by Emma Read
‘It sounds like you’re on a mission. Well, be careful what you look at if you’re using the internet. There were some nasty pictures of spider bites, and I don’t want you having nightmares. Once you’ve seen something on there, you can’t un-see it.’
Zoe said, ‘Uh-huh,’ and tried to make Dad go away, using the power of her mind. It didn’t work. She brought up a picture of a false widow on the laptop and that seemed to do the trick.
‘Ugh! You may not think much of Ms Thrubwell, but I’ll be glad when BugKILL! have been. I’m barely sleeping,’ he muttered as he left the room.
Zoe shook her head. ‘You poor spiders, I can’t imagine how you feel. Wrongly accused and almost squashed for no reason. Newspaper editors ought to get their facts straight.’
She wrote down a working title in her notebook:
The Headlines, True or False?
and looked again at the picture on the screen. ‘False, like false widow, you get it?’
From behind Zoe’s Junior Bake Off book, Milton nodded. ‘It sounds wonderful.’
Zoe started typing furiously, concentrating so hard that she was unaware of two dark shapes scurrying to the bookshelf. Ralph and Audrey tucked in beside Milton, Ralph with a face as sour as a tabby cat. ‘Funny little spider? Somewhere safe?’ He scowled. ‘Milton, this had better be worth it.’
‘You took your time getting back in.’
‘Oh, I thought I’d stick around for a while.’ Ralph scowled again, but his sarcasm was lost on them. ‘One of the garden spiders helped me out actually. I know you think they’re troublemakers, but this one was nice, her name was One Short on account of her having a leg missing.’
‘Sorry, Ralph. But you were brilliant, and if it’s any consolation, I think it’s worked. Look.’
Zoe had downloaded Ralph’s picture to the laptop with the caption:
Anyone else think this spider is trying to tell me something?
Audrey and Milton huddled close to Ralph to warm him up, but now he was smiling at least. ‘Come on, then, job done,’ he said, rubbing his tummy. ‘Being outside has made me proper hungry. Milt, have you restocked your larder yet? I fancy some of that delicious house-mite pâté.’
Milton scratched his cephalothorax. ‘I’ve been thinking, guys . . .’
‘Uh-oh,’ said Ralph.
‘No, seriously. Are we as bad as the humans? We do kill a lot of insects. What if the woodlice are out there in the garden thinking, why can’t they just eat bark, like us?’
Audrey moved so that Milton was on her good side. ‘It’s not the same, Milton. We have to eat those things to live. I don’t think spiders can be vegetarians. The humans don’t kill us for food, they do it because . . . well, they’re scared. Which, I think we can all agree, is a rubbish reason to kill something.’
Milton nodded. ‘In that case, Ralph, help yourself to a snack. I’m staying, though. This laptop stuff looks brilliant.’
‘Oh, Milton. You can’t help yourself, can you? Think about your dad. He disappeared because he found everything flippin’ “interesting”. Ooh, she’s doing that googling thing – I’ve seen this before.’
Milton and Audrey smiled. Ralph was one of those spiders who had seen everything before. If Ralph said to you, ‘Did I ever tell you about the time when . . .’ it was usually best to say you had an important appointment and leg it quickly. Milton’s dad used to say Ralph told ‘tall tales’. Milton didn’t know if they were tall, but they were really long.
Ralph could spend a whole night telling you all the different ways in which he had been clobbered. Forget about slippers, newspapers or even the feather duster, Ralph had been:
Sprayed with hairspray (he was sticky for weeks)
Eaten by a cat (and rescued by her disgusted owner – unable to bear the sight of darling Tabby with spider legs hanging out of her mouth)
Sucked up the vacuum (then emptied into the bin)
Left in an upturned glass for several days (surviving on nothing but condensation and fluff)
Collected in a humane trap (only to be flushed down the toilet!)
Ralph put it all down to being so generally terrifying.
Zoe printed off Ralph’s picture and carried on looking through the downloaded photos until she came to the one of Milton. ‘Somehow I’m going to prove to Dad that you’re not a danger to society.’
Audrey let out a little ‘squee’ noise and hugged Milton, and Ralph slapped him on the abdomen. ‘See? You’re going to be fine. We did it.’
