Spiders on the Case

by Kathryn Lasky

  “Entrapment! Of course you’re right, Jo Bell! The real problem is that Tom doesn’t know what’s happening and there’s no way we can tell him. I mean, he doesn’t speak spider and we don’t speak human. It’s really amazing that your friend Fat Cat can understand us.”

  “He has since birth,” Jo Bell replied.

  “Since he was born? Astounding.”

  “Oh, no — not Fatty’s birth. Ours. When Mom arrived at the philharmonic hall, she was on the brink of spinning an egg sac. She couldn’t find a safe place to put it, but Fatty seemed so friendly that she used signs to ask him if she could stick it in his ear. And ‘Voilà!’ as Fatty would say. The rest is history.”

  “So the first time Fatty heard spider talk was from the three of you?”

  “Yep — squabbling, arguing for the best space in his ear when we hatched out. His ear is very nice. So soft and furry. And he heard Mom sing us lullabies. He was speaking spider in no time.”

  “You don’t say!”

  “Yes. Communication with Fatty is easy. But with Tom it’s another story.”

  “And that is our problem.”

  “Tom never goes to the fashion portfolios, so how will he ever discover what’s missing?”

  “And he doesn’t go to the map collection, either. Now, if it were something to do with, say, Egypt, he’d be on those two crooks like — pardon the expression — like a spider on a glue bug.”

  Where did everyone go?” Jo Bell asked when she returned to the display case.

  “I’m here,” Edith said.

  “But where’s Fatty? Julep? Felix?”

  “Well, let’s see. Fatty went down to the library café to see if there’s any garbage about. He loves those tuna wraps they sell. Felix is hanging around in the military section. There’s a Civil War book that caught his fancy. I myself was just about to skibble over to an adorable miniature Book of Common Prayer.”

  Borrring! Jo Bell thought, but didn’t say it out loud.

  “Julep most likely is back at the circus — the pop-up book. She loves swinging on that paper trapeze.”

  “Wrong!” Julep sang out as she lithely made her way down through the silverfish in the storage web. “Not in the circus book — the toilet pop-up book.”

  “The toilet book!” Edith and Jo Bell both exclaimed.

  “Not what you think. Not that kind of toilet, but twa-let! Jo Bell, you should know. It’s the French word for dressing. It doesn’t mean pooping. It’s all the little bottles and hairbrushes and stuff that human ladies keep on their dressing tables. It’s so much fun. I’d love to try on makeup. Mascara — six eyes but no eyelashes! What a waste!”

  “Well, dear, I’m glad that you’re diversifying your interests and not limiting yourself to the circus.”

  “And after lunch, I’m going back to slip into an Egyptian pop-up — a book on the pyramids! Just imagine, Mom, mummies!” Julep laughed gleefully. “Get it, Mom — mummies?”

  “Yes, dear, a pun.”

  “But I’m starving!” Julep said.

  “Well, eat up some of those silverfish,” Edith replied. “You know they don’t keep forever, and they taste so much better when they’re fresh. All their innards dry up over time and they become much less nutritious.”

  All this talk about food got Jo Bell hungry as well. “I’ll join you.”

  The two sisters went to the storage web and shook down a silverfish. It was much easier eating them on the floor of the display cabinet than midair in the web.

  Jo Bell and Julep made themselves comfortable on either side of the creature. “Okay, I found the original puncture wounds,” Julep said.

  Jo Bell was impressed. Julep had really matured since they had arrived at the library. Before, she would have charged in and made new fang holes, which often resulted in wasted food. The two sisters emitted a small amount of digestive fluids into the silverfish carcass so the bug’s guts would liquefy and could be sucked out.

  “I’m feeling a tad peckish myself,” Edith said. “Mind if I take a sip?”

  “Sure, Mom,” both daughters replied.

  Edith began to drink, then looked up after her first swallow. “Lacks character. It’s not very robust in flavor.”

  “Not as robust as a cockroach,” Jo Bell replied.

