The Girl Who's Not Afraid of Spiders
By: akikos-wok
NOTE: The narrative is intentionally simplistic to reflect the mind of a six year old
She was standing in the kitchen with her mother when it happened. A little black spider, hardly the size of her six-year old fingertip scurried across the floor and stopped short on her pink, naked foot. She regarded it calmly, almost smiling at it as she waited to see what it would do next. Would it continue its journey across the vast wooden floor and disappear into some crack or crevice in the boards? Would it amble up her leg find the hem of her skirt and make its way into the safety of her apron pocket? Or would it have the good sense to turn about and head for the door and return to the world outside from whence it came?
And surely it had come quite a long way, since spiders were not a terribly common sight in the seaside village of Arni. Any spiders that managed to find their way into the straw-thatched huts of fishermans' families had traveled quite far indeed from the grassy fields outside the village. In spiders terms it must have been about a zillion miles, she guessed.
"Mama look!" the read-headed child exclaimed, giant green eyes sparkling as she indicated her discovery. "A spider!"
Her mother gasped, alarmed. "Hold still child!" she commanded, dropping her rolling pin and advancing cautiously towards her daughter. She grabbed a dishtowel from the counter top. "Don't move. I'll kill it for you."
"No mama!" the child exclaimed rushing towards her mother and throwing her arms about her waist. The spider fell from her foot, lay stunned briefly, then scurried off, probably more frightened by the girl's sudden movement than the looming dishtowel.
"I don't want you to kill it," the girl continued.
"Oh for heaven's sakes Leena!" her mother cried exasperated. "Well it's too late now, you've made me lose sight of it."
The child released her grip on her mother and looked disappointedly down at her foot. She gazed across the span of the kitchen floor. The spider was gone.
"That spider might have bitten you. And now for all we know it's lost somewhere in this house and we'll have cobwebs turning up all over the place."
"No mama," Leena protested. "It wouldn't 'a bit me. Not if I didn't make it mad."
"Oh, and who told you that?" her mother inquired.
Leena tried to remember. She closed her eyes and pictured a man with hair the same color as hers, just long enough to tie back, and silver rimmed spectacles, round and almost too small for his eyes. "I think it was daddy."
"Oh, that Elgin. I suppose he told you they were valuable or something, worth a lot of money in the Termina market."
"No no, not Elgin," the child said. "Daddy."
Her mother was silent for a moment, her face dark and serious, the way she always looked right before she ushered Leena out of the company of adults when they needed to talk about grown-up things. "Don't be silly," she said. "Elgin is your father."
"No. Elgin is baby Una's daddy. And the new baby you are going to haves daddy," the girl said. "Serge's mommy who's called Marge calls my daddy 'Miguel'. And Serge's daddy is called Wazuki."
"That's enough Leena," her mother said sharply. "You will go back to cleaning those fish now."
"Mommy, what does Miss Marge call you?" the child inquired. "You never go over there and play with me."
"I said that's enough Leena. There are still a lot of fish to be cleaned before I can even start making dinner, and your father will be home within the hour."
"But mama I told you already he's not my-"
"I said enough child."
Leena pouted and hung her head over defeatedly. She did not understand why her mother got so angry with her when she said Elgin was not her father. She thought she was rather clever for knowing that. Most little girls would assume that the man their mother was married to was their father, but not Leena. She knew better than that.
The spider ran out from a sliver of space between two of the floorboards. With her already downcast eyes, Leena spotted it instantly, and leapt to the ground, covering it with her hands to prevent it from running away.
"Leena, now what are you doing?" her mother demanded.
"I found it, I found it!" she proclaimed proudly.
"Found what?"
"The spider!" She opened her hands slightly. "Come see mama! It's wicked tiny!"
"No Leena. If I see it I'm going to kill it."
"But mama! Daddy said spiders are lucky, since they're so rare around here. He said it's bad luck to kill them!"
"Leena you can't possibly remember that!" her mother cried and even though she was angry Leena thought she sounded like she might cry. "You were two! You were only two when Miguel died."
"But I do remember mama," Leena said, smiling warmly up at her. "I remember this one time, I was walking in the grass with daddy and a spider crawled on me and I got scared and cried 'cause I was only a baby and daddy took it off and showed me and said 'don't be scared baby Leena. It's a spider. It won't hurt you if you don't bother it and it's dead lucky'."
