But Mummy Is Scared of Spiders

But something changes. Another threat is looming; I can feel it. Tingles spread across my chest, and all the hairs on my body stand on end. My subconscious screams at me to stop running, but I know I can’t let the monster catch me. 

I look back again, and it’s right there. It grabs my shoulder, impaling the smooth flesh, and it is my turn to scream.

I jolt awake.

A hand is shaking my shoulder, but it’s familiar, soft and warm with blunt fingertips. Blinking away the terror, I find my older brother hovering over me. Inky night cloaks him in shadows, but the dim, red light of my alarm clock partially illuminates his face. 

“Ben?” I croak as I sit up, peeling my back from the sweaty sheets.

He looks embarrassed.

“Why are you waking me up at—” I find the clock, the numbers flashing repeatedly, “four in the morning?”

“There’s a spider…” he mumbles.

“Okay?”

“Can you get it out of my room, please?”

“Are you joking? It’s the middle of the nigh…” I let the rant on the tip of my tongue trail off into the silence as his face falls. 

“Show me where it is,” I whisper. 

Our padded footsteps beat like drums, and the cracking of his bedroom door opening echoes about the quiet house. I walk into his room, but Ben lurks just outside the entrance, fiddling nervously with the tattered hem of his pajama top. 

I raise my eyebrow in question.

“It’s above the door.” His voice wobbles slightly.

Looking up, it’s perched on the flaked white frame, a dark silhouette with a body the size of a blueberry and eight thick hairy legs. A common house spider from the Tegenaria species. 

“You know, it’s a lot more scared of you than you are of it.” I chuckle.

“I doubt that,” Ben says with a shy smile.

I’m not tall enough to reach the spider, so I grab his desk chair and pull it over. With shaky legs, I stand, trying not to fall as the chair spins slowly. Cupping my hands, I gently scoop the spider off the door. It tickles as it tries to escape the cage of my fingers, but I make quick work of stepping down and tiptoeing to the open window to release it into the night.

“Thank you,” Ben says as he cautiously steps back into the room as if afraid it is still there. Then he starts laughing. So hard that tears trickle down his flushed cheeks. “God, it’s embarrassing, I’m eighteen, and I still can’t bear the sight of them!”

“You’ve never liked them! Dad always told you to–”

Suddenly, Mum is in the doorway, like a phantom appearing right where Ben was moments ago. Her hair is completely disheveled, and her arms crossed over her favorite royal blue dressing gown—which she has had since we were born.

She squints at us. “Having a party, are we?”

Ben’s guilty eyes meet hers. “There was a spider.”

A look of revulsion floods her face. “Yuck! Lilly, I don’t know how you are so in love with those creatures!”

“I don’t love them!” I exclaim. “They’re just misunderstood.”

“Says the girl who took it upon herself to learn the names of every species of spider native to the UK!” Mum proclaims, waving her hands around in the air.

“Okay, mock me all you want, but you’re grateful I filled my head with that knowledge. At least now I can point out which ones will bite you!”

Mum rolls her eyes at my sarcasm.

“I remember you spent more time down in Dad’s greenhouse than he did when we were little!” Ben says. At the mention of our father, Mum’s face morphs into something akin to forlorn anger. Ben notices and mutters out a quick, “Sorry, Mum.”

She pulls us in close, kissing me on the temple and Ben on the shoulder. Our little family of three standing together. “No. It’s okay. It is okay to remember when he was good to you. You deserve those memories at least.”

Something is buzzing.

It’s hitting the glass walls over and over and over again. Maybe the little bug is also too warm. I am. The air is so hot in here. There’s no shade from the sun and sweat dribbles down my back. Even the stone floor is hot on my dirt-covered feet. It is also very bright in here; I have to keep my eyes closed a little when looking up at Daddy so I don’t blind myself. The bug must be dizzy from hitting its head so many times. It probably feels all wobbly like I do when Mummy spins the roundabout too fast, and everything becomes just a mix of colors. It’s trapped in here and can’t get out. I wonder if it has an egg on its head by now. I get those when I bang my head, and Mummy gives it a magic kiss to make it feel better. I don’t think this bug will get a magic kiss though. 

The buzzing stops.

“Look, Lilly, do you see it? Just there.” I have to stand on my tiptoes to see the plant Daddy is pointing at. It’s green with lots of stalks, but it doesn’t have flowers. Instead, they look like open mouths, pink on the inside and sharp points like teeth around them.

