James and the Giant Peach Page #5

earthworms have no vision at all.

(EARTHWORM tries to bow to JAMES, but bows in the completely wrong

direction. SPIDER gently turns him so he is facing JAMES, and he bows

again.)

Narrator #2:
And what about in the corner, what’s that creature?

Narrator #1:
Oh that’s a silkworm, sleeping soundly. Nobody pays attention

to her.

(The SILKWORM is sleeping cozily.)

18

Spider:
I’m hungry.

Grasshopper:
I’m famished.

Ladybug:
So am I!

Narrator #1:
Poor James. You can imagine how he felt after hearing this

announcement from several giant insects, all while being trapped inside a

Giant Peach with them.

Narrator #2:
Can’t say that’s ever happened to me.

Spider:
Aren’t you hungry?

(JAMES backs up all the way until he is trapped against the Peach wall.

Miserable, terrified and trembling, he knows this is how his life will end.)

Grasshopper:
What’s the matter with you? You look positively ill!

Centipede:
He looks as though he’s going to faint any second! (laughs)

Ladybug:
Oh my goodness! The poor thing! I do believe he thinks it’s him we

want to eat!

(All the INSECTS burst into laughter, as if this is the most ridiculous thing

they have ever heard.)

Spider:
Oh dear, oh dear! What an awful thought.

Ladybug:
You mustn’t be frightened. We wouldn’t dream of hurting you. You

are one of us now, didn’t you know that?

Grasshopper:
We’ve been waiting for you all day long. We thought you were

never going to turn up! I’m glad you made it.

Centipede:
So cheer up! Meanwhile, I wish you’d come over here and give me

a hand with these shoes. It takes me hours to get them all off by myself.

Narrator #1:
James decided this was most certainly not a time to be

disagreeable, so he crossed the room to help the Centipede.

(JAMES crosses to the CENTIPEDE. He kneels beside him, and begins

helping him with his shoes.)

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Centipede:
Thank you so much, you are very kind.

James:
You have a lot of shoes.

Centipede:
I have a lot of legs. And a lot of feet. 100 to be exact.

Earthworm:
There he goes again! He simply cannot stop telling lies about his

legs. He doesn’t have anywhere close to a hundred of them. He’s only got

forty-two. The trouble is that most people don’t bother to sit down and count

a centipede’s legs. They just take their word for it. And anyway, there is

nothing marvelous, Centipede about having a lot of legs.

Centipede:
Poor fellow. He’s blind. He can’t see how splendid I look.

Earthworm:
In my opinion, the really marvelous thing is to have no legs at all

and be able to walk just the same.

Centipede:
You call that walking! You’re a slitherer, that’s all you are. You

just slither along.

Earthworm:
I glide.

Centipede:
You are a slimy beast.

Earthworm:
I am not a slimy beast! I am a useful and much loved creature.

Ask any gardener you like. And as for you-

Centipede:
(proudly) I am a pest!

Ladybug:
He is so proud of that. Though for the life of me, I cannot

understand why.

Centipede:
I am the only pest in this room! Unless you count the old green

Grasshopper. But he’s long past it now. He’s too old to be a pest anymore.

Grasshopper:
Young fellow, I have never been a pest in my life. I am a

musician.

Ladybug:
Hear hear!

Centipede:
James, your name is James isn’t it?

James:
Yes.

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Centipede:
Well James, have you ever in your life seen such a marvelous

colossal Centipede as me?

James:
I certainly haven’t. How on earth did you get to be like that?

Centipede:
Very peculiar. I was messing about in the garden under the old

peach tree and suddenly a funny little green thing came wriggling past my

nose. Bright green it was, and extraordinarily beautiful. It looked like some

kind of tiny stone or crystal…

James:
Oh, but I know what that was!

Ladybug:
It happened to me too!

Sider:
And me! Suddenly there were little green things everywhere! The soil

was full of them!

Earthworm:
(Proudly) I actually swallowed one!

Ladybug:
So did I!

Centipede:
I swallowed three! But who’s telling this story anyway! Don’t

interrupt.

Grasshopper:
There’s no time for stories, we’ve got to get to work!

Centipede:
I refuse to work until I’ve aired out all my feet. How many more

shoes need to come off James?

(GRASSHOPPER and SPIDER disappear momentarily.)

James:
I think I’ve done about twenty so far.

Centipede:
Then that leaves eighty to go.

Earthworm:
TWENTY-TWO! NOT EIGHTY! He’s lying again!

Centipede:
A Mathematician are we?

Ladybug:
Stop pulling the Earthworm’s leg.

(The CENTIPEDE roars with laughter.)

Centipede:
Pulling his LEG? Which leg am I pulling? You tell me that?

21

(SPIDER return.)

Spider:
We’re just about off! Centipede, we need you!

(CENTIPEDE joins GRASSHOPPER offstage.)

Ladybug:
Here we go! Hold on tight!

James:
What’s happening? What’s going on?

(LADYBUG comes to stand beside JAMES, she puts her arm around him

comfortingly.)

Ladybug:
In case you don’t know it, we are about to depart forever from the

top of this ghastly hill that we’ve all been living on for so long. We are about

to roll away inside this great big beautiful peach, to a land of…of…of..to a

land of…

James:
of what?

Ladybug:
Something better than here! Nothing could we worse than this

lonely hill and those two repulsive aunts of yours-

All Insects:
Hear hear!

Ladybug:
You may not have noticed it, but the only thing keeping this Giant

Peach from rolling away is the stem attaching it to the tree. Break the stem,

and off we go!

(Suddenly everyone physically reacts as if the Giant Peach has moved slightly

and they’ve all lost balanced.)

Earthworm:
Watch it! Here we go!

Spider:
Not quite. At this moment, our Centipede who has a pair of jaws as

sharp as razors is up there on top of the peach nibbling away at that stem. In

fact, he must be nearly through it, as you can tell from the way we’re lurching

about.

Ladybug:
Would you like me to take you under my wing so that you won’t fall

over when we start rolling?

James:
That’s very kind of you, but I think I’ll be alright.

22

(Abruptly, GRASSHOPPER runs back into the Giant Peach.)

Grasshopper:
Hold on to your hats!

(CENTIPEDE follows.)

Centipede:
Or your shoes!

All Insects:
We’re off!

Centipede:
The journey begins!

(The action in the Giant Peach freezes, and then moves through a series of

tableaus that depict the movement of the peach.)

Narrator #1:
Outside in the garden, at that very moment Aunt Sponge and

Aunt Spiker had just taken their places at the front gate.

(AUNT SPONGE and AUNT SPIKER appear, and stand on the gym floor,

directly in front of the Giant Peach on the stage.)

Aunt Spiker:
We shall make a fortune today, just look at all the crowds

coming up over the hill!

Aunt Sponge:
I wonder what became of that horrid little boy of ours last

night. He never did come back, did he?

Aunt Spiker:
He probably fell down in the dark and broke his leg.

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