They all decided to stay a while and watch the googling. Zoe got through a bottle of Ribena and half a packet of Hobnobs reading all about spiders, especially false widows, and even Ralph enjoyed it, once he’d found a blue-bottle behind a dictionary. On the internet, Zoe typed in a question and the laptop gave her a list of answers. For example: What are the deadliest spiders?
Ralph whispered, ‘Do you think she could type in “spider diet tips”?’
Audrey chuckled. ‘I’m not sure the human internet is the best place for that – but you never know. Oh, wow! Look at that one . . .’
On the laptop several pictures of spiders appeared. A Brazilian wandering spider, a funnel-web and, most interestingly, a picture of a shiny black spider with a red hourglass shape on its back. As the spiders read along with Zoe, they discovered that there were deadly spiders after all.
‘She’s beautiful!’ sighed Audrey.
‘Beautiful and dangerous. My kind of spider,’ said Ralph, puffing himself up, then deflating somewhat at Audrey’s glare. ‘What I mean is, well . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Look at her – top ten in the world’s most deadly spiders, venom fifteen times stronger than a rattlesnake,’ said Ralph. ‘What’s a rattlesnake?’
‘Something else humans are scared of.’ Milton peered at the screen. ‘She’s called Latro-dec-tus mac-tans. Or black widow. She lives in a town called America and . . . hang on . . . she’s a type of widow! This is the one they think I am! I wonder if we’re related.’
‘Maybe you’re cousins.’ Ralph nodded in appreciation. ‘You were right, Audrey. Size isn’t everything.’
Milton got smaller. ‘I feel even more insignificant.’
Zoe brought up another picture – a false widow.
‘Hey, Milton, you’re famous again!’ said Ralph. ‘What does that weird name say?’
‘It says I’m a Steatoda bipunctata. Wow, I had no idea.’
They all hmmmd’ in an impressed kind of way, until the hmmming gradually became a low rumble, which turned out to be Ralph’s tummy.
‘Can we go now, Milt? I’m feeling faint from hunger.’
‘Yes, let’s go back to yours and celebrate,’ said Audrey. ‘I’ll bring the ladybird juice. We can drink to us not being homeless . . . yet.’
‘Spot on!’ said Ralph, and squeezed out of the gap in the bookshelf. It’d been a bit of a tight fit, if he was honest.
Milton hung back for a moment, looking at the screen. So much information in there, and all you had to do was press a few buttons. He longed to have a go, and he was positively desperate to know more about his arachnid cousins, but something else made him linger. A connection with Zoe. They’d learnt together, studied together, and even though she was a human, a special feeling filled Milton from his cephalothorax right down to the tips of his claws.
Were they . . . friends?
With one last look at Zoe, he turned to go. He was perfectly harmless, she was his perfect human.
What could possibly go wrong?
Audrey lowered herself down from the chimney breast on a thread, her legs tucked behind her in stealth mode. She stopped a hair’s width above Ralph’s head.
‘BOO!’
Ralph screamed. He fell off the wood burner on to the pile of logs in the fireplace. He bounced off the top and hit every single log, all the way to the stone hearth. Milton nearly lost a leg laughing.
‘Oh, very funny, Audrey,’ said Ralph, brushing himself off. He climbed back up to the top,
frowning all the way. ‘That’s original, creep up on the fat spider.’
‘Oh, Ralph, you’re not fat. You’re just a big species!’ She gave him a squeeze as she helped him up and back on to the top of the pile.
‘A log pile like this means one thing,’ said Milton. ‘The weather’s turning colder.’
‘The shed is absolutely freezing,’ said Audrey.
Ralph gave her a high-one. ‘I don’t know why you hang out there anyway. Outdoors is so overrated.’ But he was a little curious, maybe it was Milton’s bad influence, or meeting One Short. ‘So, what’s going on in the big, wide world?’
Audrey shrugged. ‘Oh, nothing much. Let’s hunt for bugs.’ She poked at a piece of bark with her claws.
‘Come on, tell us a tale from the garden fence,’ said Ralph.
‘Nothing to tell, really. Hide-and-seek?’
