Spyder
Lanie
finally had a boyfriend.
“Who is he?”
“The new foreign
exchange student.”
“What’s his name?” Sarah asked.
“He told me it was in his language
and I wouldn’t be able to pronounce it right,” said Lanie.
“Where is he from?” asked Claudia.
Lanie didn’t like Claudia.
She was mean.
“I don’t know. Maybe
Claudia laughed. “Maybe. But he’s a freak.”
She was jealous. They all were.
Lanie’s
boyfriend wasn’t a freak.
He was handsome. Hot.
They all knew it.
They made fun of her because Lanie was not skinny and pretty and talented. But they were jealous of her because she had
a boyfriend.
Claudia and Marion and Sarah
laughed.
Lanie had
no choice. She laughed with them.
***
She first met her boyfriend on
Monday in the library. Today was
Wednesday. It was
their first day anniversary.
Lanie
remembered being in the library during lunch, doing nothing.
Hiding from
Claudia and her popular friends.
A spider crawled onto the table she
was sitting at, and Lanie screamed.
“Kill it Ally!” Lanie
said.
Alison was loud, but she was
brave. She was the one who guessed Lanie’s boyfriend was from
Alison even had a boyfriend. His name was Leo. He wasn’t very
popular, but he was smart and good at basketball. He wasn’t very
handsome, either, but he wasn’t as ugly as Alison. But Lanie
liked Alison. Even though Alison was
ugly, she was never mean to Lanie, like Claudia was.
It was a while before Alison and Leo
came over. “Kill what?”
“That spider!”
Alison looked at Leo. “I don’t kill spiders.”
Leo looked at the spider. “Maybe you should. I think it’s a black widow.”
“A black widow!”
Lanie said.
“Kill it!”
Alison looked at the spider. “You could be right. I think I saw a flash of red. It’s the right color.”
“Ally, kill it…”
Alison pulled off her sneaker. Her feet smelled. She almost killed the spider, but the guy who would ask Lanie out after
school came over and told her to stop.
“Stop? You’re kidding me, it’s a black widow.”
“A black widow?”
Leo finished drinking out of a paper
cup and handed it to Alison. She put the
cup over the black widow.
“The spider. It’s a black widow. It’s poisonous.”
“You should not kill it like that,”
the boy said. He had a very thick
accent. “Why do you call it a black
widow?”
Lanie wasn’t listening. She
was staring at the boy, and then at the cup over the black widow.
Leo and Alison went back to their
seats.
“Did you just move here?” Lanie asked the new boy.
“Move?”
“Yeah. Come here, I mean?”
The boy didn’t
nod. Instead he said, “Yes.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Far away.”
“Do you speak a different language?”
“Many.”
“Your English is good.”
“I am working on it.” He picked up the cup with the black widow,
taped a piece of paper over it, and put it in his pocket.
“What are you going to do with the
black widow?”
“I will let it go somewhere. It will live.”
He asked her out after school.
“Do you like me?” she asked him.
“Yes.”
“Will you be my boyfriend?”
She had to explain to him what a boyfriend
meant in American. But he said yes.
Lanie had
a boyfriend.
Finally.
***
Lanie was
sitting in her kitchen with her boyfriend.
“Whatcha
doing?”
He was writing in a notebook. “Writing down information,” he said.
Lanie
nodded. “Do you want to watch TV?”
“TV?”
“Television.”
“Television,” he repeated. “I will if you do.”
Lanie
accepted that and led him to the family room.
There was nothing good on TV, so she just channel
surfed.
“You do not get a lot of channels,”
the boy observed.
“We don’t have a lot of money for a
lot of channels.”
They watched ‘Wheel of Fortune’. She explained the rules to him.
The show ended.
“Lanie,”
the boy said. “I’m in danger.”
“Why?” Lanie
asked.
“Your people…” he seemed to be
searching for the right words. “They do
not want me here.”
“What can I do to help?” Lanie said.
“Very little.”
“Maybe I can talk to them. Or my mom can.”
“That is not necessary.”
“Oh.”
“Can you drive?”
Lanie
nodded.
“I need to leave, now. Can you drive me?”
