Spiders on the Case

by Kathryn Lasky

  “But if it hadn’t been for Julep, none of us could have learned hieroglyphics. And” — Jo Bell paused — “if it hadn’t been for Felix, I would never have thought of the double-strand hoist.”

  “Mission accomplished!” Felix said, and gave a snappy little salute with his pedipalps, his two forelegs.

  “Well, not quite accomplished,” Edith cautioned. “When the thread on the dragnet is pulled tight and the vandals ensnared, then we can truly say mission accomplished.” Edith turned to Jo Bell with gleaming eyes. “Thank you, dear,” she said.

  All five spiders had the same image in their minds: Agnes Smoot and Eldridge Montague ensnared in the sticky threads of a great big web with two spiderish cops arriving to haul them to jail.

  After his quick translation of the call numbers, Tom Parker went immediately to the map section and then to the fashion journals. He felt weak when he saw the damage. In their haste, the vandals had destroyed binding threads and spines of the books. Beautiful pages of maps and fashion drawings were gone. Tom had to sit down, right down on the floor. This might only be the beginning, he thought. He had to act.

  He took the two violated books and, cradling them in his arms, ran down to the first floor and across the courtyard to the library trustees’ room. He burst in just as the trustees were taking a vote on cutting funding to the branch libraries.

  “I am sorry to interrupt, but I’m here to show you another kind of cutting!”

  A stunned silence enveloped the room as Tom lay the books on the table in front of the members of the board.

  “I can’t believe it!” Buster gasped.

  “Believe what?” Edith asked. Edith and her kids had retired to the display case to wait for Tom’s return.

  “They’re back!”

  “Who?” Jo Bell asked. “Tom and the police?”

  “No. Them! Eldridge and Agnes. Rosemary is fetching them both books right now!”

  Four minutes later, all the spiders were casting draglines through the air and scrambling toward the desk where Eldridge sat with yet another antique atlas. It contained priceless maps from the sixteenth century, showing the spice trade routes. They watched in horror as Eldridge took out his blade.

  Suddenly, a voice rang out. “How you got that blade in here, I’ll never know. But I insist that you drop it right this moment.”

  “It’s Tom! He’s back!” Jo Bell cried.

  “Thank heavens!” said Edith.

  The spiders’ exclamations of relief and joy set the air buzzing. Every hair on their bodies seemed to reverberate.

  “There must be some mistake!” Eldridge Montague protested.

  “There’s no mistake,” said Tom. “Now drop it.”

  They heard the X-ACTO blade hit the floor.

  “Great silk!” Edith exclaimed. “Look who’s here!”

  It was Agnes Smoot, and she was not carrying a blade but a huge book raised above her head. Her intentions were clear. She was going to slam it down on poor Tom’s head. And there was no other human being in the room. Rosemary had gone off to fetch a book for Agnes.

  “What are we to do?” Edith said in a hysterical pitch that seemed to defy the laws of vibration.

  Jo Bell did not even think. She cast her dragline and landed squarely in the middle of Agnes Smoot’s wig. She began to crawl down Agnes’s bangs and leapt onto the rim of her glasses. It was an act of stunning courage, for Jo Bell knew that Felix had lost a leg the only time he confronted a human. But this woman was creeping up on Tom with a fat book that could knock him senseless, and Jo Bell couldn’t simply stand aside.

  A second later, Buster landed by her side. “Venom! Use your venom, Jo Bell!”

  “I can’t!” Jo Bell cried.

  A sudden terrible scream tore the air. Jo Bell felt as though she were falling, falling … falling. But it was Agnes Smoot who was falling. Her eyes crossed crazily as she looked up at Jo Bell dangling on the bridge of her glasses.

  “BROWN RECLUSE!” she shrieked.

  The glasses and the book all went tumbling to the floor. Tom turned around and, seeing how narrowly he had escaped being clobbered by a five-pound book, grew deathly pale.

  “Don’t faint now!” Jo Bell screamed.

  And although he didn’t speak spider, Tom seemed to understand. The next thing she knew, he was racing to his desk to hit the emergency button.

  And then it was over.

  The next morning, the Boston Globe headlines screamed:

  VANDALS AND VERMIN INFEST

  RARE BOOKS ROOM OF BPL!

  At ten that morning, Tom Parker held a press conference.

  “Is it true, Mr. Parker, that the suspect claims she was about to be attacked by a brown recluse spider, and that’s why she carried an X-ACTO blade?”

