by R. McGeddon
The class’s pet ogre-faced spider had burst out of his tank and was now towering over the poor teacher. Gerry was now almost the height of the ceiling, and from what Arty could tell from his face, he wasn’t very happy. His fangs snapped together menacingly, and the two big eyes on the front of his head danced like hypnotic whirlpools. Mr. Nerdgoober seemed unable to look away.
Arty and Felicia made to go forward, but the spider let out a low hiss. He had spotted them out of the corner of one of his other six eyes—if eyes have corners, which I’m pretty sure they do.
“Wh-what on Earth?” Mr. Nerdgoober stammered as the giant spider edged closer.
“Well, it’s very simple,” Felicia began to explain. “I just had to split the genetic—”
“I don’t think he means that!” Arty cried. “We have to help him.”
Gerry edged forward, one leg at a time, until Mr. Nerdgoober was pinned to the back wall of the classroom.
“Oh, right,” Felicia said. “Well, whatever you do,” she shouted to the teacher, “don’t make any sharp movements.”
Right then, Mr. Nerdgoober made a sharp movement.
He ducked under one of the spider’s spindly legs, dashed for the whiteboard, and grabbed a pen and chucked it at the spider. It whacked him right in the face.
“Yeah, he shouldn’t have done that,” said Felicia.
The ogre-faced spider crouched down low and let out a rumbling hiss. Then Gerry did something terrifying. I’ll give you a moment to prepare yourself.
Are you ready?
Here we go.
Rearing up on his back legs, Gerry began producing silk from his silk glands (yeah, I told you) and rubbed it together between his front two legs, creating a kind of net.
“Wh-what’s he doing?” Mr. Nerdgoober asked pitifully. But to be honest, he didn’t want to know. No one would want to know what the ogre-faced spider was going to do next. Arty and Felicia knew, though. They knew all about this particular spider, and they knew it wasn’t going to be pretty.
With a flick of its forelegs, the spider cast the net through the air. The force of the assault flung Mr. Nerdgoober backward, and he landed smack against the wall, pinned down by the sticky web. Mr. Nerdgoober’s eyes widened as Gerry finished his attack. He towered over Mr. Nerdgoober, and in one quick movement, bit his head clean off.
Arty and Felicia stared, mouths agape.
“He really was in over his head!” Felicia joked.
“Not now!” Arty exclaimed, horrified. “I think we might want to get out of here.”
“Yeah, good idea, brainiac,” Felicia shot back.
Arty grabbed Felicia’s arm and made a run for it across the classroom. But Gerry wasn’t done with them yet. His head whipped around, and he used his many legs to skitter across the room in their direction.
Arty squared up to the beast and swung his fist. It clattered against the spider’s leg and bounced back. He looked at Felicia and shrugged. “Sam usually knows what to do in this situation,” he said. “Although something tells me that fighting spiders isn’t going to be his strength.”
Gerry towered over him, and a strand of spider spittle snaked its way out of his mouth and dropped on Arty’s head.
“EWWW, GROSS!”
“Quick!” Felicia said. “This way.”
She pulled Arty down and together they scurried under a desk. Gerry let out a piercing hiss that shook the windows in their frames.
Yesterday Arty would’ve given several teeth and maybe even his collection of rare misshapen coins that he kept in a secret vault in his bedroom to be this close to Felicia. Now he wasn’t sure. To his left, there was a maniacal eight-eyed monster that wanted to bite his head off. To his right was a maniacal two-eyed child genius that was quite relaxed about creating giant spiders that could clearly kill everybody.
His chances of survival weren’t looking good.
* * *
Ogre-Faced Spider
• Hypnotic eyes to cast a spell on you before it eats your face
• Web-weaving skills that could make a dress in five minutes (or a sticky net to trap you forever)
• Brown-and-gray camouflage for when walking across brown-and-gray surfaces (duh)
* * *
Gerry stopped scuffling around for a second, so Arty used the chance to stick his head out.
