by Jennifer Moore -
Spencer the Spider was big, fat, and hairy, with eight impossibly long legs. He was also incredibly brave. Spencer wasn’t scared of the dark, of monsters that lived under the web, or of thunder and lightning. He didn’t mind things that went bump in the night, and he loved big juicy creepy crawlies. Nothing scared Spencer the Spider…except for children.
They were horrible things, all soft and smooth, with all of their hair stuck on top of their heads and hardly any legs at all. Ugghhhh! Just thinking about a great big clomping boy or girl sent Spencer into a spin.
He would run straight up the nearest water spout and stay there, shivering and shaking, until the rain came to wash him out. Just the sound of a great horrible child playing out in the garden was enough to wobble his web and tangle his thread. Sometimes he got in such a big fat hairy scary mess he would tie himself up in knots and his eight eyes would fill with great spidery tears.
One grey, cloudy day Spencer was busy spinning a new web across the rose bushes when the children came running outside. They raced across the grass toward him, laughing and shouting. Spencer shivered and shook. His web wibbled and wobbled.
“They’re more scared of you than you are of them,” his mother said. But Spencer wasn’t so sure.
“They’re a hundred times bigger than me,” he sobbed, his hair standing up on end and his eight knees knocking. “They’re a thousand times bigger than me,” he cried.
“You’ll see,” Spencer’s mother said with a big spidery smile. But Spencer didn’t want to see. He scuttled down from his web and hid in a smelly green welly that was lying forgotten in the flowerbed. It was dark and damp inside. Spencer crawled right along to the tip of the toe and waited for the sound of the children’s laughter to go away.
But it was no good. From deep inside the smelly welly Spencer could hear the children getting nearer and nearer. Then with a whoosh and a swoosh the welly began to move. It flew upwards, bumping and bouncing through the air, as poor terrified Spencer twisted and tumbled inside.
“I’ve found it!” shouted the girl, waving the welly wildly as she ran back indoors. “It was in the flowerbed.” Inside the boot Spencer was clinging on for dear life...
