Spiders on the Case

  “You saw that, too?”

  “I did. And it’s not the first time. And her husband is even worse. He’s cut out at least half a dozen old maps — the latest one of Virginia drawn by the explorer John Smith in 1612.”

  “No!” Jo Bell exclaimed.

  “Yes!”

  “And Tom doesn’t know about it?”

  “No, and believe me, I have tried to get his attention. But I don’t know how.”

  “Yes,” Jo Bell said thoughtfully. Communication with humans was always a problem. “So what do you suggest?”

  “Well — just a little nip, a teensy-weensy bit of venom — a soupçon, as the French would say?” Buster spoke in a somewhat quavery voice while shifting his weight nervously from one of his eight legs to another and another and another.

  “No! The French would NOT say that! There is no such thing as a soupçon of our venom. It’s totally toxic no matter what the amount. Powerful, potent, and disastrous for human beings!” Jo Bell screeched.

  Buster’s request went against every thing Edith had ever taught her family. You didn’t attack something you couldn’t eat.

  Jo Bell took a deep breath. “I have to tell you — by the way, what is your name?”

  “Buster. What’s yours?” He only asked to be polite. He knew Jo Bell’s name but didn’t want her to think he had been spying. Even if he had sort of peeked in on the family from time to time.

  “Jo Bell. But as I was saying, Buster, this is not a good idea. In fact, it is a horrible idea. Period!”

  “But they are destroying the treasures of this library.”

  “Do you know what happens when brown recluses are discovered?”

  “No, what?”

  “E-Men come.”

  “E-Men? What are you talking about?”

  “Obviously being a nontoxic, venomless spider, you don’t know of such things.”

  Now Buster was cringing with shame. “Don’t rub it in. It’s not my fault. I was born this way.”

  “I’m not saying it is your fault. But if you were toxic, you would realize that as soon as brown recluses are discovered, the exterminators come. And believe me, their poison is worse than ours. We’ll be dead. You, too!”

  “But Tom loves us. Loves all of us.”

  “Tom will have nothing to say in the matter if someone gets bitten. The exterminators will be called. And trust me, we don’t want that. My family has spent the better part of our lives on the run.”

  “So you’re saying a quick little bite is not an option?”

  “You can bet every one of your eight legs it isn’t!”

  “Hmmm,” Buster said softly. “I guess we’ll just have to think of something else.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’?” Jo Bell asked suspiciously.

  “You and me. Don’t you think we could work together?”

  “How?”

  “We’ll just have to think of a way. I don’t have venom and you don’t think biting is a good idea. But there are other ways.”

  “Like what?”

  “We both spin silk into webs. We have to make a sort of web — a dragnet!” Buster said.

  “What’s a dragnet?”

  “It’s a word used by cops. It’s like an imaginary net, a web to catch criminals.”

  “You don’t say!” Jo Bell was impressed by Buster’s vocabulary and his knowledge. “How do you know all that?”

  “I read a lot of crime literature, like Sherlock Holmes, and then some nonfiction books like P. O. Guberhaus’s book Methods of Crime Detection.” Buster named several other books Jo Bell hadn’t heard of.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.” Jo Bell began to walk off.

  “Wait!” Buster’s voice quaked with panic. “Just me?” There was something very pitiful about the way Buster said “just me” that made Jo Bell’s spinnerets tingle. “I need your help.”

  Jo Bell was stunned. He needs my help? He doesn’t think I’m vain or just plain silly! It had been a very long time since anyone had asked for Jo Bell’s help.

  “Listen, Jo Bell,” Buster pleaded. “Just imagine if you and I solve this crime spree. Felix would have to stop picking on you then!”

  “So you were spying!” So many emotions swirled inside Jo Bell. Spying was nasty, but then again, Buster respected her. Still, what kind of spider spies on another family and doesn’t introduce himself? Jo Bell started to walk away again.

  “Stop! Come back, please? I just heard them making fun of you, that’s all. And it wasn’t fair. Not at all.”

