Harry the Poisonous Centipede by Lynne Reid Banks Page B

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.
    â€œOoh, Mama! Look at that water! Is it like the sea? Can I play Sea-Centipedes?”
    Harry had heard many stories about hiscousins, 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.
    â€œWhat a funny tunnel!” he said. “It’s so straight! And its walls are as shiny as your cuticle, Mama!”
    â€œYes. 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 goUp the Up-Pipe.”

    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause 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.
    â€œHow do you know, Mama?”
    â€œI would rather not say.”
    â€œHave 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.
    â€œYes. 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.