Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One)

by Wingate, Susan

  She knew the photo left at her house was of me, my mouth, my braced teeth!

  I looked back at the class and felt my skin go hotter than hot could be. I raised my arms up but let them fall hard to my sides at the same time letting out a gasp of air and turning to the wall with all of the projects on it.

  But, something was wrong about the way it looked. The web looked detached and hung loosely. Even so, I placed it onto the rolling cart and pushed it to the front.

  I stood and looked out at the other student's faces. Billy was looking at Ricki. Jamie covered her eyes mocking embarrassment for me. Cinda was talking to Melinda, openly. Joe crossed his eyes and flopped his hands in front of him acting as if I were a moron. David was laughing at Joe. Matt's face mirrored mine in this unnatural shade of red.

  "Miss Speider, we don't have all day."

  "Um. No. Yes. Okay." I began. "My project is to observe the life cycle of a spider." I thought I heard Morlson snicker but it was so quiet, I could've been mistaken. "I captured a spider and her web..."

  "How you know it's a girl, Susie? Did you hold up it's little legs!" Joe bellowed out and that time I heard it, Morlson did laugh. Openly.

  She tried to cover.

  "Now, kids. Funny as that was. Let's settle down and let Miss Speider talk about her... spider." She snickered. I turned to her. Then, something, like a trigger pulling off a shotgun registered in my head--Morlson, the sprayer, my aquarium. I turned to look down inside my at my science project again.

  And, then, I saw it.

  My spider was curled up in the corner of the glass. It was dead.

  I looked up at Morlson, my eyes wide. I looked over to the pumper bottle.

  It was a pump sprayer of Raid. Raid™ Rose & Flower Insect Spray. Morlson had sprayed my science project with Raid! She'd killed my spider.

  "You know. Mzzzz. Morlson," I extended her title long like a buzz saw so she couldn't mistake it for a mistake, "You're an evil, EVIL woman." I turned and ran out of the class.

  As I pushed through the door, everyone gasped but then went completely still.

  Behind me, reverberating off the walls, I heard Morlson screaming at me from inside her room, "Thief! Thief! You stole that idea, Miss Speider. You're not that smart, you're not! You stole it!"

  Tears sluicing down my cheeks trickled off my face, onto my shoulders and got absorbed by my sweater as I ran through the hallway, down around the corner and out a set of glass doors.

  FORTY TWO - Shell Shock & Partially Paralyzed

  "Uh." Morlson grunted down to her floor on her knees, sprayer in hand, as she tried to find me under the dark cover of her bed.

  "Why you..." She grunted again as she laid her big oafish body down onto the floor, "...little monster." She squawked.

  Monster! No less. Of all the slanderous comments.

  "Sh-sh-she wants to kill you!" Rider, and all of his obvious observations, was starting to get to me.

  My legs felt nearly back to normal by the time I'd scampered my way over the length of bushy cigarette-permeated carpeting under Morlson's bed. Although, every now and again my feet tingled like walking on a bed of coals. Still, for the most part, I was moving like my old self. Zinging hither and yon and finally reaching the baseboard, attaching my claws to the wall and walking up as if I had teeny tiny suctions cups on my feet.

  Over near the wall smelled less surgically antiseptic and I felt safe again, for a while.

  Until, Morlson's head popped just above the mattress when she sat up. Hobbling to her feet, she clomped around the foot of the bed and over to where I'd emerged--triumphant!

  However. As she stood scanning the floor, trying to catch sight of me, her head was at the exact level that I had climbed up to!

  EGAD!

  I acted like David in the Louvre. Rock still. To take in even the slightest breath would mean certain death.

  Morlson knelt down again, on this side of the bed, now. She hadn't seen me!

  "R-r-run!" Rider screamed from the darkness.

  I bolted up an inch but then Morlson moved again.

  She lowered her groaning body onto the corner side of the bed this time eyeballing the carpeting underneath, from that angle.

  I bolted up another inch.

  "Huh. Huh. Huh." Each devious chortle fell darker on the problem. She sounded like a woman consumed.

  "N-n-NOW!" Rider drilled out, motivating me forward.

  I scrambled.