  Jo Bell turned around slowly. Their eyes met, her six and his eight. She looked deeply into the first six, then crept to one side to catch the two extra ones. She peered into their shining darkness. Could he be trusted?

  “You really and truly think it wasn’t fair? You don’t think I’m shallow and frivolous?”

  “No, not at all, Jo Bell! You speak French, for silk’s sake.”

  “Really?”

  “Jo Bell, it takes all kinds of spiders to make a world, and I think you’re one in a million. Well, to be more precise, one in, say, forty thousand because there are over forty thousand different kinds of spiders.”

  One in forty thousand, thought Jo Bell. It was music to her ears.

  “Just for a second, imagine what your brother would think if you caught two of the worst criminals who ever crossed the threshold of the Boston Public Library. You’d be a hero, not just to your own family but also to the library. To the city of Boston! To the state of Massachusetts. To the United States of America and every person in the world who loves books!”

  Jo Bell felt something deep within her begin to glow. I could be a hero! she thought. No one would call her shallow or silly or stupid if she caught these terrible humans who were destroying priceless treasures.

  “There’s just one problem, Buster,” Jo Bell said.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “No one knows that these crimes against books are happening, and if no one knows, how will we ever become heroes for solving the crime?”

  “Well, for one thing, we don’t exactly need to solve it. We know who the criminals are. We could stop it right away. But you don’t feel, er … uh …” Buster hesitated. “You don’t think venom is an option?”

  This spider needs a wake-up call, Jo Bell thought. “Stop with the venom already, Buster. We never waste venom on something bigger and impossible to digest. And Agnes Smoot is definitely indigestible.”

  “You have a point. So I guess the real question is, how do we expose the criminals?”

  “Yes, that’s the question,” Jo Bell said.

  “We have to figure all this out. But we will, Jo Bell. You and I together. I have great faith in you.”

  “You do, Buster?” Jo Bell replied. Her voice was soft with wonder.

  Jo Bell returned to the display case. Her head was spinning. Buster had a major self-esteem problem, that was for sure. Although he could deliver a sting, he seemed to believe that just a “touch of the toxic” would help him so much. She had tried to explain how highly overrated venom is.

  Buster might not have venom, but he had brains. Jo Bell was tired of Felix being viewed as the only one around with any smarts. So when Buster suggested that they should bring Jo Bell’s family into the dragnet, she flatly said no.

  “Don’t you think your mother should know?”

  “Not yet. No one should until we have a plan.”

  “Well, would you at least introduce me?”

  Again, Buster’s rather sad voice touched Jo Bell. She wondered if he’d ever had any friends at all. It seemed as if he did nothing but read in between catching the occasional silverfish or cockroach. That was probably why he was so smart.

  She agreed to introduce Buster to her family, but she swore him to secrecy about their project. She had been very lucky that her family was gone when she had witnessed Agnes Smoot slicing out that page. This was going to be her case to solve…. Well, hers and B
uster’s.

  He had already given her a lengthy reading list of books and magazines about police procedure, from understanding fingerprints to deciphering marks made by shoes in mud. There was no mud in the Boston Public Library, but according to Buster, there were scuff marks on many of the floors.

  Most of these books were not in the rare books room. But it was time she visited “the stacks,” the library’s shadowy back rooms with miles of shelves. And to navigate the stacks, Jo Bell had to learn the Dewey decimal system by which books were classified into subject areas. She must also begin to visit the Bates Hall reading room. Buster was so familiar with the visitors to the reading room that he knew which books they favored. He told her about one elderly woman who loved books on crime and detection. She wore elaborate hats, so it was easy to find a perch and read over her shoulder. Jo Bell couldn’t wait to get started.

  But now she heard her family returning.

  “Hello, dear!” Edith trilled as she skibbled up the leg of the display case where the family web was. “We — well, how should I put it? We had a stimulating time.”

  “What do you mean?” Jo Bell asked.

  “Frankly, I can only take so much flamenco dancing. All that pounding! Clackety-clack with their feet in those chunky shoes! I thought my spinnerets were going to fall out. It’s really too much for a spider my age.”

