“I thought maybe it was you,” Courtney said, tossing her hair behind her shoulder. “I thought maybe you were trying to pay me back. You know. For the green snake thing.”
“No way,” I muttered. “No way, Courtney.”
My three friends shifted uncomfortably. Hat started humming some song.
Finally, Courtney raised her feet to the pedals and rode off down the street.
“We’ve got to find a way to scare her,” I said through clenched teeth as soon as she had ridden out of sight. “We’ve just got to!”
“How about a live tarantula down her back?” Hat suggested.
9
The plan was simple.
Mr. Dollinger, the science teacher, kept two tarantulas in a cage in the second-floor science lab.
Hat and I would sneak into the science lab after school on Thursday. We would borrow one of the tarantulas and hide it in my locker overnight.
The next morning, we all had gym right after morning meeting. There is a narrow balcony over the gym floor where equipment is stored. Hat and I would sneak up onto the balcony with the tarantula.
Then Molly and Charlene would start talking to Courtney and get her to stand under the balcony. When Courtney was in position under the balcony, one of us would drop the tarantula onto Courtney’s head.
Then she’d scream and howl, and the tarantula would get tangled in her hair, and she wouldn’t be able to get it out, so she’d scream some more and go totally ballistic, and we’d all have a good laugh.
A simple plan.
And one we were sure would work.
What could go wrong?
Thursday after school, Molly and Charlene wished us luck. Hat and I went into the shop room and pretended to be working on our wood projects. Actually, we were waiting for all the kids to leave the school building.
Pretty soon it was silent out in the hall. I poked my head out the shop door. Empty.
“Okay, Hat,” I whispered, motioning for him to follow me. “Let’s get this over with.”
We crept out into the hall. Our shoes scraped noisily against the hard tile floor. The halls at school are kind of creepy when everyone has left and it’s so quiet.
We passed by the teachers’ lounge near the front stairway. The door was open a crack, and I could hear some kind of teachers’ meeting going on.
That’s great, I told myself. If the teachers are all meeting downstairs, we will have the science lab to ourselves.
Hat and I hurried up the front stairs. We leaned on the banister and tried to move as silently as we could.
The science lab is at the end of the hall on the second floor. We passed by a couple of eighth graders we didn’t know. But we didn’t see anyone else. There didn’t seem to be any teachers up there. They were probably all at the meeting.
Hat and I peeked into the lab. Late afternoon sunlight poured in through the windows. We had to squint down the long rows of lab tables.
“Mr. Dollinger?” I called. I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t there.
No reply.
We both tried to squeeze through the door at the same time, but we didn’t fit. Hat laughed. His nervous, high-pitched giggle. I raised a finger to my lips, signaling for him to be quiet. I didn’t want anyone to hear us.
Hat followed me down the center aisle of the long room. My heart began to thud loudly in my chest. My eyes darted around the room.
The sunlight seemed to grow even brighter. The watercolor paintings of the rain forest we had all made were hanging on the wall behind Mr. Dollinger’s desk. Water dripped in one of the lab sinks to our right. Plonk. Plonk. Plonk.
The door to the tall metal supply cabinet beside Mr. Dollinger’s desk had been left open. I pointed it out to Hat. “That probably means he’s coming back up here after the teachers’ meeting,” I whispered.
Mr. Dollinger is a neat freak. He wouldn’t leave a supply closet open overnight.
Hat gave me a shove. “We’d better hurry.”
“Don’t push me,” I grumbled.
We made our way to the tarantula cage, on a metal table against the wall. It was actually a rectangular, plywood box with a wire mesh top.
A loud crash made me stop a few feet from the cage. I gasped and turned to Hat. “What was that?”
The sound repeated. We both realized it was a Venetian blind, blown by the wind, banging against the open window behind us.
I breathed a long sigh of relief. I stared at Hat and he stared at me. He nervously adjusted his baseball cap over his forehead. “Eddie, maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” he whispered. “Maybe we should get out of here.”
