people on the decks!"

"Let's wave to them.

Do you think they can see us?"

Neither James nor any of the others knew it, but the ship that was now passing beneath them was actually the Queen Mary sailing out of the English Channel on her way to America.

And on the bridge of the Queen Mary, the astonished Captain was standing with a group of his officers, all of them gaping at the great round ball hovering overhead.

"I don't like it," the Captain said.

"Nor do I," said the First Officer.

"Do you think it's following us?" said the Second Officer.

"I tell you I don't like it," muttered the Captain.

"It could be dangerous," the First Officer said.

"That's it!" cried the Captain.

"It's a secret weapon!

Holy cats!

Send a message to the Queen at once!

The country must be warned!

And give me my telescope."

The First Officer handed the telescope to the Captain.

The Captain put it to his eye.

"There's birds everywhere!" he cried.

"The whole sky is teeming with birds!

What in the world are they doing?

And wait!

Wait a second!

There are people on it!

I can see them moving!

There's a -- a -- do I have this darned thing focused right?

It looks like a little boy in short trousers!

Yes, I can distinctly see a little boy in short trousers standing up there!

And there's a -- there's a -- there's a -- a -- a -- a -- a sort of giant ladybugl"

"Now just a minute, Captain!" the First Officer said.

"And a colossal green grasshopper!"

"Captain!" the First Officer said sharply.

"Captain, please!"

"And a mammoth spider!"

"Oh dear, he's been at the whisky again," whispered the Second Officer.

"And an enormous -- a simply enormous centipede!" screamed the Captain.

"Call the Ship's Doctor," the First Officer said.

"Our Captain is not well."

A moment later, the great round hall disappeared into a cloud, and the people on the ship never saw it again.

----------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XIV.

----------------------------------------------------------

But up on the peach itself, everyone was still happy and excited.

"I wonder where we'll finish up this time," the Earthworm said.

"Who cares?" they answered.

"Seagulls always go back to the land sooner or later."

Up and up they went, high above the highest clouds, the peach swaying gently from side to side as it floated along.

"Wouldn't this be a perfect time for a little music?" the Ladybug asked.

"How about it, Old Grasshopper?"

"With pleasure, dear lady," the Old-Green-Grasshopper answered, bowing from the waist.

"Oh, hooray!

He's going to play for us!" they cried, and immediately the whole company sat themselves down in a circle around the Old Green Musician -- and the concert began.

From the moment that the first note was struck, the audience became completely spellbound.

And as for James, never had he heard such beautiful music as this!

In the garden at home on summer evenings, he had listened many times to the sound of grasshoppers chirping in the grass, and he had always liked the noise that they made.

But this was a different kind of noise altogether.

This was real music -- chords, harmonies, tunes, and all the rest of it.

And what a wonderful instrument the Old-Green-Grasshopper was playing upon.

It was like a violin!

It was almost exactly as though he were playing upon a violin!

The bow of the violin, the part that moved, was his back leg.

The strings of the violin, the part that made the sound, was the edge of his wing.

He was using only the top of his back leg (the thigh), and he was stroking this up and down against the edge of his wing with incredible skill, sometimes slowly, sometimes fast, but always with the same easy flowing action.

It was precisely the way a clever violinist would have used his bow; and the music came pouring out and filled the whole blue sky around them with magic melodies.

When the first part was finished, everyone clapped madly, and Miss Spider stood up and shouted, "Bravo!

Encore!

Give us some more!"

"Did you like that, James?" the Old-Green-Grasshopper asked, smiling at the small boy.

"Oh, I loved it!" James answered.

"It was beautiful!

It was as though you had a real violin in your hands!"

"A real violin!" the Old-Green-Grasshopper cried.

"Good heavens, I like that!

My dear boy, I am a real violin!

It is a part of my own body!"

"But do all grasshoppers play their music on violins, the same way as you do?" James asked him.

"No," he answered, "not all.

If you want to know, I happen to be a 'short-horned' grasshopper.

I have two short feelers coming out of my head.

Can you see them?

There they are.

They are quite short, aren't they?

That's why they call me a 'short-horn'.

And we 'short-horns' are the only ones who play our music in the violin style, using a bow.

My 'long-horned' relatives, the ones who have long curvy feelers coming out of their heads, make their music simply by rubbing the edges of their two top wings together.

They are not violinists, they are wing-rubbers.

And a rather inferior noise these wing-rubbers produce, too, if I may say so.

It sounds more like a banjo than a fiddle."

"How fascinating this all is!" cried James.

"And to think that up until now I had never even wondered how a grasshopper made his sounds."

"My dear young fellow," the Old-Green-Grasshopper said gently, "there are a whole lot of things in this world of ours that you haven't started wondering about yet.

