James and the Giant Peach

'Yes,' the Ladybird answered quietly. 'They are all of them loved.'

'It seems that almost everyone around here is loved!' said James. 'How nice this is!'

'Not me!' cried the Centipede happily. 'I am a pest and I'm proud of it! Oh, I am such a shocking dreadful pest!'

'Hear, hear,' the Earthworm said.

'But what about you, Miss Spider?' asked James. 'Aren't you also much loved in the world?'

'Alas, no,' Miss Spider answered, sighing long and loud. 'I am not loved at all. And yet I do nothing but good. All day long I catch flies and mosquitoes in my webs. I am a decent person.'

'I know you are,' said James.

'It is very unfair the way we Spiders are treated,' Miss Spider went on. 'Why, only last week your own horrible Aunt Sponge flushed my poor dear father down the plug-hole in the bathtub.'

'Oh, how awful!' cried James.

'I watched the whole thing from a corner up in the ceiling,' Miss Spider murmured. 'It was ghastly. We never saw him again.' A large tear rolled down her cheek and fell with a splash on the floor.

'But is it not very unlucky to kill a spider?' James inquired, looking around at the others.

'Of course it's unlucky to kill a spider!' shouted the Centipede. 'It's about the unluckiest thing anyone can do. Look what happened

to Aunt Sponge after she'd done that! Bump! We all felt it, didn't we, as the peach went over her? Oh, what a lovely bump that must have been for you, Miss Spider!'

'It was very satisfactory,' Miss Spider answered. Will you sing us a song about it, please?'

So the Centipede did.

'Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat, And tremendously flabby at that.

Her tummy and waist

Were as soggy as paste -

It was worse on the place where she sat!

So she said, "I must make myself flat.

I must make myself sleek as a cat.

I shall do without dinner

To make myself thinner."

But along came the peach!

Oh, the beautiful peach!

And made her far thinner than that!'

'That was very nice,' Miss Spider said. 'Now sing one about Aunt Spiker.'

'With pleasure,' the Centipede answered, grinning: 'Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire, And dry as a bone, only drier.

She was so long and thin

If you carried her in