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.”
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.”
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