  “Oh, Mom!” Felix said. “You’d think you were ancient.”

  “Well, I’m no spring spider.”

  “How was Fatty?” Jo Bell asked.

  “Quite well, but I think he does miss us. And there is going to be another two weeks of what he calls this ‘infernal flamenco.’ So he might come for a visit over here. Imagine hearing that six nights a week, and then the matinees on Saturdays and Sundays.”

  “I made a friend,” Jo Bell suddenly blurted out. The announcement was met with stunned silence.

  “A friend!” Julep said.

  “Not a human, dear? Oh, I hope not. I mean, Tom understands us, but others might … might not.”

  “No, a spider friend,” said Jo Bell.

  “A spider!” they all said at once.

  “One of ours?” Edith asked hopefully. She would so like to chat with one of their own species.

  “No, Mom, not a brown recluse.”

  “Well, what is she, dear?”

  “It’s a he, Mom, and he is a walnut orb weaver.”

  “A Nuctenea umbratica,” Edith said. “They’re a very nice sort. Not venomous, of course.”

  “Yes, and please don’t remind him of that. He has a bit of a self-esteem problem.”

  “I would, too,” Felix said. “I mean, they’re orb weavers, but on a scale of zero to ten, their webs are a two, possibly a three, in terms of beauty and elegance.”

  “Shut up, Felix. He’s very nice. He’s very shy, he’s really smart, and he does not need a critique of his weaving skills from you.”

  “No squabbling, please, children. Now get ready for night patrol.”

  “But, Mom,” Julep whined. “I’m not even hungry.”

  “Julep, no whining. I told you not to eat that cockroach at the theater. It spoiled your appetite.”

  “But I was hungry then and I’m not hungry now. Besides, I went down to the children’s room and they were passing out cookies. There were crumbs all over the place.”

  “What in the name of silk were you doing down there?”

  “Story time. They’re reading this great book called Little House on the Prairie — all about the pioneer days and this nice little girl named Laura.”

  “You certainly do flit around,” Felix said. “First pop-up circus books and now pioneer books. What will it be next?”

  “I’m thinking about Egypt. There’s this really cool pop-up book of a pyramid,” Julep said.

  “I hope it’s not in the children’s room,” Edith said.

  “No, it’s right here in the rare books. No kids ever come up here! It’s one of the antique pop-up books. Actually, they call them movable-parts books. I heard Tom on the phone talking about the pyramid one.”

  “Well, it’s a relief that it’s up here. But, Julep, I’ve said this once and I’ll keep saying it until it sinks in.”

  Jo Bell and Felix exchanged quick glances with their dozen eyes. How often had they heard this lecture?

  “Tom Parker is the only human being we have ever met who has welcomed us,” Edith began. “He requires nothing of us except that we eat the little pests that are destroying some of the world’s greatest treasures. This is our duty not just to Tom but to the reading public. In general I am not fond of humans, but human beings who read improve our planet.” She paused. “Is that understood, children?”

  Edith’s three children bobbed their heads up and down obediently.

  She continued, “I think tonight we’ll penetrate the John Adams collection. I heard Tom on the phone today talking about how he was worried about a silverfish invasion. Particularly in those books in Adams’s personal collection, where he made notes in the margins.”

  “Can my friend come, Mom?” Jo Bell asked.

  “Oh, your friend — the walnut orb weaver?” Edith asked.

  “Buster.”

  “Buster. Yes, of course, dear. Where is he?”

  “Right here,” Jo Bell tipped her head toward a crack in the display case.

  “Right where?” Julep asked. “I don’t see a thing.”

  “He’s shy, very shy.” Jo Bell skibbled over to an infinitesimally small crack in the frame of the case. “Buster, come on out and meet the family!” She waited a few seconds. “Come on, Buster.”

  Slowly, the walnut orb weaver crept out. Edith, Felix, and Julep poked their heads forward. Eighteen eyes scanned the tiny crack that Jo Bell seemed to be speaking to. There was a brown blur as Buster dropped to the floor of the case.

