Harry the Poisonous Centipede Read Online Free PDF Page B

she then turned round and walked past him the other way, spanking him once with each foot on her other side.
    So that was twenty-one spanks on one side, and twenty-one more on the other. Forty-two spanks altogether. It seems a lot, but that was a normal punishment for a disobedient centi.
    Mind you, it really doesn’t hurt half as much to be spanked if you’ve got a thick cuticle on your bottom. So it wasn’t as bad as all that.
    When it was over, George lowered his tingling rear segment to the ground, and rubbed some of his nearest legs over it. If centis could sniffle, George would have sniffled.
    â€œNow, centis, go to your leaves,” said Belinda sternly.
    There were no kisses for either of them.
    George crept away under his leaf.

    He felt very, very sorry.
    I can almost hear you saying it: “Sorry he’d been so bad? Sorry he’d put Belinda into danger?”
    I’m afraid not.
    What he was sorry about was that he’d had a spanking from Belinda. He forgot she’d saved him. He just thought how his bottom hurt and how she wasn’t even his real mother.
    Which was pretty ungrateful of him.
    But if you’d just had forty-two spanks, you might not feel grateful either. Even if your life had just been saved.
    And in case you’re wondering if Belinda had managed to teach George not to get into trouble, don’t even think it.
    She hadn’t.
    Because I’m afraid George – and here comes a wonderfully useful word for people like him who won’t learn to be sensible – George was incorrigible.

20 Smoke!
    A few days later, when Harry was just about ready for sleep, his mother started chewing up his bedding and spitting the bits on the floor.
    â€œMama! What are you doing?”
    â€œI’ve got a nice new leaf for you,” she said, with her mouth full. “I’ll just use this old one for floor-lining. Come and give me a mouth.”
    So Harry helped, and soon his old bedleaf was well crunched and spat out and spread smoothly over the floor of theirnest. The spitty part dried and Belinda rubbed her head over it until it had a sort of shine and it looked very nice, the way new floor-tiles or a carpet would do to us.
    â€œGood centi! Now, come and choose a new leaf to sleep under.”
    There were plenty of leaves to choose from. Belinda had worked hard, dragging them down the tunnel. They were all shapes and sizes, and quite soft, juicy and colourful, not crackly and dull like his old one.
    â€œHow come there are so many?”
    â€œThis is the season when some of the trees drop their leaves,” she explained.
    Harry chose a pretty yellow one which was just the right size for him and curled up under it and went to sleep.
    In the middle of the day he was suddenly, and not at all pleasantly, woken by Georgelanding on top of him and bashing him in the head with his own head.
    â€œGet up! Get up! Something terrible’s happening!” George crackled.
    Belinda shot out from under her own new leaf, and so did Harry.
    They didn’t have to ask what the terrible thing was. They could immediately smell it and sense it and even see it, despite the darkness.
    Even Belinda, who had lived the longest and seen all the seasons round, had never seen this before.
    It was all around them, in their breathing holes, in their eyes, tickling their feelers. They were dreadfully frightened. Yes, Belinda too. It was so strange, so uncomfortable, so – George hadn’t exaggerated – so terrible!
    It was smoke. But they didn’t know that. They had no word for it, and no wordfor “mist” or “fog” or “cloud” – nothing to compare it with. Things are so much more frightening when you don’t have words for them… They just knew it was something to run away from.

    They left their cosy nest and ran.

21. Escape
    They ran blindly, without thinking.
    Lots of others were running too – other centipedes, and