Where, for example, do you think that I keep my ears?"

"Your ears?

Why, in your head, of course."

Everyone burst out laughing.

"You mean you don't even know that?" cried the Centipede.

"Try again," said the Old-Green-Grasshopper, smiling at James.

"You can't possibly keep them anywhere else?"

"Oh, can't I?"

"Well -- I give up.

Where do you keep them?"

"Right here," the Old-Green-Grasshopper said.

"One on each side of my tummy."

"It's not true!"

"Of course it's true.

What's so peculiar about that?

You ought to see where my cousins the crickets and the katydids keep theirs."

"Where do they keep them?"

"In their legs.

One in each front leg, just below the knee."

"You mean you didn't know that either?" the Centipede said scornfully.

"You're joking," James said.

"Nobody could possibly have his ears in his legs."

"Why not?"

"Because. . . because it's ridiculous, that's why."

"You know what I think is ridiculous?" the Centipede said, grinning away as usual.

"I don't mean to be rude, but I think it is ridiculous to have ears on the sides of one's head.

It certainly looks ridiculous.

You ought to take a peek in the mirror some day and see for yourself."

"Pest!" cried the Earthworm.

"Why must you always be so rude and rambunctious to everyone?

You ought to apologize to James at once."

----------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XV.

----------------------------------------------------------

James didn't want the Earthworm and the Centipede to get into another argument, so he said quickly to the Earthworm, "Tell me, do you play any kind of music?"

"No, but I do other things, some of which are really quite extraordinary," the Earthworm said, brightening.

"Such as what?" asked James.

"Well," the Earthworm said. "Next time you stand in a field or in a garden and look around you, then just remember this: that every grain of soil upon the surface of the land, every tiny little bit of soil that you can see has actually passed through the body of an Earthworm during the last few years! Isn't that wonderful?"

"It's not possible!" said James.

"My dear boy, it's a fact."

"You mean you actually swallow soil?"

"Like mad," the Earthworm said proudly, "In one end and out the other."

"But what's the point?"

"What do you mean, what's the point?"

"Why do you do it?"

"We do it for the farmers. It makes the soil nice and light and crumbly so that things will grow well in it. If you really want to know, the farmers couldn't do without us. We are essential. We are vital. So it is only natural that the farmer should love us. He loves us even more, I believe, than he loves the Ladybug."

"The Ladybug!" said James, turning to look at her. "Do they love you, too?"

"I am told that they do," the Ladybug answered modestly, blushing all over. "In fact, I understand that in some places the farmers love us so much that they go out and buy live Ladybugs by the sackful and take them home and set them free in their fields. They are very pleased when they have lots of Ladybugs in their fields."

"But why?" James asked.

"Because we gobble up all the nasty little insects that are gobbling up all the farmer's crops. It helps enormously, and we ourselves don't charge a penny for our services."

"I think you're wonderful," James told her. "Can I ask you one special question?"

"Please do."

"Well, is it really true that I can tell how old a Ladybug is by counting her spots?"

"Oh no, that's just a children's story," the Ladybug said. "We never change our spots. Some of us, of course, are born with more spots than others, but we never change them. The number of spots that a Ladybug has is simply a way of showing which branch of the family she belongs to. I, for example, as you can see for yourself, am a Nine-Spotted Ladybug. I am very lucky. It is a fine thing to be."

"It is, indeed," said James, gazing at the beautiful scarlet shell with the nine black spots on it.

"On the other hand," the Ladybug went on, "some of my less fortunate relatives have no more than two spots altogether on their shells! Can you imagine that? They are called Two-Spotted Ladybugs, and very common and ill-mannered they are, I regret to say. And then, of course, you have the Five-Spotted Ladybugs as well. They are much nicer than the Two-Spotted ones, although I myself find them a trifle too saucy for my taste."

"But they are all of them loved?" said James.

"Yes," the Ladybug answered quietly. "They are all of them loved."

"It seems that almost everyone around here is loved!" said James. "How nice this is!"

"Not me!" cried the Centipede happily. "I am a pest and I'm proud of it! Oh, I am such a shocking dreadful pest!"

"Hear, hear," the Earthworm said.

"But what about you, Miss Spider?" asked James. "Aren't you also much loved in the world?"

"Alas, no," Miss Spider answered, sighing long and loud. "I am not loved at all. And yet I do nothing but good. All day long I catch flies and mosquitoes in my webs. I am a decent person."

"I know you are," said James.

"It is very unfair the way we Spiders are treated," Miss Spider went on. "Why, only last week your own horrible Aunt Sponge flushed my poor dear father down the plughole in the bathtub."

"Oh, how awful!" cried James.