  “He’s dead!” Edith gasped.

  “Don’t worry. That’s just his way … his way of arriving.”

  “Like a corpse!” Felix said.

  “He’s so flat. He doesn’t even look like a spider,” Julep said. “More like a paint chip.”

  “Well, I am a spider.” A voice came from the little fleck of brown, amazing the family, except for Jo Bell, even more. Then, one at a time, Buster’s eight legs appeared and he staggered to his feet. “I am a spider, but nothing compared to you, of course. I’m not really toxic. I can only raise the occasional welt on a human.”

  “Please, dear,” Edith interjected. “We don’t talk about such things.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. But Felix is right, too. My weaving skills are quite modest. The marbled orb weavers and the strawberry orb weavers can do pyramids and cylindrical orbs. They’re quite fantastic.”

  “Quit apologizing for what you’re not!” Jo Bell roared.

  “Oh, sorry!” Buster said.

  Edith stepped up to the walnut orb weaver. “Now, Buster, I’ve organized night patrols against those revolting silverfish.”

  “Don’t call them revolting if you expect me to eat them, Mom,” Julep whined.

  “Point taken, Julep. The silverfish are not revolting, but whining is.”

  “Touché!” Felix whispered.

  Forward, march!” Felix barked.

  Jo Bell shuddered with embarrassment.

  “I will do a short recon mission to assess the enemy position. When I report back to Mom, I’ll deploy troops. That’s you.”

  “Oh, Felix dear, what would I do without you!” Edith cried.

  Gimme a break, Jo Bell thought, but she kept quiet.

  “Well, military history is more useful than fashion history.”

  That did it. Jo Bell could no longer remain quiet. “Felix, I could just bite off that fresh new leg of yours! You’re such a know-it-all!”

  “Now, now, children. No squabbling. Felix, we’ll wait here for your report.”

  “I think that was snotty of Felix, Jo Bell. I really do,” Julep offered.

  “Thanks,” Jo Bell
muttered. “Well, let’s just wait until the supreme commander of our allied forces returns.” She sighed.

  “What’s with the fresh new leg for your brother?” Buster asked.

  “Here’s the short answer: Felix used to be passionate about music. Wanted to be a conductor. Then he got his leg whacked off by Leon Brinsky, conductor of a philharmonic in Los Angeles. End of story.”

  “Is that why your mom is so protective of Felix? She makes a big fuss over him.”

  “You noticed?” Jo Bell was stunned. This was some spider! He was sensitive, even though he seemed so obsessed with venom — their venom.

  “Yeah. She can’t take her eyes off Felix’s webs.”

  “You saw that?”

  “Yes, hope you’re not mad.”

  “No, no, not at all. I’m glad someone was paying attention to me.”

  “Anytime.” Buster paused. “Listen, I have a question.”

  “Sure.”

  “Felix didn’t actually bite that conductor, did he?”

  “Of course not.” Jo Bell cocked her head and studied Buster with her six eyes. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “About us — brown recluses, Loxosceles reclusa. You see, we don’t have to bite humans to scare the daylights out of them. Our reputation does it. One look at Felix peeping over that music stand, and Leon Brinsky panicked. Slashed down with his baton, then promptly fainted.”

  “Wow!” Buster was clearly impressed.

  “It’s not a wow situation, Buster. It means we spend our lives on the run. First word of a brown recluse on the premises, the E-Men show up with silver tanks of poisonous gas.”

  “That’s what happened?”

  “Time and time again. That’s why we wound up here. And we hope to stay — at least for a while.”

  At that moment, Felix returned.

  “Attention!” he barked.

  “Gather round, children.” Edith waved five of her legs to motion them over. “Let’s listen now to Felix’s report. He does this so well!” Edith beamed at her only son.

  “As you know, John Adams’s personal library is kept on the balcony over there — just opposite our web. The Adams collection is very vulnerable. I heard Tom talking about it on the phone this morning. Since it’s up on the balcony” — Felix waved his new leg to indicate the balcony — “it requires a climb of three meters.”