by Dele Daniel
The Adventures
Of
Alex Spider
Dele Daniel
This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
© Copyright 2017 by Dele Daniel
Contents
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3
4
5
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8
9
10
Message from the Author.
1
Alex trudged along the worn path a few paces behind the Goodweathers. Tall pines surrounded him from every side, looming over. He tightened his grip on the black silver-trimmed backpack slung over one shoulder. Up ahead, his Uncle Dave toted his gym bag only half-full with clothes. Alex hadn’t packed much. Aunt Jessie bobbed his littlest cousin, Luna, eleven and a half months, who had fixated on Alex from over Aunt Jessie’s shoulder. Their oldest, Kathy, was eleven and only a year younger than Alex; the same age that he was at the time of the accident.
“Just up around the bend, kiddo. I think you’re going to really like it,” piped Uncle Dave in an effort to break the silence.
Alex didn’t say anything. Uncle Dave reminded Alex so much of his mother because of the striking sibling resemblance but Alex looked nothing like either of them. Sometimes people didn’t even believe Alex’s mother was white because he looked completely like his Nigerian father.
“Mom?” It was Kathy’s turn to fill the quiet with something. “Why didn’t we just park in front of the house?”
Aunt Jessie shifted Luna to rest against the opposite hip, giving her a gentle bounce with each step. “Because Alex didn’t have all that much to carry and this way we can show him a bit more of the property.”
Kathy looked back to Alex, his head down, hands deep in pockets, “I don’t think he cares much about the property, mom.”
“Sweetheart, don’t talk about him like he isn’t here,” the tone in Aunt Jessie’s voice softened, the way a mom can toss a question without missing a step. “What do you think, Alex? Is it a nice view?”
“It’s different than what I’m used to,” Alex responded, his walk becoming sullen. He didn’t look up.
“I bet!” chimed back Uncle Dave, “The City doesn’t have what Silver Creek’s got.”
“Oh they have their parks too,” added Aunt Jessie.
“Yeah, but not like this,” Uncle Dave went on. “I mean sure, back in the day it was all about the City! It was new, it was something else, but simple living amongst nature, yeah, this is the way.”
“Is this what it was like growing up with Grandma and Grand-papa?” asked Kathy from the centre of the convoy.
Uncle Dave made a sort of humming sound that slowly turned from a hum into the ‘n’ of a “No. It was kind of like this but Silver Creek is a little less, um, what’s a good word for it—”
“A little less wild,” finished Aunt Jessie.
“Exactly. And it took a lot more tree transplanting than you’d usually see,” Uncle Dave finished with a half-chuckle to himself. He did that a lot.
“What time is it, sweetie?”
“It’s—” blurted Uncle Dave and Kathy at the same time, before tripping over each other’s words.
“Ok, both my sweeties.”
Alex groaned.
“You go, Kit-kat,” said Uncle Dave.
Kathy brimmed and checked her watch. “It’s…oh boy, five minutes to sundown.”
“Woo!” Uncle Dave sang with an extra spring in his step, “Let’s hustle!”
Just then they came around the bend of the well-trodden footpath, leading to the back veranda of their two storey Colonial. Uncle Dave stood at the curve of the bushes, gesturing to the house they could all plainly see, really for Alex’s benefit. “It’ll get chilly out here pretty quick, eh Alex?” he finished, giving Alex a gentle swat to the shoulder as he entered the house. Alex didn’t say anything. Uncle Dave let out a tiny exhaust of air, maybe a little deflated by Alex’s quiet indifference.
***
The Goodweather household stood tall and firm against the dark evening sky. The stars were brighter now as Alex watched from the foot of his window. Uncle Dave and Aunt Jessie had made him up his own room. They told him he could go into town some time and pick out any posters he wanted. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be here.
“Alex, you in here?” came a voice from the hall.
He wanted to spend time with Kathy least of all. The light switched on as Alex squinted against the brightness. “I just want to be alone.”
