OTHER BOOKS BY SUSAN WINGATE
Drowning, Winner of the 2011 Forward National Literature Award for Drama
Camouflage (as Myah Lin)
Of the Law (as JJ Adams)
The Award-winning Bobby's Diner Series
Bobby's Diner
Sacrifice at Sea
Hotter than Helen
Bobby's Diner (Book No. One)
Trebor! An Amazing Story About an Amazing Dog!
See all of Susan's print books and eBooks at:
http://www.susanwingate.com
and at Amazon.com
CRITICAL ACCLAIM
“Simply put, Susan Wingate is a master of the written word. In SPIDER BRAINS, she weaves a heart-warming tale full of wit and intrigue: a nod to Kafka’s Metamorphosis in a quirky blend with The Princess Diaries. There are laugh out loud moments with the teenage protagonist, Susie Speider, whose voice was well executed and credible. But there are also moments that tug at the heartstrings and even bring a tear to the eye, as we see Susie’s angst when she faces pain from the past, as well as redemption through the relationship with her mother. Whether or not you’re a fan of YA literature, you’ll love SPIDER BRAINS. But don’t expect anything ordinary!” ~Joshua Graham, award-winning, no. 1 Amazon & no. 1 Barnes & Noble bestselling author of “Darkroom” (S&S/Howard Books) and “Beyond Justice”)
“A heartwarming story full of laughs, great friendship, a touch of romance, and lots of fun facts about spiders and more. Every now and then a wonderful book like this one comes along that entertains while it teaches. I look forward to reading SPIDER BRAINS with my kids!” ~Ann Charles, award-winning author of the Deadwood Mystery Series
"Labeling Susan Wingate as Chick Lit is akin to accusing Steven King of freelancing for Harlequin!" ~Simon Barrett
"Just amazing detail and sense of personality... this is writing of the finest quality, advancing story and psychological sense of character." ~Michael Collins (author of Keepers of Truth, Lost Souls, and Death of a Writer)
SPIDER BRAINS by Susan Wingate
ROBERTS PRESS
2011 Copyright © by Susan Wingate
All rights reserved. First eBook publication March 2012
Kindle Version
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without special permission from the publisher.
This story is a work of fiction. All characters, names, and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead or real places are purely coincidental.
PUBLISHER'S CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Wingate, Susan (Susan Michelle) Spider Brains / by Susan Wingate.
1. Young Adult---Fiction. 2. Fantasy---Fiction. 3. Love story (heterosexual teenage)---Fiction. 4. Female relationships (Mothers & Daughters)---Fiction. 5. Romance--- Fiction.
I. Title
Cover design by Roberts Press
Book Design by Roberts Press
Edited by Roberts Press
Published by Roberts Press (an imprint of False Bay Books)
Roberts Press
685 Spring Street, PMB 161
Friday Harbor, WA 98250
www.robertsbookpress.com
Books are available for special promotions and premiums. For details email [email protected]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To all of the readers of SPIDER BRAINS chapter peeks on my blog but, really, to all of my readers. Your support, your comments and "likes" have meant the world to me and have kept me going. You're the reason I write.
To my online writers group--a powerful group indeed! A, one, Mr. Joshua Graham & Mr. Michael Angel who first read this story and who nurtured it along.
To my sister, Elizabeth Ajamie Boyer who giggles at every funny thing I write, say or do--you're the best sister, EVER!
To my great niece, Simone Castillo, you are pretty great! Thanks for reading this story.
To Ann Charles who got it. Thank you for extending a hand.
To my ex-husband and friend of forty-four years, thanks for reading all of my work.
To that little black spider who walked across my ceiling late one night and spurred this story into a gallop--if I had your address I would send you royalty payments!
But most of all, thank you to Bob, my extremely patient and loving husband who waits for me to get out of my character skin and return to back to me. Thanks for letting me play.
And, to you. That's right YOU! The one person reading right now. The fact that you have chosen this book to read is one of the greatest honors an author bears. Words escape me for giving you thanks, so, I guess I'll just say, "Thank you!" (from the bottom of my heart)
SPIDER BRAINS
A Love Story
by Susan Wingate
the itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout
down came the rain and washed the spider out
out came the sun and dried up all the rain
and the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again
ONE - SPEIDER: The E is Silent
Me?
Super human kid by night, regular high school teenager by day. I’m a junior. Well, next year.
My name is Susie Speider. The E is silent. My name is NOT pronounced speeder. For crying out loud. We are not a family of racers. Sheesh.
My problem? There are two major-stager problems in my life. My meds, for starters. They say I'm ADD. Yeah. Like, so, I concentrate on the moment du jour. What's wrong with that?
Then, there's the issue with my grades. They suck. And, my teacher, Ms. Morlson. She hates my guts! She holds my going or not going to the U in the palm of her cold calloused clammy hands.
(This is a pic of me. The QUEEN of dorks). But, with the new glasses my mom got me and my new meds, maybe I can improve over the next two years enough to bring my grades up to pass with something decent.
