Harry the Poisonous Centipede Read Online Free PDF

But he couldn’t really dodge it. He didn’t know where it would hit next. He was more frightened than he had ever been before in his life.
    He just twisted and turned and raced here and there. It was only good luck that the beating stick kept missing him. Sooner or later, it must find him!
    Suddenly the stick fell to the ground. The Hoo-Min let it go.
    George stopped running.
    He looked around. The Hoo-Min was leaving the ground and coming back to it very heavily. The noise and vibrations were thunderous. It kept making noises from its head, as well. Noises that sounded like “OW! OW! OW!”
    Can you guess what had happened?
    Right! That brave mother centipede, Belinda, had run up the Hoo-Min’s trouser and given its leg a mighty bite!

18. The Run for Safety
    The moment she’d done it, she ran down the leg again to the ground. She had to keep running because the Hoo-Min was jumping up and down and its great feet might have landed on her and squashed her flat.
    As soon as she was clear of the jumping, she turned and looked for George.
    He was right beside her.
    He’d seen her dashing away from the howling Hoo-Min, and had followed her.
    â€œGrndd! Come with me, quickly!” Belinda signalled.
    He didn’t need to be told. As fast as she ran, he ran faster. I told you centipedes can run very, very fast. Well, even I didn’t know they could run as fast as George and Belinda ran then.
    They reached the hole where Harry was hiding and fell into it on top of him. The three of them rolled down the slope, all tangled up together, and lay at the bottom. They looked like a shiny lumpy black ball with about a million legs sticking out in all directions.

    I’m exaggerating. But three times forty-two is quite a lot of legs. And two-thirds of them were awfully tired from running.
    Harry was the first to uncurl himself and become a separate centipede again.
    â€œMama? Why did it start going up and down like that, and making that funny noise?”
    â€œI bit it,” said Belinda shortly.
    Both the centis stiffened their front feelers in astonishment.
    Then, as if they were one centi, they rushed up the tunnel again and poked their heads out.
    The Hoo-Min was nearer the ground now, all hunched up, bent over its leg and making another kind of noise. Like “Ooooooogh, uuuuuuuugh, aaaaaaaaah!”
    They ran back to Belinda.
    â€œYou couldn’t have bitten it! It’s still moving!”
    â€œWell, that’s partly why they’re so dangerous. Biting them doesn’t kill them. It doesn’t even paralyse them. They’re too big.”
    â€œSo why is it making that noise? Why did it stop trying to kill me?”
    â€œI think because it hurts,” said Belinda.
    â€œMaybe if all three of us bit it—?”
    â€œNo, Grndd,” said Belinda. “No. We will go back to our nest.”
    Neither George nor Harry felt like arguing.
    Back in the nest-tunnel, both the centis felt very tired and wanted to go straight to sleep. But Belinda had something to say first.
    â€œI don’t know if you’ve learnt a lesson, Grndd,” she said grimly.
    â€œOh yes,” said George quickly.
    â€œI doubt it. I don’t think anything can teach you not to get into trouble.
    But I have to try. Bend over.”
    That’s what she would have said, if she’d been your mother, perhaps. Centipedes can’t bend over. What she actually said was more like “Bottom up!”
    Anyway, George knew only too well what she meant.

19. George Gets a Spanking
    George, trembling with alarm, turned round and stuck his rear segment into the air.
    Belinda stood beside it.
    She raised her first foot on that side. She brought it down hard on George’s back end.
    The next little while wasn’t much fun for George because that was only the beginning.
    Belinda walked past his raised rear segment and spanked him once witheach foot. And as if that wasn’t enough,