Thirteen
A few-minutes later, Miss Spider had made the first bed. It was hanging from the ceiling, suspended bya rope of threads at either end so that actually it looked more like a hammock than a bed. But it was amagnificent affair, and the stuff that it was made of shimmered¹ like silk in the pale light.
‘I do hope you’ll find it comfortable,’ Miss Spider said to the Old-Green-Grasshopper. ‘I made it assoft and silky as I possibly could. I spun³ it with gossamer⁴. That’s a much better quality thread than theone I use for my own web.’
‘Thank you so much, my dear lady,’ the Old-Green-Grasshopper said, climbing into the hammock.
‘Ah, this is just what I needed. Good night, everybody. Good night.’
Then Miss Spider spun the next hammock, and the Ladybird got in.
After that, she spun a long one for the Centipede, and an even longer one for the Earthworm.
‘And how do you like your bed?’ she said to James when it came to his turn. ‘Hard or soft?’
‘I like it soft, thank you very much,’ James answered.
‘For goodness’ sake stop staring round the room and get on with my boots!’ the Centipede said.
‘You and I are never going to get any sleep at this rate! And kindly⁵ line them up neatly⁶ in pairs as youtake them off. Don’t just throw them over your shoulder.’
James worked away frantically⁷ on the Centipede’s boots. Each one had laces that had to be untiedand loosened before it could be pulled off, and to make matters worse, all the laces were tied up in themost terrible complicated knots that had to be unpicked with fingernails. It was just awful. It took abouttwo hours. And by the time James had pulled off the last boot of all and had lined them up in a row onthe floor – twenty-one pairs altogether – the Centipede was fast asleep.
‘Wake up, Centipede,’ whispered James, giving him a gentle dig in the stomach. ‘It’s time for bed.’
‘Thank you, my dear child,’ the Centipede said, opening his eyes. Then he got down off the sofa andambled across the room and crawled into his hammock. James got into his own hammock – and oh,how soft and comfortable it was compared with the hard bare boards that his aunts had always madehim sleep upon at home.

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