James And The Giant Peach

Finally, the noise of flying hailstones stops, and the friends venture back out onto the top of the peach. The Cloud-Men have stopped making hailstones and now millions of them are constructing and painting a huge rainbow. It takes a while for the terrified friends to realize what is going on, but when they do, the brilliance of the rainbow replaces fear with awe and wonder. As they watch the Cloud-Men lower the rainbow down to earth, Centipede points out that they are heading straight for the center of it. Their fear returns in full force, and as they are all crying out in terror, the peach smacks right into the rainbow, splitting it in two. To make matters worse, the peach gets tangled up in the strings the Cloud-Men use to lower the rainbow. Thousands of angry, beady-eyed Cloud-Men stare down at the travelers from their shapeless white faces.

One “huge hairy” Cloud-Man takes a leap and grabs one of the silk strings holding a seagull. Ladybug wails “mercy,” Grasshopper suggests jumping overboard, and Centipede, true to form, offers up Earthworm, saying, “eat the earthworm first! […] It's no good eating me, I'm full of bones like a kipper!” (111). James comes to the rescue again, quickly directing Centipede to chew through the silk string that the Cloud-Man is climbing down. Centipede bites through the string and the freed seagull flies off with the Cloud-Man clinging to the string, seething with rage. The rest of the Cloud-Men are so stunned that they drop the strings holding the rainbow halves, causing them to crash to the ground, releasing the peach. Not done with the meddling group yet, the Cloud-Men throw everything they can grab at the peach, for example, “empty paint cans, paintbrushes, stepladders, stools, saucepans, frying pans, rotten eggs, dead rats, bottles of hair oil” (112).

Centipede is hit by a gallon of quick-drying purple paint, which rapidly immobilizes him. The peach pulls away from the Cloud-Men, and the friends turn their attention to Centipede, who is now encased in dry purple paint. Miss Spider is reminded of another sad tale and sheds another tear as she recounts it. Her grandmother got stuck on a ceiling after it was painted by Spiker. She lived there, stuck, for 6 months until Sponge glanced up, saw her, and squashed her.

Earthworm is enjoying the predicament Centipede finds himself in and contributes useless suggestions such as turning the frozen, purple Centipede into a stand for a birdbath or turning him inside out by pulling hard on his tongue. For the first time, Earthworm smiles. James is about to come out with a helpful suggestion when they see a black cloud and hear a loud voice above them shouting, “On with the faucets!’” (116). A deluge of water engulfs the travelers, so powerful that James thinks that this “must be the end of everything at last” (118). The flood stops suddenly as the seagulls pull the peach through the downpour, leaving sodden, unhappy Old-Green-Grasshopper and Earthworm moaning and groaning. Centipede dances around and sings loudly, washed clean of the paint. Centipede announces that he can move again, Earthworm says “That’s the worst news I’ve had in a long time” (118).