"Leena you get rid of that thing this instant or I will come over there and kill it!" her mother near screamed.
"And mom, my dad's not dead. We don't know for sure that he's dead. He's just disappeared. He might-"
"Leena take that spider outside right now!"
Startled by the fury in her mother's tone, the child clamped her hands protectively around the spider. She scooped it up and held it very close to her chest. "I was just going to," she said meekly, hurriedly making her way towards the door.
"And then hurry back inside and finish cleaning these fish, like I've already asked you to do."
"Yes mama," Leena said obediently before scampering nervously out the door.
She hated when her mother acted like this. She made Leena do loads more chores than any of the other kids in the village. And then she got really mad at her when she didn't do them properly. She almost always did them. Just sometimes there got to be so many and Leena couldn't quite figure out how to do them all the right way. And her mother never wanted to talk during chores. She always yelled at her for talking.
Leena looked down at the spider in her hands. If it really was lucky maybe that meant tomorrow her mother wouldn't make her do so many chores and would let her go play on her own without having to look after baby Una. Or maybe she just would let Leena practice singing the song her grandma taught her while she mended her socks.
She knew that she needed to take the spider outside the village to the grassy fields if she wanted it to survive. Her father had taught her that most spiders were not at home in sandy areas like the beach and the village streets. She really wanted to keep the spider as a pet and have good luck always, but she knew her mother would never allow that. Even though Leena would keep it in a jar and never take it out of her room, her mother would be afraid it would escape and sneak into baby Una's room and eat her all up. Una was only two, so she didn't know any better and would probably scream, cry and scare the spider, so it might eat her.
Leena wished there was somewhere safe in the village where she could hide the spider and see it always. But she knew it was best to just bring it back out into the wild where it could live with other spiders, make spider-webs and do all those other things that spiders do.
She decided she'd better go show it to Serge first though.
Serge was Leena's best friend. His daddy Wazuki was Leena's daddy Miguel's best friend. One time, when Serge was three and Leena was two, Serge got really sick and Miguel and Wazuki took him away on a boat to get him better. Only Wazuki and Serge came back. Miguel disappeared. Serge got better. And Wazuki got sick. Well Leena's mom said Wazuki was sick anyway. He was usually gone when Leena went over to play at Serge's house. She thought maybe he was sailing back to where he took Serge to make him better when he was sick.
Serge lived in the house near the edge of the village on the inland side. It was short walk from Leena's bigger house along the shore and the girl had forgotten to put shoes on before stepping outside so her feet got all sandy walking down the road. When she arrived Serge was already outside, rickety tin bucket on the ground beside him, fishing net in hand.
"Hiya Leena," he greeted her. "Me and the other boys are going fishing so I can't play with you today," the boy said, lowering his voice and attempting to sound grown-up. Almost all the grown-up men in the village were fisherman, so when the boys went down to Opassa Beach and went fishing they all pretended to be big, tough, grown-ups.
"That's okay. My mama wants me to watch baby Una while she makes dinner anyway," Leena said.
"Oh yeah? Then what are you doing all the way over here?" Serge asked.
"Well, I was gonna show you something really cool, but since you're so busy, I guess I'll just go," Leena said smugly, holding her arms out to draw attention to her cupped hands.
"What'cha got in your hands there?" her friend inquired, edging towards her.
She closed her hands gently. "Oh, well, it's nothing too important. Nothing a busy fisherman like you would be interested in."
"Yeah I would!" Serge protested. "I wanna see what you've got. C'mon and show me Leena, please?"
Leena smiled. "Well okay, I guess I could show you. But will you promise you'll play with tomorrow? You keep playing with those boys and leaving me out."
"Your mom's always making you do chores and I get too bored sitting around waiting for you!"
"Well I think maybe she won't tomorrow, because look at what I've got!" Leena opened her hands up again and extended them towards Serge. The spider lay perfectly still in the curve of her left palm.
"Eww a spider!" Serge shrieked as he jumped away from her. "Quick kill it Leena, it might bite you!"