Sat on the inside of one is a tiny fly. It buzzes again, and the mouth shuts tight, squeezing the fly until it stops buzzing for good. 

I watch in amazement before looking up at Daddy with wide eyes. “Magic?” I whisper.

Daddy laughs, his eyes going crinkly when he does. “Sort of like magic, yes. That’s a Venus flytrap. They have mini hairs that, when triggered by a fly, snap it shut, trap it, and eat it.” 

“All of the plants here are carnivorous–” He points to each one, covering the benches surrounding all sides of the cramped greenhouse. They all have long, confusing names. They’re all pink and green and red; some are tall and splotchy, small, and wiggly with hairs. Some have weird goo and are very sticky. They look like they come from a different planet, like one from Star Wars. Alien plants. Maybe that’s why Daddy likes them so much.

Daddy crouches down in front of me. “Okay, Lilly, tell me why I let you come in here with me today.”

“Because I’m a big girl!”

“Yes, you are. You can come in here whenever you like. But you can’t touch the bad plants, okay?”

I nod, jumping up and down.

He pats my head before leaving to start the BBQ. I look at the plants more closely. Flytrap is my favorite. I stick my finger in its mouth repeatedly, and it tickles as it shuts, but I don’t leave it in too long, or it will eat me like the fly.

“What are you doing?” comes a voice from behind me.

I jump and spin around to find Ben standing in the entrance to the greenhouse, a football under his arm and clothes caked in mud. He’s been playing with our next-door neighbor all day. They wouldn’t let me join in because I’m a girl and girls don’t play football as good as boys. That’s what they said anyway. They can be mean sometimes. So, I spent the morning digging up worms from the molehills and throwing them at the boys over the fence. That was until Daddy let me into the greenhouse.

“Daddy showed me his plants!”

Ben’s smile falls. “What! That’s not fair! How come you get to see them, and I don’t.”

“That’s what happens when you don’t let me play.”

He sticks his tongue out at me.

 “Daaaaaad!” He shouts before running back into the garden.

Something tickles my arm. A tiny red spider crawls around my wrist and up my elbow making me giggle. 

“Hello, little guy. Where did you come from?” 

Then I see them. Hundreds of tiny red spiders, the color of tomatoes, cover the leg of the bench. 

“Look at all your friends!”

I sit on the ground and scoop as many little creatures into my palms as I can. “You can all be my friends too!”

I spend the rest of the afternoon sitting there playing with the spiders. They weave between my fingers and race up and down my arms. They make me laugh uncontrollably at the feeling of them scuttling all over and I feel happy. So happy.

The air cools as the sun dims, taking its liquid gold. The street becomes quiet as the thumping of the football and shouts of the boys stop. The wind blows and carries the scent of BBQ that mixes with the smell of wet earth in the greenhouse. 

My name is called from the kitchen. I run in excited to show Mummy my new friends. So, I hold my arms out proudly for her to see when she turns from prepping the salad for dinner.

But when she does, she screams.

Mum lets out a sigh of contentment. 

“Alrighty, kiddos. I’m off to bed. Don’t be up for much longer, it’s Erin’s football game tomorrow, and I want you to be the most enthusiastic cousins cheering from the sides.” 

We both groan in response.

She gives us one final squeeze and murmurs, “I love you both so much,” before plodding off back to her bedroom.

“Thanks again for getting rid of it,” Ben says. “I know you think it’s stupid to be so afraid.”

“Maybe. But it is real to you.”

He looks puzzled. “Well, thank you… again.”

“It’s okay. I’m going back to bed now.”

I start to leave, but he grabs my arm. “Wait! You’re having nightmares again, aren’t you? Because of everything that’s happening with Dad?”

 I study him as he studies me, and I can’t bear the look of pity in his eyes. He’ll only ask more questions if I indulge him in an answer. Yet, in reality, he already knows the answer. He knows how I feel because he feels it too, every time he sees eight little legs. 

We weren’t born with fear. We both know that. It is something that we learned. Ben learned what Arachnophobia was and clung to it. A mundane fear of an insignificant spider. It is what we weren’t told, what we weren’t taught, that truly can break a person’s mind. Perhaps that’s why they teach us to fear the most trivial things. If we let that consume us, there is no place for a darker, more sinister terror to dwell. So as Ben’s icy blue eyes stare into my own, I realize I can’t risk the façade of the strong sister slipping. He needs me to be strong for him. He always will. 

So, I walk away.

“Goodnight, Ben.”

Featured image by Johannes Hofmann.