FRITA WAS SOME MIFFED.
“Stupid Terrance,” she said. “I bet the basement was on your list and now you’re twice as scared of it. Big brothers ruin everything,” she muttered. We turned off onto the old dirt road. “But don’t worry. We still got plenty more things to cross off.”
That’s what I was afraid of.
We walked a little farther, but I stuck close to Frita. The old dirt road was worse than ever on gloomy days like this, and I was jumpy as a flea. The roots of my hair were still standing on end.
“Maybe we should go back to my place…,” I said, but Frita gave me that look again.
“Gabriel King,” she told me, “this is good practice. I bet a million dollars the old dirt road is on your list too, isn’t it?”
“So?” I said.
Frita got that look in her eye.
She thought for a minute, then, before I knew it, she took off running. Just like that. I tried to catch up, but Frita was way faster than me and pretty soon I was all by myself.
There was no answer, so I stopped and stood in the middle of the road. It was silent and shadowy and the rain was making a mist, thick as pea soup.
“Frita?” I said again, only this time it came out as a croak.
Only there was no Frita.
I looked back over my shoulder, thinking I might head home again, but the way back looked just as creepy as the way forward. Shadows danced in both directions. Truck shadows, cow shadows, and huge looming Terrance shadows.
My muscles froze so I could barely move. I thought about calling for Pop, but I knew he would never hear me. Instead I took one step, then two steps…Then I heard it. Sounded like a freight train coming straight at me. First the deep roar of the engine, then the bellow of the horn. I turned and sure enough, there were two headlights coming closer and closer…
My eyes opened wide, but still I couldn’t move an inch.
There was an eighteen-wheeler headed straight toward me. The horn sounded again, louder this time, and I tried to make my legs go, but I was stuck in place. One more minute and I’d be buzzard food for sure.
That’s when something snapped. I sprung like a rubber band stretched too tight and dove into the ditch. The horn bellowed one more time, so loud I had to cover my ears with both hands. I lay flat and shut my eyes, but still I felt it in my stomach as the eighteen-wheeler roared by with a gust of wind and water.
After that, everything was silent. Everything except Frita, whooping in the distance.
“Woo-hooo! Wasn’t that great?” she hollered from somewhere far away. “Did you hear that? You hear how he laid on that horn for us?”
Her voice was getting louder and louder as she ran toward me. I stood up and brushed myself off, but my legs were Jell-O and my heart was going really fast. I felt around in the grass until I found my jar and flashlight.
Frita caught up to me and skidded to a stop.
“Did you see the truck driver wave, Gabe?” she asked, dancing around in her yellow slicker. “That was the best.”
Best wasn’t exactly the word I’d have used to describe it, but Frita didn’t care. She was all excited.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s run super fast.”
I wasn’t sure my legs would move at all, let alone super fast, but Frita took off and I wasn’t about to get left behind twice. I followed like a calf at her heels. She ran past the catfish pond and kept running until we’d reached the swampy area deep in the woods.
“You sure we should be back here?” I asked.
Frita waded into the muck. “Yup,” she said. She pulled her flashlight out of her pocket. “It’s perfect.”
I didn’t see what was so perfect about it. There’s nothing in a swamp but creepy old cypress trees with roots that stick up out of the ground, and Spanish moss that hangs down. There are slick snakes that slither by and spiderwebs with giant yellow-and-black spiders hanging in the middle. Plus, Terrance said there are corpses in the swamps. Corpses of kids half eaten by alligators.
Corpses and alligators were both on my list.
I tiptoed in, barely getting my feet wet, still thinking about the way that truck had barreled by.
“Frita?” I hollered. “Let’s go home.”
She was way ahead of me, shining her flashlight into the gray gloomy trees. I followed at a distance, and as I walked, my sneakers sunk deep into the muck. It had stopped raining now, but the trees were all drippy, and every now and then an extra-big drip would collect on the end of a clump of moss and wait there until I looked up so it could fall smack in my eye.
“You could at least tell me what we’re looking for,” I yelled, but Frita didn’t answer, so I stuck the jar in the crook of an old bent tree and sat down on a dead branch.
It was quiet for a long time and I started to worry Frita’d been eaten, until I heard her hollering.
“Quick! Get the jar! Hurry!”
“What’s the matter?”
“I found one! I found one!”
“Found what?”
“A spider!” Frita yelled. “Come quick!”
I’d been hurrying, but soon as she said that, I slowed way down.
