James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl Read Free Book Online Page A

‘Perhaps they have come along to say hello.’
    ‘They are sharks!’ cried the Earthworm. ‘I’ll bet you anything you like that they are sharks and they have come along to eat us up!’
    ‘What absolute rot!’ the Centipede said, but his voice seemed suddenly to have become a little shaky, and he wasn’t laughing.
    ‘I am
positive
they are sharks!’ said the Earthworm. T just
know
they are sharks!’
    And so, in actual fact, did everybody else, but they were too frightened to admit it.
    There was a short silence. They all peered down anxiously at the sharks who were cruising slowly round and round the peach.
    ‘Just assuming that they
are
sharks,’ the Centipede said, ‘there still can’t possibly be any danger if we stay up here.’
    But even as he spoke, one of those thin black fins suddenly changed direction and came cutting swiftly through the water right up to the side of the peach itself. The shark paused and stared up at the company with small evil eyes.
    ‘Go away!’ they shouted. ‘Go away, you filthy beast!’
    Slowly, almost lazily, the shark opened his mouth (which was big enough to have swallowed a perambulator) and made a lunge at the peach.

    They all watched, aghast.
    And now, as though at a signal from the leader, all the other sharks came swimming in towards the peach, and they clustered around it and began to attack it furiously. 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!’
    ‘She is right!’ shouted the Ladybird. ‘We are lost for ever!’
    ‘Oh, I don’t want to be eaten!’ wailed the Earthworm. ‘But they will take me first of all because I am so fat and juicy and I have no bones!’
    ‘Is there
nothing
we can do?’ asked the Ladybird, appealing to James. ‘Surely
you
can think of a way out of this.’
    Suddenly they were all looking at James.
    ‘Think!’ begged Miss Spider. ‘
Think
, James,
think
!’

    ‘Come on,’ said the Centipede. ‘Come on, James. There
must
be
something
we can do.’
    Their eyes waited upon him, tense, anxious, pathetically hopeful.

Twenty
    ‘There
is something
that I believe we might try,’ James Henry Trotter said slowly. ‘I‘m not saying it’ll work…’
    ‘Tell us!’ cried the Earthworm. ‘Tell us quick!’
    ‘We’ll try anything you say!’ said the Centipede. ‘But hurry, hurry, hurry!’
    ‘Be quiet and let the boy speak!’ said the Ladybird. ‘Go on, James.’
    They all moved a little closer to him. There was a longish pause.
    ‘Go
on
!’ they cried frantically. ‘
Go on!
’
    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 Ladybird said, coaxing him.
    I… I… I‘m afraid it’s no good after all,’ James murmured, shaking his head. ‘I‘m terribly sorry. I forgot. We don’t have any string. We’d need hundreds of yards of string to make this work.’
    ‘What sort of string?’ asked the Old-Green-Grasshopper sharply.
    ‘Any sort, just so long as it’s strong.’
    ‘But my dear boy, that’s exactly what we do have! We‘ve got all you want!’
    ‘How? Where?’
    ‘The Silkworm!’ cried the Old-Green-Grasshopper. ‘Didn’t you ever notice the Silkworm? She’s still downstairs! She never moves! She just lies there sleeping all day long, but we can easily wake her up and make her spin!’
    ‘And what about me, may I ask?’ said Miss Spider. ‘I can spin just as well as any Silkworm. What’s more,
I
can spin patterns.’
    ‘Can you make enough between you?’ asked James.
    ‘As much as you want.’
    ‘And quickly?’
    ‘Of