A/N: Hello, people! Yes, Kurenai's Web is back after a hiatus of a year. If you are wondering why I never updated it during that timespan, it was because when I left for my study tour, I left my copy of Charlotte's Web in my hometown. So, that's that. Enjoy the update!
Kurenai's Web
Kurenai
The night seemed long. Gaara's stomach was empty and his mind was full. And when the stomach is empty and the mind is full, it is always hard to sleep.
A dozen times during the night Gaara woke and stared into the blackness, listening to the sounds and trying to figure out what time it was. A barn is never perfectly quiet. Even at midnight there is something usually stirring.
The first time he woke, he heard Sasuke gnawing a hole in the grain bin. Sasuke's teeth scraped loudly against the wood and made quite a racket. 'That crazy rat!' thought Gaara. 'Why does he have to stay up all night, grinding his clashers and destroying people's property? Why can't he go to sleep, like any decent animal?'
The second time Gaara woke, he heard Konan turning on her nest, and chuckling to herself.
"What time is it?" he whispered to her.
"Probably-obably-obably about half-past eleven," said the goose. "Why aren't you asleep, Gaara?"
"Too many things on my mind," Gaara replied.
"Well," said Konan. "That's not my trouble. I have nothing at all in my mind, but I've too many things under my behind. have you ever tried to sleep while sitting on eight eggs?'
"No," Gaara replied. "I suppose it is uncomfortable. How long does it take for a goose egg to hatch?"
"Approximately-oximately thirty days, all told," Konan answered. "But I cheat a little. On warm afternoons, I just pull a little straw over the eggs and go out for a walk."
Gaara yawned and went back to sleep. In his dreams he again the voice calling, "I'll be a friend to you. Go to sleep- you'll see me in the morning."
About half an hour before dawn, Gaara woke and listened. The barn was still dark. The sheep lay motionless. Even Konan was quiet. Overhead on the main floor, nothing stirred: the cows were resting, the horses dozed. Sasuke had quit work and had gone off somewhere on an errand. The only noise was a slight scraping sound from the rooftop, where the weather-vane swung back and forth. Gaara loved the barn when it was like this- calm and quiet, waiting for light.
'Day is almost here,' he thought.
Through a small window, a faint gleam appeared. One by one, the stars went out. Gaara could see Konan a few feet away. She sat with her head tucked under a wing. then he could see the sheep and the lambs. The sky lightened.
'Oh, beautiful day, it is here at last! Today I shall find my friend.'
Gaara looked everywhere. He searched his pen thoroughly. He examined the window ledge, and stared up the ceiling. But he saw nothing new. Finally decided he would have to speak up. He hated to break the lovely stillness of the dawn by using his voice, but he could not think of any other way to locate the mysterious new friend who was nowhere to be seen. So Gaara cleared his throat.
"Attention, please!" he called in a loud, firm voice. "Will the party who addressed me at bedtime last night kindly make himself or herself known by giving an appropriate sign or signal!"
Gaara paused and listened. All the other animals lifted their heads and stared at him. Gaara blushed; but he was determined to get in touch with his unknown friend.
"Attention, please!" he said. "I will repeat the message. Will the party who addressed me at bedtime last night kindly speak up. Please tell me where you are, if you are my friend!"
The sheep looked at each other in disgust.
"Stop your nonsense, Gaara!" admonished Chiyo, the oldest sheep. "If you have a new friend here, you are probably disturbing his rest; and the quickest way to spoil a friendship is to wake somebody up in the morning before he is ready. How can you be sure he is an early riser?"
"I beg everyone's pardon," whispered Gaara. "I didn't mean to be objectionable."
"He lay down meekly in the manure, facing the door. He did not know it, but his friend was very near. And Chiyo was right- the friend was still asleep.
Soon Kakashi appeared with slops for breakfast. Gaara rushed out, ate everything in a hurry, and licked the trough. The sheep moved off down the lane, and Nagato, the gander, waddled along behind them, pulling grass. And then, just as Gaara was settling down for his morning nap, he heard again the thin voice that had addressed him the night before.
"Salutations!" said the voice.
Gaara jumped to his feet. "Salu-what?" he cried.
"Salutations!" repeated the voice.
"What are they, and where are you?" screamed Gaara. "Please, please tell me where you are. And what are salutations?"
"Salutations are greetings," explained the voice. "When I say 'salutations', it's just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning. Actually, it's a silly expression, and I am surprised I used it at all. As for my whereabouts, that's easy. Look up here in the corner of the doorway! Here I am. Look, I'm waving!"
At last Gaara saw the creature that had spoken to him in such a kindly way. Stretched across the upper part of the doorway was a big spiderweb, and hanging from the top of the web, head down, was a large, gray spider. She was about the size of a gumdrop. She had eight legs, and she was waving one of them at Gaara in friendly greeting. "See me now?" she asked.
"Oh, yes indeed," said Gaara. "Yes indeed! How are you? Good morning! Salutations! Very pleased to meet you. What is your name, please? May I have your name?"
"My name-" said the spider. "-is Kurenai."
"Kurenai what?" Gaara asked eagerly.
"Kurenai Yuuhi. But just call me Kurenai."
