Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One)

by Wingate, Susan

  The genus Latrodectus (of which the black widow spider is the most notorious) have been credited with killing more people per year, worldwide, than any other spider. Because they are not very large, they are much harder to detect than a large Brazilian wandering spider or a tarantula. Their venom is extremely potent. Compared to many other species of spiders, their chelicerae are not very large. In the case of a mature female, the hollow, needle shaped part of each chelicera, the part that penetrates the skin, is approximately 1 mm (0.04 in) long, sufficiently long to inject the venom to a dangerous depth. The males, being much smaller, can inject far less venom and inject it far less deeply. The actual amount injected, even by a mature female, is very small in physical volume. When this small amount of venom is diffused throughout the body of a healthy, mature human, it usually does not amount to a fatal dose. Deaths in healthy adults from Latrodectus bites are rare in terms of the number of bites per thousand people. Only sixty-three deaths were reported in the United States between 1950 and 1989 (Miller, 1992). This is like 1.5 deaths per year from the Black Widow!

  On the other hand, the geographical range of the widow spiders is very great. That means they are EVERYWHERE! SHRIEK! As a result, far more people are exposed, worldwide, to widow bites than are exposed to bites of more dangerous spiders, so the highest number of deaths worldwide are caused by members of the genus Latrodectus. Widow spiders have more potent venom than most spiders, and prior to the development of antivenin, 5% of bites resulted in fatalities, although comparable figures are not available for the other species.

  It's a totally bogus grade.

  TEN - Cats Make Good Company

  My visits with Morlson became sort of boring. I mean, how many times could a girl bite her teacher on the leg without getting a bit sick of it? Not that many. Not with those legs.

  In fact, I was starting to think about bagging the whole visitation hoo-ha, when the playing field changed.

  Say, like you're minding your own business and someone sneaks up behind you and, Kablowee! Kablowee! You jump out of your Shape-Ups and hit your head on the ceiling.

  Kind of like that but with insects.

  My cover had been compromised!

  Still, I thought it was a sneaky move on my part. That it would... drive... Morlson... CRAZY!

  That it would be fun to watch her go absolutely nutball insane.

  What a dork!

  Pussy and I had brought the pic of my teeth, cropped, of course to conceal my true identity. I rolled it up and slipped it through a jerry-rigged collar for pussy I'd created out of printer paper so, that if she got it snagged on something, bam! It would snap off without strangling her to death.

  Without pussy by my side, I'd be so depressed.

  I rolled up the pic and wedged it in-between her neck and the collar. Off we went! To Morlson's, to plant a clue. For me to see if she could figure it out. NOT ON YOUR LIFE!

  Finding it there at all would just eat away at her.

  Revenge was getting honey sweet about now and I was digging every nanosecond of it!

  When we reached her window, Morlson had closed it tighter from the inside but hadn't pulled the casement down all the way, nor had she locked the latch.

  On the landing, I noticed a bucket filled with gardening tools--a hand spade, a pair of green rubber gardening gloves, some MiracleGro plant food and next to that a white plastic pumper sprayer.

  It was a tight squeeze shimmying through the thin crack of the window, but I did it, picture et all! I shoved one edge of my photo between the window and the sill and left it hang there while I made my way inside. It snapped into a curl on the outside but stayed put.

  On the other side of the window, I pulled it through and when I'd gotten the entire photo in, it rolled up and flew down to the floor, like a paper airplane crashing.

  Carrying the pic across the rug felt like towing a piece of concrete pipe, being all curled up from its venture over in pussy's collar. But, I managed to roll it to a place between her bedroom and her bathroom.

  Then, I took off. I'd spent enough time messing around there.

  ELEVEN - Nazi Teacher

  Morlson was out to get me, sure as the sun rose in the east and set in the west, sure as death and taxes, sure as the day turned to night, sure as...

  Pussy climbed up onto my stomach. It wasn't that late, only about eight. I'd finished studying, writing on my science project assignment and contemplated my lonely saxophone that gleamed at me out of my dark closet as if to say, "Play me! Play me!"

