Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One) (17 page)

Still, I wrote THE END on the bottom of the final page of my report and called it a night--as Susie Speider, that is.

After brushing my teeth and washing my face, after toning my skin with SeaBreeze and filling my now cleared pours with emollient form the extra cost-saving tub of
Kirkland Signature™ by Borghese
, I made plans for tonight's adventure as I brushed out my hair and stared at myself in the mirror.

After re-attaching a scrunchy around a cord of my locks, I dragged my now exhausted body into my room and even thought about not putting on my PJs but leaving on the clothes I'd worn since the morning, they felt as if they wanted to meld into my already dented skin and so, thinking better of it, I pulled down my jeans.

Then, I pulled them back up. The blinds were open. The light was on.

Holding my zipper together with my hands, I walked over to the light switch and elbowed it off. Matt's bedroom light silhouetted the space between his brown curtains. I thought I noticed someone move like they pulled their head out of view but figured it was my mind going hinky on me.

At the same time, as I was nearing the window I could see mom had left on our front porch lamp. And, as I got nearer, I saw what had moved, or at least I thought I saw what had moved. A spider had snagged a moth at my window. The light had brought it fluttering up and now it was being consumed.

Guilt rose in me. Like,
really
? That was
my
fault?

Still, I felt a surge of complicity fill my heart. So many different emotions coursed through me that evening--anger, guilt, pain, sorrow, embarrassment. The list ended up long. Too long.

Then, across the way, I noticed Matt's light went out which took my mind off of the poor moth. He pulled closed his drapes but then they cracked them open again, sort of like someone was peering through them at the bottom.

My face felt hot.

The wack-o.

Right then and there I decided I would confront him tomorrow at school about watching me.

I pulled hard on the cords and the blinds dropped, shrouding me from
out there
.

TWENTY EIGHT - Talking in Class

Manila folders shuffled up through each row of desks sounding a lot like a stack of oversized playing cards being restacked. We had to turn in our reports a week before our presentations. Talk about adding to the suspense of public speaking. Holy!

A murmur of voices continued while papers flowed up every aisle to the very first desk, where Morlson waxed on boringly with her usual mind-numbing poo at the beginning of each class.

My body tightened when Matt tapped me on the shoulder. He whispered up behind my ear, "You worked late last night."

Sheesh. Almighty.

I hadn't even gotten the chance to yell at him and there he was basically admitting to me that he was a Peeping Tom.
'Azin'!

I pivoted fast in my chair and glared at him. "You were
watching
me again!?" And whispered but a little too loud as it turned out.

"Susie Speider." Morlson's voice boomed out like a budding opera singer, a basso alto mezzo, if ever. "If you have something to say, why don't you say it for the entire class. Hmm?" She waved a pink slip of paper in her mitt of a hand. It looked like a label you might find on a cured ham. A snicker escaped from the group of Cinda and Melinda wannabes and the boys who wanted Cinda and Melinda--David and Joe. It was gross.

"'S'cuse me. Ms."

"It's Mrs."

"Miss-ez Morlson," Enunciating the title clearer made my eyes squinch tight and my braces gleam, and making the entire class giggle, making Morlson unleash the hounds of hell on me.

"No. I will not
's'cuse
you. You had something to say so say it."

"Really, Ms.," her face bent and her nose crumpled, "Mrs. Morslon. Really. It was nothing. I'm sorry. It won't happen..."

"No. It won't happen again. It better not happen again. But, that still does not
excooooz
you from repeating what the two of you were talking about. Does it?"

"Mrs. Morlson. Please." My eyes were lowered but still I was trying to look around the class who, by that time, had all eyes on me.

"Now."

"Please."

"Now!"

I stood.

"Sit down!"

I sat.

I buried my face in my hands and panicked that I might cry in front of everyone in the room.

"Miss Speider, I said NOW!"

My eyes lifted to the teacher beast. My voice shook and cracked, "I was telling Matt..." My voice broke and a surge of tears came flooding out.

Then, like a miracle, the sea parted.

Matt jumped in. "It was my fault, Mrs. Morlson." I rubbed my knuckles into my eyes and wiped my nose then looked over at Matt, slowly. "Mrs. Speider had invited me and my dad over for dinner last night and I was just saying thank you again." He smiled.

