Eye of the Spider

The creature came crashing through the bushes. It was almost on top of me.

Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of light. Then everything was pitch black again. I could feel Eric cutting the last lines of the spider web that held me. I pulled free.

"This way!" Eric said.

We circled back around the house away from where the spider was coming. We ran into a giant shrub that seemed to grab us with its prickly arms. We had no idea where we were going, it was so dark.

Then the moon came out again and we were able to see the road. We started to sprint.

"Wait!" Eric said.

I didn't want to wait. I wanted to get out of there. But he stopped, so I stopped.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"My camera, I must have dropped it when I ran into a tree."

"You want to go back there?"

"That camera saved your life. When I heard the spider coming, I stopped cutting long enough to point the flash at it and snap a picture. The light blinded him for an instant and let us get away."

That made me feel better. My pal hadn't been about to desert me as I had thought when he stopped cutting.

"But now we're free," I said. " We don't need the camera."

"I got a picture of the thing," Eric explained. "That's the proof we needed. If we go back without it, nobody will believe us."

He was right. We had to have that photograph.

We walked back up the road a lot more slowly that we'd come down it. Could we find the tree we'd run into in the dark? If we found the tree, could we find the camera? Would the giant spider be waiting for us?
I kept feeling ahead of myself with my hands. I didn't want to run into another of those enormous spider webs.

"Here's the tree," Eric whispered.

"I don't think so," I said. "I think we were closer to the house."

"No, this is it," he insisted.

We got down on our hands and knees. I took out my penlight. It didn't give much light, so we also tried feeling with our hands. We didn't see or feel a thing.

We searched around the bottom of another tree. Nothing. Then another.
"Here it is!" Eric found it at last.

But he had no sooner said the words than we heard something moving toward us. Again we ran for the road. We reached it and didn't stop running until we were back in town.

"This is our proof!" Eric said, still out of breath.

The next day, our Science class had a field trip planned to the Natural History Museum in the city. We had been there a couple of times before. They have some great skeletons of dinosaurs and saber-toothed tigers. But Mr. Carlson wanted us to spend all our time looking at the unusual insects and the diplays about the lives of spiders.

I was going to say something to Eric, but I found that he wasn't around. He'd come with us on the bus. Where had he gone?

Finally we moved on to the reptile displays, where they had some scary rattlesnakes and cobras - all stuffed of course. Eric suddenly appeared again.

"Where have you been?" I whispered.

"I dropped off the film at a one-hour developing place. They'll have the pictures ready by the time we leave here."

We ate lunch at the museum cafeteria and in the afternoon we finally got to see the dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus Rex is my favourite. You should see the teeth they had.

"Because we're running late, we won't be going back to school,'' Mr. Carlson said. "The bus will let each of you off at your house."

Good. Nobody wants to go back to a dull classroom after a field trip.

The bus almost pulled out without Eric. He came running up at the last minute. I could tell from the look on his face that he had the developed pictures.

"Who's that new bus driver?" he asked me. "He looks weird."

I shrugged. I'd never seen the strange little guy before either.

Eric tore open the envelope of photographs. We were desperate to see if the picture of the spider had come out. But just then Mr. Carlson walked back along the aisle and stood over us.

"Where have you been, Eric?" he said. "I hope you didn't run off and buy some candy."

"No, Mr. Carlson," he said. "I just got so interested in the exhibit about fossils I forgot we were leaving."

"All right, then," Mr. Carlson said. But he didn't go back to his seat in the front of the bus. He sat one row behind us. That meant we had no chance to look at the pictures.

One by one the bus let the kids off at their houses. When there were only a few left, Mr. Carlson finally moved to the front. Eric immediately pulled the photographs out of the envelope.

"That's my sister practicing cartwheels," he said. "She's taking a gymnastics class."

"Forgot about those," I told him. "Get to the spider."

He sorted through pictures of his siser, his little brother, their dog King catching a frisbee, and a lot of other shots. Finally he came to the last shot on the roll.

It wasn't a spider who'd been stalking us that night. It was a weird-looking little man. He almost looked like on of those gnomes you see in the fairy tale books. His face was all twisted and covered with warts and .....

He looked exactly like the man driving the bus! Now Eric and I started to put two and two together. He had to be Mr. Carlson's helper. And if he was driving this bus, we were in deep trouble.

We looked around. All the other kids had gotten off. Only Mr. Carlson and the strange driver were left. I looked out the window. Wait a minute. We weren't anywhere near Eric's house or my house. This was the road out of town.

Mr. Carlson looked back at us and grinned. The strange little driver gave the bus more gas.

We were doomed.