“I think the coast is cle—” he began. But before he could finish, the ogre-faced spider loomed in front of him and snorted his bad spider breath right in his face. Bad manners, frankly, but then that’s a giant spider for you.
“Yargh!” he yelled to Felicia. “This way!”
Together, Arty and Felicia scuttled under the classroom’s desks like the creepy crawly they were fleeing. They could hear the spider overhead, hissing and climbing over the tables.
“Now!” Arty shouted. “This is our chance!”
With that, Arty and Felicia lunged for the final desk and made for the exit. Arty whirled around and slammed the door after them just in time. A crunching noise tore through the air; Arty had taken off one of the spider’s legs when he closed the door. He looked back through the glass at the very annoyed spider and silently prayed that Gerry didn’t know how to open doors. Otherwise, they’d be in big trouble.
“Felicia? What in the name of all that’s holey—like socks, underwear, cheese, a net—is going on?”
“Look,” she began, “I didn’t know exactly what would happen when I did the experiment, but that’s the whole point of an experiment, right?”
“Mr. Nerdgoober lost his head!” Arty cried.
“I know, but he probably wasn’t using it anyway, right?” Felicia tried weakly.
Arty paced the floor, his brow creased into zigzag lines.
“The Insectarium,” he thought out loud. “You gave the mixture to Professor Stix. What if he used it?”
Felicia shrugged and tossed back her hair. “Well, in terms of credit for my discovery, the scientific treaty of Monte Carlo would dictate that—”
“Never mind the Monte Carlo treaty!” Arty screeched. “This isn’t about credit. This is level-one Sitting Duck trouble. We’ve got to act fast.”
Arty looked around. There had to be something he could do. Suddenly, he remembered. Since the wave of zombies and aliens and evil scientists and evil robots, Sitting Duck had finally gotten its butt in gear and developed a warning system. Or at least the school had.
He tore through the corridor looking for the alarm.
“Aha!” he cried when he reached a bright red box on the wall. Behind a tiny pane of glass there was a black button that read:
PRESS IN CASE OF IMMINENT DOOM.
(MONDAY MORNINGS AND LATE HOMEWORK DO NOT COUNT AS IMMINENT DOOM.)
“Is this really necessary?” Felicia asked curiously. She really was taking recent events in stride.
“Oh, yes,” said Arty. “This is necessary.”
Arty squared his shoulders and puffed out his chest. He didn’t exactly have the strongest muscles, or the most powerful punch, or, well, okay, Arty wasn’t much use when it came to anything remotely athletic. But when it came to saving Sitting Duck in front of the girl he lurrrved, he was ready. Arty swung hard with his fist. The pane cracked, and he felt the button crunch. In a flash, an earsplitting alarm rang out, and several colorful, whirring lights lit up the corridor.
Arty shouted as loud as he could:
“School’s out!”
CHAPTER SIX
Emmie huffed and puffed and eventually came to a stop by Old Branchy, the ancient tree in the far corner of the school playing fields. Armitage Caruthers, the buccaneering town founder, coined the imaginative name. To be honest, back when he named it, it was probably a Young Branchy, so I don’t really know what he was thinking.
Below the tree sat Sam, trying not to shake like a leaf. He looked up at Emmie with a grim smile.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I did try not to be scared.”
Emmie was
about to say something sarcastic and snippy as usual, but instead she decided to cut Sam some slack. Occasionally she could be nice like that. Like that one time her great-aunt Doris’s cat, Attila, didn’t try to claw her eyes out when she came within twenty feet.
“That’s okay,” she said, then immediately reverted to her normal self. “But I really don’t want to have to wear a scratchy dress, so it would be helpful if you could get over it soon, okay?”
Sam just nodded glumly. He looked up into the sky and wondered whether he was ever going to get his hero status back. As if on cue, his ears picked up a shrill ringing traveling on the breeze from across the fields. It grew louder and louder until, in a flash, it became a roar. He and Emmie looked back at the school and saw lines of children and teachers streaming out of the building and running in different directions.