The problem? With these new glasses now I look like a short amorphous geeky version of the svelte coolamundo Morticia from the Addam’s Family but not in a good way and certainly not with her way cool clingy clothes. Plus, with my braces, Lord, I look like the empress of geeks on planet Nerd-O-1.
As mom says my glasses might allow me grades, “good enough to get you into at least one of the state’s colleges.” She said colleges but I knew she meant universities.
Mom didn’t go to college so she thinks any grade higher than high school senior is college. I suppose she’s right to some extent but there are those, you know, who might argue.
Sooo.
I’m trying out new words right now, new catch-phrases, like “fierce” and “sick,” and like “rad.” Rad is just a shortened word for radical. I’m thinking of shortening the word amazing to “am” or “azin’” but worry that people might mistake me for a Cockney gal talking about small wrinkly fruit. That would be lame.
See, though, and this is pretty astonishing, the editor of the school newspaper, she's a senior, her name is Tanya (not pronounced Tŏnya but Tănya), well, I sort of think she understands me. I think. I mean, 'cause, whenever I see her, I give her an installment of a very unique and unusual, weird word. I find them on this way cool website called, BrownieLocks. Anywho. She treats me okay. She takes my words, anyway, and sometimes they show up in the paper.
Of course, no one will want to use any of the words I make up.
I’m not cool. Only cool kids make up catch-phrases like sick.
I’m a nerd and not even the good kind. My grades suck. So, I guess, that makes me more of a dork.
Pathetic.
/>
I have a pussy, a pussy-cat. And, yes, I say pussy so Get Over It!
Most of my girlfriends have pussies, well, two of them. Anyway, the only two girlfriends I have in the whole entire world who go Ronkonkoma High, Ricki and Jamie. The only bad thing about Ronkonkoma High School, well other than the mascot (the Roc), the pep clubbers ( the Roc-kers), all the popular kids, the loadies, the boys who somehow believe they magically lived in Tombstone during their gestation period and came out looking like cowboys, the principle, and Ms. Morlson--yuk. Well, the only bad thing other than those bad things is that Ronkonkoma High sits only a block or so past the cemetery and the cemetery sits a block or so past my house.
I hate the cemetery. I used to walk by it. No prob.
Anymore? Not so much. Now, I go the long way.
Mine is named Delilah. My pussy cat!? 'Member? Please track.
Ricki’s is Joe.
Dweeb. Plus, Joe is a girl. Dweeb squared.
Jamie’s is Sasha. A more pussy-like name. If. Ever.
Ricki’s name is really Ricki but Jamie’s is not. Jamie’s real name is Jane because of some freakish love affair Jane’s mother and father have for Tarzan. They have every kind of Tarzan story, poster, old movie playbill, Tarzan dolls (still in their packaging for better return on their dollars! OMG), and Tarzan sidekicks too, like Boy and Cheetah. It’s totally dorky. Although, I must admit, Cheetah is pretty cool.
So, Jane, who I’ve known since Ronkonkoma Elementary and then Ronkonkoma Middle School and now Ronkonkoma High, changed her name to Jamie when she entered high school as a freshman. People still call her Jane, though, and make monkey noises at her. Not nice. People bite sometimes. But, Jane just ignores them like, “Huh? What did you just say? I can’t HEAR YOU!” And, tugs a long strand of her pink streaky hair out from behind her ear and lets it hang into her face. She’s all about Goth. I thought she’d get over it in the fifth grade but it stuck.
God.
Still, she’s my friend, probably my BFF, kind of more than Ricki ‘cause Ricki is super smart and prettier than me and Jane/Jamie by like eons away. But, Ricki doesn’t think about boys too much, just Billy, so she doesn’t wear make-up and she loves science and she spends all of her time with her father who is kind of nerdy because he is an actuary so he’s always counting on something. If you know what I’m saying.
He will, just, all of the sudden burst into Ricki’s bedroom when we’re all studying at her house and say “Did you know the average age of people who die from, blah, blah, blah...” and then my eyes glaze over like an old dog’s and I fall back onto her bed and start twirling my pencil like it’s a baton and I zone myself into marching bands and football games and before you know it, he leaves. Good Gandalf, he’s weird. Plus, he’s so ugly it explains why Ricki’s mother left him and that’s where Ricki gets her ‘pretty’ gene from. You know.
My name? Just plain old Susie. Though, I thought about dropping the E from each of my names,
Susie Speider = Susi Spidr
but it looked too graphic novel, so I just keep my stupid name the way it has been since I was just a sperm cell swimming up inside mom’s hoo.
And, don’t act like my mom never had sex. It seems kind of gross but everybody should do it at least once in their life.
Get over it.
Maybe even I will someday but not with the way these new stupid glasses make me look.
I’m trying to talk mom into getting me contacts.
“We’ll see.”
Sooo. What else...
Oh. Mother hated my grades and my “inability to focus” as she put it and got me into psych ther and got me these specs and onto meds and now my dyslexia isn’t so dyslexic, my ADD isn't so disordered and my grades this semester actually have improved. Drastically, really. Like, they totally went 4.0 across the board. 'Azin!
Mom’s happy and that’s good ‘cause mom’s a good old gal. And, I hate it when I make mom cry. She cries enough without my antics.