A spider?!
Frita jumped up and down, waving her arms. Her yellow slicker had belonged to Terrance first, so it was too big for her and the arms looked like flags in the distance. I stalled for a long time so the spider could hightail it out of there. First, I pretended I couldn’t remember where I’d put the jar. Then I walked real slow, like I was trying to avoid all the deep spots.
“The jar! The jar!” Frita yelled.
When I finally reached her, she was standing in front of a giant spiderweb that stretched the whole distance between two huge cypress trees. A human being could get caught and eaten in a web that big. I swallowed hard, hoping the spider had made its getaway, and Frita danced from one leg to the other.
“Quick! Give me the jar.”
I paused real long. “You mean this jar?”
“Yes! Hurry!”
I studied the jar, thinking maybe it needed some polishing up before I could hand it over, but I didn’t have a chance to do anything because Frita grabbed it out of my hands.
“I found the best spider,” she said.
Now, in my book there was no such thing as a best spider. Maybe an invisible spider would be a best spider, but even that wouldn’t be any good because I didn’t want to think of invisible spiders crawling on me when I didn’t know about it.
I squinted at the web. “I don’t see any spider,” I said, thinking it probably took the hint and scrammed, but that’s when Frita pointed up. There, right above my head, was the biggest yellow-and-black spider I had ever seen. It was so big and fat, I wondered how it could stay on the web without falling through. Every last drop of blood drained from my face and rushed to my toes.
Frita was some excited. She reached toward the spider with the jar, but she could hardly stop fidgeting. She positioned the jar in back of the spider and the lid in front of the spider, and then she started to move real slow…
That’s when I felt it on me. Spiders were famous for jumping long distances, and I could feel its hairy legs on my neck. I let loose a scream, and then I started shaking and twisting, trying to get it off. Frita was yelling and hollering too, but I couldn’t stop to listen.
“It’s on me,” I yelled. “Get it off! Get it off!”
I imagined it slipping inside the neck of my shirt, so I tore that shirt off and peeled out of my overalls. I was dancing around in my underwear and sneakers, and all I could think about was getting out of that swamp and getting home once and for all. I ran fast as I could, yelling and splashing, and every step I took, I felt that spider on me. I ran so fast, I blazed a trail straight back to the trailer park.
I didn’t stop moving until I reached my place. Then I flung open the front door and ran straight past Momma into my bedroom, where I tore off my sneakers and underwear. I shook my whole body and watched for flinging spiders, but there weren’t any. Then I stood in front of my mirror and looked real careful. I even checked my hair to make sure it hadn’t hitched a ride in there.
Momma kept knocking on the door, saying she was going to come in, and when your momma says she’s coming in, it’s pretty much true even if you tell her you are naked and checking for huge man-eating spiders. I pulled a new pair of overalls out of my dresser and I was buttoning them up just as Momma opened the door.
“Gabriel King, what on earth were you doing running through the trailer in your underwear? What happened to your overalls and shirt?”
I shrugged. Truth was, I couldn’t quite recall.
“Were you out in the woods with—”
Just like that, Frita appeared at the front door. She was carrying my overalls and trying hard not to laugh. Momma opened the front door and Frita walked in carrying the jar with the spider. She tried to hand the jar to me, but I wouldn’t take it. Momma shook her head.
“I don’t want to know,” she said. “I just don’t want to know.”
That was a good call on Momma’s part. She went back to the living room and once she was gone, I gave Frita a hard look.
“You better not tell another living soul…,” I started, but Frita wasn’t laughing.
“I won’t tell,” she said. “I wouldn’t even tell Terrance if he tortured me. You just got a little bit spooked is all.” She handed me back my shirt and overalls, and I glanced at the spider.
“Did you get it after it fell off me?” I asked.
Frita paused for a long time. “Uh-huh,” she said at last.
“Think we should kill it?”
Frita grabbed the jar and held it tight against her chest.
“We can’t kill it,” she said. “You’ve got to make friends with it. That’s how you’ll stop being scared of spiders.”
Frita patted the jar like a puppy.
“You got to name him,” she said. “Once you name him, you’ll feel like he’s yours and then you won’t be scared of him anymore.”
This was the worst plan I’d ever heard.
“Frita,” I said, “I don’t think this is such a…”
Frita handed me the jar and smiled the way her daddy smiled from the pulpit.
“Trust me,” she said. “You just got to have faith.”