Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One) (21 page)

THIRTY SIX - Concentration is Slipping Away

"He's such a total geek freak." Ricki said about Matt but lost her concentration when Billy passed us going the other direction, toward his ride home. We all usually walked home together.

"Hi Billy." She blushed.

I gagged.

"Ricki lo-oves Billy. Ricki lo-oves Billy." Jamie sung out, turning her back to the direction we were walking and facing us. "You are so gross, Ricki. He wants to put his thing..."

"Shut it!" I stopped her from going there. Gross. Jamie was starting to talk way too much about sex these days and I just wanted to pass Sophomore classes. "Turn around."

"He likes you." Ricki said referring to Matt.

"OMG. You sound just like my mother."

"Your mother is right. He likes you."

I stuck my finger in my mouth and grimaced.

"She's right, Susie." Now, Jamie and her freak-o Gothic way was feeding me information like she was a scholar or something. "When boys at this age, give a girl attention, any kind of attention, it means one thing and one thing only." She flipped around and started walking backwards again. "He wants to put his thing..."

"Shut. Up. Now!" I put both fingers in my ears. "La la la." And closed my eyes.

"She's right." I was wondering if Ricki knew anything else to say but
she's right
.

"Pa-lease." Then, a monolithic object walked into view... Morlson. "There she is." She wore a floral dress with humongo pink and green flowers. "Those petals are
enormous
." I stopped walking, making Ricki and Jamie hold back as well. "Hide me."

I stepped behind them. They created a wall and I, kind of, sunk shorter trying to disappear. "She totally loathes me." I whispered from behind them. They both stood like centaurs protecting me at the gate of despair.

"She's gone now."

"That was close." I adjusted my Kirkland backpack over my Kirkland sky blue sweater that bragged Kirkland on the outside of its collar. Good thing my hair hung over the logo.

"She pulls me aside every chance she gets to tell me what a moron I am."

"Toadmeister." Jamie chimed in.

"Sphincter face." Ricki added.

Then we all said together, "Queen!" and, "Throw back of cool teachers past!" Placing the cherry on the old banana split. "Gotta go. I have to try and catch Haggert the Swaggert before he leaves. Gonna beg off this tutoring job. It's not working out for me." I started to jog off but turned around. "Let you know how it goes!"

"Bye, Susie"

"Bye, Speider." Jamie never called me by my first name anymore. It was sort of frightening.

"Bye guys!"

THIRTY SEVEN -

My spider Karma kicked in. But, where was Delilah? In a nano-jiffy I forgot and then remembered, she escaped and was safe.

Phew.

But, when then I looked up...

Sca-Reeeeeeeech!

The lunking motion of an enormous human form lumbered toward me--it was Morlson!

She hath neared! Selah.

RAID in hand, one of my back legs began to unfurl (which rhymes with uncurl!), then, the other one reacted, straightening out, then the side ones followed suit--bing! bing! bing!--and then, finally, like freakin' molasses the front ones did.

If you're not privy to this info, spiders are peppy little insects. They can go from zero to sixty in about 1/2 a second. Of course, in my weakened state, my trajectory was curtailed to about 2 seconds. But, once my fore claws took hold of the carpeting, I was all about serpentining.

I'd dash one way and when she
phfft
-ed out a blast of poison, I zipped the other way.

But, she caught on to my method of deviation and sprayed away from me, understanding my path would be to curve in the direction of the mist. And, I would've too if I hadn't been poised to run underneath the bed. Lord, love a duck! Get it?
Duck
?

And, just as I ducked under, she sprayed the box spring.

I burbled out a twitchy little giggle that was jam-packed with nerves.

THIRTY EIGHT - Bullies Eat It

I'd stopped jogging 'cause my backpack began to feel like carrying around the carcass of a freshly-dead woolly mammoth. I huffed as I approached the administrative offices of school. And, nearly made it inside before I heard the ever-recognizable voices of boys' attack on some helpless soul.

"Queer!" Joe's voice, bellowed out his usual brilliant new curse
du jour
on a weaker kid making me recoil and turning behind me to see.

"You freakin' butt lover!" David added the grosser comment. Weird too because Joe normally topped the grades with his insults.

Then, they started in with the physical abuses--Joe slapped Matt in the back of the head, then David pushed him squarely in the chest.

I set down my backpack near my foot watching to see what level they were going to take this. I mean. If it stopped right then, I could just walk away.