  Getting up, Delilah, snuggled down onto my pillow.

  I licked the reed, dampening it for that perfect note. That perfect strain. That perfect first blast that seemed to always draw mom in. To applaud my efforts.

  Blaaahhhhhhhhhh. Blaaahhhh. Blahhhh.

  Pussy's ears flattened and she jumped off the bed and scratched to get out. She looked like a tiny little kitty boxer as she batted at the door, over and again for me to open it.

  "Hold on, pussy."

  After plopping back down into my chair, I drew in an extra deep breath and blew hard again making the next extra special note last even longer and louder...

  BLLAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

  "Honey!" Mom called from her bedroom across the hall. "Honey? Sweetheart."

  "Yeah, ma!" I chimed back.

  "Although your sax sounds lovely tonight, darling. Really. Lovely. Um. Can you please wait to play until you get home tomorrow, a little earlier. Before homework?"

  "Before homework?"

  "Sure!" She yelled. "Why not!" She giggled. "Look. Honey, I'm watching TV, there's this show, is all."

  "You don't mind if I play before you get home?"

  "Oh. No." She giggled again. "Honey, no. It's practice, right?"

  "Yeah!?"

  "Practice anytime before I come home, Susie. That's perfectly fine. Hon. Really."

  "K!" That was so cool of mom 'cause normally all my homework best be completed by the time I get home, or else, young lady!

  Since I'd joined band, Mom was definitely starting to loosen up. I think she really liked the progress I'd been making with my sax.

  TWELVE - The Sleeping Habits of the Putrid

  As I peered down in bed at Ms. Cumbersonian, I could make out the cone-shape of her two flabby breasts under a worn creamy cotton, flower-covered frock-enstein—a nightgown she must’ve bought on the cheap from HideousJune.com.

  I felt my gag reflex kick in. Which, actually, surprised me ‘cause I didn’t know spiders vomited but here I was feeling like I was going to hurl up a bee’s butt or something just thinking about her sloppy hellish boobs.

  “Want s-s-s-some?”

  His voice startled me and I nearly webbed myself.

  “Who’s there?” I shuddered and looked around Morlson’s bedroom in the direction of the voice but couldn’t see anyone else.

  “Ov-v-v-ver here.” He cracked out the words all of them tangling between high and low in an effort to either grow up or stay a kid.

  “I can’t see you.” I squinted . At least it felt like squinting. “Where?”

  “Oh h-h-h-hold on.” More cracking. Then, movement from a dark corner at the ceiling drew my eyes toward a shiny moonlit strand bouncing as he moved toward its connector. “Here.”

  And, clinging to the thread stood the most delicious boy spider I’d ever laid my eyes on, ever, in my life. Totally cute. He was Beiber-cute.

  I think I blushed but I felt pretty sure my black skin cloaked it from showing. “Oh. Hi.”

  “You’re b-b-b-blushing.”

  Dag. “Nuh-uh.”

  “What-t-t-tever.” He turned to the corner but before he went back, he said. “So, do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Want s-s-s-some?”

  “Some what?”

  “Jeez. G-g-g-girls.” I think he rolled his eyes. “Want s-s-s-some of my f-f-f-fly. D-d-d-do you?”

  “Oh. Ick.”

  “What-t-t-te
ver.” He ambled slowly and accurately making his silk bounce with each movement of his legs, back into the dark where he disappeared, but I knew he was watching me.

  He looked about my age, explaining his voice making switchbacks from tenor to bass at random. God. He was so cute.

  “Don’t like f-f-f-flies?” He said from the dark.

  “No.”

  “M-m-m-more for me, th-th-th-then.”

  “What-t-t-tever.” Got him.

  “Yeah. Whatever.”

  Dag. Perfect delivery.

  I inched away to one side then to the other testing out my eight wicked legs. The wood of Morlson’s headboard felt wide under my feet like walking on the highway and I took my time getting to the precise point above her pillow.

