James and the Giant Peach

'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 longer smashing 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 and looked around. 'It's all clear!' he called. 'I can't see them anywhere!'

Twenty-eight

One by one, the travellers came out again on to the top of the peach and gazed carefully around. The moon was still shining as brightly as ever, and there were still plenty of huge shimmering cloud-mountains on all sides. But there were no Cloud-Men in sight now.

'The peach is leaking!' shouted the Old-Green-Grasshopper, peering over the side. 'It's full of holes and the juice is dripping out everywhere!'

'That does it!' cried the Earthworm. 'If the peach is leaking then we shall surely sink!'

'Don't be an ass!' the Centipede told him. 'We're not in the water now!'

'Oh, look!' shouted the Ladybird. 'Look, look, look! Over there!'

Everybody swung round to look.

In the distance and directly ahead of them, they now saw a most extraordinary sight. It was a kind of arch, a colossal curvy-shaped thing that reached high up into the sky and came down again at both ends. The ends were resting upon a huge flat cloud that was as big as a desert.

'Now what in the world is that?' asked James.

'It's a bridge!'

'It's an enormous hoop cut in half!'

'It's a giant horseshoe standing upside down!'

'Stop me if I'm wrong,' murmured the Centipede, going white in the face, 'but might those not be Cloud-Men climbing all over it?'

There was a dreadful silence. The peach floated closer and closer.

'They are Cloud-Men!'

'There are hundreds of them!'

'Thousands!'

'Millions!'

'I don't want to hear about it!' shrieked the poor blind Earthworm. 'I'd rather be on the end of a fish hook and used as bait than come up against those terrible creatures again!'

'I'd rather be fried alive and eaten by a Mexican!' wailed the Old-Green-Grasshopper.

'Please keep quiet,' whispered James. 'It's our only hope.'

They crouched very still on top of the peach, staring at the Cloud-Men. The whole surface of the cloud was literally swarming with them, and there were hundreds more up above climbing about on that monstrous crazy arch.

'But what is that thing?' whispered the Ladybird. 'And what are they doing to it?'

'I don't care what they're doing to it!' the Centipede said, scuttling over to the tunnel entrance. 'I'm not staying up here! Good-bye!'