“I know, but it’s supper.” Kathy had a need to fill silences, as if they were strange. But she didn’t find her cousin strange, just maybe too quiet for his own good. “So come down stairs,” she said with a turn, “It’s meatball night.” And she was gone, purposely leaving the light on behind her. Alex groaned as he got up to switch it off. He was angry but his stomach was growling. The smell of the downstairs cooking wafted in. With a sigh, he made his way down to the kitchen.
At the head of the kitchen table was Aunt Jessie, with room for Luna’s highchair. At the opposite end was Uncle Dave, getting ready to dole out some meatballs and sauce to Alex’s plate. “Join up, kiddo,” he said without looking up. This made Alex angry, as if he wasn’t even there. But the food smelled pretty good, he just didn’t want them to know it. He pulled out a seat next to Kathy, only because the highchair was blocking his ideal spot. His plate seemed to be prepared for him anyhow. He sat down. He waited for a moment, and then took his fork and ate. He ate fast. He ate fast until he realised just how fast he was eating, and took a moment. No one seemed to have paid him any notice. Luna was fussing with her string carrots and applesauce to Aunt Jessie’s frustration, while Uncle Dave spooned out portions for Kathy and himself.
Alex grabbed the milk, then wondered if he was being rude and just sort of set it back half-way from where he had gotten it. He didn’t notice Aunt Jessie smile. His thirst won out over his awkward manners and he reached for the milk and poured a clumsy glass before putting the carton back to its original place. To Alex’s surprise, no one bugged him throughout the meal. Almost no one asked him any questions, asked him if he was looking forward to school. No one even asked how the meal was. They just sort of let him be. So he ate.
The rest of the Goodweathers chatted around him, just about anything, really. Aunt Jessie was concerned about the kind of paint they had used on the veranda last spring. Uncle Dave explained how the moon rotates around the earth and the earth rotates around the sun. Luna giggled and chirped between spoonfuls, and that was supper.
Alex didn’t feel so angry. He hadn’t had a supper like that for a while. He was lucky to be here, but he was worried. Guilt began to creep into his stomach, filling places that were meant for food. He wasn’t hungry now, but angry. It was good they weren’t asking him any questions. He didn’t want to talk about the last year. Alex knew they wouldn’t keep quiet forever, and this made him even angrier.
Kathy looked with great confusion as Uncle Dave positioned three meatballs circled in his spaghetti. “I don’t get it,” she interrupted.
“What don’t you get?” he asked.
“How they can spin around each other,
” she leaned over her father’s plate, shaking her head.
“Well look,” Uncle Dave stuck his fork into one meatball and started rotating it around the larger one. “This is the earth, and it rotates around the sun, and because it’s just so big, it pulls other planets around it. The earth does the same thing, but,” Uncle Dave paused to pop the meatball off his fork and poke the smallest one, “see, the moon, rotates around the other.”
“So what? It’s just a bunch of circles?” Kathy asked, frustrated.
“Yeah,” laughed Uncle Dave, “It’s just a map of a bunch of circles.”
Aunt Jessie, cleaning up Luna from her smatter of apples and carrots, noticed Alex wasn’t eating. “Kitty-kat,” as if singing to get Kathy’s attention.
“Yeah?” she answered quickly, eager to ignore the solar system.
“Why don’t you show Alex the aquarium, I bet he hasn’t seen that yet?”
“Ok,” Kathy replied. She didn’t seem to care, at least it seemed that way to Alex, but he quietly followed after.
The aquarium was much larger than he expected, with two turtles and what looked like a few groupings of different fish. “How many bunches are there?” Alex blurted.
A bit startled, Kathy politely corrected him, “They’re called schools when they’re together like that.” Alex didn’t answer. At the moment, he felt like fish made him angriest of all, trapped within the glass, in their schools, their families. Safe. His fists began to tighten.
