seventeen

at this moment, the scene inside the peach itself was one of indescribable chaos. james henry trotterwas lying bruised and battered on the floor of the room amongst a tangled mass of centipede andearthworm and spider and ladybird and glowworm and old-green-grasshopper. in the whole historyof the world, no travellers had ever had a more terrible journey than these unfortunate creatures. it hadstarted out well, with much laughing and shouting, and for the first few seconds, as the peach hadbegun to roll slowly forward, nobody had minded being tumbled about a little bit. and when it wentbump !, and the centipede had shouted, ‘that was aunt sponge!’ and then bump! again, and ‘thatwas aunt spiker!’ there had been a tremendous burst of cheering all round.

but as soon as the peach rolled out of the garden and began to go down the steep hill, rushing andplunging and bounding madly downward, then the whole thing became a nightmare. james foundhimself being flung up against the ceiling, then back on to the floor, then sideways against the wall,then up on to the ceiling again, and up and down and back and forth and round and round, and at thesame time all the other creatures were flying through the air in every direction, and so were the chairsand the sofa, not to mention the forty-two boots belonging to the centipede. everything and all of themwere being rattled around like peas inside an enormous rattle that was being rattled by a mad giant whorefused to stop. to make it worse, something went wrong with the glow-worm’s lighting system, andthe room was in pitchy darkness. there were screams and yells and curses and cries of pain, andeverything kept going round and round, and once james made a frantic grab at some thick bars stickingout from the wall only to find that they were a couple of the centipede’s legs. ‘let go, you idiot!’

shouted the centipede, kicking himself free, and james was promptly flung across the room into theold-green-grasshopper’s horny lap. twice he got tangled up in miss spider’s legs (a horrid business),and towards the end, the poor earthworm, who was cracking himself like a whip every time he flewthrough the air from one side of the room to the other, coiled himself around james’s body in a panicand refused to unwind.

oh, it was a frantic and terrible trip!

but it was all over now, and the room was suddenly very still and quiet. everybody was beginningslowly and painfully to disentangle himself from everybody else.

‘let’s have some light!’ shouted the centipede.

‘yes!’ they cried. ‘light! give us some light!’

‘i‘m trying,’ answered the poor glow-worm. ‘i‘m doing my best. please be patient.’

they all waited in silence.

then a faint greenish light began to glimmer out of the glow-worm’s tail, and this gradually becamestronger and stronger until it was anyway enough to see by.

‘some great journey!’ the centipede said, limping across the room.

‘i shall never be the same again,’ murmured the earthworm.

‘nor i,’ the ladybird said. ‘it’s taken years off my life.’

‘but my dear friends!’ cried the old-green-grasshopper, trying to be cheerful. ‘we are there!’

‘where?’ they asked. ‘where? where is there?’

‘i don’t know,’ the old-green-grasshopper said. ‘but i’ll bet it’s somewhere good.’

‘we are probably at the bottom of a coal mine,’ the earthworm said gloomily. ‘we certainly wentdown and down and down very suddenly at the last moment. i felt it in my stomach. i still feel it.’

‘perhaps we are in the middle of a beautiful country full of songs and music,’ the old-green-grasshopper said.

‘or near the seashore,’ said james eagerly, ‘with lots of other children down on the sand for me toplay with!’

‘pardon me,’ murmured the ladybird, turning a trifle pale, ‘but am i wrong in thinking that we seemto be bobbing up and down?’

‘bobbing up and down!’ they cried. ‘what on earth do you mean?’

‘you’re still giddy from the journey,’ the old-green-grasshopper told her. ‘you’ll get over it in aminute. is everybody ready to go upstairs now and take a look round?’

‘yes, yes!’ they chorused. ‘come on! let’s go!’

‘i refuse to show myself out of doors in my bare feet,’ the centipede said. ‘i have to get my boots onagain first.’

‘for heaven’s sake, let’s not go through all that nonsense again,’ the earthworm said.

‘let’s all lend the centipede a hand and get it over with,’ the ladybird said. ‘come on.’

so they did, all except miss spider, who set about weaving a long rope-ladder that would reach fromthe floor up to a hole in the ceiling. the old-green-grasshopper had wisely said that they must not riskgoing out of the side entrance when they didn’t know where they were, but must first of all go up on tothe top of the peach and have a look round.

so half an hour later, when the rope-ladder had been finished and hung, and the forty-second boothad been laced neatly on to the centipede’s forty-second foot, they were all ready to go out. amidstmounting excitement and shouts of ‘here we go, boys! the promised land! i can’t wait to see it!’ thewhole company climbed up the ladder one by one and disappeared into a dark soggy tunnel in theceiling that went steeply, almost vertically, upward.

