'Go on, James,' the Ladybird said gently. 'How are you going to do it?'
'Skyhooks, I suppose,' jeered the Centipede.
'Seagulls,' James answered calmly. 'The place is full of them. Look up there!'
They all looked up and saw a great mass of seagulls wheeling round and round in the sky.
'I'm going to take a long silk string,' James went on, 'and I'm going to loop one end of it round a seagull's neck. And then I'm going to tie the other end to the stem of the peach.' He pointed to the peach stem, which was standing up like a short thick mast in the middle of the deck.
'Then I'm going to get another seagull and do the same thing again, then another and another -'
'Ridiculous!' they shouted.
'Absurd!'
'Poppycock!'
'Balderdash!'
'Madness!'
And the Old-Green-Grasshopper said, 'How can a few seagulls lift an enormous thing like this up into the air, and all of us as well? It would take hundreds... thousands...'
'There is no shortage of seagulls,' James answered. 'Look for yourself. We'll probably need four hundred, five hundred, six hundred... maybe even a thousand... I don't know... I shall simply go on hooking them up to the stem until we have enough to lift us. They'll be bound to lift us in the end. It's like balloons. You give someone enough balloons to hold, I mean really enough, then up he goes. And a seagull has far more lifting power than a balloon. If only we have the time to do it. If only we are not sunk first by those awful sharks...'
'You're absolutely off your head!' said the Earthworm.
'How on earth do you propose to get a loop of string round a seagull's neck? I suppose you're going to fly up there yourself and catch it!'
'The boy's dotty!' said the Centipede.
'Let him finish,' said the Ladybird. 'Go on, James. How would you do it?'
'With bait.'
'Bait! What sort of bait?'
'With a worm, of course. Seagulls love worms, didn't you know that? And luckily for us, we have here the biggest, fattest, pinkest, juiciest Earthworm in the world.'
'You can stop right there!' the Earthworm said sharply. 'That's quite enough!'
'Go on,' the others said, beginning to grow interested. 'Go on!'
'The seagulls have already spotted him,' James continued. 'That's why there are so many of them circling round. But they daren't come down to get him while all the rest of us are standing here. So this is what -'
'Stop!' cried the Earthworm. 'Stop, stop, stop! I won't have it! I refuse! I - I - I - I -'
'Be quiet!' said the Centipede. 'Mind your own business!'
'I like that!'
'My dear Earthworm, you're going to be eaten anyway, so what difference does it make whether it's sharks or seagulls?'
'I won't do it!'
'Why don't we hear what the plan is first?' said the Old-Green-Grasshopper.
'I don't give a hoot what the plan is!' cried the Earthworm. 'I am not going to be pecked to death by a bunch of seagulls!'