thirty-four

‘come on, centipede, bite through the first string,’ james ordered.

the centipede took one of the silk strings between his teeth and bit through it. and once again (butnot with an angry cloud-man dangling from the end of the string this time) a single seagull came awayfrom the rest of the flock and went flying off on its own.

‘bite another,’ james ordered.

the centipede bit through another string.

‘why aren’t we sinking?’

‘we are sinking!’

‘no, we’re not!’

‘don’t forget the peach is a lot lighter now than when we started out,’ james told them. ‘it lost anawful lot of juice when all those hailstones hit it in the night. cut away two more seagulls, centipede!’

‘ah, that’s better!’

‘here we go!’

‘now we really are sinking!’

‘yes, this is perfect! don’t bite any more, centipede, or we’ll sink too fast! gently does it!’

slowly the great peach began losing height, and the buildings and streets down below began comingcloser and closer.

‘do you think we’ll all get our pictures in the papers when we get down?’ the ladybird asked.

‘my goodness, i‘ve forgotten to polish my boots!’ the centipede said. ‘everyone must help me topolish my boots before we arrive.’

‘oh, for heaven’s sake!’ said the earthworm. ‘can’t you ever stop thinking about –’

but he never finished his sentence. for suddenly… whooosh!… and they looked up and saw ahuge four-engined plane come shooting out of a near-by cloud and go whizzing past them not morethan twenty feet over their heads. this was actually the regular early morning passenger plane comingin to new york from chicago, and as it went by, it sliced right through every single one of the silkenstrings, and immediately the seagulls broke away, and the enormous peach, having nothing to hold it upin the air any longer, went tumbling down towards the earth like a lump of lead.

‘help!’ cried the centipede.

‘save us!’ cried miss spider.

‘we are lost!’ cried the ladybird.

‘this is the end!’ cried the old-green-grasshopper.

‘james!’ cried the earthworm. ‘do something, james! quickly, do something!’

‘i can‘t!’ cried james. ‘i‘m sorry! good-bye! shut your eyes everybody! it won’t be long now!’

三十四

“来呀，蜈蚣，咬头一根丝绳吧。”詹姆斯命令道。

蜈蚣用牙齿叼住一根丝绳，咬断了。于是，就有一只海鸥飞了开去，不过，这一次，丝绳头上并没有吊着个生气的云彩人。

“再咬一根！”詹姆斯命令道。

蜈蚣于是又咬断了一根。

“哦，咱们怎么没有往下降呢？”

“正在下降哪！”

“没有，咱们没有下降！”

“可别忘了，现在桃子比我们出发的时候轻多了。”詹姆斯对他们说，“夜里，冰雹袭来的当儿，它流了不少桃汁。再放走两只海鸥，蜈蚣。”

“啊，这好多啦！”

“咱们下降了！”

“喏，当真下降了！”

“是啊，太棒了！别再咬啦，蜈蚣，要不，咱们就下降得太快了！慢慢来吧！”

大桃的高度开始缓缓下降。底下，街道和房屋也越来越近。

“你看，咱们降下去以后，咱们的相片会不会登在报纸上？”瓢虫问。

“天哪！我忘记把靴子擦亮啦！”蜈蚣说，“咱们降下去以前，不论是谁都得帮我擦亮靴子。”

“哦，看在老天的份上！”蚯蚓说，“你就不能光想……”

但是，他根本没有说完那句话。因为，这时只听得吱呜一声，就见头顶上一架四引擎飞机从附近的云彩里钻出来，在不到二十英尺的上方，轰隆轰隆飞了过去。其实，这是从芝加哥到纽约的早班航机。它飞过去时，正好割断了所有的丝绳。海鸥全都飞走，再也没有什么东西让大桃停留在天空，于是大桃便仿佛一堆铅块似的，翻腾着朝地面坠下去。

“救命啊！”蜈蚣尖叫起来。

“救救我们吧！”蜘蛛小姐喊道。

“咱们完蛋了！”瓢虫喊道。

“末日到了！”绿色老蚱蜢喊道。

“詹姆斯，”蚯蚓喊道，“想想办法，詹姆斯！快，想想办法吧！”

“我想不出办法！”詹姆斯喊道，“对不起！再见了！大伙都给我闭上眼睛！这会儿，时间不长了！”