I was tempted to agree with Hat and run out the door as fast as I could. But then I remembered Courtney’s smug smile as she climbed down from the tree with the cat. “Let’s stick to the plan,” I said.
I really wanted to scare Courtney. More than anything else in the world.
Hat and I peered down through the wire mesh at the two tarantulas. The bigger one was crawling along one end of the cage. The smaller, browner one was sitting like a lump at the other end.
“Yuck,” I said in a low voice. “They really are gross.”
Their legs were all hairy and prickly-looking. Their bodies looked like disgusting brown hairy sacks.
“Let’s take the big one,” Hat urged, reaching for the lid. A grin spread across his face. “It’ll make a nice plop when it lands on Courtney’s head.”
We both laughed. Hat made some funny plopping sounds.
He lifted up the wire mesh top of the cage. He reached a hand in to grab the bigger tarantula. Then he suddenly stopped, and his grin faded.
“We’ve got a little problem,” he said.
“Huh? What?” I glanced nervously back to the doorway. No one there.
“What are we going to put it in?” Hat demanded.
My mouth dropped open. “Oh.”
“We forgot to bring something to put it in,” Hat said. He lowered the top of the cage. Both tarantulas were crawling slowly toward each other now.
“Yeah. Well, we need a bag or something,” I said. My eyes searched the tabletops.
“A bag isn’t any good,” Hat replied, frowning. “Tarantulas can tear right through a bag.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re right.”
“Why didn’t we think of this before?” Hat demanded. “Why were we so stupid? What did we think we were doing? You can’t just put a tarantula in your backpack and carry it around!”
“Calm down,” I said, motioning for him to lower his voice. I could see he was starting to panic. “There must be something to keep a tarantula in up here.”
“This is really stupid,” he grumbled. “Did you think I was going to keep it in my pocket?”
“Wait,” I told him. I hurried over to the next table and picked up a plastic container. It was the size of a cottage cheese container and had a plastic top. “This is perfect,” I whispered, holding it up to show him. “I’ll just poke holes in the top.”
“Hurry,” Hat urged. He pulled off his cap and scratched his dark hair.
I poked several air holes in the lid with a pencil. Then I carried the plastic container over to the cage. “Here,” I said, handing it to him.
“You have to hold it,” Hat told me. “I can’t hold the container and pick up the tarantula.”
“Oh,” I replied unhappily. I didn’t want to be that close to the tarantula.
My hand started shaking a little. But I held the container close to the cage, ready to snap the lid over it as soon as Hat dropped one of the ugly creatures inside.
He pulled up the lid and reached into the cage. Hat was really brave. He wrapped his hand around the bigger one’s body and lifted it up easily. Hat didn’t even hesitate or make a disgusted face.
I was impressed.
I nearly dropped the plastic container when he lowered the tarantula inside. My hand was really shaking. But I managed to hold on.
The tarantula began flopping around frantically, shooti
ng its legs out, slipping and sliding on the slippery plastic surface.
“He doesn’t like it in there,” I said in a trembling voice.
“Too bad,” Hat replied, closing the wire mesh cage lid. “Quick, Eddie—put the lid on the container.”
I scrambled to clamp the lid on.
I almost had it in place when I heard footsteps outside the door. And voices.
Hat and I both gasped as we realized Mr. Dollinger was about to walk in.
10
A feeble croak escaped my lips. The bright sunlight suddenly glared white. I felt the floor sway.
I could feel my panic weigh me down. I suddenly felt as if I weighed a thousand pounds.
I could hear Mr. Dollinger talking to another teacher right outside the science lab door. In another few seconds, he’d step inside, and… and….
“Quick—duck under the table!” Hat whispered, his eyes wide with fright beneath his cap.
I started to follow him under the table. But I realized it wasn’t a good hiding place at all. Mr. Dollinger would see us as soon as he went to his desk.
