“Mama!”
They ran their front feelers all over her body, and Harry tried to make her wake up by pushing her head with his.
“Is she dead?” asked George in a whispering crackle.
“No! No! She can’t be! Mama! Wake up, wake up!”
But Belinda didn’t move.
“We’ve got to get her home!”
“How can we? She’s so big!”
“She’s no heavier than the mole-cricket!
George didn’t say anything more. But what he was thinking was that the mole-cricket was much smaller than Belinda, and that when they brought home the mole-cricket, it was almost all downhill. The long way back to the nest was nearly all uphill.
But they had to try.
They got hold of Belinda’s front feet and dragged her, and when they couldn’t drag her any more they tried getting behind and pushing her, but that didn’t work, so they had a rest and then dragged her some more.
It was by far the hardest thing either of them had ever done, and it just went on and on. When they thought of the length of the tunnel still to come, they both wanted to lie down and give up.
What kept them going?
Harry kept going because Belinda was his mother. George kept going because Harry did.
They both kept going because they knew they shouldn’t have put themselves first, and left Belinda at the bottom of the Up-Pipe in the white-choke.
They both kept going because they could imagine how they would feel, for the rest of their lives, if they didn’t.
But the worst thing they each thought of, though neither of them said it, was that perhaps it was for nothing.
Perhaps she was dead all the time.
At last, just as they thought they were going to have to give up, something wonderful happened.
As the centis were dragging Belinda along, they felt her get a little lighter. They looked along the length of her body and saw that her back legs were moving. A bit of her was walking, helping.
“Mama! You’re alive! You’re alive!”
Belinda’s head moved. They felt her front feet moving too.
“Try to walk, Mama! Help us get you home!”
And she did. Slowly at first, and then, as more and more of her legs started to work again, she moved by herself.
The centis danced at her side, encouraging her. It wasn’t that much further anyway – they’d nearly got her back all by themselves.
Soon they came out of the tunnel to the nest.
Belinda fell to the ground and the centis pulled her leaf over her. She stopped moving and her feelers drooped, but they knew she was just asleep this time.
The air in the nest-tunnel was almost clear again. The white-choke was gone, though they could still smell it a little, enough to remind them how awful it had been.
Harry and George crept about, being quiet.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Starving! What I couldn’t do to a lizard right now!”
There were no lizards, but luckily Belinda had caught a couple of beautiful fat spiders, four ants and a grasshopper the night before. The two hungry centis ate the lot, sharing the grasshopper between them.
Although they were tired, they decided to go hunting for something for Belinda to eat when she woke up.
They went to the no-top-world.