"I watched the whole thing from a corner up in the ceiling," Miss Spider murmured. "It was ghastly. We never saw him again."

A large tear rolled down her cheek and fell with a splash on the floor.

"But is it not very unlucky to kill a spider?" James inquired, looking around at the others.

"Of course it's unlucky to kill a spider!" shouted the Centipede. "It's about the unluckiest thing anyone can do. Look what happened to Aunt Sponge after she'd done that! Bump! We all felt it, didn't we, as the peach went over her? Oh, what a lovely bump that must have been for you, Miss Spider!"

"It was very satisfactory," Miss Spider answered. "Will you sing us a song about it, please?"

So the Centipede did.

"Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat,

And tremendously flabby at that.

Her tummy and waist

Were as soggy as paste - -

It was worse on the place where she sat!

So she said, 'I must make myself flat.

I must make myself sleek as a cat.

I shall do without dinner

To make myself thinner.'

But along came the peach!

Oh, the beautiful peach!

And made her far thinner than that!"

"That was very nice," Miss Spider said. "Now sing one about Aunt Spiker."

"With pleasure," the Centipede answered, grinning:

"Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire,

And as dry as a bone, only drier.

She was so long and thin

If you carried her in

You could use her for poking the fire!

'I must do something quickly,' she frowned.

'I want FAT. I want pound upon pound!

I must eat lots and lots

Of marshmallows and chocs

Till I start bulging out all around.'

'Ah, yes,' she announced, 'I have sworn

That I'll alter my figure by dawn!'

Cried the peach with a snigger,

'I'LL alter your figure' - -

And ironed her out on the lawn!"

Everybody clapped and called out for more songs from the Centipede, who at once launched into his favorite song of all:

"Once upon a time

When pigs were swine

And monkeys chewed tobacco

And hens took snuff

To make themselves tough

And the ducks said quack-quack-quacko,

And porcupines

Drank fiery wines

And goats ate tapioca

And Old Mother Hubbard

Got stuck in the c --"

"Look out, Centipede!" cried James. "Look out!"

----------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XVI.

----------------------------------------------------------

The Centipede, who had begun dancing wildly around the deck during this song, had suddenly gone too close to the downward curving edge of the peach, and for three awful seconds he had stood teetering on the brink, swinging his legs frantically in circles in an effort to stop himself from falling over backward into space.

But before anyone could reach him -- down he went!

He gave a shriek of terror as he fell, and the others, rushing to the side and peering over, saw his poor long body tumbling over and over through the air, getting smaller and smaller until it was out of sight.

"Silkworm!" yelled James.

"Quick! Start spinning!"

The Silkworm sighed, for she was still very tired from spinning all that silk for the seagulls, but she did as she was told.

"I'm going down after him!" cried James, grabbing the silk string as it started coming out of the Silkworm and tying the end of it around his waist.

"The rest of you hold onto Silkworm so I don't pull her over with me, and later on, if you feel three tugs on the string, start hauling me up again!"

He jumped, and he went tumbling down after the Centipede, down, down, down, toward the sea below, and you can imagine how quickly the Silkworm had to spin to keep up with the speed of his fall.

"We'll never see either of them again!" cried the Ladybug.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Just when we were all so happy, too!"

Miss Spider, the Glow-worm, and the Ladybug all began to cry.

So did the Earthworm.

"I don't care a bit about the Centipede," the Earthworm sobbed.

"But I really did love that little boy."

Very softly, the Old-Green-Grasshopper started to play the Funeral March on his violin, and by the time he had finished, everyone, including himself, was in a flood of tears.

Suddenly, there came three sharp tugs on the rope.

"Pull!" shouted the Old-Green-Grasshopper.

"Everyone get behind me and pull!"

There was about a mile of string to be hauled in, but they all worked like mad, and in the end, over the side of the peach, there appeared a dripping-wet James with a dripping-wet Centipede clinging to him tightly with all forty-two of his legs.

"He saved me!" gasped the Centipede.

"He swam around in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean until he found me!"

"My dear boy," the Old-Green-Grasshopper said, patting James on the back.

"I do congratulate you."

"My boots!" cried the Centipede.

"Just look at my precious boots! They are ruined by the water!"

"Be quiet!" the Earthworm said.

"You are lucky to be alive."

"Are we still going up and up?" asked James.

"We certainly are," answered the Old-Green-Grasshopper.

"And it's beginning to get dark."

"I know.

It'll soon be night."

"Why don't we all go down below and keep warm until tomorrow morning?" Miss Spider suggested.

"No," the Old-Green-Grasshopper said.

"I think that would be very unwise.

It will be safer if we all stay up here through the night and keep watch.

Then, if anything happens, we shall anyway be ready for it."