  As Jo Bell slurped up the silverfish gut juice, she thought about the problem she and Buster were facing. Sometimes she thought she should tell her mother about it, or maybe Fatty. But there was something deep within her that wanted to figure it out herself — well, with Buster, of course. What a triumph that would be!

  “You’re being awfully quiet, dear,” Edith said to her elder daughter.

  “Just thinking.”

  “Thinking about Buster, I bet,” Julep said, and giggled. “You’ve got a crush on Buster!”

  “Oh, shut up!”

  “Girls! I hate that kind of bickering,” Edith said, glaring at her daughters.

  Jo Bell retreated once more into silence.

  When Jo Bell woke up, her mother was bustling about, stringing up a cockroach that looked as polished as the floors.

  “A cockroach!” Jo Bell exclaimed.

  “Yes, I thought it would be a break from the silverfish.” The cockroach’s glistening ebony carapace made Jo Bell’s mouth water.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “In Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

  Jo Bell was slightly confused. “Tom has a cabin here? I thought he had an apartment on Berkeley Street.”

  “Not that Tom, dear. I am talking about the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

  “I’ve never heard of it!” Felix, who had just arrived, said rather dismissively.

  “You of all spiders should have heard of it, dear boy,” said Edith. “You’ve been studying all those maps of the Civil War.”

  “Yes, and one is missing! It looks as if it has been cut right out of the book.”

  Jo Bell felt her spinnerets contract. So Eldridge Montague, Agnes Smoot’s husband, had struck again. Should she tell the rest of her family what she knew, what she had seen? But if she did, Felix would take over the whole plan. Felix was the bossiest spider ever.

  She had to report the new theft to Buster as soon as possible. But not before feasting on the cockroach. It seemed like forever since she had sucked up the sweet juices of a cockroach.

  “So who’s this Uncle Tom?” Felix asked.

  “It’s a book,” Edith repeated. “When Abraham Lincoln met the author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, he said, ‘So this is the little lady who made this big war.’ He was talking about the Civil War.”

  “A lady started one of the most important wars in American history!” Felix was flabbergasted.

  “Don’t underestimate us,” Jo Bell muttered.

  “How did she start it? Did she fire a cannon? Assassinate someone?” Felix asked.

  “No, dear, she wrote a book about slavery. Uncle Tom was a slave, a pious man who kept his faith despite the horrendous treatment he suffered at the hands of his owner. And this darned cockroach was about to chomp one of the most important passages. But” — Edith’s six eyes glittered — “I got that roach with my port fang just in time. One of the most important books in American literature has been saved!” Edith took a triumphant slurp out of the offending cockroach.

  A few minutes later, Jo Bell crawled up the side of the case, looking for Buster, who could most often be found either in the Edgar Allan Poe collection or around the corner where the Sherlock Holmes papers were kept.

  She found Buster in a folio of articles by Poe for a magazine called Alexander’s Weekly Messenger.

  “Oh, hi, Jo Bell. Hey, I got a riddle for you.”

  “But I have something to tell you.”

  “Wait just a second. This is so clever.” When Buster got an idea, there was little chance of distracting him.

  “What’s the difference between herb soup and turtle soup?”

  “What?” Jo Bell asked, trying to muster some enthusia
sm for something that sounded as bad as any of Julep’s knock-knock jokes.

  “One is herb soup and the other is soup herb.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Superb! The soup is superb!”

  “Oh,” said Jo Bell. “Listen, Buster, I have something serious to say.”

  “I’m all ears,” Buster said, then started giggling again. “There’s a good one about ears, too.”

  “Spare me. Now get this! Felix just reported that a map was cut out from a book about the Battle of Antietam.”

  Buster grew still. “What! That was the single most important battle of the Civil War! Eldridge is obviously getting bolder, and so is Agnes. We have to stop them!”

  “We have to make Tom realize what is happening. If he only spoke spider!” Jo Bell sighed. And even though she was still standing on all of her eight legs, her whole body seemed to slump.

  Two days later, the library reopened after a long holiday weekend. As was Tom’s habit since the Deadlies had arrived in the Rare Books Department, he came over to the display case to greet them and check up on their catch.