Milton wondered why she kept changing the subject. ‘Come on, there’s always something going on around the lawnmower,’ he tried.
‘I wasn’t going to say anything.’ She twiddled her front legs nervously. ‘I don’t want to distract you – we‘re supposed to be coming up with phase two of the “Let’s Not All Die” plan.’
‘Well, you have to tell me now.’ Milton looked deadly serious.
Audrey sighed. ‘It’s not only us. Loads of false widows have been forced out of their homes by other house spiders. They don’t want BugKILL! coming round, so they’re making the false widows leave. They’re all in the fences, or in the shed. Sorry, Milton.’
Ralph shuddered. ‘Oh, those poor things. What with it getting cold too. And all because of that Felicity and her story on the interweb. Because you’re deadly. Or not deadly, or whatever.’
Milton’s good mood evaporated. ‘Show me,’ he said.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ Audrey shook her head. ‘We should focus on our own problem.’
‘Our problem is their problem. I have to see what she’s done.’ And he ran off towards the back door.
Audrey was right – Milton soon spotted a group of false widows in the slats of the garden fence, huddled together, sheltering from the chilly air.
Milton didn’t mind being outside in the summer. Then, the garden was a pleasant place, full of flowers and green and flying insects. Now, it felt bleak. The few leaves that remained were sad and lifeless, clinging on to their branches hopelessly. He imagined Ralph and Audrey out here, shivering under snow, and it was almost unbearable. Glancing at the gap under the door, he considered running back inside. Forcing his own worries away, he approached the false widows. ‘What happened?’
Why didn’t I bring something? I should’ve brought food.
They scowled and the biggest of the bunch said, ‘BugKILL!’ and shrugged, as though no more explanation was required.
Another spoke in a shaky voice, ‘It’s the same up and down the street. A human came with rubber gloves and masked minions and sprayed all our nooks and crannies with something smelly and poisonous. We grabbed what we could carry and got out.’
The littlest spider sniffled.
Suddenly, the large spider gasped. ‘She’s next door. Run, get out of here!’
Milton looked across to the neighbour’s house. ‘Get to the shed, you’ll be safer there.’ He quickly ducked out of sight as Felicity Thrubwell and two humans dressed in white bin bags and face masks came charging out into the garden. They had industrial-sized packs of Bug-Off strapped to their backs, with wide spray-action hoses attached, and Felicity was shouting instructions at them.
‘Spray the fences. The nasty little creatures like to hide in there.’
Milton cowered for a moment, then forced himself to look – he had to know what horror might await them.
The first jet of pesticide exploded on to the far fence and spiders fled in all directions.
‘There they are!’ shrieked Felicity, clapping her hands in delight. ‘Get them! Kill them!’
The second masked human released yet more killer spray on to the fence, washing the escaping spiders away. Milton retched as the toxic smell of Bug-Off drifted like a poisonous fog towards them, and he hugged his legs, flattening down his leg hairs to muffle the sound of spider screaming.
Spiders ran for their lives in all directions, trying to escape the deadly poison, but the BugKILLers were too fast, and there was too much of it. Milton cried out as creatures dropped from the bushes, the washing lines, the wicker chairs. Felicity wasn’t fussy about who she killed – false widows, garden spiders, cellar spiders, and other bugs too: insects, woodlice, snails. No one escaped her murderous frenzy.
As the humans shook out the last few drops of the deadly spray, Felicity Thrubwell examined her handiwork, then, giving her assistants an approving nod, she squirted herself all over with Bug-Off for good measure.
Back in the front room, Audrey and Ralph were waiting by the log pile. ‘Well?’ said Audrey.
‘It was awful.’ Milton was still shaking, his eyes damp with tears. ‘Why can’t the humans see that story isn’t true?’
Ralph put a leg around him. ‘You saw the words – when it’s written down like that, right and wrong are all muddled up. I couldn’t tell the difference, how are the humans supposed to?’
Audrey hugged him too. ‘They don’t want to risk it, not when there are spiders that really are deadly.’
‘There must be something we can do. It was terrible, so many spiders . . .’ He couldn’t finish his sentence.
Ralph sighed. ‘What can we do, though? We’re just animals.’
