twenty-seven

james henry trotter and his companions crouched close together on top of the peach as the night beganclosing in around them. clouds like mountains towered high above their heads on all sides, mysterious,menacing, overwhelming. gradually it grew darker and darker, and then a pale three-quarter mooncame up over the tops of the clouds and cast an eerie light over the whole scene. the giant peachswayed gently from side to side as it floated along, and the hundreds of silky white strings goingupward from its stem were beautiful in the moonlight. so also was the great flock of seagulls overhead.

there was not a sound anywhere. travelling upon the peach was not in the least like travelling in anaeroplane. the aeroplane comes clattering and roaring through the sky, and whatever might be lurkingsecretly up there in the great cloud-mountains goes running for cover at its approach. that is whypeople who travel in aeroplanes never see anything.

but the peach… ah, yes… the peach was a soft, stealthy traveller, making no noise at all as it floatedalong. and several times during that long silent night ride high up over the middle of the ocean in themoonlight, james and his friends saw things that no one had ever seen before.

once, as they drifted silently past a massive white cloud, they saw on the top of it a group of strange,tall, wispy-looking things that were about twice the height of ordinary men. they were not easy to seeat first because they were almost as white as the cloud itself, but as the peach sailed closer, it becameobvious that these ‘things’ were actually living creatures – tall, wispy, wraithlike, shadowy, whitecreatures who looked as though they were made out of a mixture of cotton-wool and candyfloss andthin white hairs.

‘oooooooooooooh!’ the ladybird said. ‘i don’t like this at all!’

‘ssshh!’ james whispered back. ‘don’t let them hear you! they must be cloud-men!’

‘cloud-men!’ they murmured, huddling closer together for comfort. ‘oh dear, oh dear!’

‘i‘m glad i‘m blind and can’t see them,’ the earthworm said, ‘or i would probably scream.’

‘i hope they don’t turn round and see us,’ miss spider stammered.

‘do you think they would eat us?’ the earthworm asked.

‘they would eat you,’ the centipede answered, grinning. ‘they would cut you up like a salami andeat you in thin slices.’

the poor earthworm began to quiver all over with fright.

‘but what are they doing?’ the old-green-grasshopper whispered.

‘i don’t know,’ james answered softly. ‘let’s watch and see.’

the cloud-men were all standing in a group, and they were doing something peculiar with theirhands. first, they would reach out (all of them at once) and grab handfuls of cloud. then they wouldroll these handfuls of cloud in their fingers until they turned into what looked like large white marbles.

then they would toss the marbles to one side and quickly grab more bits of cloud and start over again.

it was all very silent and mysterious. the pile of marbles beside them kept growing larger and larger.

soon there was a truckload of them there at least.

‘they must be absolutely mad!’ the centipede said. ‘there’s nothing to be afraid of here!’

‘be quiet, you pest!’ the earthworm whispered. ‘we shall all be eaten if they see us!’

but the cloud-men were much too busy with what they were doing to have noticed the great peachfloating silently up behind them.

then the watchers on the peach saw one of the cloud-men raising his long wispy arms above hishead and they heard him shouting, ‘all right, boys! that’s enough! get the shovels!’ and all the othercloud-men immediately let out a strange high-pitched whoop of joy and started jumping up and downand waving their arms in the air. then they picked up enormous shovels and rushed over to the pile ofmarbles and began shovelling them as fast as they could over the side of the cloud, into space. ‘downthey go!’ they chanted as they worked.

‘down they go!

hail and snow!

freezes and sneezes and noses will blow!’

‘it’s hailstones!’ whispered james excitedly. ‘they‘ve been making hailstones and now they areshowering them down on to the people in the world below!’

‘hailstones?’ the centipede said. ‘that’s ridiculous! this is summertime. you don’t have hailstonesin summertime.’

‘they are practising for the winter,’ james told him.

‘i don’t believe it!’ shouted the centipede, raising his voice.