"Don't be a idot Serge. It won't no how. Not unless I make it mad by jumping and yelling and screaming," Leena scolded.
Serge scrunched his face up, raising the corner of one blue eyebrow. "Are you sure?"
Leena nodded fervently. "My daddy told me so before he went away. He knew everything." She took a step closer to her friend and he in turn inched another step away from her, eyes fixed suspiciously on the spider. "Come on Sergey, you're not afraid of a teeny-weeny spider are you?"
Serge pursed his lips together and attempted to look insulted. "Of course I ain't afraid," he said, voice trembling a little as he spoke. "It's just gross, that's all."
"It isn't gross! It's lucky," Leena declared. "We're lucky to have this spider with us right now. They're dead rare by the seaside."
"Well if it's so lucky, why don't you take it away and keep it somewhere where you won't lose it."
Leena shook her head sadly. "I can't. Mama will kill it if she finds it and there's nowhere I can hide it from her." She was upset about having to give away her lucky spider. She thought that maybe if she could keep the spider, it's good luck powers would get stronger and stronger, until they were mighty enough to bring her daddy back. She didn't care if the spider's powers never made her mother stop giving her chores. If they brought her daddy back, he would put a stop to that. Then an idea occurred to her.
"Hey Sergey, why don't you keep the spider?"
"Me?" he cried. "What would I want with a stupid old spider?"
"It's good luck Serge, I told you! Come on, please? Maybe if you keep it, your daddy will get better and stop disappearing so you and your mama won't have to worry about him anymore. And maybe when he's well he can go on an adventure and find my daddy!"
Serge still didn't seem convinced. "Well," he said, cautiously approaching Leena's outstretched hands, "I guess I could maybe keep it for a little while anyway."
"Oh thank you Serge!" Leena cried, leaning over to kiss her friend on the cheek. She carefully placed the spider on Serge's palm, and then bent his fingers over the top of it to help prevent it from escaping. "Now you should keep it in a jar and stretch some paper over the top of it. Then you gotta punch holes in the paper. That way the spider can't run away but it can still breathe. You should prob'ly go pick some grass to put in there too, just so it's more like the spider's home."
She stepped away from the boy. "I have to go home now. My mama will be mad at me for taking so long to get back. Now you take good care of our spider Serge. I think the longer we keep him the stronger his lucky magic will get!" She ran off in the direction of her house but stopped short, remembering something. "Oh yeah. I almost forgot," she yelled. "You gotta catch bugs and put them in the jar for it to eat!"
---
"What do you mean? Like live bugs? It just eats live bugs?" Serge demanded.
But Leena did not respond. At least, she didn't answer the question. An enthusiastic, though distant "Bye Sergey!" was the last he heard of her before she disappeared from sight.
Serge observed the spider as calmly as he could. He thought it was ugly and useless. Sometimes a spider would get into his room and build a web in his fishing net and he hated having to clean it out. Webs were sticky and nasty and sometimes full of little dead bugs and hard brown balls that his mother said were spider eggs. Serge definitely didn't want to keep this spider if it was going to have lots of little baby spiders. They'd probably be small enough to escape through the holes in the top of the jar and would crawl all over him and bite him in his sleep.
He was actually surprised the spider in his hands hadn't bitten him yet.
What did Leena mean it was lucky? Spiders weren't magic like fairies or something. Even though Serge had never seen a fairy, he was pretty certain that they looked a whole lot nicer than spiders. But maybe just having the spider was what brought you good luck. Like a good luck charm. But wasn't that all just make believe?
Serge didn't know.
He stared long and hard at the spider. In one moment he decided that maybe Leena was right, and he dashed inside to find a jar to put it in before running down to Opassa beach to go fishing with his friends. In the same moment he decided it was rubbish; that spiders were yucky, creepy little bugs, and he dropped it on the ground then squashed it.
And an hour later Leena cried because they brought Serge back, soaking, and barely breathing, lips purple and trembling, and immediately called for a doctor. And the same hour later she cried because they didn't.
This story was actually written in a random burst of inspiration after I discovered a half-dead daddy longlegs in my bathroom, which I very sadly had to kill. It was missing three of its legs and there was no way it was going to survive. But as a general rule, I don't kill spiders. Flies and mosquitos are quite another story.