37 Thirty-seven

Thirty-seven It was really an amazing sight, and in two or three minutes, as soon as the people below realized that this now couldn't possibly be a bomb, they came pouring out of the shelters and the subways to gape at the marvel. The streets for half a mile around the building were jammed with men and women, and when the word spread that there were actually living things moving about on the top of the great round ball, then everyone went wild with excitement. 'It's a flying saucer!' they shouted. 'They are from Outer Space!' 'They are men from Mars!' 'Or maybe they came from the Moon!' And a man who had a pair of binoculars to his eyes said, 'They look pritt-ty peculiar to me, I'll tell you that.'

Police cars and fire engines came screaming in from all over the city and pulled up outside the Empire State Building. Two hundred firemen and six hundred policemen swarmed into the building and went up in the elevators as high as they could go. Then they poured out on to the observation roof – which is the place where tourists stand – just at the bottom of the big spike. All the policemen were holding their guns at the ready, with their fingers on the triggers, and the firemen were clutching their hatchets. But from where they stood, almost directly underneath the peach, they couldn't actually see the travellers up on top. 'Ahoy there!' shouted the Chief of Police. 'Come out and show yourselves!' Suddenly, the great brown head of the Centipede appeared over the side of the peach. His black eyes, as large and round as two marbles, glared down at the policemen and the firemen below. Then his monstrous ugly face broke into a wide grin.

The policemen and the firemen all started shouting at once. 'Look out!' they cried. 'It's a Dragon!' 'It's not a Dragon! It's a Wampus!' 'It's a Gorgon!' 'It's a Sea-serpent!' 'It's a Prock!' 'It's a Manticore!' Three firemen and five policemen fainted and had to be carried away. 'It's a Snozzwanger!' cried the Chief of Police. 'It's a Whangdoodle!' yelled the Head of the Fire Department. The Centipede kept on grinning. He seemed to be enjoying enormously the commotion that he was causing. 'Now see here!' shouted the Chief of Police, cupping his hands to his mouth. 'You listen to me! I want you to tell me exactly where you've come from!' 'We've come from thousands of miles away!' the Centipede shouted back, grinning more

broadly than ever and showing his brown teeth. 'There you are!' called the Chief of Police. 'I told you they came from Mars!' 'I guess you're right!' said the Head of the Fire Department. At this point, the Old-Green-Grasshopper poked his huge green head over the side of the peach, alongside the Centipede's. Six more big strong men fainted when they saw him. 'That one's an Oinck!' screamed the Head of the Fire Department. 'I just know it's an Oinck!' 'Or a Cockatrice!' yelled the Chief of Police. 'Stand back, men! It may jump down on us any moment!' 'What on earth are they talking about?' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said to the Centipede. 'Search me,' the Centipede answered. 'But they seem to be in an awful stew about something.' Then Miss Spider's large black murderouslooking head, which to a stranger was probably the most terrifying of all, appeared next to the Grasshopper's.

'Snakes and ladders!' yelled the Head of the Fire Department. 'We are finished now! It's a giant Scorpula!' 'It's worse than that!' cried the Chief of Police. 'It's a vermicious Knid! Oh, just look at its vermicious gruesome face!' 'Is that the kind that eats fully-grown men for breakfast?' the Head of the Fire Department asked, going white as a sheet. 'I'm afraid it is,' the Chief of Police answered. 'Oh, please why doesn't someone help us to get down from here?' Miss Spider called out. 'It's making me giddy.'

'This could be a trick!' said the Head of the Fire Department. 'Don't anyone make a move until I say!' 'They've probably got space guns!' muttered the Chief of Police. 'But we've got to do something!' the Head of the Fire Department announced grimly. 'About five million people are standing down there on the streets watching us.' 'Then why don't you put up a ladder?' the Chief of Police asked him. 'I'll stand at the bottom