‘ssshh!’ the others whispered. and james said softly, ‘for heaven’s sake, centipede, don’t make somuch noise.’

the centipede roared with laughter. ‘those imbeciles couldn’t hear anything!’ he cried. ‘they’redeaf as doorknobs! you watch!’ and before anyone could stop him, he had cupped his front feet to hismouth and was yelling at the cloud-men as loud as he could. ‘idiots!’ he yelled. ‘nincompoops! half-wits! blunderheads! asses! what on earth do you think you’re doing over there!’

the effect was immediate. the cloud-men jumped round as if they had been stung by wasps. andwhen they saw the great golden peach floating past them not fifty yards away in the sky, they gave ayelp of surprise and dropped their shovels to the ground. and there they stood with the moonlightstreaming down all over them, absolutely motionless, like a group of tall white hairy statues, staringand staring at the gigantic fruit as it went sailing by.

the passengers on the peach (all except the centipede) sat frozen with terror, looking back at thecloud-men and wondering what was going to happen next.

‘now you‘ve done it, you loathsome pest!’ whispered the earthworm to the centipede.

‘i‘m not frightened of them!’ shouted the centipede, and to show everybody once again that hewasn‘t, he stood up to his full height and started dancing about and making insulting signs at the cloud-men with all forty-two of his legs.

this evidently infuriated the cloud-men beyond belief. all at once, they spun round and grabbedgreat handfuls of hailstones and rushed to the edge of the cloud and started throwing them at the peach,shrieking with fury all the time.

‘look out!’ cried james. ‘quick! lie down! lie flat on the deck!’

it was lucky they did! a large hailstone can hurt you as much as a rock or a lump of lead if it isthrown hard enough – and my goodness, how those cloud-men could throw! the hailstones camewhizzing through the air like bullets from a machine-gun, and james could hear them smashing againstthe sides of the peach and burying themselves in the peach flesh with horrible squelching noises – plop!

plop! plop! plop! and then ping! ping! ping! as they bounced off the poor ladybird’s shell because shecouldn’t lie as flat as the others. and then crack! as one of them hit the centipede right on the nose andcrack! again as another one hit him somewhere else.

‘ow!’ he cried. ‘ow! stop! stop! stop!’

but the cloud-men had no intention of stopping. james could see them rushing about on the cloudlike a lot of huge hairy ghosts, picking up hailstones from the pile, dashing to the edge of the cloud,hurling the hailstones at the peach, dashing back again to get more, and then, when the pile of stoneswas all gone, they simply grabbed handfuls of cloud and made as many more as they wanted, and muchbigger ones now, some of them as large as cannon balls.

‘quickly!’ cried james. ‘down the tunnel or we’ll all be wiped out!’

there was a rush for the tunnel entrance, and half a minute later everybody was safely downstairsinside the stone of the peach, trembling with fright and listening to the noise of the hailstones as theycame crashing against the side of the peach.

‘i‘m a wreck!’ groaned the centipede. ‘i am wounded all over!’

‘it serves you right,’ said the earthworm.

‘would somebody kindly look and see if my shell is cracked?’ the ladybird said.

‘give us some light!’ shouted the old-green-grasshopper.

‘i can‘t!’ wailed the glow-worm. ‘they‘ve broken my bulb!’

‘then put in another one!’ the centipede said.

‘be quiet a moment,’ said james. ‘listen! i do believe they’re not hitting us any more!’

they all stopped talking and listened. yes – the noise had ceased. the hailstones were no longersmashing against the peach.

‘we‘ve left them behind!’

‘the seagulls must have pulled us away out of danger.

‘hooray! let’s go up and see!’

cautiously, with james going first, they all climbed back up the tunnel. james poked his head out andlooked around. ‘it’s all clear!’ he called. ‘i can’t see them anywhere!’