  I reached the ceiling but I still had about one foot to make it into the dark corner where Rider was hiding.

  FORTY THREE - Spider Insults

  Rider was rolling his front claws together as if planning the next caper of the century.

  "That was close!"

  "Y-y-yep! Close. C-c-close!"

  "What's she doing now?"

  "Dunno."

  Cowering in the corner where we balled up, Morlson had sat up, legs out straight in front, looking around her body, still examining the floor around her.

  She even ground her butt into the carpet, acting like, if I was under that bounty of fleshy rump-a-roni, nothing could survive. "There, ya little sucker. Take that!"

  "Oh. My. God." I looked at Rider. "She's so gross."

  Rider didn't speak. I looked at him but he'd gone silent.

  "You're an odd creature."

  Rider arched his two left eyebrows at my words. But, I wasn't finished.

  "Odd and weird."

  He arched the other set of eyebrows, looking at me but sort of, almost, like, behind me too. Still, I needed to say more.

  "Kinda geeky!"

  All four of his eyes enlarged to the point of being, um, buggy!

  "A v-v-vile oath! On a s-s-spider!" He ran around his web in circles.

  "I'm sorry. It was just a..."

  He stopped circling his web, "A v-v-vile oath!" He said again. "Against a s-s-spider! N-n-no l-l-less!" He stopped circling and put all four of his middle set of claws onto his waist. He raised his fore claws and fisted them at me.

  "It was only..."

  "Y-y-you have g-g-gone against all th-th-things s-s-spider. We have r-r-rules you kn-kn-know! R-r-rules. For r-r-reasons!"

  "Calm down." I shrugged him off and worked my way to the outer edge of his web, checking out the toad below. "You're kind of flipping out over nothing."

  "N-n-nothing? N-n-nothing?"

  "Exactly. Nothing."

  "Do y-y-you understand what d-d-danger you've p-p-put me in?"

  "Oh. Pa-lease. I mean. Really. Settle down. You're getting all unglued about nothing!"

  "N-n-nothing!?" He paced from one point of his web to the other. "You can't s-s-stay. You m-m-must g-g-go."

  "No. I must not!"

  "L-l-look. You've p-p-put us in d-d-danger."

  "Grave danger?"

  "Is th-th-there any oth-th-ther k-k-kind?"

  "Well, hmm. Let me think. No. I suppose not. There is not any other kind."

  I looked toward the window and spotted pussy. She sat atop the railing on Morlson's landing. She was washing her face, licking a paw, washing one eye, licking the other paw and washing the other eye. Her hair looked shiny and slick in the moonlight, under the moon reflecting off of the bright white of the snow on the landing. The trees in the background looking like hula dancers. The wind had whipped up in a terrible way.

  Snow clouds hung low. Crows tried to fly but the wind was kicking them off course.

  I thought about leaving right then and there but my plan was postponed for me.

  Rider stared so intently, that it made me a little squirmy, you know, uncomfortable. So, I turned my sight back to Morlson again, who was now floundering up to her feet. The act of all that movement for someone so sedentary made her sag on top of that poor bed of hers. She took in a few audible breaths, as if someone had just popped their head out of water after a long swim.

  I could only imagine how her heart sounded, like a bass drum in a parade, banging by, one might think. The pumper bottle dan
gled in-between her first two fingers, her cigarette smoking fingers.

  "You see that?"

  But, Rider remained quiet.

  I looked over. "Did you?" His eyes gleamed with something that I couldn't quite figure out. It looked like hunger and fear all wrapped up into one expression. "Did you?" I forced.

  When he wouldn't speak and when our eyes connected, I mean, really connected, things became strained and felt tenuous, thorny, even.

  "There!" Morlson screamed, making me look away.

  And, when I did, Rider made his move.

  He attacked me!

  FORTY FOUR - Snow Won't Freeze the Pain

  Hitting the icy snow at a full gait, made me slide and fall fast onto my butt. A no-brainer.

  Still...

  Oh, insult of insults.

  There I sat, on my now bruising bum under the falling snow in front of school. Good thing classes were in session or else people would've seen that wonderful acrobatic stunt.

