“Duh! He's awesome,” Bailey said, his eyes never wavering. “I wish I had eight legs. I wonder why Spiderman didn't get eight legs when he got bit by that radioactive spider. It gave him great eyesight and strength and the ability to make webs. Why not extra legs? Hey! Maybe spider venom heals muscular dystrophy, and if I let that guy bite me I’ll get big and strong,” Bailey wondered, scratching his chin like he was actually considering it.
“Hmm. I wouldn't risk it.” Fern shuddered. They became entranced once more, and neither of them noticed the boy riding down the sidewalk on his bike.
The boy saw Bailey and Fern sitting so still, so silent, and his interest was immediately piqued. He stepped off his bike and laid it on the grass, following their gazes to where a huge brown spider crept along the walkway in front of the house. The boy's mother was petrified of spiders. She always made him kill them immediately. He'd killed so many he wasn't even afraid of them anymore. Maybe Bailey and Fern were afraid. Maybe they were scared to death, so scared they couldn't even move. He could help them. He ran up the sidewalk and smashed the spider beneath his big white sneaker. There.
Two pairs of horrified eyes shot to his.
“Ambrose!” Bailey shouted, horrified.
“You killed him!” Fern whispered, shocked.
“You killed him!” Bailey roared, pushing up to his feet and stumbling down the sidewalk. He looked at the brown mess that had occupied the last hour of his life.
“I needed his venom!” Bailey was still caught up in his own imaginings of spider cures and superheroes. Then Bailey surprised them all by bursting into tears.
Ambrose gaped at Bailey, and then watched as Bailey walked on unsteady legs up the steps and into his house, slamming the door behind him. Ambrose closed his mouth and shoved his hands into the pockets of his shorts.
“I'm sorry,” he said to Fern. “I thought . . . I thought you were scared. You were both just sitting there staring at it. I'm not scared of spiders. I was just trying to help.”
“Should we bury him?” Fern asked, her eyes mournful behind her big glasses.
“Bury him?” Ambrose asked, stunned. “Was he a pet?”
“No. We just met,” Fern said seriously. “But maybe it will make Bailey feel better.”
“Why is he so sad?”
“Because the spider is dead.”
“So?” Ambrose wasn't trying to be a jerk. He just didn't understand. And the little red head with the crazy, curly hair was kind of freaking him out. He'd seen her before at school and knew her name. But he didn't know her. He wondered if she was special. His dad said he had to be nice to kids who were special, because they couldn't help the way they were.
“Bailey has a disease. It makes his muscles weak. It might kill him. He doesn't like it when things die. It's hard for him,” Fern said simply, honestly. She actually sounded kinda smart. Suddenly, the events at the wrestling camp earlier that summer made sense to Ambrose. Bailey wasn't supposed to wrestle because he had a disease. Ambrose felt bad all over again.
Ambrose sat down beside Fern. “I'll help you bury him.”
Fern was up and running across the grass to her own house before the words had left his mouth. “I have a perfect little box! See if you can scrape him off the sidewalk,” she shouted over her shoulder.
Ambrose used a piece of bark from the Sheen's flowerbed to scoop up the spider's remains. Fern was back in thirty seconds. She held the white ring box open as Ambrose deposited the spider guts onto the pristine cotton. Fern put the lid on and gestured to him solemnly. He followed her to her back yard and together they scooped out handfuls of dirt from a corner of the garden.
“That should be big enough,” Ambrose said, taking the box out of Fern's hand and placing it the hole. They stared at the white box.
“Should we sing?” Fern asked.
“I only know one spider song.”
“Itsy Bitsy?”
“Yeah.”
“I know that one, too.” Together Fern and Ambrose sang the song about the spider getting washed down the waterspout and getting a second chance to climb when the sun came out again.
When the song was over, Fern put her hand in Ambrose's. “We should say a little prayer. My dad is a pastor. I know how, so I'll say it.”
Ambrose felt strange holding Fern's hand. It was moist and dirty from digging the grave and it was very small. But before he could protest, she was speaking, her eyes scrunched closed, her face screwed up in concentration.
“Father in Heaven, we're grateful for everything you have created. We loved watching this spider. He was cool and made us happy for a minute before Ambrose squished him. Thank you for making even ugly things beautiful. Amen.”
Ambrose hadn't closed his eyes. He was staring at Fern. She opened her eyes and smiled at him sweetly, dropping his hand. She began pushing the dirt over the white box, covering it completely and tamping it down. Ambrose found some rocks and arranged them in an S shape for spider. Fern added some rocks in the shape of a B in front of Ambrose's S.
“What's the B for?” Ambrose wondered out loud. He thought maybe the spider had a name he didn't know about.
“Beautiful Spider,” she said simply. “That's how I'm going to remember him.”
September, 2001
Fern loved summertime, the lazy days and the long hours with Bailey and her books, but fall in Pennsylvania was absolutely breathtaking. It was still early in the season, not quite mid-September, but the leaves had already started to change, and Hannah Lake was awash in splashes of color mixed in with the deep green of the fading summer. School was back in session. They were seniors now, the top of the heap, one year left before real life began.