He swiped at it, knocking his food to the floor, making the tray clatter on the cafeteria rail. The spider, however, escaped and darted along the innermost of the rails. He watched it go, whimpering and calling Pertos’ name over and over again.
“There’s another one,” Bitty Belina said.
He looked where she pointed, at the dangling shreds of web, and he screamed, turned, fell across a chair. Frantically, he crawled free, made it to his feet and through the door, into the snow.
She watched him, unable to understand. “It’s only a spider!” she called. But he did not come back.
For a moment, she was afraid he was going to leave without her, but he only slammed the door of the truck cab and sat there, shaking, hiding his face in his hands.
Spiders?
She stood there a moment, watching the spider in the web, thinking. She had been walking on the rails where the trays were slid along so that she could see the automat doors to know what she wanted to eat. The thing was within easy reach.
Sebastian was blowing the truck’s horn.
Belina jumped down, ran to one of the tables and picked up a large clear plastic saltshaker. She poured the salt out and went back to the cafeteria line. It took a minute or so to gain the rails, but once that was done it was easy to reach out, pluck the spider from the web and drop it into the bottle. It was half as large as her dainty hand, but not dangerous.
Sebastian was impatient to be gone, laying on the horn until she was cursing him at the top of her voice.
She found the second spider clinging to the silver rail and put it in with the first. They bristled, stalked each other, then decided they were friends.
Quickly she got some sandwiches and hurried out into the growing darkness. The saltshaker was tucked under the band of her skirt, and she had pulled her blouse out to conceal the spiders. There was still a bulge, but she thought he might not notice.
And she was right.
As they drove into the storm again, eating their sandwiches, she knew that she had him in the palm of her hand, anytime she wanted him there. And tonight, when they stopped, she would teach him who was boss. Again, their roles had changed.
She did not bring the spiders into the open immediately. It was more fun to conceal them, to feel the glass grow warm against her body and to know that this power lay so close at hand. She permitted him to eat his sandwiches. When they returned to the cargo hold to spend the night, she ate some canned fruit with him and enjoyed some bottled vegetable juice. She spoke some lines for him, relishing his joy all the more for knowing how swiftly she could change that joy into terror.
She danced for him.
The spiders in the saltshaker waited where she had hidden them behind the food crates.
She read to him from a book.
He asked for parts to be repeated.
She read them over as often as he wished.
The feeling of superiority was so strong, so exciting, that she could barely keep herself from rushing to the saltshaker, grabbing them out of it and waving the eight-legged little beasts in his face, laughing at his horrified fascination.
But she restrained herself, aware that once the bottle had been shown to him, this sweet anticipation would be over and the thrill of holding an axe above his head would diminish when he knew that axe was there.
In time, his head nodded against his chest.
His breath came out as a long sigh.
He slept.
She watched him for a while, then went and got the spiders. She stood beside him, looking up at his wide face, and kicked him in the thigh until he woke.
“I have something for you, Sebastian,” she said, holding the bottle behind her.
He looked groggy, and she wanted to be certain he was wide awake when she presented him with her gift.
“Do you hear me, Sebastian?”