“Are you alright, Alex?” Kathy asked with increasing concern. “You’re turning all red.”
“Without a word, Alex punched the glass of the aquarium, and it hurt, it hurt more than he expected because he hadn’t expected to punch the glass at all. In a blind moment, his frustration was reaching out with his own hand, cracking the glass.
“No, no!” Alex pleaded, realising what he had done. The glass of the tank was cracking, and he couldn’t stop it. He tried covering the crack as it spread. Like little bits of frozen lightning. Alex watched, powerless to stop the aquarium.
Just then Uncle Dave came running into the room with a few rubber buckets and an older aquarium under his arm. “What happened?” He gathered as many of the fallen fish from the soaked carpet as he could. Kathy helped feverishly to get the fish to safety. In the end, fifteen fish, from different schools, had died in the ordeal. Both turtles survived.
Alex had immediately gone to his room to hide under the top sheets. No one came to talk to him about what had just happened, at least not right away. Maybe they thought he should cool down, or maybe they just didn’t want to. Alex’s hand hurt, and his face felt warm. His stomach tied itself into a knot; he was certain they would send him back.
Alex wrapped himself in the duvet and went to the window. A yawn of open space and twinkling stars lay before him. Counting each bright speck brought back to mind all those flapping little fish on the carpet. Fifteen they had said, fifteen that didn’t make it. He didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t mean to hurt the fish. It was his reflection he punched in that aquarium and he felt ridiculous now, hurt and just plain ridiculous. Bad things just seem to happen to him.
Out the window, beneath a blanket of infinite dark, was the rest of Silver Creek. Alex figured they’d be sending him back to the City and then who knows. “Alex?” came a deep voice from the door. It was Uncle Dave. “Alex, can I come in?”
“It’s your house,” mumbled Alex.
Uncle Dave entered but didn’t turn on the light, he just stood in the doorway. “Your Aunt Jessie is pretty upset. I’ve got a wet carpet down there, too.”
“I’m sorry about the fish.”
Uncle Dave paused a moment before answering, in that way that makes the time between stretch on forever. “I can get more fish. But Kathy likes naming them and your aunt is more upset that you lashed out.”
Alex stayed silent.
“I know it’s only been a year. I’m sure you miss them quite a lot. I know we do. Just, no more outbursts like that. Capiche?”
Alex didn’t know what Capiche was, so he nodded.
“Alright then. Kathy wants to talk to you, then its bed time. Tomorrow’s a new day.”
Uncle Dave whispered something to Kathy as they passed at the doorway. “Alright,” she answered, hopping up onto the bed. Alex sat beneath the window, near expressionless. Kathy didn’t buy it, “You killed my fish.”
“I’m sorry,” he answered, sheepishly.
Kathy waited a moment, “You miss them, huh.”
Alex shifted a bit and turned to his cousin, “Yeah.”
Kathy was almost taken aback; she hadn’t really expected him to say anything, at least not yet. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, she decided to press a little further. “How did they—I mean, what happened, again? If you don’t mind talking about it, I mean.”
Alex looked back to the night sky and debated answering, but decided that if he didn’t tell her she would just ask again some other time. “It was a rocket explosion. It was a prototype for one of their new concept designs. Dad owned most of the business. Mom and him were actually travelling here, well, to the City I mean. But they—”
A gulf of silence pooled between Kathy and her cousin. How could she understand what it would be like losing her own mum and dad? She just couldn’t know. She felt sad for Alex. Alex didn’t know what to feel. He didn’t want to talk about the death of his parents, or the last year with his other godparent, but Uncle Daryl must have given up on him and sent him here. Just about as far from home as he could get.
“Tomorrow we’ll take you to the tree house; you can see some of the other biomes from there. The colour of the horizon is where Silver Creek gets its name.”
Alex was done talking for the moment, but he still listened.
“It’s fun, and near the edge, part of the forest meets with the dome. You can see some of the rockets delivering mail back to earth most nights.”