  “She s-s-s-snores.” The boy said, making me look up.

  “What’s your name?”

  “R-r-r-rider.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “Yuh-huh.”

  God. Rider the Spider.

  “She’s not snoring now.”

  “She w-w-w-will.”

  And, as if he’d been watching her all his life, he had the timing down to a tee. He must’ve known about when, each night, it would happen, because Morlson’s mouth twisted open and she began to mouth-breathe!

  “Amazing.”

  “T-t-t-told you.”

  “She’s totally disgusting.”

  “T-t-t-tell me about it.”

  “How long have you been living there?”

  “Hmm. Let’s s-s-s-see... I was here yesterd-d-d-day, and yesterd-d-d-day before that and a d-d-d-day before that and, hmm, at least t-t-t-two or th-th-th-three d-d-d-days before that...”

  “Okay. Lord. Stop. Sorry I asked.”

  “Why are you h-h-h-here?”

  “A vendetta.”

  “What?”

  Perfect again.

  “Why do you stutter?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “It’s irritating.”

  “S-s-s-sorry.” He poked his head out and winked at me.

  I blushed again.

  “B-b-b-blushing?”

  I put my claws up to my face to check. “Shut-UP!”

  Morlson’s mouth-breathing took on a heated momentum and distracted both of us.

  “Lord.” I looked on in horror.

  He just looked at me and raised his first set of legs, like, your guess is as good as mine?

  “Nasty.” I couldn’t stop about Morlson’s gross sleeping habits.

  “I’m used to h-h-h-her.”

  The snoring sounded like a cross between walking on crushed rocks and puking up a loogie.

  “Holy.” There was no quitting. I was appalled. “Time to get busy, I suppose.”

  No need to jump, the sticky claws on each of my feet held me safely to the vertical side of the headboard making it easy going down onto Morlson’s straggly hair—hair she kept out of her face by a sweat-crusted black elastic cotton headband. I made my way through a jungle of grey that smelled a lot like AquaNet hairspray. Like walking through an automat carwash with those long strips of fabric that wipe over you as you move forward on the conveyor belt but like with one hundred million times more strands all smelling like AquaNet hairspray. Pee-Uke. Not only could I barely see but I didn't want to breathe. Talk about stanky-poo. Woo hoo! If I had a spider nose protrubance, I would have pinched it closed by then.

  Rider continued to talk and crackle out his boy-to-man words, stuttering all the while. Wh-wh-wh-what are you going to d-d-d-do?”

  “It’s payback time for Morlson.”

  “Wh-wh-wh-who?”

  “Gas bag.”

  “Ah.” But he wouldn’t let the question go. “So. Wh-wh-wh-what will you d-d-d-do?”

  “Give her a big fat bite.” I looked up and gave Rider my most sexy spider smile. “That’s what we spiders do. Right, Rider?”

  “S-s-s-spose so.”

  I was on the move, as we spoke, skulking around the AquaNet jungle until I grabbed hold of something I can only think of as pig fat. I had crawled through Morlson's ratty tangle of hair and emerged at her earlobe.

  However, at that very moment, Morlson rolled one hefty, snowy leg over the other, making her entire weight shift in elephantine slowness like a big rolling tidal wave with her head the last thing to move. And, when she did, she landed right on top of me flattening me behind her ear and the cotton pillowcase.

  The toadmeister had me pinned.

  THIRTEEN - Oh! Diary, Dear Diary: My Only True Friend

  My Dear Diary Entry—Date: October 5, 2010

  Dear Diary,

  Things have been a little wacky lately, what, with dad dying last year and all and, now, this spider thing. I’d say I have a lot on my plate. My new friend Rider is so cute but how can I tell Ricki and Janemie about him. Even though they are my BFFs, I still don’t think they would ever get this one. And, then, there's Justin. What's a girl to do.