‘I know. If only I was bigger . . .’ He looked down at his tiny claws. ‘Thank goodness we’ve got Zoe.’
‘Don’t get too carried away. I know you’re very fond of Zoe, but she has to persuade her dad,’ Audrey reminded them. ‘And don’t forget, those big humans are irrational and unreasonable. They’re not like the smaller ones. It may not even be possible. As far as we know, all big humans hate spiders. They claim you’re deadly, they call me Daddy-Long-Legs.’ Audrey paused to huff. ‘And they chuck you out in the street, Ralph, no matter how many flies you eat.’
Ralph covered his abdomen with two of his legs. ‘I’ve really tried to cut down.’
‘Of course you have, Ralph, you’re looking very trim.’ Audrey patted him, then hugged Milton again. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll think of something.’
Milton nodded and climbed silently off the hearth. ‘I need to think,’ he said, crawling towards home.
‘Hey, come on, don’t go,’ called Ralph. ‘We’ve got loads of good climbing here, it’s exactly what you need to take your mind off it. I thought we were going to figure out what to do.’
But for Milton, the log pile had lost its charm. ‘Not now.’
Back home, Milton did a bit of dusting and rearranged his larder. He tried to concentrate on sorting out the patch of wall that needed repairing, but he was too distracted. He could-n’t shake the image of the spiders fleeing the noxious spray. He thought about his cosy home by the front door, his log-pile playground and his perfect small human and his deadly big one. After every thought came another:
Forget it, Milton, you’re too small to do anything about it.
Eventually, he gave up trying to be busy and went to bed. It took him ages to get off to sleep, and when he did, he had a nightmare about Zoe chasing him with her Super Soaker full of pesticide.
The front door opened as Zoe and her dad returned home from school, but they weren’t accompanied by the usual hubbub. Just a few crispy leaves that blew in.
Dad said, ‘Unpack your bag, please.’ But Zoe had already disappeared upstairs to her room and didn’t emerge until dinner. As much as she wished she could hide for ever her stomach had other ideas. And there was no hiding her red eyes.
‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’ Dad slid a plate of spaghetti bolognaise towards her as she slumped into a dining chair.
‘Nothing. It’s not important.’
‘Parmesan?’ he asked gently
.
They talked as they ate, slowly at first, about Halloween, new shoes and Strictly Come Dancing, until eventually Zoe was ready to talk about what was actually bothering her.
‘It was the communications project. My teacher really liked it and asked me to present to the class.’
‘But that’s wonderful.’ Dad squeezed her arm.
‘No! It was awful. I held up the photo of the spider pointing . . .’ She realized her dad had no idea what she was talking about and pulled the printed picture of Ralph out of her pocket. It was splodged with tear stains. ‘They all laughed. It was meant to be a joke. It looked funny. Like the spider was pointing to the words “help us”, that’s all. I didn’t mean like they could actually talk to me.’
‘Of course not, sweetheart.’ Dad looked at the picture, leaning as far back as he could without causing offence and upsetting her more.
‘Then someone started calling me “spider freak” at after-school club and it got spread around. I don’t know who it was, all I know is I’ve got an enemy who’s also an enemy of spiders. I know you hate spiders too, and you probably think what I’m doing is weird. Still, I didn’t want to be the crazy spider girl. I just thought it was a good idea for the topic.’
Dad put his arm around Zoe. ‘I don’t hate spiders, poppet. I’m just scared of them and it’s silly. I’m the weird one! If anything, I hate being afraid of them all the time. I’d rather think they’re deadly than believe my clever daughter actually knows what she’s talking about, because it justifies me practically having a heart attack at the sight of one.’ He took Zoe’s hand. ‘Perhaps you could do me a favour? Will you me teach about them? Perhaps if I understood why you like them, I might be less scared.’
Zoe chewed her lip. ‘Are you sure? I mean, are you really interested?’
‘As long as you promise to go slowly. I don’t want to look at any gross pictures, or start finding spiders in my bed as therapy.’ Dad shuddered at the thought.
‘No touching spiders, I promise. It’s not such a good idea to be cuddling wild animals anyway, even small things like bugs. We should respect their personal space. Imagine if some giant came along and picked you up and started playing with you. It’s not cool.’