Mom graduated in 1990 from Ronkonkoma High.
Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. I know how gross it is to graduate from the same high school as your own mom.
After she graduated mom went to work for Costco as a boxer. Not the kind with gloves, the kind with cardboard boxes. Doi.
She performed so well there that they promoted her to cashier and when she excelled as a cashier, they suggested she enter the management program which she did and now she’s a regional manager covering Ronkonkoma, NY, Sanguay, NY and Poughkeepsie, NY. That’s pretty cool, I think. ‘Cause even though mom’s totally out of touch with what’s cool today, she’s still pretty cool. Plus, she works at the Nesconset store which is only an easy breezy four miles or so from our house--a one, no. 9 Sloan Drive, Ronkonkoma, New York 11779, (631) 222-7454.
So, like, we get everything, from toilet paper to dried mushrooms in bulk quantities! Mom likes working there and she likes that she can come home for lunch if she wants.
One thing about Ronkonkoma is that everything is real close by--the high school, the Costco, the cemetery. Bleh.
My mom (btw, her name is Willa Speider and used to be Camden before she married dad), can even read financial statements and all that business rigmarole, as she puts it.
Mom likes to use big words like rigmarole because she thinks the more syllables a word contains the more important you sound, like, supercallafrajalisticexpialladoscious. But, seriously, rigmarole doesn’t even come close to supercallafrajalisticexpialladoscious in syllable count. What it does come close to is ridiculous count.
Face it fool! Rigmarole ain’t antidisestablishmentarianism, now, is it?
THAT’s a big word, one with loads of meaning too. But, I prefer big words with few syllables, like, fractal. Now, that’s a huge word... in terms of meaning, no? My take on words, like this for instance, is another reason why Tanya likes me. :D
Any who.
I’m trying on new abridged words. I’m hoping “am” gets picked up on soon.
I told you that I'm super human, right?
It happened a few days after they’d finally figured out how to assuage (another am word) my dyslexia and my lack of focus, by putting me on these anti-ADD pills.
I hadn’t been sleeping much because of the meds—a snotty side effect. I have to take them at night. Plus, the doctor said "they will have a tendency to dehydrate you so take them with plenty of water." I slug 'em back in two gulps and hit the hay!
Anywho... that night I noticed this eight-legged little freaky creature skittering about on my ceiling, close to the wall and even closer to the ceiling fan.
It moved so stealthily that if you kept watching it you couldn’t see its movement but if you looked away for a few seconds at a time, you could see it had gone from point A to point B, you know?
Sooo, just to check my theory, I kept closing my eyes every minute or two and, sure enough, I was right. No duh. The crawly had moved! Not exactly a project for the science fair but I was riveted.
And, yep, you guessed it, the crawler was a spider. A black little thing, real compacto, as spiders go. Not those long-legged spooky cretins that make you scream out loud. This critter was one of the cute ones.
There exist two tests for spider cuteness.
Cute test # 1: small tight black easy to carry in your purse, kind of creature—pass.
Cute test # 2: long, sprawling-legged, zippy elusive with daggers out its mouth—fail!
Dag. That’s another word I’m trying out. I have three main ones: Am, ‘Azin, and Dag. Although I believe I’m just resurrecting an old word with dag from dagnabbit! A vile oath, if ever.
Ohh. There’s another one, rect. But, people will think I mean wrecked and I don't. I mean rectal, like, the total opposite of sick or rad.
There’s lots to consider when creating words. I should write a thesis.
K. I’m way off base now. ‘Member, I’m super human? It all started ‘cause of this spider (and it’s sort of ironic, too, you know, �
�cause my name is Speider). I couldn’t sleep and noticed the crawly... all of this ring a bell? So, when I couldn’t sleep I got out of bed and walked up to where this spider was hanging out, I mean, literally, hanging. So, it’s not like I could walk right up and look at this spider hanging on the ceiling. Lord. I’m only five-foot-three and a QUARTER.
And, obviously, given to moments of sudden outbursts.
No. I used a chair, the chair at my desk. It’s shabby chic mom says.
Whatever.
I pulled it over under where the spider had begun building a web, climbed up onto the chair and just stared at her for like a bazillion hours--like maybe two minutes. And, by then, I kind of figured we’d sort of, I don't know, bonded and I put my finger up close to her.
At first she backed away but I didn’t move. They have eyes too, four of them (like me with my specs on), and, she watched me watching her, but doubly so, and considered my finger there, near her web and must’ve thought it was food or something because like a bolt out of freakin’ lightning she pounced on the end of it!
I screamed like I’d been hit on hole two by a sliced golf ball coming from hole one. Dad used to golf. Said he had a “crappy handicap!”
Anyway, I pulled back and when I did one of the blades from the ceiling fan cracked me in the back of the head and I fell off my chair. Thank goodness it was on low or who knows what kind of cranial damage might have ensued.
Ouch.
I landed on the floor and hit my head AGAIN, hard, and must’ve passed out ‘cause all I remember was having this crazy dream about being a spider—that spider.
Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One) Page 1
