Harry the Poisonous Centipede Goes to Sea by Lynne Reid Banks

Author:Lynne Reid Banks [Lynne Reid Banks ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007374946
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

11. The Hairy-yowler

Imagine a face. Straight ahead of you, but higher. It’s looking down at you. It’s round and furry, with pointed ears, a triangular nose, and whiskers. But the main thing about it is that it’s enormous. Its face is as wide as you are with your arms stretched out, and then as wide as that again.

Now imagine that this monster is glaring at you with green eyes as big as your head, and that it then opens its mouth, which is full of teeth, makes a furious hissing noise, and takes a lunge at you.

Now you know what Josie saw when the monster came round the kitchen door and saw her.

It’s hard to describe the turmoil that followed.

Josie shot out of its way. The others, after a horrified moment when they were paralysed with fright, shot in different directions. The creature went mad. It chased George up a wall as far as it could before falling back. Then it chased Harry, who had retreated under the sink. There was a curtain hanging there, and the animal got tangled up in it. In its struggles, it knocked over the waste-bucket, which fell with a crash, scattering rubbish, some of it on Josie who was trying to get to the door.

It lost sight of Harry for the moment and saw George sliding back down the wall. It leapt towards him. Then it saw a movement and turned. Josie was crawling out from under the garbage. The predator made a wild rush at her. She, too, shot up the wall, but fell back – straight into its mouth.

You’d think that was just what it wanted, but it happened so unexpectedly that it got a fright. It jerked its head, spitting her out, and swiped her with its paw, lifting her off the ground. She clung to the paw and got in one good bite to its hairless pad before dropping off.

The cat – well, you’ve obviously guessed by now – let out a sort of cat-shriek and threw itself backwards, and then started frantically looking for a way of escape. It seemed to have lost its sense of direction completely and kept bouncing off walls. At last, almost by accident, it found the door, and fled, yowling.

The centeens flung themselves together and collapsed in a heap of feelers and legs (and heads and bodies).

“What WAS that?” gasped George.

“It was a hairy-yowler,” said Josie, who, despite her close encounter, was calmer than the others. “They make a terrible noise. They chase you, but they don’t like it when they catch you. I know because the Hoo-Min nest where I lived had one. I should have remembered those puddle-things where the hairy-yowlers keep their food and drink.”

“You’ve been chased before by a hairy-yowler?”

“Oh yes. You see, Hoo-Mins sleep in the dark-time, but hairy-yowlers don’t. That’s when they go hunting. So I had to be extra careful when I went foraging in the Hoo-Min nest. At first. But after one bite – mine to it, I mean, it never bit me – it left me alone, in fact it was terrified of me.

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