The Embarrassing Millipede Story

I am going to tell you a story about the time Mouth met a millipede.

It was embarrassing for all involved. All except the millipede.

I still giggle to myself when I think about it.

One day when Tail, Mouth and I lived in my old flat, a millipede crawled in through the window. It was being innocuous enough, millepeding around on the windowsill and thinking about whatever millipedes think about. Its legs, probably. It was minding its own millipedey business.

Then Mouth saw it.

Now, Mouth likes to think of himself as a brave animal. (He isn't.) He prides himself on being totally unafraid of things, except the Hoover. (He is an utter wimp.)

But he had never seen a millipede before.

He had seen plenty of spiders. He had even played Spider Tennis* with Tail on occasion. But this was not a spider.

For a start, it knew how to curl itself into a ball without leaving any bits sticking out.

This frustrated Mouth immensely. (He had spent months trying to accomplish this himself, but someone's tail kept refusing to tuck itself in. He wished he knew whose it was, so he could write them a strongly-worded letter about their tail's behaviour, or at least chew their ear a bit.)

Mouth responded in the most sensible way he could think of. He deployed his Sideways Head of Confusion.

Strangely, the millipede did not seem to understand the Sideways Head of Confusion, so Mouth considered other tactics. He decided the best way forward would be to place his paw on the millipede and squish it, thereby eliminating the doubtless terrible threat it posed.

The millipede, however, proved a cunning opponent. It was fast. It was agile. It could fit in the cracks on the windowsill. It was the ninja of the millipede world.

There followed an epic battle betwixt paw and 'pede, with Mouth swatting maniacally at the wily bug and the wily bug dodging with ease.

(Mouth refused to entertain the possibility that it had not even noticed his Paw Onslaught.)

Poor Mouth had no hope. Not only was he balancing precariously on the windowsill, his opponent also had approximately twenty-five times as many legs.

(How did it manage? Mouth had enough trouble controlling four.)

The outcome of the battle was inevitable. Mouth gave in with grace, watching glumly as the millipede crawled back out of the window.

He knew this was an historic victory. For generations, millipedes would laugh at cats in the street. Millipede children would be told the story of the Great Tabby Defeat. Mouth's species would be scorned by the insect population for all time.

As Mouth saw the millipede disappear under a roof tile, he could swear he saw it stick its tongue out.

These days, Mouth sticks to spiders. He knows where he is with eight legs.

*There is no net, but otherwise it is just like person tennis. You just have to figure out if the spider is a crunchy one or a splatty one, then you're good to go. The spider always loses.