Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One) (14 page)

“
Why is it there?”

I turned fast. Bat boy had his plate too and had stopped in front of the refrigerator, which, by the way, had zero finger smudges on it.

“
What?”
My
question let him know that
his
question bothered me.

“
The head. Why is it there?”

I collapsed down into my chair. “My dad.”

“
Where’s your dad?”

I hated him for asking.

“
Dead.” But I wasn’t finished. “Like your mom.” I turned to my plate. I didn’t care to see his stupid hurt expression.

“
Oh.” He walked up behind me and then around to the side of me and set down his plate too.

“
Did they tell you to come in here or something?”

“
No.”

“
Then why are you here.”

He sat down.

God.

“
It’s gross. The head.”

I snapped a look at him when he admitted it.

Then, he ruined the moment by mushing his potatoes around with his fork.

Creep Kid continued, “I cannot abide by hunting.” It was like a gong going off when he continued, again. “The killing of anything.” Gong! Gong! Gong!

My God. Was this wack-job the only person in the world who got me?

Talk about depressed...

But, he wasn't finished.

“
Humans, insects or animals.” Then after finally having his say, he’d dozed a heap of au gratin onto his fork, he poked at an inch-sized square of meat which he held in place with his butter knife. He stuffed the entire mountain of gruel he'd built into his wide-mouthed-frog mouth. “Mmm.” Nodding his head kind of slow, he chewed making yummy noises and saying, “Mmm. Good.”

I looked away, stunned, at my plate. “Yeah. Mom’s a good cook.”

He nodded as he stared at his plate too like one of those dogs with a yo-yo head that people put in their rearview windows. Matt "Yo-Yo-Head" Ryder.

It got too weird, too uncomfortable, and it began to feel like someone poking me in the shoulder over and over and over until I burst out,

“
Why are you two here?” I slammed down my fork.

“
Your mom invited us.” He sort of twitched but he didn’t look up just then.

“
Not tonight. I mean. Why did you move here. To our neighborhood.”

But, then his head lifted real slow like and our eyes connected. He just looked at me without any expression whatsoever.

He stared at me for a sec then he looked back down at his plate. He brought his eating hand down onto his lap, fork and all, as he contemplated the question. I guess.

He had thought it through for like an hour, then, he spoke. “I dunno.”

I rolled my eyes making a complete circle with them that landed in my plate. “You just happened to pick
my
street and move into the house directly across from
my
house. Is that it?” I stabbed another piece of meat.

“
Yeah. I guess.”

“
Gahhh.” My mouth was already open from saying ‘gah’ so I put the piece of roast beef on my fork into it.

It tasted like delectable tight strings of buttery meaty goodness. It was hard to stay mad when she cooked so well.

Then, I poked at my potatoes and bit at them. I shot daggers out of my eyes at him when he looked at me while I was eating. “What?” I said it with a half-open, half-closed mouth to protect Mathew "the Pe-ewww" from seeing the train wreck of food masticated inside.

“
Nothing.” He shoveled more potatoes onto his fork and then poked at another piece of meat. He placed it slowly into his mouth and chewed methodically, as if testing it for consistency and texture, temperature and moistness. And, before I could tell him how much I hated the fact that his father was in there with my mother and that he, a one, Matthew Yo-Yo Ryder was sitting in here with me, he spoke.

“
What were you doing yesterday?”

“
What?” The question sounded sharp and angry. I felt my nose wrinkle when I gunned the word at him.

“
Yesterday? In the morning? In the yard?” He had this way. This way of asking or answering a question so matter-of-factly that you never had to wonder when the period or question mark was placed on the sentence. He turned back to his plate.

I felt my face ease up when I realized he’d seen me and mom out catching the spider. It was like, I don’t know, weird in a way.

“
You were watching me?” Creepy weird.

He must’ve sensed the creepiness factor.

“
I was up. Brushing my teeth.” He took another bite. “It was kind of hard not to notice.” He paused, then added, “The screaming.” He said all of it with a full mouth, potatoes peeking out the corners of his moist lips. I wanted to puke.

“
Gahhh.” I got up and went to the refrigerator, stared at its clean exterior for a sec then fell forward with all of my weight, landing on my hands onto the face of it, shoulder height and leaning into the door, twisting my hands, mushing them around, as hard as I could.

“
What are you doing?”

“
The refrigerator needed a good massage."

"Oh."

Lord. Was this guy the wettest wet rag ever.

"Getting some goat’s milk. What does it look like.”

He shrugged his slumped shoulders once and went back to eating.

I pulled off of the door and yanked at the handle. Opening it, I put my face behind the door, kind of hiding there. Then I just stared inside letting the quick cool air blow into my hot soul. I shut my eyes and tried to remember only twelve months before, only eleven months. Back to dad. Back to that last night.

I shook the image out of my mind.

I wondered what Matt's last memory of his mom was.

A guilt-ridden wave of consideration coursed through my very essence. I rolled my eyes into the over packed guts of the fridge and leaned back. “Want some.” It wasn’t very convincing.

