I let go of the leash and hauled myself back into the basket. There were sirens wailing in the distance and I could hear about two thousand car horns, but I had problems of my own. Or Harry did, and he’s my little brother.
‘Where is it?’ I asked, pushing Myrtle to one side and crouching beside Harry.
He leaned against one of the gas bottles and pointed down at his leg. The large black spider was halfway up his shin. It was a funnel-web, all right – I’d seen them in books. This was a male. They’re smaller than females, and much more deadly.
‘Will it bite me?’ Harry asked.
‘Course not,’ I said, trying my best to sound up-beat and confident. I didn’t want him to panic. He was better off not knowing it was a funnel-web. ‘Stay still while I brush it off.’
But when I brought my hand near it, the spider raised its front legs and the forward part of its body and aggressively bared its fangs at me. Now I understood what Harry meant when he’d said it wouldn’t let him brush it off. This was one scary spider! And a dangerous one, too – according to the books I’d read, the male Sydney funnel-web is the world’s most venomous spider.
The basket swayed one way, then the other. I had to steady myself against the second gas bottle. The chorus of car horns no longer surrounded us, but floated up from below. We were flying again. When I’d let go of the leash hooked round the front of the Rodeo, the balloon had taken off and gone sailing away on the wind. Who knew where we’d end up. But I would worry about that later. First I had to deal with the deadly spider on Harry’s leg.
‘Why don’t you squash it?’ asked Jordan.
‘Because it’s on my leg, stupid!’ said Harry. ‘If Sam squashes it, it’ll bite me.’
‘How can it bite you if it’s dead?’
‘Before it’s dead, stupid!’
‘Shut up, you two!’ I snapped. Myrtle sensed my nervousness and licked my face. I elbowed her aside. ‘Jordan, make yourself useful and hold Myrtle.’
The funnel-web started crawling. Very slowly, it crept up towards Harry’s dirt-smeared knee.
‘It’s going into my shorts,’ he breathed.
I couldn’t let that happen. Once it was under his clothing, the danger would be much worse. If Harry moved the wrong way and the fabric pushed against the funnel-web, it would bite him for sure.
‘Stay absolutely still,’ I said.
Moving both hands slowly, I gripped the shorts on either side of Harry’s leg and pressed the hem against his knee, just above the spider. It reared up again, swivelling its deadly fangs towards my right thumb, only three centimetres away. I wondered how fast funnel-webs could move, and whether they could jump. But I forced myself to remain still. Any sudden movements and the aggro spider might bite my little brother.
After what seemed like an hour but was probably less than fifteen seconds, the funnel-web resumed its slow, hairy-legged crawl up Harry’s leg. Just as I’d hoped, it crept between my trembling hands onto his shorts. As soon as all eight legs were on the fabric, I gently changed my grip.
‘Get ready to lift your feet,’ I told Harry. ‘I’m going to slide your shorts down very slowly with the spider on them.’
It was a good idea. But it didn’t work. When the spider felt Harry’s shorts stretch tight, it went scuttling up under his T-shirt and out of sight. Harry didn’t move, though his eyes grew to nearly twice their normal size.
‘Where is it?’ I asked. My inclination was to whisper, but I had to speak loudly because of the gas burner roaring away above our heads.
‘On my tummy,’ Harry said through clenched teeth.
‘High up or low down?’
‘Near my belly button.’
I gingerly hooked my fingers under the hem of his T-shirt. ‘Harry, I’m going to lift your T-shirt, okay? And then I’m going to get the spider off you.’
I tried to sound confident. I certainly didn’t feel it.
Slowly I lifted Harry’s T-shirt, being very careful not to brush any part of it against his skin. Or against the funnel-web. There it was, crouched in the middle of Harry’s stomach. The big ugly spider didn’t move, but its eight beady eyes watched me lift the T-shirt right up to Harry’s chin.
‘Hold your shirt up like this,’ I said. ‘And whatever you do, don’t let it fall back down.’
Harry did as I said. By now he’d sensed how scared I was, and he looked scared, too. There were goosebumps all over his arms and body. The funnel-web still hadn’t moved.
I looked round. ‘Jordan, is there anything in here that’s loose? A piece of wood or something?’
‘There’s a fire-putter-outer.’
He meant the fire-extinguisher mounted on the opposite side of the basket. It looked a bit big for what I wanted, but it would have to do.
‘Or … the phone,’ Jordan said, noticing my hesitation.
‘What phone?’ I asked.
Jordan looked guiltily at his twin brother.
‘Show him,’ Harry muttered.
Jordan’s face turned red. He reached behind one of the gas cylinders. ‘We weren’t going to steal it …’
‘Just give it to me!’ I held out my hand impatiently for the phone. The red-haired woman or Anthony must have dropped it. We could dial 000 and call for help. But first I had to get the funnel-web off Harry, and a phone might do the trick.
It wasn’t a phone, it was a two-way radio. Which made it better for my purposes, because it had a stumpy black aerial – perfect for a spider to climb onto.
But the spider didn’t think so. Instead of crawling onto the aerial when I positioned it like a climbing ramp in front of it, the funnel-web reared up and bit it. I tried a second time, and once more the spider struck the aerial with its large curved fangs. I could actually see tiny smears of deadly venom on the black plastic. Better on the aerial than in Harry’s bloodstream, I thought, and poked the spider again.
This time I got the reaction I wanted. Instead of just biting it, the funnel-web wrapped its elongated pedipalps and several black hairy legs around the aerial. When I gently pulled back, the spider came, too. It was dangling from the aerial, no longer on Harry’s stomach.
Slowly I stood up, being super careful not to shake the spider off, then held the radio out over the side of the basket. The view gave me a bit of a shock. We were about a hundred metres off the ground, sailing over orange rooftops and blue swimming pools and miniature cars parked in driveways. A tiny dog ran in circles in its backyard, barking up at us. Myrtle heard it and nearly jumped out of the basket.
‘Jordan, keep her under control!’ I snapped.
‘I’m trying to,’ he said, ‘but she’s too big.’
‘Give him a hand, Harry.’
In the few seconds that I’d been distracted by Myrtle, the funnel-web had crawled up the aerial onto the radio. It came scuttling towards my hand. I gave the radio a shake, but the spider hung on. I shook it again, harder this time. Three of the spider’s eight legs came loose for a moment, then it found footholds in the speaker holes and made a determined rush at my fingers. I juggled the radio from one hand to the other. Now I was holding it by the other end, and the spider was crawling away from me.
Suddenly the radio crackled into life. ‘Retrieve One to VH-JZY. Come in, please.’
I got such a surprise that I nearly dropped it, spider and all. And it would have been better for everyone if I had.
‘Retrieve One to VH-JZY,’ the squeaky voice repeated. ‘Are you receiving?’
I glanced up at the balloon. Written in bold black letters across one of the yellow panels was its registration number: VH-JZY. The person on the radio was calling me!