十七

顷刻之间，仙桃里面乱成了一团，难以描述。地板上，蜈蚣、蚯蚓、蜘蛛、瓢虫、萤火虫和绿色老蚱蜢，盘根错节，乱糟糟的，詹姆斯·亨利·特洛特也给弄得身上青一块紫一块的，躺在他们中间。在整个世界历史上，还从来没有过比这些不幸的生灵更可怕的旅行哪。开头倒是不错，大家哄笑着，叫嚷着，仙桃开始滚动的最初几秒钟，谁也不在乎有点磕磕碰碰的。仙桃颠簸的时候，蜈蚣还喊叫道：“压着海绵团姨妈了！”又颠簸了一下的时候，他又喊叫道：“这回是压着大头钉姨妈了！”弄得全屋上下都高声欢呼起来。

然而，仙桃一滚出园子，沿着陡峭的小山往下滚，发疯似的又蹦又跳的当儿，一切都成了噩梦。詹姆斯发觉，自己给颠得碰到天花板，又跌了下来，接着碰到旁边的墙上，然后又碰到了天花板。这样，上上下下，前前后后，一圈一圈地颠簸个不停。同时呢，别的生灵也跟椅子和沙发一样，都在空中到处飞舞，更不用说蜈蚣那四十二只靴子了。所有的东西，所有的人，都像被装进了巨大的转筒里一样，叫一个疯狂的巨人转动着，无论如何也不肯停下来。而更加糟糕的是，萤火虫的发光系统出了什么毛病，房间里一片漆黑。大喊声、嚎叫声、咒骂声，以及痛苦的哭泣声连成一片。所有的东西都在不停地旋转、旋转。有一次，詹姆斯抓住了墙上伸出来的几根粗粗的棍棒，却发现原来是蜈蚣的几条腿。“撒手，你这个傻瓜！”蜈蚣说，一边踢着挣脱了詹姆斯的手。顷刻之间，詹姆斯给抛到屋子另一边，落到了绿色老蚱蜢那硬邦邦的大腿中间。还有两次，他搅进了蜘蛛小姐的腿中间，这可是件可怕的事儿。最可怜的是蚯蚓，他总是被腾空甩起，从房间一边给抛到另一边，就仿佛抽着的鞭子，最后他只好惊恐地缠住詹姆斯，迟迟不肯松开。

哦，这可真是一次叫人害怕的疯狂旅行！

不过，现在一切终于过去，房间里突然安静下来。每个人都在慢条斯理、痛苦不堪地把自己同别人分开。

“来点光亮吧！”蜈蚣叫道。

“是啊！”他们也叫起来，“光亮！要有点光亮！”

“我正想办法哪！”可怜的萤火虫回答道，“我尽了最大的努力。请耐心一些。”

接着，一丝淡淡的绿光从萤火虫尾巴里散射出来。那光线越来越亮，越来越亮，后来总算能够看清东西了。

“一次了不起的旅行！”蜈蚣瘸着腿走过房间说。

“我再也不是原来的样子啦。”萤火虫喃喃自语着。

“我也不是了。”瓢虫说，“这得叫我少活好几年。”

“我说，亲爱的朋友们，”绿色老蚱蜢大声说，竭力显得快活一些，“我们到地方啦。”

“到了哪里？”他们叫道，“什么地方？”

“我不知道。”绿色老蚱蜢说，“反正我敢打赌，是个好地方。”

“我们也许在煤矿底下哪。”蚯蚓闷闷不乐地说，“自然啦，我们刚才是突然一下子往下掉的，越来越低，越来越低。我心里感觉出来了，现在还觉得往下掉哩。”

“也许我们来到了一个满是音乐、满是歌声的美丽国度。”绿色老蚱蜢说。

“也可能接近海边，”詹姆斯急不可耐地说，“有不少孩子跟我一起玩哩！”

“对不起，”瓢虫脸色有些苍白，嘟嘟囔囔地说，“我觉得咱们还在颠上颠下的，不知道说错了没有？”

“颠上颠下的！”他们叫了起来，“你究竟是什么意思？”

“由于旅行，你还头晕哪。”绿色老蚱蜢对瓢虫说，“过一会儿你就会好的。现在，是不是人人都准备好了，上去看一看呀？”

“好啦，准备好啦！”他们异口同声地说，“来呀，咱们上去！”

“光着脚，我不出门儿。”蜈蚣说，“首先得再穿上靴子才成。”

“看在上天的份上，可别再说这些废话了吧。”蚯蚓说。

“咱们大伙都帮帮蜈蚣，给他穿上靴子。”瓢虫说，“来呀。”

于是，他们都上前帮忙，只有蜘蛛小姐例外。她正在编织一条长长的绳梯，从地板一直够到天花板上的窟窿。还是绿色老蚱蜢聪明，他刚才说，由于不知道在什么地方，不能冒险从旁边的通道里出去，先得到仙桃顶上瞭望一番才好。

过了半个钟头，绳梯编织就绪，挂了起来，当蜈蚣的第四十二只靴子给整整齐齐地系在他的第四十二只脚上的时候，他们都做好了出发的准备。在兴奋情绪越发高涨时，在“走吧，伙计！到天国去，我都等不及啦！”的高叫声中，他们这一伙儿鱼贯爬上了梯子，消失在天花板那湿漉漉的黑暗通道里。通道几乎直上直下，十分陡峭。