“No—no good!” I croaked. “No good. Uh…”
My eyes flashed around the room. Where could we hide? Where?
“The supply cabinet!” I cried. I grabbed Hat’s arm and pulled him with me.
The tall metal cabinet was wide enough to hide both of us.
Could we get into it in time?
We scrambled inside, pushing each other forward.
I pulled the door closed. It clicked shut just as Mr. Dollinger entered the room.
Hat and I stood trembling in the darkness of the cabinet, listening to his footsteps approach. I gripped the tarantula container tightly in one hand.
Mr. Dollinger was softly humming a tune. I heard him stop right in front of the supply cabinet.
My heart was pounding so loud, I wondered if the teacher could hear it through the cabinet door.
I shifted my weight and bumped into Hat. There wasn’t another inch of space in there. I could hear Hat’s shallow breathing. I could tell he was as scared as I was.
What if Mr. Dollinger decided to open the cabinet door?
Please, please—just turn out the lights and go home, I pleaded silently.
I could hear him shuffling papers on his desk. I heard the desk drawer open and shut. I heard a book slam shut. More footsteps. Water running in one of the sinks.
He turned off the water. He was still humming softly to himself. More footsteps. The click of the light switch.
Then silence.
I struggled to hear over my pounding heartbeat. Silence. No humming. No footsteps.
Hat and I stood frozen in the darkness, listening hard. “He—he’s gone,” I stammered finally. “He left, Hat.”
“Phewwww!” Hat sighed loudly.
“Let’s get out of here!” I cried. I reached for the latch.
My hand fumbled around in the darkness, sweeping over the metal door. I located a slender metal bar and pulled up on it. It didn’t budge.
“Hey—” I cried out. I moved my hand slowly up the door, trying to find a latch or release.
“Hurry up. Open the cabinet door,” Hat urged. “It’s getting hot in here.”
“I know,” I replied tensely. “I—I can’t find anything.”
“Let me try,” Hat said impatiently. He pushed my hand away and began fumbling with the metal bar.
“There’s got to be a latch or something,” I said shrilly.
“Very helpful,” Hat grumbled. He began pounding on the door with his open hand.
I grabbed his arm. “Stop. That won’t open it. And someone will hear you.”
“You try again,” he ordered. His voice sounded really tiny and afraid.
I swallowed hard. I suddenly had a heavy lump in my throat. It felt as if my heart had leapt up into my neck.
I fumbled frantically with everything I could grab hold of. But I couldn’t find anything that would open the door.
“I give up. We—we’re locked in, Hat,” I stammered.
“I don’t believe it,” he muttered.
The container started to slip out of my hand. I grabbed it with both hands—and made a startling discovery.
The lid had come off.
“Oh, no,” I murmured.
“What now?” Hat demanded.
Taking a deep breath, I shook the container.
It was empty. No tarantula.
I tried to tell Hat that the tarantula had escaped, but my voice caught in my throat. I let out a choking sound.
And then I felt a prickling on my leg just above my sock.
And then another prickling, like a pinprick, a little higher up.
“Hat—the tarantula—” I managed to croak. “It—it’s crawling up my leg.”
11
The pinpricks moved a little higher on my leg.
I could feel the tarantula’s warm, hairy body rub against my skin.
“It—it’s going to b-bite me,” I stuttered. “I know it is.”
“Don’t move,” Hat advised, sounding even more frightened than me. “Just don’t move.”
The creature’s legs dug into my skin, like sharp needles.
“I—I have to get out of here!” I screamed. Without thinking about it, I lowered my shoulder and heaved all my weight against the cabinet door.
With a loud pop, it swung open.
A startled cry escaped my lips as I tumbled out. I landed hard on my side, and the empty plastic container rolled across the room.
Breathing hard, I scrambled to my feet and began furiously kicking and shaking my leg.
The tarantula dropped to the floor and immediately began scrabbling across the linoleum. “Catch it! Catch it!” I shrieked.