  “I hope you enjoyed the Fourth of July, kids!” Tom said, leaning over the display case. “Oh! My goodness, you had a busy weekend. Look at those silverfish.”

  If only he spoke spider, Jo Bell thought for the hundredth time.

  “And goodness, that web looks rather festive with all those silvery critters dangling.”

  Tom understands so much. What other human being would appreciate us the way Tom does! Jo Beth thought. It was all very frustrating.

  The phone at the main desk began to ring, and Tom walked away to answer it.

  “Yes, this is Tom Parker, conservator of rare books. Indeed we do have the Wurmach Encyclopedia of Hieroglyphs…. Yes…. It’s one of three existing first editions from 1825. As you know, Wurmach was a cryptologist — an expert in code breaking.”

  Codes! Cryptology! Egyptians! Hieroglyphs! Of course! thought Jo Bell. That’s how we have to do it!

  Tom turned to his assistant, Rosemary. “Tomorrow someone’s coming in early for the Wurmach Encyclopedia. It’s call number 932.W4.”

  “Right-o, Tom,” Rosemary answered.

  Jo Bell skittled over to Buster’s favorite bookshelf in the Rare Books Department.

  “BUSTER!” she screeched.

  “Whoa! Are you trying to start an earthquake here?” Buster said.

  “Listen, Buster, I just had a brainstorm. Guess how we can get Tom’s attention.”

  “How?” He crawled out of the folio.

  “Forget spider speak.” Jo Bell waved four of her legs wildly about in all directions. “We need to write him a message. One that only Tom can understand. Not Smoot or Montague. Don’t you see the answer, Buster?”

  “What? What are you saying?”

  “Codes, cryptology, and Tom’s favorite — hieroglyphics!”

  Buster staggered slightly. “Jo Bell, you’re a genius!” He paused, then added in a rather tentative voice, “But how do we do it? How do we write the code?”

  “In silk and silverfish. Think of it as a kind of dragnet — because it is, in a sense.”

  “Yes, of course!”

  She told him how Tom had admired the silverfish strung up in the family web. “He said it was festive, Buster. I mean he really appreciated the design.”

  “But we don’t know hieroglyphics.”

  “We can learn enough. Julep has been hanging out in that pop-up pyramid book for the last three days. We’ll ask her.”

  “But you didn’t want to tell your family.”

  “The time has come,” Jo Bell answered solemnly. “We need all the help we can get.”

  The nineteenth-century pop-up books were on a mezzanine of the Rare Books Department of the library. The quickest way to get to them was through air-conditioning vents. So Jo Bell and Buster let themselves get sucked up in a cool draft.

  “I’m not sure where the pop-up books are, actually,” Jo Bell said.

  “I know. You have to go past the sacred texts, then take a left.”

  “Sacred texts — we might run into Mom. She’s got a thing about prayer books.”

  When they arrived a few minutes later, Jo Bell exclaimed, “Good grief! There are a lot of pop-up books.”

  “Wouldn’t Julep be in one that is already opened on the reading tables? I mean, what’s the sense of messing about in a folded-up pop-up book?” Buster said.

  “True.” They made their way to the reading tables at the end of the fourth row of stacks.

  “My goodness, it’s like a miniature world here, isn’t it?” Jo Bell wondered aloud as she looked at the books spread out on a large table. The first thing she noticed were the red and white stripes of the three-ring circus tent. In the center ring were paper animals, elephants whose trunks could wag and tigers who prowled. The second ring had half a dozen clowns, one riding a pony. Another could be made to jump through a hoop. The third ring was Julep’s favorite, for this ring belonged to the aerial artists. Tiny little paper people swung on trapezes no thicker than splinters and pranced on tightropes made of thread. It was here that they spied Julep swinging out among the frozen paper figures.

  “What are you doing here?” Jo Bell called. “I thought you were in Egypt — the pyramids.”

  “I was. I just came over for a break. But why are you here?” Julep asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Jo Bell replied.

  “A sad story,” Buster added.

