Harry the Poisonous Centipede

1. About Harry

Harry was a poisonous centipede.

You may think that’s not a very nice thing to be. But Harry thought it was fine. He’d never been anything else, and he liked being what he was.

If you’d told him centipedes are nasty scary creepy-crawlies, he would have been very surprised and rather hurt.

And if you’d told him that biting things with poisonous pincers was wrong or cruel, he would probably have told you not to be ridiculous. How else would he get anything to eat, or defend himself from creatures wanting to eat him?

Of course, you couldn’t have talked to Harry like that, even if you’d met him, because he couldn’t have understood you. Harry could only speak to other centipedes in Centipedish. In fact, his real name wasn’t Harry at all. It was (as nearly as I can write it) Hxzltl.

Hxzltl?

Yes. You see the problem at once. There are no vowel-sounds in Centipedish, just a sort of very faint crackling. What you could do is put in some vowel-sounds – some a’s, e’s, i’s, o’s and u’s – so that you can try to say his real name. Then you could call him Hixzalittle. Or Hoxzalottle. Or perhaps even Haxzaluttle. But still you wouldn’t be anywhere near the real sound of his name.

Which is why I call him Harry.

He lived in a very hot country – what we call the Tropics – with his mother.

Now, please don’t start asking what her name was. Oh no. Please. Oh… All right. Here goes. It was Bkvlbbchk. Bikvilababchuk? Bokvaliboobchak? Bakvolobibchawk? I don’t know. Why bother? We’ll never get it right. Let’s call her Belinda.

Belinda was also, of course, a poisonous centipede. A very large one – a good eight inches long, or twenty centimetres, if you want to be metric about it. Just imagine, eight inches of shiny, black, swift-moving centipede – a twenty-centi-centipede! Her body was something like a caterpillar’s, in segments, but covered with hard, shiny, dark stuff – a sort of suit of armour, which is called a cuticle.

Now, if you know a bit of Latin you’ll know that “centipede” means “one hundred feet”. Some kinds of centipede do have that many, but Harry’s kind didn’t. Harry and his mother had twenty-one segments with one pair of legs to each segment. Which makes forty-two legs. Each.

Quite a lot to keep track of, when you think about it, but neither Belinda nor Harry ever did think about it. Any more than you would think how difficult – Harry would have said, impossible – it is to move about on two legs. They just did it.

And did it, when they had to, very, very fast indeed.

Harry actually didn’t know just how fast he could run, until the Dreadful Time when, despite his mother’s sternest warning, he went Up the Up-Pipe. Which is the story I’m going to tell you.

When I get round to it. There are some other stories to tell first.

2. Belinda Tells a Scary Story

Harry, as I told you, lived in a hot country. But he didn’t know that for a long time because he didn’t live on the surface of the earth where the sun shone a lot. He lived in a mass of dark, cool tunnels under the ground.

He slept all through the day. But at night he would wake up and run along these lovely earthy tunnels, looking for things to eat. What things? Well, if you must know:

All kinds of insects and creepy-crawlies that were smaller than him.

He would chase after them, bite them, and, when the poison from his poison-claws had paralysed them, crunch them up. Well, crunch if they were crunchy, like beetles, or munch if they were munchy, like worms.

Belinda, being much more than twice his size, could tackle big things like toads, small snakes, young mice and lizards. But then, she could go up to the surface to hunt. Only for a short time, though. Centipedes mustn’t get too dry or they can’t breathe, and it’s much easier to keep damp underground.

If she heard something thumping about on the surface that sounded good to eat, she’d nip along an up-going tunnel, scurry to the thumping thing, whatever it was, and if it wasn’t too big she would bite it with her poisonous pincers and drag it back down the tunnel to share it with Harry.

Belinda was a very good mother.

When Harry and her other babies first came out of their eggs, she’d make something like a little basket to keep them in, and tended them carefully until they were old enough to fend for themselves.

All her other many children had gone off and left her, as young centipedes usually do, but Harry stayed. He loved her and she loved him, calling him love-names like “best-in-my-nest” and “pride-of-my-basket”. She was always scared that something might happen to him, so she carefully warned him of any dangers.

Of course he didn’t take much notice. He was a big, strong, armoured centi (that’s a child centipede) with two fine poison-claws, who could run faster than anything he’d ever met. What could hurt him?