***
They went down the freeway for a
very long time.
“I’m tired,” Lanie
said. “May I park?”
“Yes,” the boy said. “I will drive.”
“Do you have a license?”
“No.”
“Do you know how to drive?”
“I have been watching you. Stop there.”
She pulled onto the shoulder and
they traded seats.
He drove.
***
It was dark.
“Where are we going?” Lanie asked.
“
Lanie
slept.
***
There were almost no cars. It was desert, and it was dark.
Her boyfriend drove. The signs flashed by.
She realized she was far from her
home.
“I want to go home,” Lanie said.
“I cannot go back,” the boy
said. “Please…Lanie. Help me escape.”
He sounded scared, so she said
nothing more.
***
“I’m hungry,” Lanie
said. There were more cars now, so she wasn’t as frightened.
“Where can we obtain food?”
Lanie
scanned the horizon for yellow arches.
“There.”
He took her to the McDonald’s and Lanie ordered two BigMac’s and a
large fries.
They went back on the freeway.
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” the boy said.
“Have some.”
“I do not eat your kind of food.”
Lanie ate
two French fries.
“Why do my people not like you?”
“Because of what I
am.”
“Not from here? But a lot of people
aren’t from here. Leo isn’t
from here. He moved here when he was
seven.”
“Who is Leo?”
“The person who
put the cup over the black widow.”
“I am not Leo,” her boyfriend said.
“You mean you are different from
Leo,” Lanie corrected. “I see.
Where are you from? Alison thinks
you’re from
“Where is
“I guess she was wrong.
“From further than
“Where on earth,
then?”
“Nowhere on Earth.”
“You’re an alien.”
“Yes. Of course. If I am not from Earth, then how can I not
be?”
“You look human,” Lanie said. “I don’t
believe you, and I want to go home.”
He swerved the car suddenly and
pulled to a stop. “I can prove it,” he
said. “Look at my eyes.”
Lanie
swallowed. “They’re purple,” she
whispered.
He closed his eyes again. When he opened them again, they were yellow.
“Do you believe me now?”
“Why did they change colors?”
“They change colors with my…” he
paused. He was looking for the
word. “Emotions. They are yellow when I am with…a mate. And I am happy.”
Lanie was
confused now. “What do you mean?”
“I like you, Lanie,”
he said. “You make me happy.”
“You love me?”
“Love?”
She tried explaining that to him.
“Where I come from, we do not have
love.”
“I can teach you,” Lanie said.
He said nothing and started the car
again.
***
“Why are your eyes purple?”
“They turn purple when I am hungry.”
“We can get food again.”
“I have food.
“Oh.”
“Do not worry about me.”
***
They could see lights in the
distance.
“Is that
“Yes,” Lanie
said. “I think we will be there in half
an hour.”
He stopped the car.
“Why do you keep on stopping?” Lanie demanded.
“Can’t we just drive? I want to
go home.”
He cupped her face in his
hands. Cars honked and whizzed by.
“I have never experienced a kiss
before,” the boy said.
“Me neither,” Lanie
said.
He kissed her.
***
It was darker still.
The boy drove on.
***
Lanie woke
up.
The boy had stopped the car
again. She could hear and see
hotels. They were very close.
Lanie
missed home. But her boyfriend leaned
over and kissed her cheek.
Maybe she didn’t
miss home that much.
“We have two miles until
“What are you going to do in
“Find better food.”
Lanie
laughed. “Better food than what?”
“McDonalds, for
one.” He kissed her on the mouth,
again.
He was so nice. He wouldn’t even
hurt spiders, not even black widows. Lanie knew he wouldn’t hurt her.
“What will they do to you if they
find you?”
“Kill me.”
“Kill you! But why?”
“They’re afraid of me.” He was unbuttoning her shirt. “I like you, Lanie.” His eyes glowed yellow. “I like you very much.”
Lanie
smiled. “I like you, too.” But she remembered she did not know his
name. “Why are they afraid of you?”
“I eat humans.”
***
It was light.
A paper cup rolled on the red carpet
of a casino, unnoticed.
It hit the wall and stopped, and a
black widow spider crawled out.