“What’s going on?” Emmie asked. “Did Big Stan the Doughnut Man come around again?”
Sam peered back at the school. He couldn’t see any sign of Stan. And even though his doughnuts were amazing, he didn’t think that the school alarm would be going off because of it. Something much more exciting must be going on.
Sam sprang to his feet and darted across the field. “C’mon, Emmie,” he said eagerly, “let’s go!”
The two of them made their way back to the school, where the throng of kids and teachers whirled around in a panic. Sam made his way toward the main doors, a smile on his face, sure he was about to put his heroism to the test.
Suddenly, he felt a tug on his collar and turned to face the looming presence of Lunch Lady Susan.
“You can’t go back in there,” she yelled. “There could be fire or explosions or danger of all sorts!”
“Why?” Emmie asked. “Did one of your turnips go up in smoke?”
Emmie flinched under Lunch Lady Susan’s gaze, and Sam squirmed in her grip. She had muscles like a sailor and the mustache to match. He’d have to think his way out of this one.
“Look!” he cried. “Zombie!”
“Argh!” Lunch Lady Susan squawked. “Protect the turnips!”
In her panic, she loosened her grip on Sam’s collar, and he twisted out of her grasp and sprinted into the crowd of people. Emmie managed to escape Lunch Lady Susan as well, and he caught sight of her doing a diving roll through the legs of Mrs. Strictheart, the meanest of the mean principals. But before Strictheart could banish her to detention, they made their way inside the school.
* * *
How to Distract Someone
If you have a Lunch Lady Susan or Principal Strictheart in your life, you’re going to want to get away from them. Use these handy distractions and tips to make your escape!
• Juggle cupcakes in the air while whistling the national anthem. When you hit the high note, throw the cupcakes in the air, and make your escape.
• Dance the tango with an elephant to invisible music. If you can’t find an elephant, look harder, they’re huge! You can’t miss them. Seriously. I don’t think you’re trying.
• Concoct an elaborate story about how all the bad presidents and queens and kings in the world are all actually just mermaids in disguise. (I’m telling you, they’re evil!) Slip away while they ponder your theory.
• Give them a smartphone and open a social media app. Flee while they scroll through their feed. (Trust me, they’ll be there for hours.)
* * *
The corridor was eerily deserted, but Sam and Emmie pressed forward. Sam led the way, lights flashing off and on above him and the whine of the alarm ringing loudly in his ears.
He lifted his nose into the air and sniffed: no sign of smoke. He wondered what or who had triggered the alarm. It was Thursday, so he knew it couldn’t have been the anti-Monday brigade playing tricks. This time it was real.
Sam and Emmie turned the corner off the main corridor.
“Ew,” Emmie cried, “what’s that?”
She looked down at her foot and peeled it off the floor. Her sneaker was completely covered in some sort of sticky goo. Sam pulled out his flashlight from his backpack.
“Lemme take a look at that,” he said, peering closer. Sam reached out a hand and touched the strange substance. It was like golden bubble gum, all sticky and gooey and gross.
“Do we have some alien species on our hands?” Emmie asked.
“Maybe,” said Sam, puzzled.
He and Emmie continued down the corridor. As they turned past the science labs, Sam put a hand on the wall to steady himself … and touched the exact same goo that Emmie had stepped in.
A thought flashed across his mind.
“Does this remind you of something?” he asked, his blood turning icy in his veins.
“Well,” Emmie said, “Arty does have a booger problem, but I didn’t want to say—”
“No, not that.” Sam could hardly bring himself to speak. “I was thinking more like, sp-sp-spiderwebs.”
“A-ha-ha-ha,” Emmie laughed, slapping Sam on the back. “Don’t be ridiculous. A spider like that would be gigantic. Something beyond the realms of imagination. Something that could only happen in your nightmares, Sam, or in a Spiders from Space comic. Something that could only exist if the apocalypse struck and—”
A droplet of golden goo dripped down between them. Sam shone his flashlight at it, scattering golden light across the hall. He craned his neck upward and saw something that made the blood drain from his face.