  I just sat there. Cold as it was, I sat there, sniffling back my tears.

  I didn't hear him and when he spoke, it startled me. "Get-t-t up."

  "Hhh?" I sucked in, thinking it was Rider.

  "It's f-f-freezin' out. Get up." Matt's teeth rattled. He was carrying my aquarium and had his coat laying across his left arm. Then, he set down the aquarium, wedged his hands under my armpits and lifted me to my feet. He held his coat out in front of him open like a matador and threw it around my back and over my shoulders.

  "Thanks." I slipped my arms through the sleeves. It hung sloppily and spilled way off and over my fingertips.

  "I didn't get your backpack, Jamie has it." He smiled as he admired me in his oversized coat. "C-c-come on. Let's go home." He picked up my science project again.

  "We'll get cited for cutting class." The class bell rung through the outdoor speakers.

  "Big deal."

  He snickered when I turned around to walk.

  "What?"

  "Your butt."

  "What about it?"

  "It's totally c-c-covered in snow."

  "Well, you're stuttering." I wiped at the back of my skirt.

  "I'm f-f-freezing!"

  "She killed my spider."

  "Yes. And. You know what?"

  "Huh."

  "She must pay." He smiled big tight cold grin at me and we walked home, not saying much--a nice, quiet walk home, all except the sound of Matt's rattling teeth.

  And, all except, spitting at the cemetery's sidewalk.

  FORTY FIVE - A Dirge for Spider

  Only spider ears can hear the distinct sound made from web-building. It sounds a lot, to the human ear, like bacon frying. That's how I awoke from my long doze after my debacle at school.

  Mom came home from work, shortly after I'd awoken, after calling her earlier, before my nap, begging her to come home.

  "Honey. Just settle down." Her voice soothed me right away. "Now. What happened?"

  "Morlson. She killed my spider."

  "What!"

  "She screamed at me saying I'd stolen my science project idea."

  "Why... I'm going to rip the..." Mom's voice shook, trying to force back fire and brimstone she wanted to cast onto my teacher. "I have to let people know I'm leaving early today and wrap up a few things around here. It won't be more than a couple of hours, three at the most." Then she paused. "Make that four."

  "Just hurry, mom. Okay?"

  "Of course, darling. My baby. I'll be there after lunch. I promise. No later than one o'clock."

  "K."

  "K. Then." Then, she tried to lift my spirits. "Want a piece of pizza?"

  "Costco pizza?" I asked trying to sound excited but was crossing my eyes and sticking my tongue out at the same time.

  "Yeah?"

  "Sure." Bleek. "Thanks mom."

  "Love you, Miss Susie Speider."

  "Enough, mom. K? I'm not a baby anymore."

  "You'll always be my baby, Susie."

  "Gross."

  "Hush."

  "Bye."

  "Bye."

  So, after we talked I went and got some leftover spaghetti and meatballs mom had frozen for just a day like today when the promise of Costco pizza hung morbidly close in my future. Matt would eat it. He was coming over for another tutoring session and the pizza wouldn't go to waste on him.

  But, like I mentioned before, the sound of web-building woke me. When I awoke I had a ton of cobwebby stuff around my mouth. It had gotten all over my hands. Gross. I hated this part of becoming a spider. It seemed so unnecessary. I rolled my loofah over my hands and my lips and lifted my head off my pillow. I sat up then dropped my legs off the side of my bed, toward my window, toward the desk, the very desk where I'd set the aquarium.

  Looking around for the origin of the sound, I just fixated on my science project and my poor dead spider. Tears threatened to burn out my pupils if I let them. I hated to cry and rubbed the butts of my hands hard into my sockets.

  But, there it was again. This crackling that let me know a spider web would soon appear somewhere in my room.

  I looked up at the ceiling but my attack-spider had long since crawled away. I got up to see if I could get closer to the noise and walked toward my door but, over there, the sound weakened.

  I turned back and got onto my hands and knees looking for signs of a spider anywhere--around the baseboards near the floor in a corner, anywhere. Nothing. However, as I turned and crawled toward my desk the sound increased, although to the human ear, you wouldn't have heard it but for me, with my super duper amazing new senses in tact, I figured it originated somewhere higher than the ground and closer to the window.