"I think you're beautiful," Gaara complimented.
"Well, I am pretty," replied Kurenai. "There's no denying that. Almost all spiders are rather nice-looking. I'm not as flashy as some, but I'll do. I wish I could see you, Gaara, as clearly as you could see me."
"Why can't you?" asked the pig. "I'm right here."
"Yes, but I'm near-sighted," answered Kurenai. "I've always been dreadfully near-sighted. It's good in some ways. not so good in others. Watch me wrap up this fly."
A fly that had been crawling along Gaara's trough had flown up and blundered into the lower part of Kurenai's web and was tangled in the sticky threads. The fly was beating its wings furiously, trying to break loose and free itself.
"First," said Kurenai. "I dive at him." she plunged headfirst towards the fly. As she dropped, a tiny silken thread unwound from her rear end.
"Next, I wrap him up." She grabbed the fly, threw a few jets of silk around it, and rolled it over and over, wrapping it so that it could not move. Gaara watched in horror. He could hardly believe what he was seeing, and although he detested flies, he was sorry for this one.
"There!" said Kurenai. "Now I knock him out, so he'll be more comfortable." She bit the fly. "He can't feel a thing now," she remarked. "He'll make a perfect breakfast for me."
"You mean you eat flies?" gasped Gaara.
"Certainly. Flies, bugs, grasshoppers, choice beetles, moths, butterflies, tasty cockroaches, gnats, midges, daddy long-legs, centipedes, mosquitoes, crickets- anything that is careless enough to get caught in my web. I have to live, don't I?"
"Why, yes, of course," Gaara stammered. "Do they taste good?"
"Delicious. Of course, I don't really eat them. I drink them- drink their blood. I love blood," said Kurenai, and her pleasant, thin voice grew even thinner and more pleasant.
"Don't say that!" groaned Gaara. "Please don't say things like that!"
"Why not? It's true, and I have to say what is true. I am not entirely happy about my diet of flies and bugs, but it's the way I'm made. A spider has to pick up a living, somehow or the other, and I happen to be a trapper. I just naturally build a web and trap flies and other insects. My mother was a trapper before me. Her mother was a trapper before her. All our family have been trappers. Way back for thousands and thousands of years, we spiders have been laying traps for flies and bugs."
"It's a miserable inheritance," Gaara said, gloomily. He was sad because his new friend was so bloodthirsty.
"Yes, it is," agreed Kurenai. "But I can't help it. I don't know how the first spider in the early days of the world happened to think up this fancy idea of spinning a web, but she did, and it was clever of her, too. And since then, all of us spiders have had to work the same trick. It's not a bad pitch, on the whole."
"It's cruel," replied Gaara, who did not intend to be argued out of his position.
"Well, you can't talk," said Kurenai. "You have your meals brought to you in a pail. Nobody feeds me. I have to be sharp and clever, lest I go hungry. I have to think things out, catch what I can, and take what comes. And it just so happens, my friend, is that what comes are flies, insects, and bugs.
"And furthermore-" she added, shaking one of her legs. "-do you realize that if I didn't catch bugs and eat them, they'd increase and multiply and get so numerous that they'd destroy the earth, wiping out everything?"
"Really?" said Gaara. "I wouldn't want that to happen. Perhaps your web is a good thing after all."
Konan, who had been listening to the conversation, chuckled to herself. 'There are a lot of things Gaara doesn't know about life,' she thought. 'He's really a very innocent little pig. He doesn't even know what's going to happen to him around Christmastime; he has no idea that Mr. Nara and Kakashi are plotting to kill him.' She raised herself a bit and poked her eggs a little further under her so that they would receive the full heat from her warm body and soft feathers.
Kurenai stood quietly over the fly, preparing to eat it. Gaara lay down and closed his eyes. He was tired from his wakeful night and from the excitement of meeting someone for the first time. A breeze brought him the smell of clover- the sweet-smelling world beyond his fence. 'Well,' he thought. 'I've got a new friend, all right. But what a gamble friendship is! Kurenai is fierce, brutal, scheming, bloodthirsty- everything I don't like. How can I like her, even though she is pretty and, of course, clever?'
Gaara was merely suffering the doubts and fears that often go with finding a new friend. In good time he was to discover that he was mistaken about Kurenai. Underneath her rather bold and cruel exterior, she had a kind heart, and she was to prove loyal and true to the very end.
A/N: For a recap of characters and which is which, here's the list:
Gaara - Wilbur : A white pig with black eye marks and a tuft of red hair on his tail.
Kurenai - Charlotte: A big gray spider with red eyes.
Sasuke - Templeton: A gray rat with red eyes.
Hinata Hyuuga - Fern Arable
Neji Hyuuga - Avery Arable (Here, Neji really is Hinata's brother, neither Hizashi nor Hanabi exists in this universe.)
Hiashi Hyuuga - John Arable
Shikaku Nara - Homer Zuckerman
Yoshino Nara - Edith Zuckerman
Konan - The Goose: Pretty much your garden-variety goose.
Nagato - The Gander: Also an ordinary gander.
Kakashi - Lurvy (Ironic that a lazy rancher [Shikaku] could only have an equally lazy ranch-hand.)
That's all folks!