I looked at Morlson and it was as if she melted, well, sort of melted, as much as a hard bent crusty old crone like she could melt. "And, Susie, here was just saying you're welcome."

Her gaze went from soft to gritty when her eyes came back to meet mine. I just nodded my head in quick little snaps agreeing with Matt's account as I rubbed my nose across my sleeve.

"Yes. That was all." I looked at Matt again who smiled at me. I smiled back and then turned and smiled at Morlson who seemed to grow redder as the lie got bigger. Then, I looked back at Matt. "You're welcome, Matt. Anytime."

I turned quick into my seat and placed my hands on top of my desk as if to pray to the heavens above. As if. Okay. Rewrite that... I placed my hands on my desk praying to our Lord & Savior God the Almighty, to let the pigmeister buy Matt's story.

That's when she bumped her big butt, knocking into every single desk along the way, through aisle of desks leading to mine, where she stopped next to me and looked down on me.

If this was at all possible her whole body seemed to grow, her head too. It was as though she had turned into one of those enormous Macy's parade balloons, skyscraper tall, and she was hovering over me!

Her face squeezed into that sphincter thing she does when she sees me. Then she smiled. Not in a "glad to know you" kind of way. No. It was an evil look. OMG.

"The principal wishes to see you, young,,," (it sounded like a stutter), "lady, in his office tomorrow morning."

She flopped the pink slip onto my desk. After reading it, my stomach flip-flopped. Sure enough, I had an appointment with the principle, Mr. Haggert, in the morning. From the note, I couldn't tell what high-jinx I was being pinched for.

She smirked and puffed out a wry snigger then turned back, again, knocking her wide load into the desks, all the way back out of the aisle, nudging kids bodies along as she went.

She waddled past her desk, (I thought I saw it wipe an eyebrow). She decided not to sit down on it.

Then, she continued around, walking behind it, to the white board on the wall to write.

Her attack on me was over.

Thank you God.

Thank you God.

And, yes. I'll admit it... thank you...
Matt
.

TWENTY NINE - Call in the Cat!

My voice peeped out,
"AACCCKKKK!"

Which, pussy heard instantly and like a gunshot she flew in through the window, knocking me off the wetted ledge and onto the carpeting. I curled in a pile at the bottom of the window.

Delilah, stood arch-backed, flat-eared at Morlson's feet. Her lips pulled back in a snarl. She growled in a low pussy "
Rooorrr, mrrrrrr!
" Just like she does when she sees dogs on TV. (The gall of them there dawgs, on TV, no less! Of course, she loves seeing other cats and, birds? OMG.)

But, I digress...

Morlson let out this huge, "ARRRRR!" In her manly voice but, then, now, add in the voice of a, a, a... okay, add in the voice of a 6-foot rat screaming at full decibels.

Imagine
that
sound if you will. Please.

Hideous. JUNE!

Well, certainly, pussy had never ever heard a sound like that before, especially as Morlson's broom connected on Delilah's rump. Pussy let out a spitty hiss and leapt back through the window from whence she came.

There I was all alone with the Queen of Toads & All Things Amphibious--with a broom as her sword and me curling up like a prickly pear blossom mid-summer in Death Valley. And, that's bad. That's really, REALLY bad.

As I watched pussy scramble through the window, my heart sank.

And, when Morlson looked away from the window and down at the floor,
doomsday
, came to mind.

I tried but I couldn't straighten out my legs. Whatever I'd stepped into on the ledge had me glued into my current, very unattractive and uncomfortable position. I felt like I'd been mummified but could still see everything, hear everything, perfectly.

Morlson bent over. Then she stood up straight, leaning the broom onto the edge of her bed.

"There you are you nasty little bugger."

I couldn't believe nerve of her, calling me that, a curse to all bugs on this entire earth--a curse on spiders, for sure. And, most certainly, a curse on
me
.

She walked over to her dresser.

I struggled to move my legs.

Nothing.

Her back was to me now as I watched on.

More struggling to move... more nothing.

I couldn't see what she was holding because of her body blocked my view but she had picked up something.

Outside Delilah yowled.

"Shaddap, ya stupid cat!" Then Morlson spun around. Her eyebrows creased in an evil V. They were streaked red with engorged capillaries. Then, I looked at what she was holding...

...in both hands...

...it was a...

...a, a, a spray pumper full of...
...RAID!

T
HIRTY
- Minimal Effort of Thanks