But, no. David slugged Matt in the shoulder making him trip a little backwards and drop
his
backpack. Then, Joe, as Matt was trying to avoid falling, swung his leg in-between Matt's causing him to fall hard on his right hip.

I bolted.

And, got there when the kicking began.

"Cut it out." I pushed David off, making him stumble away. "Stop it!" I screamed shoving Joe to the other side, standing between the cretins, and keeping them off of poor Matt.

"Just like you, freak. Another freak, a girl, no less, has to save you." David spewed out at Matt bending forward, and then actually spit on him.

"Queer!" They said in unison.

Matts face went red with embarrassment or fear, probably both. It must've been like that with deer and hunters.

"Leave him alone!" I yelled again standing in front of him. I wasn't sure if they had the balls to come after a girl so I just started to scream in this high-pitched sound like an ambulance siren racing to a hospital.

"Susie Speider loves a queer! Susie Speider loves a queer!"

I realized that Cinda and Melinda were off to the side sitting on a brick wall enjoying the scene. A few other kids had stopped but hadn't moved from their spots. They just watched on and let it happen.

Then, Haggert showed up, pulling them both off with all of his strength. "I've had just about enough of you boys. Do you want to be expelled?" He yanked at their arms again, making them answer him. "Do you?!" Yank. Yank.

"No." They both mewled like the big babies they were.

"You okay?" Haggert directed his attention to Matt.

Matt nodded and pushed up off the ground and collected his backpack.

"Wanna file charges?" Haggert goaded him. "You can if you want. It's in your purview to do so."

Matt just looked down at the ground and shook his head.

"File charges, Matt. I'm your key witness." I wanted him to do it so bad but he wouldn't.

But, he shook his head again, refusing.

"Fine. I'll just do what I can then." Haggert pulled them along with him as he walked back toward his office.

"What's wrong with you?" I got into his face. "You could've gotten them expelled for life! What's wrong with you."

"It wouldn't matter."

"It
would
matter. It would."

He adjusted his green tee-shirt and rubbed at his back pocket, massaging his hip below. His face churned as he rubbed out the pain.

"No, it wouldn't. They don't get it. They may never."

And, we both seemed to come out of some sort of private cocoon. Looking around people began dispersing, shaking their heads at us, rolling their eyes and speaking in muffled tones some sniggering under cupped hands. I was
so
embarrassed.

"Well, they'd certainly have time to think about it, sitting at home, all expelled and everything."

Cinda and Melinda got up, glared at me, making me glare and stick out my tongue at them, making them turn up their popular noses at me and then they huffed off. We turned away from them, everyone, we were leaving school, in the direction of our neighborhood. It seemed we were going to walk home together.

But, instead of heading straight out, Matt walked off to the right, which would lead us directly down the road that passes the cemetery.

"They'd just come back heroes." Matt continued to brush at his pants.

"Huh?" Then, I rolled my eyes and shook my head when I remembered what we were talking about. "I don't get you."

I stopped, making him stop.

He smiled at me. "I get
you
."

"Gah." I began walking again. "What does that mean?"

He lowered his face to my level and eye-to-eye with me said, "I failed my first test in afterschool study." My face went hot. The subterfuge worked. I kept quiet and let him continue. "I didn't want to disappoint you but I feel like I've let you down."

"Stop it." I looked aside, away from his eyes, then back to him as we started to walk again. His face was still red, I assumed from the fight. "Look. You'll do better." I paused contemplating my next words carefully but wanting to be honest with him too. "I haven't been completely honest with you."

"No?" He said. "How?" And, he was back to his single sentences again.

"How? I, I..."

"Wait. You mean," he chuckled, and it felt like maybe the first time I'd really heard Matt laugh, "You mean, the Sea of Cortez is
not
in my ear?" He stopped walking again. "No kidding."

He knew I'd been messing with him during our tutoring sessions. And, he was laughing at me about it.

"Gah." I turned and stopped facing him full-front and smiled at him while he laughed. Then, we started to walk again. "I'm sorry. It's just..."

"I know. You hate me."

"Wrong."

And, there it was. The truth.

I didn't really hate him. He bugged me, yes, bugged me like Rider bugged Susi Spidr, but I didn't hate him. In fact, he was sort of growing on me, like
moss
, being around me all the time and everything. 'Course he'd never ever get to the Beiber level. Ever.

"Cool." He said and we continued to walk toward our neighborhood, turning right once, out of the gates of Ronkonkoma High.

So much for my plans of subterfuge.