And then suddenly...
But slowly...
Majestically...
Like some fabulous golden balloon...
With all the seagulls straining at the strings above...
The giant peach rose up dripping out of the water and began climbing towards the heavens.
Twenty-three
In a flash, everybody was up on top.
'Oh, isn't it beautiful!' they cried.
'What a marvellous feeling!'
'Good-bye, sharks!'
'Oh, boy, this is the way to travel!'
Miss Spider, who was literally squealing with excitement, grabbed the Centipede by the waist and the two of them started dancing round and round the peach stem together. The Earthworm stood up on his tail and did a sort of wriggle of joy all by himself. The Old-Green-Grasshopper kept hopping higher and higher in the air. The Ladybird rushed over and shook James warmly by the hand. The Glow-worm, who at the best of times was a very shy and silent creature, sat glowing with pleasure near the tunnel entrance. Even the Silkworm, looking white and thin and completely exhausted, came creeping out of the tunnel to watch this miraculous ascent.
Up and up they went, and soon they were as high as the top of a church steeple above the ocean.
'I'm a bit worried about the peach,' James said to the others as soon as all the dancing and the shouting had stopped. 'I wonder how much damage those sharks have done to it underneath. It's quite impossible to tell from up here.'
'Why don't I go over the side and make an inspection?' Miss Spider said. 'It'll be no trouble at all, I assure you.' And without waiting for an answer, she quickly produced a length of silk thread and attached the end of it to the peach stem. 'I'll be back in a jiffy,' she said, and then she walked calmly over to the edge of the peach and jumped off, paying out the thread behind her as she fell.
The others crowded anxiously around the place where she had gone over.
'Wouldn't it be dreadful if the thread broke,' the Ladybird said.
There was a rather long silence.
'Are you all right, Miss Spider?' shouted the Old-Green-Grasshopper.
'Yes, thank you!' her voice answered from below. 'I'm coming up now!' And up she came, climbing foot over foot up the silk thread, and at the same time tucking the thread back cleverly into her body as she climbed past it.
'Is it awful?' they asked her. 'Is it all eaten away? Are there great holes in it everywhere?'
Miss Spider clambered back on to the deck with a pleased but also a rather puzzled look on her face. 'You won't believe this,' she said, 'but actually there's hardly any damage down there at all! The peach is almost untouched! There are just a few tiny pieces out of it here and there, but nothing more.'
'You must be mistaken,' James told her.
'Of course she's mistaken!' the Centipede said.
'I promise you I'm not,' Miss Spider answered.
'But there were hundreds of sharks around us!'
'They churned the water into a froth!'
'We saw their great mouths opening and shutting!'
'I don't care what you saw,' Miss Spider answered. 'They certainly didn't do much damage to the peach.'