  I pushed off my hands and knees when I got to my desk. The crackling was loudest there. When I stood, I leaned over my desk over my science project aquarium and scanned the sill and all around my window pane, trying to detect the fine silk webbing. Nothing. But, what was funny was that it was still very audible right here, where I was standing.

  I looked up. Still nothing.

  I looked down. Into the aquarium. Nothing.

  I mean, nothing! My spider was gone! I knew I hadn't moved her.

  "Spider!" I yelled, then hushed my voice because of the spider rules. "Spider." I whispered. "Here spider. Come here, spider, spider." I repeated it again this time in a sing-songy way. And, what d'ya know? My spider emerged. She came out slowly, stopped and wiped her forearms across her face, like "what the... what's all this stinky stuff that woman sprayed on me?" You know.

  She was alive!

  I rejoiced. "You're alive!" I said but then she just asked me (in her spider way) to bring on a smorgasbord of bugs for her to eat--she crawled back and once again began building her website (snort!). I was so happy I decided to call Matt.

  I held the phone between my shoulder and my ear and, out through my window, watched his house. But, after the twenty-thousandth ring, I hung up.

  It was funny, looking out like that. His front yard looked exactly like ours, now, under a two-feet of snow. His roof, the bank of boxwood that lined their front porch, all steeped in white with only speckles of green peeking through, letting you know something alive grew under its icy blanket.

  Then, movement down the block from around the corner sidetracked me. It was Matt. He was walking home. But, he'd just gotten home with me. Then I realized he must've gone out while I was napping. He was still out without his jacket. His arms wrapped tightly, as if holding himself up while he walked. Even from across the street, I could see his jaw trembling.

  I pounded on my window when he got closer to his house. He stopped and looked around slow. Then, he saw me at the window. I waved him over.

  He pointed at his chest, like, me?

  I rolled my eyes and put of my hands, like, no duh.

  He checked the street for cars both ways which made me giggle a little because we live on a cul-de-sac. Titter. And, I walked out of my room toward the door to let Matt inside.

  FORTY SIX - Danci
n' the Spider Tango

  "That is way too cool." Matt looked down into the aquarium as he spoke.

  "You saved her life."

  "Me?"

  "Yep. You."

  "Did not."

  "Look. If you hadn't taken her out of Morlson's room, who knows what old sphincter face might've done to her?" I patted him on the back. "She's alive now because of you. So, um. Thanks."

  "Okay. Sure." He said as he continued looking down into her webby ecosystem.

  "Oh. Here's your jacket. Thanks for that too."

  "Sure."

  I walked behind him as we headed for the door. "Want some milk?"

  "Goat's milk?"

  I nodded and smiled, my braces pushed out between my lips.

  "Sure."

  He followed me down the hall and to the kitchen. "Mom's coming home early so you better leave before she gets here but come back around 5:30, okay?"

  "Okay."

  I pulled out my Hannah Montana tumblers and set them onto the counter and Matt went over to the table to sit down. The milk glorgled out of the jug as it filled each cup. After placing the milk back into the fridge, I made sure to wipe off the face of mom's favorite appliance, handle and all, the way mom liked it.

  "She's gonna fail me."

  "the Queen?"

  "Uh huh."

  I set a tumbler in front of Matt and sat perpendicular next to him at the table, at the corner, knee to knee.

  "Nah."

  "Yeah." I shook my head as I sipped on the thick creamy nectar from everything goat.

  "Nah. She isn't."

  "Matt, she hates me. She's gonna fail me and I'll be held back a year, I'll be the new poster child for everything stupid and it will wreck any chances I have of getting into NYU."

  "Maybe you're wrong."

  "Yeah. I'm wrong. Like, I'm not the only one that heard her screaming, You're a thief! You're not smart enough! OMG. How horrifying was that?"

  "She definitely hates you."

  "Jeez. Thanks."

  "Sorry." He slugged down his milk and placed the glass back onto the table, looking at it, for a second, like he wanted to tell me something. He paused and looked at me, opened his mouth to say something.