“
Goat’s milk?” He made this stupid face, cheeks bulging with meat and potatoes like a freaking squirrel at a pot-luck barbeque where everyone invited brought only nuts, like he was sitting in a freaking restaurant or something and the waitress, me in the restaurant scenario, just asked him for his order.

“
This is not McDonald’s.”

“
I dare say, not.”

I glared at him. “Look. Do you want some or not?”

“
Sure.” He said. And, went back to shoveling in the food.

I slammed the door with the gallon jug in hand and turned to the cupboard, pulled out two very large, 20-ounce, of my fave Hannah Montana tumblers and filled them both, to the rim.

Goat’s milk is an acquired taste. I snickered.

“
So, what were you doing?”

“
When?”

“
Yesterday... the screaming...” Like he was prompting me or something.

“
Oh.” I put the jug back making sure when I shut the refrigerator that I placed my fingers and hands all over the front of it after closing it. “That.” I picked up the glasses balancing them as I walked to the table and set his down in front of his plate. I took a big gulp and set my tumbler down and then I sat again.

He picked up his glass of milk and stared at it. Then he smelled it. Then stared at it again.

He took one gulp. I mean not like he was testing it. No. He took one big long gulp. All at once. He didn’t stop drinking it from the moment his lips touched the rim until the glass was drained. When he was done, he set the tumbler back down, empty, on the table.

I just stared. He was
so
starting to get on my nerves.

“
Not bad.”

If he burped I was winding up to crack him in the forehead with my fork. But, he didn't. I shook my head and began to eat again.

“
My science project.”

"Hmm?"

"Yesterday. Outside."

“
Ahh.”

“
What’s yours?”

“
Incubating an egg.”

“
How consumingly interesting.” Dork.

His head bounced in agreement. Double Dork.

Mom laughed loud from the other room. I shook my head.

“
Your mom is nice.”

I felt a pang in my stomach like someone had stabbed me. I refused to say his dad was nice.

“
What happened to your mom?”

“
Breast cancer.”

I leaned back in my chair. A wave of remorse made my face go hot. “Oh.”

“
What about you. What happened to your dad?”

“
Car accident.” Matt nodded like he understood. “Death by snow plow.”

He frowned at me. “Tragic.”

“
I’ll say.” We both started to eat again. “When did your mom die?”

“
May 4
^th
.” Only five months back.

“
Still fresh, the wound.” I remembered a friend of mom’s from work, saying that at dad’s funeral.
Still fresh, the wound.
I hated her when she said it. I wondered if Matt hated me just then.

He nodded his head again as he stared at his plate, poking at dinner.

“
Pru.”

He looked at me. “Huh?”

“
Pru. As in
prurient
? Like, duh.” I one-upped him.

He just nodded like he understood. “Pru,” he whispered out and then repeated, “Pru.” Like he got it!

I looked at him and poked at my food too. Then, we said it together, real slow-like.

TWENTY - A Meeting of Like-minds

When I flicked on the light, everything went from radical darkness to radical brightness in silver tones cast off by the fluorescent light above the toilet. I knew it bothered her eyes. I hated the bright light as a spider myself. We spiders dig the nighttime.

“
Cool!” He nearly screamed.

“
Just don’t talk loud. It bothers her.” I squeezed in-between Matt and my science project, facing him. We had entered the realm of all things spider—the part of the bathroom with the bathtub... and a SPIDER!!!

“
How do you know?”

“
I just do, dork. Don’t ask stupid questions.”

"Is it alive?"

"Of course she's alive. You don't think I'm going to turn in a dead science project to the science-project-Nazi, do you?"

He giggled at my reference to Morlson, the gack.

"Let's go. I don't like to interrupt her, her, her... spider-ness." ‘Course, by then, I felt like I shouldn’t have called him dork. It just came out. Sorry 'bout that.

I grabbed Matt by the shoulders, pushed him around and out, turning off the light and then closing off that part of the bathroom.

“
It’s intriguing.”

“
Intriguing?” I like, smirked and blew out air in a putter between my lips. “How old
are
you?” I shook my head. “Intriguing.” If this was what having a boyfriend was like, the world was in serious trouble.

“
I’m fifteen.”

“
No. Duh. Really?” We were standing in the main area now staring at each other and talking through our reflections in the mirror. I opened my mouth but kept my teeth together as I inspected them for food particles.

A little piece of meat had wedged its way into a crevice between my right incisor and my right canine. I picked at it but it wouldn’t dislodge. I actually ended up pressing it in deeper with my fingernail. So, instead, I kinked open the faucet and bent my face under, cupping my hand filling my palm with water. I sucked enough into my mouth and swished it around, real fast, from cheek to cheek and through my front teeth. Then, spewed it out and sure enough, a nasty little brown scab of meat went swirling around the basin in an eddy and went swooshing down the drain.

Matt must’ve seen.

“
Gross.”

He just stared without laughing or making any kind of facial expression. He was like a robot, a word robot that moved around and watched me and my mom outside his own bathroom window while he brushed his teeth. Major freak feature, that.