  “An X-ACTO blade for a spider? C’mon, sir. Why not a can of insecticide? It’s not true.” Tom turned to face the TV cameras. “What is true is that Agnes Smoot — and we now know her real name is Diane de Funk — and her husband, Eldridge Montague, are thieves who thought nothing of cutting up priceless books, treasures of the Boston Public Library. The public has been robbed. No more questions, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Tom went to his office and sat at his desk. The wonderful web still stretched across the computer screen. The five spiders had arranged themselves in a neat row on the top edge of the screen. “Oh, my goodness,” he whispered, overwhelmed with emotion at the sight of these tiny heroes.

  At that moment, the telephone rang.

  “Yes, President Wilkins.” He paused. His face went white. “Tomorrow morning … so soon? Do you really feel this is necessary?” There was a long pause. “But … but … Yes, Mr. President. I’ll put up a notice. The Rare Books Department will be sealed off. Closed. I realize … quite toxic. I’ll tell my staff not to come in for three days until the air clears.”

  Not again! mourned Edith.

  “Good-bye, President Wilkins.” Tom wanted to slam down the telephone, but for fear of jiggling the marvelous web, he set it down softly.

  Tom took off his glasses. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. “I know that I cannot understand your language, but somehow you understand mine. I think you know that this is farewell. The city sanitation department insists on sending an extermination team tomorrow.” He sighed. “Public safety, they say. If they only knew!”

  Tom wiped his eyes, put on his glasses again, hit a button on his keyboard, and began to type. The screen soon pulsed with colorful pictures.

  “Farewell, my friends,” Julep translated. “That’s what he wrote.” She turned to Edith. “Mom, he was our first human friend and now we’re losing him.”

  Edith was not sure how to answer, but all the children were looking to her. “Do you remember, children, when we first arrived here at the Boston Public Library, and Tom welcomed us so warmly? Do you remember what you asked, Julep?”

  “I asked if this was the Place Where Time Has Stopped. The place where spiders can live in the open and never be afraid of humans. Where no humans are ever afraid of us, and there are no E-Men, like the exterminators who are coming tomorrow.”

  Buster felt something quicken in his spinnerets. He had been waiting a long time to hear the story of the Place Where Time Has Stopped.

  “Right, and what did I answer?”

  “You said” — Julep’s voice grew very tiny — “that this was not the Place Where Time Has Stopped, but you thought we were getting closer.”

  “Yes. I truly believe that. It is our destiny, but before we reach that place, we must endure some travails.”

  “What are travails?” asked Julep.

  “Hard and sometimes painful times,” Edith replied.

  “Enough already!” Felix blurted out. “I already lost one leg, remember. I might not be able to regrow it again if I lose another. I’m heavy in the travails department.”

  “We’ll get there. I have faith. Faith in all of you. Children, you are brave, inventive, honest, and so smart.” />
  Does she mean me, too? Buster wondered.

  “So I think this evening it would be appropriate if our webtime story was ‘The Story of the Place Where Time Has Stopped.’ For it is a story of hope.”

  Edith tucked her fangs in neatly and, settling herself into a corner of the web, began to speak in that somewhat hazy webtime story voice that seemed to come from gauzy blue mists of time.

  “There is a place far, far away. Some say it is a grand mansion, some say it is a small cabin in the woods, some say it is across an ocean,” Edith began. Buster looked over at the three young spiders. He could see that they knew this story so well that they were repeating every word silently to themselves. Oh, he was envious of them. All he knew were words from books. No one had ever told him a story like this one. What would he do when they left? It was hard to imagine life without them! He closed his eyes and listened on.

  And so I don’t know how to put it.” Buster sighed. “But my life has never been as complete as when you and your family arrived here at the Boston Public Library.”

  Jo Bell considered as Buster finished his little speech. Of course she wanted him to come along, but she couldn’t help but remember how he had shouted, “Venom! Use your venom, Jo Bell!” The words had haunted her.

  Ever since that fateful moment on Agnes Smoot’s bangs, she had asked herself if Buster really liked her. Liked her for herself and not just her venom. She looked at him now almost shyly, with only three of her six eyes. What if he just wants a crime buster and not a friend — not a girl friend? She took a deep breath and began to speak.

  “I realize you have to leave, too. But do you want to come with us?” Jo Bell stammered out the question.

  “Oh, Jo Bell!” It was Edith, peeking around the corner of a web at the other end of the display case where Buster and Jo Bell were talking. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. Buster is part of the family now.”

  “Yes, yes, but, Mom, could I have a few minutes alone with Buster? I need to ask him something — something private.”

  “Of course, dear.”

  As soon as Edith left, Buster blurted out, “Something private? What, Jo Bell? What?”

  “Well, perhaps ‘personal’ is a better word.”

  “What is it?”

  “Look, this is difficult for me to say. But do you like me for me, and not just for … well, you know, my venom?”

  Buster looked confused.

  Yikes, boys are stupid! thought Jo Bell.