Felicia’s golden orb weaver had grown even bigger, and it had obviously escaped its glass tank. And apparently it had learned how to open doors.
“It’s not possible,” Sam gasped in horror. But it was possible, very possible. The golden orb weaver was hanging from the ceiling, clacking its fangs like the hungry menace it was. Slowly, it lowered itself down and stood in front of them on its eight gangly legs. With a high-pitched squeal and a click of its fangs, it lunged at Sam and Emmie.
“Yargh!” they screamed in unison. Their legs motored and their arms pumped as they desperately flung themselves through the school corridors and away from the spider. Sam was so used to fleeing from spiders that he tore through the school like an Olympic sprinter on rocket boosters. Emmie wasn’t so lucky, though, and soon lagged behind.
As they skidded around a corner, Emmie lost her footing and went tumbling head over butt. The golden orb weaver loomed over her, the spider’s mouth spread in what looked like a grin.
“Sam!” she cried. But it was no use. Sam was a gibbering wreck.
Emmie dug around in her backpack and found her own flashlight. She flung it at the golden orb weaver, and it landed on one of its eyes with a thwack. The golden orb weaver hissed in fury, giving Emmie just enough time to pull herself up and drag Sam along with her.
“Let’s get out of here,” she yelled.
Together they barreled through the corridor. Emmie’s brain went into overdrive—if they could just get to the gym, they might have a chance.
The spider was closing in on them just as Emmie charged through the gym doors. She frantically looked around and grabbed a hockey stick propped up against the wall, and pushed it through the door handles to barricade the door.
“That might have done it,” she said hopefully.
Sam nodded, his top lip trembling and his hands shaking.
But their hope was short-lived.
There was a loud BOOM as the golden orb weaver smashed its giant head against the door. Emmie hurried forward to shore it up, but it was no use.
With a splintering crack, the door flung open and the orb weaver entered.
Emmie and Sam were trapped.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Meanwhile, across Sitting Duck, Arty and Felicia pedaled furiously on their bikes. They were on their way back to the Insectarium to raise the alarm before it was too late. At least by now the school would be evacuated, but Arty couldn’t help but wonder whether Sam and Emmie were okay.
As they cycled through the gates, they saw a disturbing sight. The model t
arantula outside had several legs missing, strewn across the ground like twigs. The huge glass-and-steel structure was still standing, but several windows were broken, and the whole thing looked like it had been on the wrong side of a disaster movie.
“This doesn’t look good,” Arty said, clambering off his bike.
“Hmm,” Felicia said loftily. “It might not be what it seems.”
Arty despaired. It was obviously going to take a lot to convince Felicia that a town full of marauding spiders was a bad idea.
Together, they slowly made their way inside, dodging shards of glass on the ground. The previously bright and welcoming atrium was now dark and deserted. Light fixtures swung from the ceiling like pendulums and electric wires stuck out of the wall, sparking. Something seriously bad had happened, another disaster in Sitting Duck, just waiting to be put right. (Which keeps me in business, to be honest, so it’s fine by me!)
“Stix!” Arty hissed through his teeth, trying to locate the professor. All he could hear was his own voice bouncing back at him off the walls. He pulled a flashlight out of his backpack and stared through the gloom.
“You’ve really done it now, Felicia,” Arty said. “Stix must have fed your concoction to the whole Insectarium! He’s probably toast!”
“Buttered?” she asked.
Arty sighed, exasperated.
“Look, it’s all in the name of science,” she explained. “Silver Spoon didn’t understand, either. Just one little accident, and all of the sudden I’m a ‘danger.’”
“What kind of accident?” Arty asked. “Did you get expelled?”
Felicia nodded. “I accidentally blew up half the school with sodium chloride and a handful of eggs. But I was just trying to find a cure for the common foot bunion. It was a worthy cause.”
Arty nodded. Common foot bunions were one of the leading causes of death for Sitting Duck residents, just after being eaten by a zombie and blasted by an alien ray gun. But still …