“Lots of things,” Belinda said firmly. “There are many things bigger than you Hxzltl. When you’re grown up and go up to the big, open, no-top-world – and you must not do so before – you’ll find you’re not the biggest thing around, by any means – or even the fastest!”

And she told him about flying things that swooped down and grabbed you, and great legless belly-crawlers, bigger than the tunnels the centipedes lived in, and enormous hairy things with huge sharp teeth and hot breath that could run even faster that the fastest centipede.

But the most awful things of all, Belinda told him – the biggest and the most terrifyingly dangerous – were Hoo-Mins. (Of course she pronounced it H-Mns.)

“I’ve nearly been killed by a Hoo-Min,” his mother told him in a hushed tone. “Twice.”

“Mama!”

“Oh yes! Once when I couldn’t find food in the tunnels, I had to go up in the bright-time. All that bright light muddled me, and I got too far from the tunnel entrance. I was running back to it when a black shadow fell on me. Well, you don’t know about shadows because you’ve never been out when big-yellow-ball is shining, but it’s a dark thing that falls on you. And when you feel that shadow, you have to run like mad!”

“Why, is it heavy?”

“No. It doesn’t weigh anything, itself. But behind it there is always something. And this something, this time, was a huge heavy thing that came crashing down. It just missed me! I just ran out in time! And although I ran as fast as I could run, this huge heavy thing kept up with me, and came crashing down again and again!”

Harry shuddered. “What happened, Mama?”

I ran as never before! Suddenly I saw a tree with some leaves lying under it, and I raced for it, and dived under the nearest leaf. But I didn’t stop there. And just as well!

“As I ran under the leaves, hunting for a hole, the crashing thing came down just in front of me! I had to turn and run back into the open. Then I ran in every direction.

“Thank goodness I found a hole and rushed down it just as the Thing came smashing down again. Oh, Hxzltl, you can’t think how nearly you lost your mama that time!”

“And that was a Hoo-Min that was chasing you? How do you know?”

“Because, when I got my breath back and got nice and damp again – as well as nearly getting squashed, I’d nearly Dried Out! – I peeped out of the hole, and saw it, walking away. I realised then that the crashing thing was its foot. It only had two, but they were ENORMOUS, Hxzltl!”

“How big, Mama?”

“As long as me and then as long as me again! And that’s just its foot!” She stood in front of him, waving her feelers in a very solemn way. “And now that you are a big centi, I have something very important and dangerous to show you.”

3. The Warning

She led him through their usual tunnels, and then turned off, along one she had often told him never to go down. It sloped downward, deep into the earth, and they followed it until they found themselves in a big kind of cave.

It felt very damp here – extra damp. There was a gleam down below – a pool! Harry got excited.

“Ooh, Mama! Look at that water! Is it like the sea? Can I play Sea-Centipedes?”

Harry had heard many stories about his cousins, who long ago had moved from earth-tunnels to homes by the ocean.

But Belinda shook her head. “No, Hxzltl! This is no place to play! It’s very, very dangerous. Now, come over here, and look up.”

Harry could now see that there was a faint light in the cave. It was coming from a tunnel above their heads that seemed to go straight up.

“What a funny tunnel!” he said. “It’s so straight! And its walls are as shiny as your cuticle, Mama!”

“Yes. No centipede burrowed this one! You can see it’s not made of earth like our regular tunnels. It’s made of some hard shiny stuff. It’s not easy to get a grip on with your feet. But just the same it’s possible to climb it. I know because—” She stopped suddenly. “Only you mustn’t, Hxzltl. Do you hear me? You must not go Up the Up-Pipe.”

“Why not?”

“Because it leads into the Place of Hoo-Mins,” she said in that same hushed voice she had used before, the one that made Harry’s cuticle go cold.

“How do you know, Mama?”

“I would rather not say.”

“Have you been Up the Up-Pipe? Was it the second time you just escaped from a Hoo-Min?”

Belinda turned her head away. A long shudder ran along her back.

“Yes. When I was young and knew nothing of danger. I had no mama to guide me. But you have, pride-of-my basket. So listen: Never, ever, ever, go Up the Up-Pipe. Because if you do, you may never come down again.”

