Nineteen
‘Look!’ cried the Centipede just as they were finishing their meal. ‘Look at that funny thin black thinggliding through the water over there!’
They all swung round to look.
‘There are two of them,’ said Miss Spider.
‘There are lots of them!’ said the Ladybird.
‘What are they?’ asked the Earthworm, getting worried.
‘They must be some kind of fish,’ said the Old-Green-Grasshopper. ‘Perhaps they have come alongto say hello.’
‘They are sharks!’ cried the Earthworm. ‘I’ll bet you anything you like that they are sharks and theyhave come along to eat us up!’
‘What absolute rot!’ the Centipede said, but his voice seemed suddenly to have become a little shaky,and he wasn’t laughing.
‘I am positive they are sharks!’ said the Earthworm. T just know they are sharks!’
And so, in actual fact, did everybody else, but they were too frightened to admit it.
There was a short silence. They all peered down anxiously at the sharks who were cruising slowlyround and round the peach.
‘Just assuming that they are sharks,’ the Centipede said, ‘there still can’t possibly be any danger ifwe stay up here.’
But even as he spoke¹, one of those thin black fins² suddenly changed direction and came cuttingswiftly through the water right up to the side of the peach itself. The shark paused and stared up at thecompany with small evil eyes.
‘Go away!’ they shouted. ‘Go away, you filthy³ beast!’
Slowly, almost lazily, the shark opened his mouth (which was big enough to have swallowed aperambulator) and made a lunge at the peach.
They all watched, aghast.
And now, as though at a signal from the leader, all the other sharks came swimming in towards thepeach, and they clustered around it and began to attack it furiously. There must have been twenty orthirty of them at least, all pushing and fighting and lashing⁴ their tails and churning the water into afroth.
Panic and pandemonium⁵ broke out immediately on top of the peach.
‘Oh, we are finished now!’ cried Miss Spider,

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