James and the Giant Peach: Chapters 17–22

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

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.

“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.

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

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.

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

“You’re still giddy from the journey,” the Old-Green-Grasshopper told her.

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.

“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!”

“I can’t swim at all!” cried the Ladybug.
“Nor can I,” wailed the Glow-worm.

“What absolute nonsense!” cried the Earthworm. “Nothing is ever all right in the end, and well you know it!”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

“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!

They all watched, aghast.

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!”

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

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.

“Skyhooks, I suppose,” jeered the Centipede.

“You will be a martyr,” said the Centipede. “I shall respect you for the rest of my life.”

“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!”

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!”

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

It hovered and swayed, but it went no higher.

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

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.