'Shut up, you little twerp!' Aunt Spiker snapped, happening to overhear him. 'It's none of your business!'
'That's right,' Aunt Sponge declared. 'It's got nothing to do with you whatsoever! Keep out of it.'
'Look!' Aunt Spiker shouted. 'It's growing faster than ever now! It's speeding up!'
'I see it, Spiker! I do! I do!'
Bigger and bigger grew the peach, bigger and bigger and bigger.
Then at last, when it had become nearly as tall as the tree that it was growing on, as tall and wide, in fact, as a small house, the bottom part of it gently touched the ground - and there it rested.
'It can't fall off now!' Aunt Sponge shouted.
'It's stopped growing!' Aunt Spiker cried.
'No, it hasn't!'
'Yes, it has!'
'It's slowing down, Spiker, it's slowing down! But it hasn't stopped yet! You watch it!'
There was a pause.
'It has now!'
'I believe you're right.'
'Do you think it's safe to touch it?'
'I don't know. We'd better be careful.'
Aunt Sponge and A
unt Spiker began walking slowly round the peach, inspecting it very cautiously from all sides. They were like a couple of hunters who had just shot an elephant and were not quite sure whether it was dead or alive. And the massive round fruit towered over them so high that they looked like midgets from another world beside it.
The skin of the peach was very beautiful - a rich buttery yellow with patches of brilliant pink and red. Aunt Sponge advanced cautiously and touched it with the tip of one finger. 'It's ripe!' she cried. 'It's just perfect! Now, look here, Spiker. Why don't we go and get a shovel right away and dig out a great big chunk of it for you and me to eat?'
'No,' Aunt Spiker said. 'Not yet.'
'Why ever not?'
'Because I say so.'
'But I can't wait to eat some!' Aunt Sponge cried out. She was watering at the mouth now and a thin trickle of spit was running down one side of her chin.
'My dear Sponge,' Aunt Spiker said slowly, winking at her sister and smiling a sly, thin-lipped smile. 'There's a pile of money to be made out of this if only we can handle it right. You wait and see.'
Eight
The news that a peach almost as big as a house had suddenly appeared in someone's garden spread like wildfire across the countryside, and the next day a stream of people came scrambling up the steep hill to gaze upon this marvel.
Quickly, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker called in carpenters and had them build a strong fence round the peach to save it from the crowd; and at the same time, these two crafty women stationed themselves at the front gate with a large bunch of tickets and started charging everyone for coming in.
'Roll up! Roll up!' Aunt Spiker yelled. 'Only one shilling to see the giant peach!'
'Half price for children under six weeks old!' Aunt Sponge shouted.
'One at a time, please! Don't push! Don't push! You're all going to get in!'