Eileen in the Moonlight

Eileen, a black widow spider, makes friends with some bullies.

                                                    Eileen in the Moonlight

                                                        By Daryl Campbell



         The moon sparkled against Eileen's shiny black body as she danced on the window ledge. She spun and spread four of her arms across the glass to stop. She smiled when Mom climbed out of the web and through the crack in the wall.

         “You're happy,” Mom said.

         “I'm ready to go out and find some friends.” Eileen spun again.

         “Such a big girl,” Mom patted her on the back, “and so beautiful.”

         “Mom, stop it.” Eileen turned away, but wasn't really embarrassed. She liked the compliment.

         “You look nice in the darker color.”

         Eileen looked at her reflection in the glass. She had her new color only a few days. She'd been brown, almost orange, but molted into dark black with a bright red, hourglass shape on her stomach. Her legs were long and thin and she was big for her age.

         “You're just saying that cause you're my mom.” Eileen smiled.

         “No, it's not just that.” Mom hugged her. “Be careful tonight. It's a full moon and this is your first time outside. Do you remember how to get out?”

         “You told me a hundred times. I'll be okay. I know what I'm doing.”

         “Don't let the human monsters see you and stay out of trouble.” Mom climbed back to her web.

         “I'll be fine, Mom. Stop worrying,” Eileen said.

         “Be home before the sun comes back.”

         “I will.” Eileen crawled down the wall to the floor.

         Eileen ran across the floor to a door at the other end of the room. Shadows seemed to move, but no lights came on and the human monsters weren't anywhere to be seen. When she reached the door, she held her breath and squeezed her way underneath. Moonlight shone on her face and wind blew across the porch, letting her know she was outside for the first time in her life.

         “This'll be fun,” she said.

         Eileen crawled off the porch and made her was to a garden filled with flowers. Other insects stared at her and she walked proudly and inspected the garden. As she climbed through some red flowers, she heard voices below. Eileen stuck her silk line to a flower and lowered herself until she saw three, boy widows.

         “Ben and Brad are bullies,” one widow said.

         “I can't believe they won't let us play at the bird bath,” another added.

         “One day someone will tell them what to do,” the third widow spoke.

         Eileen was interested, she'd never seen a bird bath and didn't know what a bully was. She climbed up her line, stood atop the flower, and looked around the garden. In the moonlight, she saw a tall white stem with a bowl on top.”

         “Must be the bird bath. I'll go there. Ben and Brad Bully can't be hard to find.” She shrugged.

         As quick as she could, Eileen found her way to the bottom of the bird bath. She heard a commotion on the other side of the stem and snuck around and peeked.

         Four boy widows wrestled in the dirt. They weren't very big, boys never were, and they had red lines on their backs with streaks of white and yellow. Eileen watched as two of the boys wrapped their legs around the other two and squeezed. She laughed when they were let go and ran out of the moonlight into the shadows.

         “Hello!” Eileen leapt from the stem and tumbled into the two boys.

         “Watch out, Ben!” Brad yelled.

         Eileen wrapped her arms around Ben and rolled with him. Ben struggled under her, but she pinned him down. Brad then jumped at her. She caught him and held him down next to his brother. The two widows fought to break free, but Eileen was larger and much stronger. She wrestled with them a bit more before she let go.

         “That was fun.” Eileen giggled.

         “Fun?” Ben breathed deeply.

         “What was fun about that?” Brad asked.

         “The wrestling,” she smiled, “but from what I saw a minute ago, I thought you'd be better at it.”

         “You surp,,,surprised us,” Brad stammered.

         “We were caught off guard,” Ben added.

         “I'm Eileen.” She crouched to jump. “ Want to go again?”

         “No,” Brad backed away, “we have work to do on our web.”

         Ben watched her carefully as he backed toward an opening in a nearby tree.

         “Need some help?” Eileen asked. “I've been practicing.”

         “We can do it,” Brad answered.

         “There's not enough room for all of us.” Ben disappeared into the crack.

         “That's silly,” Eileen poked her head into the tree, “there's plenty of room.” She squeezed in.

         The funnel web angled up into a hollowed part of the tree.

         “I like it,” Eileen announced.

         “We don't usually have others over.” Brad climbed in.

         “It's our home.” Ben sounded worried.

         “Nonsense, we're friends now,” she shied away a bit, “at least I hope we are.”

         “Sure.” Ben spoke first.

         “Friends.” Brad looked at his brother and nodded.

         “Good. Let me help with the web.” Eileen climbed up and began to spin new strands of web.

         “What're you doing?” Ben was nervous.

         “Helping work on the web,” Eileen answered.

         “But...” Brad watched as the web started to change. “We can do it.”

         Ben moved out of Eileen's way. “That's enough.”

         “Let's go outside,” Ben said and waited for Eileen to leave.

         “What now?” Eileen asked.

         “It's late and we need to eat and get to bed soon,” Brad told her.

         “And we have a few things to take care of.” Ben nudged his brother to let him know other widows were on the bird bath.

         “Nice to meet you, but we need to talk with someone.” Brad watched the spiders on the stem.

         Eileen saw the other spiders. “I'm sure they just want to play at the bath too.”

         “But...”

         “No buts.” Eileen interrupted Brad. “I'll be back tomorrow and we can get to know each other a little better. Leave those widows alone, we'll have lots of stuff to do.”

         “I guess we can find something to do.” Ben frowned.

         “Yeah, I guess.” Brad didn't know what else to say.

         “Problem solved. I need to get home and tell mom about my new friends.” She hugged Ben and Brad Bully as tight as she could. “We're gonna be good friends.”

         Eileen looked up and the light of the full moon sparkled off her shiny body. She smiled at her new friends, turned, and hurried home.