二十七

于是，夜幕聚拢来的时候，詹姆斯·亨利·特洛特便跟同伴们蹲在仙桃顶上。头顶上，山一般高的云彩四处飘荡，神秘、可怕，又叫人望而生畏。天，渐渐地越来越黑，大半个苍白的月亮，从云彩顶上露出来，撒下一片奇异怪诞的光线。大仙桃一边飘荡，一边朝两边轻轻摆动。月光下，几百条从桃把上竖起来的白丝绳，煞是漂亮。头顶上方，那一大群海鸥也非常漂亮。

到处没有一丝动静。坐在仙桃上旅行，一点儿也不像坐飞机旅行。飞机飞来的当儿，天上轰隆轰隆的，潜藏在高山似的云彩里的不论什么东西，只要它一靠近，便都逃跑了。这就是坐飞机旅行的人们什么东西也看不到的原因。

可是，仙桃呢……啊，是的……仙桃却温温柔柔的，飘荡起来静悄悄的，什么声响都不会弄出来。在那个静悄悄的漫漫长夜里，浮动在月光下的大西洋上空，詹姆斯跟朋友们，有好几次看到了以前见都没有见过的景象。有一回，悄悄穿过一大片白云时，在顶端，他们望见了一大团丝丝缕缕的又高又怪的东西，差不多有常人的两倍高。开头，看得不太真切，因为他们白得几乎和云彩一样。不过，随着仙桃飘得越来越近，就看得越来越清楚起来：这些“东西”原来是些活的生物——高高大大、模模糊糊，是些幽灵似的白色生物，看起来仿佛是把棉花、棉花糖和细绒线搀和起来做成的一样。

“哎……呀！”瓢虫说，“我应该不喜欢这种东西的！”

“嘘！”詹姆斯回头冲她小声说，“别叫他们听到你的动静！他们肯定是云彩人！”

“云彩人？”他们喃喃地说，为了相互安慰，他们凑得更紧了，“哦，老天！哦，老天哪！”

“我眼睛看不见，这叫我很高兴，”蚯蚓说，“要不，我可能会尖叫起来的。”

“希望他们别转身看见咱们。”蜘蛛小姐说话结巴起来。

“你们看，他们能吃咱们吗？”蚯蚓问。

“他们能吃你。”蜈蚣咧嘴笑着回答，“能把你像切意大利香肠那样，切成一片一片吃下去。”

可怜的蚯蚓吓得浑身颤抖起来。

“可他们那是在做什么呢？”绿色老蚱蜢小声说。

“我也不知道。”詹姆斯轻声说，“咱们瞧瞧再说吧。”

这时，云彩人都站在一块儿，正用手做着什么奇怪的事。开头，他们把手伸出去，一块儿伸出去，一把一把地抓着云彩。然后，又用手指头揉搓着云彩，一直揉搓得像大理石一样。接着，丢到一边，又抓起云彩，再从头揉起来。

周围鸦雀无声，露出了神秘的气氛。摞在他们旁边的那堆大理石，越来越多。不一会儿，就起码有了一卡车。

“他们想必疯了！”蜈蚣说，“根本就没有什么可怕的！”

“别吱声，你这个害人精！”蚯蚓小声说，“如果他们看见了咱们，就会吃掉咱们的！”

然而，云彩人正忙着做自己的事情，根本顾及不到大桃从背后不声不响地飞过来。

接着，仙桃上的瞭望者瞥见，有个云彩人把细线一样的胳膊举过头顶，又听他喊道：“好啦，伙计们！足够啦！拿铁锹来！”随即，其余的云彩人发出了欢快的尖叫声，在空中挥舞着胳膊，蹦起高来。然后又拿起巨大的铁锹，朝那堆大理石奔去，狠劲地铲起来，把它们铲到云彩边上，落到天空中去。“掉下去啦！”他们一边干着活，一边唱道：

下去，下去，

冰雹和雪花，

又冷又凉打喷嚏。

“是冰雹呀！”詹姆斯激动地小声说，“他们原来在做冰雹，这会儿，又往底下的人们身上撒了下去。”

“冰雹？”蜈蚣说，“简直是荒唐！现在是夏天，夏天是不会下冰雹的。”

“那他们就是在为冬天练习哩。”詹姆斯对他说。

“我才不信哩！”蜈蚣提高了嗓门喊道。

“嘘！”别的人小声说。于是，詹姆斯悄悄地说：“看在老天的份上，蜈蚣，别这么大声吧。”