4. The Pool

Harry wasn’t stupid. His mother had really frightened him about the Hoo-Mins. He didn’t even want to explore the Up-Pipe.

But the pool underneath it was something else.

Every young centipede learns about its cousins the marine centipedes, and young ones always play at being able to swim in the sea, and hide in the rocky crevices between the high and low tidelines, and live in empty barnacle shells or sea-worm tubes.

Harry couldn’t swim. But he loved water. There wasn’t much rain in the country where he lived, but just occasionally there would be a storm, and rainwater would flow into the tunnels and make puddles. They weren’t very deep and the water soon steeped away, but while they lasted, Harry would paddle in them and pretend to be a marine centipede.

He was pretty sure he would be able to swim if he ever found a puddle deep enough to try.

And now he knew about the pool under the Up-Pipe, he kept thinking about it. He could pretend it was the sea and that he was a fearless marine centipede. Why shouldn’t he learn to swim, if they could? It would be such fun to take his mother to the pool one day, and pretend to fall in to give her a fright, and then show her how he could swim.

So one day, or rather one night, he scurried off down the forbidden tunnel that led to the pool and the Up-Pipe.

He ran down the earthy slope to the edge of the water.

It was dark and scummy – not nice clean water like the rain made. It didn’t smell nice, either. (This was because the Up-Pipe was a drain, which carried away a Hoo-Min’s dirty shower-water. But Harry didn’t know that.)

He was determined not to be put off. He turned round and tried the water with his back feelers.

That was all right. So he walked backwards until his rear five segments were in the pool. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Now he was nearly halfway in, and his tail-parts began to float to the top.

He couldn’t hold them down. Was he swimming? He wriggled his rear nine pairs of legs and his body moved about. That was swimming, surely? He backed a little further. And a little further…

Whoops!

With only a third of his body-length still on shore, he began to lose his grip on the earth with his front legs.

He clawed frantically with his first seven pairs of legs, digging the tiny claws on their tips into the soft, wet earth. But there was too much of him already floating in the scummy water. Something seemed to be pulling at him, dragging him away from the safe ground.

But Belinda was far away and couldn’t catch his signals.

Harry clutched and tugged, and sent out signals of distress, but nobody came, and the water kept pulling until first one, then another, and finally all seven front segments left the shore. Harry found himself struggling in the deep, dark badsmelling water!

Kicking and squirming, he was carried along through the darkness. He kept going under, and the water entered his breathing holes (he had one in each segment). He would blow it out and pop to the surface again but he knew he couldn’t go on doing this for long. He was choking – choking all along his length. It was terrible! He was going to drown!

He sank beneath the surface once again. “I’m dead!” was his last conscious thought. “Oh, Mama!”

5. Harry Upside Down

He woke slowly. He felt awful. Truly awful.

The world was all wrong, somehow.

Harry’s eyes weren’t good anyway and now they were useless. They seemed to be staring straight into the earth. Something hard was pressing on the back of his head. His legs weren’t touching anything. He kicked them about, trying to run, but it was no use. He thrust out his poison-claws, which was always his reaction to danger. They closed on emptiness.

He slowly realised how he was. He was upside down, a position he’d never been in before. That was why he felt so funny.

He didn’t realise how lucky he’d been. He’d been washed to the side of the pool, or stream, or whatever it was, on to his back. Because of this, all the water that had got into his breathing holes had drained out. Of course he still couldn’t breathe very well because some of the holes were now blocked by the ground.

He struggled to right himself, rocking this way and that, wriggling and twisting.

With a final jerk, he managed to get his front half round the right way. After that, it wasn’t hard to turn the rest of himself.

He looked around. The pool wasn’t there any more. Just a long muddy channel. It seemed that the water flowed down it, like the rainwater in Harry’s regular tunnels, and then soaked away, somehow.

Harry tested his twenty-one segments by lifting them one by one off the ground, and all his forty-two feet by moving them in the air, in a sort of ripple, first along one side of him, then along the other. They seemed to work. What a relief!

He tried to run. He found he could! He did. He ran as fast as he could run in the direction of home. (He knew by instinct which direction to run in.)

As he ran, he tried to think. Should he tell his mother what had happened to him?

Probably better not. Even though he hadn’t done the one thing she’d told him never to do – go Up the Up-Pipe into the Place of the Hoo-Mins.