  Rider told me some things last night that I’d like to share with you, oh, diary, you who holds all of my secret and most personal thoughts. He said this, “Even spiders have rules.” He made me swear on the outermost edge of his web with my right foreleg touching it and my left foreleg held up in deference to the Big Spider of all Spiders, He Who Hangs Out Catching the Reeeally Big Stuff, the one, the only—Taran-TU-la. And he made me say the oath, my Spider Oath.

  #1-I promise to never, ever dare demean or curse at a spider.

  #2-I promise never to get angry at a spider.

  #3-I promise to promote spider ways all the days of my life and to never, ever crush a spider out of fear or anger.

  Really, Rider made me swear to the first two. I made up the third one. I figured we spiders needed to stick together. Rider explained that screaming can disable a spider’s abilities for an indefinite amount of time. It’s like we freeze up. And, anger can sadden a spider to the point of not eating--ultimately, starving themselves to death.

  Cursing at them, and here's where I'm unclear, will either have a dastardly effect on the curse-er or the curse-ee.

  Then he got all nostalgic and said, he remembered riding on his mother’s back, only a teensy weensy baby spider at the time, while she explained all the ways of spiders—about web-building, capturing and eating insects and bugs, and then the often-forgot-about two mystical rules relating to spider life.

  So, after hearing about this oath, I decided to do a little spider research. See, up to now, I’d been pretty distracted about becoming a spider and hadn’t thought to think that I might need to brush up on my knowledge of spiders. Understandable, I’d say.

  Any who.

  I pulled down all of these photos (see inserted photos below) and was amazed at how alike we spiders are to we human beings. Don’t be scared. These photos won’t bite! 

  So. This one, here on the left is basic spider anatomy showing some internal organs.

  You can see some additional information in more colorful detail with this one, on the right. I just really think the bright colors of this one are beautiful. Don’t you?

  This third one, here, is a close-up photo of my butt as a spider. Those little prongy deals we call spinnerets and that’s where the silk goes zinging out.

  Pretty cool, huh? It’s a hairy butt, wouldn’t you agree? Of course you do.

  Did I ever think in a million zillion years I would be telling somebody this. No. Not. EvER.

  Now. A word about the spider’s oath. You can yell at your cat when she’s bad just never at spiders because I think it’s pretty common knowledge that spiders are never bad.

  So. Anywho.

  Hmm. What else. Oh, mom doesn’t like spiders so much.

  I guess she got bit once when I was a itty-bitty human baby a long, long time ago in a galaxy not so far away! The deviant spider (which pains me to even think), bit her on the arm. I guess they identified the bite as one bite suspected from an aggressive brown spider.

  Aggressive brown spiders are not the feared and da
ngerous brown recluse spiders. They’re a dastardly bunch. No?

  The thing bit her on the arm and, as she described the bite, it got “yea, big” when it swelled. Mom ended up with fever and chills which she called "ague." She described the size of the welt with her hand which hovered approximately an inch above her forearm and said it got “yea thick and yea long” like it took up the entire length too, from her wrist to her elbow.

  Sneakers and peekers! That’s quite a bite. HowEVER! And, now, let me come back in defense of my compadre, the spider. Did she scream at him?!

  OF COURSE!

  God. Mother.

  She really should know better. I didn’t get the whole morbid story because my favorite TV show in the whole wide world back then (and sometimes even now as reruns), Hannah Montana, came on and distracted me.

  Plus, mom brought me a glass of chocolate goat's milk and some sugar cookies and, as she spoke, her words drifted into a place I can only believe that Charlotte (of Charlotte’s Web) went at the end of that story. Boo hoo.

  No. My fingers are in my ears. I will not believe otherwise happened to Charlotte. Shut-UP!

  Okey dokey.

  So. After writing in my diary, I felt it due time that I work on my science project. And, after not too much consideration about what to do, what to do... my brain sent me an email saying, “Hey dork, why not do a project about spiders!” Like, duh.

  No kidding. Truthfully.