James and the Giant Peach

15

Outside in the garden, at that very moment, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker had just taken their places at the front gate, each with a bunch of tickets in her hand, and the first stream of early morning sightseers was visible in the distance climbing up the hill to view the peach.

"We shall make a fortune today," Aunt Spiker was saying. "Just look at all those people!"

"I wonder what became of that horrid little boy of ours last night," Aunt Sponge said. "He never did come back in, did he?"

"He probably fell down in the dark and broke his leg," Aunt Spiker said.

"Or his neck, maybe," Aunt Sponge said hopefully.

"Just wait till I get my hands on him," Aunt Spiker said, waving her cane. "He'll never want to stay out all night again by the time I've finished with him. Good gracious me! What's that awful noise?"

Both women swung around to look.

The noise, of course, had been caused by the giant peach crashing through the fence that surrounded it, and now, gathering speed every second, it came rolling across the garden toward the place where Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker were standing.

They gaped. They screamed. They started to run. They panicked. They both got in each other's way. They began pushing and jostling, and each one of them was thinking only about saving herself. Aunt Sponge, the fat one, tripped over a box that she'd brought along to keep the money in, and fell flat on her face. Aunt Spiker immediately tripped over Aunt Sponge and came down on top of her. They both lay on the ground, fighting and clawing and yelling and struggling frantically to get up again, but before they could do this, the mighty peach was upon them.

There was a crunch.

And then there was silence.

The peach rolled on. And behind it, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker lay ironed out upon the grass as flat and thin and lifeless as a couple of paper dolls cut out of a picture book.