  “Is Mom okay?” Julep blurted out. “Did she get squished or —” Julep began to tremble.

  “Mom’s fine! It’s nothing like that.” Jo Bell felt terrible. Suddenly, Julep seemed so tiny and defenseless. “Oh, Julep, I didn’t mean to worry you!”

  “Well, what’s so sad?” Julep asked with visible relief.

  “Someone is cutting pages out of books, stealing maps. There are crooks in the library.”

  “What?” Julep gasped.

  And so Jo Bell and Buster told the story of Agnes Smoot and Eldridge Montague.

  “It seems,” Julep said slowly when they had finished, “that the problem is getting Tom’s attention. Finding a way to tell him since he doesn’t speak spider.”

  “Exactly,” Jo Bell replied. “But he does speak hieroglyphics.”

  “No one speaks hieroglyphics,” Julep corrected. “It’s a language for writing only. Writing in pictures.”

  “Do you know how to write it?” Buster asked.

  “Uh, well, just my name and a few other letters, that’s all,” Julep replied.

  “Can you show us?” Buster asked.

  “Sure!” Julep suddenly seemed to grow to twice her size. No one ever asked her opinion about anything. Most of the time, her older brother and sister reminded her how babyish she was. This was definitely a non-pre-K moment, and Julep intended to make the most of it.

  She immediately cast another dragline to the tightrope and began her ascent. Then, in the dim shadows of the big tent, Julep began her own aerial ballet. She embroidered the air with silken shapes of birds and snakes, reeds and crouching lions.

  “That’s your name?” Jo Bell’s voice quivered with amazement.

  “Yep, but I’m not done.”

  Julep continued her inscriptions, and five minutes later, another word appeared.

  “Two words!” Buster exclaimed.

  “What does it say?” Jo Bell asked.

  Her little sister looked down at her and burst out with a vibration that shivered the silk threads under the big top and set the paper figures aflutter.

  “JULEP RULES!”

  Jo Bell glanced at the remaining silverfish twirling slightly in the still air of the display case. Edith had just finished an addition to their regular web that extended from the southeast corner of the case to the southwest corner, where one of the most beautiful books in the entire library rested on a velvet cloth. The book, a tenth-century volume from China, was set in a fantastically crafted metal box. On
the edges of the book’s pages was a painting that only became visible when the book was shut. The painting depicted a winter landscape of billowing, snow-covered mountains. This type of book art was called fore-edge painting, and the delicacy of the work was remarkable. Edith claimed that although she generally did not like the “great outdoors,” as she called it, she felt quite peaceful when dangling over the fore-edge painting of this book. Her peace was about to be shattered.

  “Mom,” called Jo Bell. “Felix … uh, Julep and Buster and I have something to tell you.”

  Edith inhaled sharply. “Oh, no! You haven’t been seen. Please don’t tell me that. My poor heart can’t take it.” The anguish in Edith’s voice was so strong, one could almost touch it.

  “No, Mom, we haven’t been seen.”

  In Edith’s mind, there was absolutely nothing worse than being discovered by humans — humans other than Tom Parker. Edith had spent her youth on the run, fleeing E-Men with their gleaming silver tanks of poison attached to snakey fumigation hoses. When she became a mother herself, she vowed this wandering would cease. The worst thing in Edith’s mind was to be unsettled.

  “Edith?” Fatty called.

  “Oh, Fatty, you’ve come back again!”

  “I missed all of you so much.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you’ve come when …” Edith’s voice dwindled away.

  “Oh, dear!” Fatty said. “What’s the problem?”

  “We don’t quite know yet. Jo Bell, will you continue?”

  Jo Bell took a deep breath. “I witnessed something pretty awful a few days back. A person tearing a page from the fashion portfolio.”

  “What?!?” Edith gasped.

  “Yes, Mom, Agnes Smoot. And that’s not all. Her husband, Eldridge Montague, has been stealing maps out of old books for years. We have to stop them somehow.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us sooner? We could have helped,” Edith said.

  “Well,” Jo Bell’s voice cracked a bit. She wobbled on at least three of her eight legs.