  She took a deep breath. “I want a real friendship, not just to be your partner in solving crimes. I want a real friend, Buster. I have a mom, a sister, a brother, but I still need a plain, wonderful friend.”

  “How could you think it was just your fangs?” Buster gasped. “You thought up the whole idea of the hieroglyphics and the dragnet. You were the mastermind and you did it without fangs or venom. You … you …”

  Oh, he wished he could think of something wonderful to say to her. How awful that she had thought this. He cursed himself for every time — and there were far too many — when he had said the word “venom.” Then it came to him. Once when he was very young, he had dropped in at story time in the children’s department. A story about a spider and a pig by a very famous writer was being read aloud. He remembered that story and the beautiful sentences that the author created with such simple words.

  He began in a shaky voice, “Jo Bell, I have something to say. Forgive me if the words are not my own, and a bit turned around. But, Jo Bell, you are terrific, you are radiant, you are brilliant, you are some spider!”

  Jo Bell’s tiny little heart skipped a beat. “I’ll tell Mom! We meet Fatty in ten minutes at the corner of Dartmouth and Boylston. Be there!”

  Then all the silk in the display case webs began to shake and shimmer as Edith, Felix, and Julep bounced up and down on the threads. “He’s coming. He’s coming!” they shouted.

  “Talk about spying!” Jo Bell said with a laugh. “Is there no privacy around here?”

  “A new member of the family!” Edith rejoiced.

  “Another boy spider at last!” Felix sang.

  “I have a new brother!” Julep cried out gleefully.

  “And I have a friend,” Jo Bell said softly. “A real friend.”

  Many things in this book are true, others aren’t, and some are halfway between.

  As I’m sure you know, real spiders don’t use words to talk. Nor do they read, nor do they wear hats as in Stephen Gilpin’s wonderful illustrations. But here are a few things that are true about brown recluse spiders.

  Spiders have multiple eyes — usually eight (except for brown recluses, which have only six). In spite of all these eyes, spiders do not see well.

  Spiders DO receive a lot of information through their ability to pick up vibrations.

  The tiny hairs on their legs work like motion detectors and alert them to the smallest movements.

  Spider blood is blue. This is because spider blood, unlike human blood, contains copper.

  Brown recluse spiderwebs look slightly blue.

  Spiders can regrow lost legs if they are still fairly young.

  Spider silk is much stronger than any rope or even steel cable that humans make.

  Finally, it’s true that brown recluse spiders, like Edith and her three children, are very shy. But they can be very dangerous if they do bite. Their venom is toxic and causes necrotic wounds, which means that their bite causes human flesh to die. In some cases, brown recluse spider bites can be fatal. So enjoy reading about brown recluse spiders, but please — DON’T PLAY WITH THEM!

  Now for the halfway-between things. The Boston Public Library is a real place. It was the very first public library in America, and it is considered a national treasure because of its beautiful architecture and its wonderful collection of books. It is true that the personal library of John Adams, our second president, can be found at this library in the Rare Books Department, which is in fact located on the third floor. President Adams’s books are kept on a mezzanine level of the lobby of the rare books room.

  In 2003 there was an extensive exhibit at the library of books with movable parts, or as they are more commonly known, pop-up books. But the library itself does not own many of these books.

  Several of the titles of other books mentioned I have made up, such as Les Dessins des Hauts Couturiers, the Wurmach Encyclopedia of Hieroglyphs, and the New World Explorers’ Atlas.

  Many books, however, really are to be found at the Boston Public Library such as a first edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as well as the popular nineteenth-century magazine Alexander’s Weekly Messenger. There is also a forensic map and a copy of the famous Paul Revere engraving of the Boston Massacre that Adams used in his defense of the British soldiers.

  Also, in 2006 an antiquarian map collector and expert named Edward Forbes Smiley was found guilty and sentenced to jail for stealing over ninety-seven maps valued at more than three million dollars from various libraries including the Boston Public Library. His instrument of choice was an X-ACTO knife, but he was also known to use dental floss for the removal of some of the maps

  Kathryn Lasky is author of the bestselling Guardians of Ga’Hoole series, which has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. Her newest books include The Deadlies Book 1: Felix Takes the Stage, and the Wolves of the Beyond and Daughters of the Sea series. Kathryn’s books have received a Newbery Honor, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and a Washington Post–Children’s Book Guild Award. She lives with her husband in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  The author gratefully acknowledges Dr. Greta Binford, Professor of Biology at Lewis & Clark College, for her help with the spider research in this book.

  This book was originally published in hardcover by Scholastic Press in 2011.

  Copyright © 2011 by Kathryn Lasky.

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.

  SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.<
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  Cover design by Whitney Lyle

  Cover art by Stephen Gilpin

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-39231-0

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