Hat dove out of the cabinet and lurched after the tarantula.
I grabbed up the container and hurried over to him. Hat lifted the tarantula high in the air. Its hairy legs kicked and squirmed, but Hat didn’t let go.
He plopped the ugly thing into the container. “Put the lid on tight this time,” he warned.
“Don’t worry,” I moaned. My hands were shaking. But I clamped the lid on tightly, then checked and rechecked it three times.
A short while later, Hat and I were heading downstairs to deposit the tarantula in my locker for safekeeping. I could still feel the itchy pinpricks on my leg, even though I knew the tarantula hadn’t bitten me.
“Wow. That was scary!” Hat declared. “That was really scary.”
“It just means that the rest of the plan will go perfectly,” I assured him.
A little before nine the next morning, Hat and I were hiding again. This time we were hiding on the narrow balcony that overlooks the gym.
While everyone else in our class changed into their gym shorts and sweats and stuff, Hat and I sneaked out of the boys’ locker room. Hat hid the tarantula container under his sweatshirt, and we hurried up to the balcony.
The four of us had been calling each other for most of the night, getting the plan straight. It was a very simple plan, actually.
All Molly and Charlene had to do was get Courtney to stand under the balcony. Then Hat would drop the tarantula into her hair, and we’d all watch her scream and cry and carry on, and make a total fool of herself.
Simple.
“What if Courtney doesn’t get upset?” Molly had asked me on the phone. “What if she just plucks it out of her hair and calmly asks if anyone has lost a tarantula?”
“That’s impossible,” I had replied. “Courtney is calm—but she isn’t that calm! She’s got to scream and go wild with a tarantula in her hair. If she doesn’t, she’s not human. She’s a statue or something.”
“Ready, Hat?” I asked, peering over the side of the balcony.
He nodded solemnly, his eyes on the volleyball nets below.
He carefully pulled the lid off the container. The tarantula reached up two legs as if to grab him.
I heard voices down below. A few gi
rls had wandered out of their locker room onto the floor. One of them picked up a volleyball and took a jump shot at the basket. The ball hit the rim and bounced off.
“Get down. They can see you,” Hat whispered.
I lowered my head. It was hot up on the balcony, hotter than down on the gym floor, and I started to sweat.
We were both on our knees. Hat was holding the tarantula container in front of him with both hands.
I could hear more voices down below. Several boys had come out and were dribbling a volleyball up and down the floor, passing it off to one another.
“Do you see Courtney?” Hat whispered.
I raised myself a little higher and peered down. “Yes!”
Molly and Charlene had Courtney between them. Both of them were talking excitedly at the same time. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about.
Courtney was shaking her head. I saw her laugh, then shake her head some more. She was wearing a loose-fitting purple T-shirt, and white shorts over purple tights. Her blonde hair was tied behind her in a loose ponytail.
A perfect target, I thought gleefully. I grinned at Hat. I had a good feeling about this. A very good feeling.
Raising my eyes beyond the volleyball nets, I saw that Mr. Russo, the gym teacher, was talking to another teacher at the door.
Good, I thought. We don’t want Mr. Russo blowing the whistle and starting the volleyball game until we take care of Courtney.
Molly and Charlene, meanwhile, still had Courtney between them. They were still chatting away. As they talked, they kept backing up, backing up, until they were almost in position.
“Just a few more feet and Courtney will be under the balcony,” I whispered to Hat. “It’s happening, Hat. It’s really happening.”
I was so excited, I felt like I was about to burst. Beads of sweat rolled down my forehead and into my eyes. I wiped it with the sleeve of my T-shirt and peered down.
Yes!
Molly and Charlene had done it. They had backed Courtney under the balcony. The three of them stood right beneath us.
Perfect!
“Hat—do it!” I whispered.
Hat didn’t hesitate. Not for a second. This was too perfect. Too perfect!