蜈蚣轰然大笑起来。“那些傻瓜听不见的！”他叫道，“他们跟门闩一样聋！你瞧！”人们还没有来得及阻拦，他就弯着前脚放在嘴上，朝云彩人高声吼叫起来。“傻瓜们！”他叫道，“笨蛋们！白痴们！废物们！蠢驴们！你们在那边儿，到底在搞什么名堂！”这一叫，即刻产生了反应。云彩人朝四周乱蹦乱跳，仿佛给马蜂蜇了似的。当他们瞥见离自己不到五十码的地方，一只金色大桃从身边飞过去时，不禁失声惊叫一声，把铁锹丢到地上。他们一动不动地站在那里，月光洒满了全身，就仿佛一组毛茸茸的白色雕像，望着从身旁飘过去的巨大仙桃。

仙桃上的游客，除了蜈蚣以外，都吓得僵坐在那里，朝后望着云彩人，不晓得要发生什么事情。

“喏，都是你干的好事，你这个害人精！”蚯蚓冲蜈蚣耳语道。

“我才不害怕他们哪！”蜈蚣大声说。为了再一次向大家表明他并不害怕，他直了直身子，跳起舞来，还用他全部的四十二条腿冲云彩人打着侮辱的手势。

这一来，显然极大地激怒了云彩人。他们马上转过身，抓起大把冰雹，急忙来到云彩边上，朝大桃丢了过来，同时，还一直愤愤地吼叫着。

“小心！”詹姆斯喊道，“快点躺下！平躺在甲板上！”

幸好他们躺下了。大大的冰雹，如果狠劲丢过来，就会像一块石头或者铅块一样伤人。

而且，我的老天！那些云彩人丢得多用劲儿啊！冰雹仿佛机关枪射出的子弹，咝咝地叫着穿过天空。詹姆斯听见了它们撞击桃面、钻进桃肉里去的可怕的碰撞声：扑哧！扑哧！扑哧！

扑哧！接着是打在瓢虫甲壳上那砰砰砰的声音，因为，她不能像别人那样平躺下来。接着又啪的一声打在蜈蚣的鼻子上，又是啪的一声，打在了蜈蚣身上别的什么地方。

“噢嚎！”蜈蚣喊道，“噢嚎！别丢了！别丢了！别丢了！”

然而，云彩人根本没有住手的意思。詹姆斯看得见，他们仿佛毛茸茸的幽灵，在云彩上跑来跑去，从那一堆里捡起冰雹，冲到云彩边上，朝仙桃丢过来。接着，再奔回去拿冰雹。

后来，那堆石头用完了，便只是抓住一把一把的云彩，想制造多少，就制造多少。不过，这会儿冰雹大多了，有些大得跟炮弹似的。

“快！”詹姆斯喊道，“到通道里去，要不，咱们就全完了！”

于是，通道入口处你拥我挤，半分钟后，大家才安然来到了桃核里面，听着冰雹撞击桃面的声音，吓得浑身颤抖。

“我完蛋了！”蜈蚣一副呻呻吟吟的样子，“我浑身都是伤啦！”

“活该！”蚯蚓说。

“行行好，哪位看看我的甲壳破了没有？”瓢虫说。

“给咱们点光亮吧！”绿色老蚱蜢叫道。

“我不行了。”萤火虫哭哭咧咧地说，“冰雹砸坏了我的灯泡啦。”

“那就再换一只！”蜈蚣说。

“安静一会儿，”詹姆斯说，“听听！我当真觉得他们不再砸咱们啦。”

于是，他们个个停止了交谈，谛听起来。是啊—声音静了下来，冰雹不再撞击桃面了。

“我们把他们抛在后面啦！”

“肯定是海鸥拖着我们脱离了危险。”

“好啊！我们上去看看吧！”

通道里，他们跟在詹姆斯后面，小心翼翼地往上爬着。只见詹姆斯露出脑袋，朝周围望了望。“没有人了！”他喊叫起来，“哪里也见不到云彩人啦。”