You might think that this adventure would have stopped George wanting to have anything to do with the dreaded Hoo-Mins.
But George had a short memory for fear.
“Those Hoo-Mins!” he said to Harry, only a few days later. “Trying to Get us with the water! How did they know we were there?”
“Don’t talk about it,” said Harry.
“They must be quite something!”
“Something to keep well away from.”
“Yes. Sure. Except—”
“I do just want to see one!”
“WE ARE NOT GOING UP THE UP-PIPE, and that’s IT!” shouted Harry.
“I didn’t mean that. I meant, we could sneak up a tunnel during the bright-time and have a peep at one.”
This couldn’t help seeming like a pretty exciting idea to Harry. He had a picture in his mind of a Hoo-Min. It looked like a tree that could move, with two feet like hairy biters.
He looked at George for a long time and waved his feelers about in a slow and thoughtful way. Suddenly they shot straight up. This is a centi’s way of saying “YES! Let’s go for it!”
George made lots of humps along his back with excitement.
When the next night ended, they were put to bed (as we would say – they didn’t have beds like ours, of course; they crawled under damp leaves that Belinda had dragged down the tunnel). George was staying over in Harry’s nest. Belinda tucked them in and kissed them. She did this by making sure their leaves were damp and passing her feelers gently over their heads.
“Good bright-time. Sleep till night-time. Mind the ants don’t have a bite-time,” she said, to tease them. (That’s the nearest I can get to what she said in Centipedish.)
Then she went off to her own rest. Full-grown centipedes go to sleep at the same time as centis. So Harry and George didn’t have long to wait.
As soon as all was still, they crept up an up-tunnel. Harry was trembling with excitement. Before long they could see bright light coming down. They were not used to light and they didn’t feel comfortable. Centipedes can’t close their eyes. So they tilted their heads downwards and felt their way forward with their feelers.
They hadn’t reached the tunnel’s entrance when they heard that thumping again! It was right overhead!
“It’s a Hoo-Min!” crackled George. “Walking on its hairy biter feet!”
But now it was Harry who felt brave.
“Come on! Let’s peep at it!”
They crawled the rest of the way up the tunnel towards the light.