Alex sighed and stared out once more at the clear expanse of space.
“It’s not so bad, Alex,” said Kathy, “You’re going to like life on the moon.”
2
Down the path behind the Goodweather home, beyond the tire-swing tree and the grey meadow ripe with this year’s crop of moon corn, was a proud wood-built tree house. Big planks of cedar made up the walls and flooring, but the roof was left open, using the thick growth of the tree as a natural canopy. Elon and Angelo were already occupying Fort Compromise. This was the name they gave the tree house for the simple fact that no one could agree on the right name. They were discussing it, again, when Kathy and Alex arrived at the end of the path.
“I still say we call it Noodle H.Q.!”
“No, you’re crazy! Pasta Presidio!”
“No one knows what a presidio is!”
“It doesn’t matter, it sounds cool!”
Eight well-nailed two-by-fours made a crude ladder leading up the tree to a latched trapdoor. Alex was slow to follow Kathy up, he didn’t want to meet anyone else new and he hated how the voices coming from the tree house went quiet as soon as Kathy reached the entrance, like she gave them a signal that Alex the crazy kid was coming up. Alex the orphan. Alex the weirdo. Swallowing all his anxiety, he came up through the entranceway. Kathy made a seat for herself against the trunk of the tree and two boys sat cross-legged just in front, a couple messy stacks of comic books making a sort of barrier between the two of them.
“This is Elon and Angelo!” Kathy beamed, hands outstretched. “Elon is twelve and Korean but he was born here like you!”
Although it was true Alex was moonborn, he didn’t feel any connection to Silver Creek.
“Hi,” Elon said with a wave.
“And this is Angelo, he’s…I can’t remember what you are?” Kathy reddened, finishing with an embarrassed chuckle to Angelo.
“Ha! That’s OK, my dad’s from Sweden and my Mum’s from Israel, but I was born in South-Africa so I call myself a South-African born Jewish-Swede,” Angelo stated prou
dly.
“Right,” Kathy nodded still looking confused. “This is my squad!”
“Excuse me?” croaked Alex.
Both Elon and Angelo got up to make a half-salute, but paused part way to wait for Kathy, who was slow to realise what they were doing but quickly joined, “Oh yeah!” she said. The three now knelt side by side, and in clumsy order, sounded off:
“Lieutenant Linguini, reporting!” barked Elon.
“Brigadier Bolognese, signing in!” followed Angelo.
“Captain Kath, reporting for duty!” finished Kathy.
Alex stared blankly as the other three remained saluting, expecting him to say something. “That’s stupid,” he said finally. He didn’t mean to say it out loud, but it was what he was thinking. Kathy frowned, and Alex felt guilty for not guarding himself better. This is why he didn’t talk. Angelo didn’t even flinch. It was Elon that elaborated, “Oh, it’s just a bit of fun.”
“I don’t get it,” Alex said, trying to be expressionless.
“What’s not to get?” exclaimed Angelo, throwing his hands up in the air.
Elon began to point between the three of them, “We all give each other names, and it’s like a club. None of us get to pick our name, the others come up with it, but you get to decide if you keep it or not.”
“Yeah!” Angelo joined. “Except we’re even better than a club!” he finished, gesturing widely.
Kathy wasn’t frowning anymore and put one arm over Angelo’s shoulder, who put one over Elon’s and together, a little more in time, they all finished, “We’re the Spaghetti Squad.”
Alex just stared, filling the tree house with another gulf of silence, before finally, “Why spaghetti?”
“Who doesn’t love spaghetti?” laughed Angelo. The other two nodded in agreement.
“But your names don’t all have to do with spaghetti. In fact, one’s a different kind of noodle, one’s a sauce and one is Kathy’s usual nickname.”
Kathy’s face began to redden but Elon was quick, “The Spaghetti Squad isn’t about making sense, it’s about making friends.”