Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One) (12 page)

I dropped the Tupperware and cardboard inside the aquarium. Big mistake.

The spider FREAKED OUT. She went zinging back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

Mom suddenly appeared by my side.

“
Agggg!” I screamed when she touched my shoulder, making her scream too.

But, then she laughed out loud. “Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Susie. You did it!” And, gave me a super-squishy big hug which I successfully wriggled out of because the spider had begun crawling up the glass.

“
Mom! Quick! Get the lid!

She screamed like one of my girlfriends and I did this thing with my face—like a frown with a bunch of squinting like, did you just scream like a teenager?

“
Sorry.” She ran over to get the lid on the porch where I’d left it. The spider still tried to make her escape. But I kept tapping at the glass wall of the aquarium and knocking her down. Mom came back and relayed the lid to me, not wanting to get too close.

One problem we spiders have. We cannot, for the life of me, maneuver over glass or on porcelain sinks very well. It’s crazy weird.

SIXTEEN - New Housemates

Things happened quickly after our spider’s capture. We moved her into the bathroom, into the tub, just so we could double protect ourselves from her. Mind you. She’s like one-thousandth the size of me and I’m half the size of mom and yet here we were all heeby-jeebied up.

Plus, Delilah exhibited this undying interest in her and I felt the need to protect our new guest, being of my ilk and such. So, we locked her in the bathroom.

But...

She had to eat. Outside she had a total 24/7 buffet of crawlers and flying insects and now, the bathroom, for the most part, 98% bug free, had little for her in the way of nutritional ambience.

So, now, I had to somehow catch bugs and send them to their deaths for Miss Spider’s recommended daily allowance of bug vitamins and minerals. Makes me puke to think about.

What I ended up doing is cracking the screen on the bathroom window and setting out a peeled banana and an apple. Bugs love that stuff. What I did was this, got this large square plastic container (not Tupperware or I would’ve said Tupperware, it was probably some knock-off thing like Rubbermaid or something) and placed the fruit into it. Peeled fruit, if you didn’t know, sends off a mesmerizing odor that bugs cannot resist.

And, sure enough, by the end of the day, we had a host of tiny bugs who had made their way through the cracked screen and into the container as a sort of mini-pantry for Miss Spider-McFrighter!

It was totally awesome.

I simply placed the container into the aquarium with spider-girl.

Okay. Not so “simply” I suppose. Because I was still heeby-jeebying about her. What I
did
do, was use a pair of bacon tongs and lifted the container into and set the fruit bug trap down in her new abode.

The thing that worried me most was this, she was sort of languishing about, even with her food source for a couple of days. Until it struck me that she wasn’t happily hanging in a web.

The glass!

She couldn’t create a web that would stick to glass. Soooo....

I destroyed mom’s favorite wicker waste basket she kept in the bathroom. I told her. She rolled her eyes but didn’t scold me or anything. She knew how important this project was to me and since I’d braved near death to capture Miss Spider-dider-doo, mom just let it be. Plus, she just said she would get another one of her favorite waste baskets from Costco. :)

Cool.

So, I had dismantled the waste basket by slamming my foot on it as hard as I could) leaving a pretty cool angled piece of wicker for her to explore and build a web on.

Within the day! She had already begun weaving a home for herself. It’s a spider’s nature to build. Kind of like my dad’s. He was a contractor before the accident. He loved to build. He built our house.

After my spider constructed the basic sides and angles to her web, she rested in the middle and let the bugs become ensnared. When she attacked, I would have to leave. Because each time she did, I felt like saving the bugs but that would’ve been contradictory to attracting the bugs with the fruit in the first place. Wouldn’t it?

Within a few days, things began to even out. Good thing too because my science project was due in a week.

“
Take some photos, Sus.” Mom said as we ate our spaghetti that first night.

Slurp. Slurp. “K.” I could barely hear her words over the amazing garlic smell with its long noodly fingers tickling my olfactory glands.

“
You need to observe everything and write down what you observe in a journal.”

Slurp. Slurp. “K.” I wanted to only savor the taste of the pungent onion playing the xylophone on top of my taste buds.

“
You have a journal, honey?”

“
Nuh-uh.”

“
I’ll pick up a batch tomorrow from work.” She took a very proper feminine mom-bite. If ever. “Just use some loose-leaf notebook paper then and transfer your notes from that into the journal tomorrow night.”

“
K.”

“
Spaghetti good?”

“
Mmm.” I nodded my head making a yummy noise.

“
Good.” She stopped eating and tipped her head slightly to the right. “I love you honey.”

I nodded my head at her and gave her a big toothy smile.

She stopped smiling. “Don’t forget to brush your teeth after you eat.” Mom took a big swig of her white wine and stood. “When you’re finished, rinse off your plate before sticking it in the dishwasher, please.”

“
K.”

“
I’m going to clean up the kitchen.”

“
K.” Me. “K.” Her. Mom said K too at the same time as I did.

I shot her a sniggly squinty smile and crossed my eyes. She shot the same kind of smile back at me, crossed her eyes too, then I said it properly. “Okay, mom. I will.”

She kissed the top of my head. It felt as if the Pope was putting the sign of the cross on my forehead, it felt that good.

“
I’m so proud of you and your spider, Susie. You’re a brave little girl.” When she said it this time, it felt like she meant more than just the fact I’d trapped the spider. But, she didn’t say anymore.

October 7, 2010 - - NOTES FROM TODAY’S CAPTURE OF ARACHNID ANDROMEDUS MAXIMUS SCARIUS.

EXHIBIT A

EXHIBIT B

EXHIBIT C

SEVENTEEN - Dead Deer + Dinner Guests = Uno Crapola Date Night

“
I don’t want to hear it.” Mom put both hands on her hips. “He and his father will be coming over at 6:30 this evening. Period.” She glared at me.

I glared too but not at mom. I glared at the house across the street.

“
How am I suppose to eat with that weirdo sitting across from me at the table?”

“
You can be so mean sometimes, Susie.” She placed both hands on the waist of what used to be my favorite satiny blue dress of hers. Tonight the way it showed off her body just seemed so totally inappropriate that I was at a loss for words which usually cannot be said about me. I am a vocabulary queen, if you must know. Tonight, however, it felt as if she had wadded up that whole stupid dress and shoved it into my mouth and I was gagging on it.

“
Everyone knows he’s a freak, mom.”

She turned away and pulled out a baking dish out of the cupboard and set it next to the four Yukon gold potatoes that sat dripping on our fake granite counter. The potatoes looked like they’d just run a potato marathon or something, in that pile of sweat. I picked two up and began bouncing them along the counter in their own special potato race.