A New Type of Spider

"Hey Stace!"

"Huh?"

"Come look at this bug! I wanna know what it is."

She peered at the small, amber lump on the baseboard. "Hmm. A spider."

"Really?" I looked at the bulging and hairless body—much different from my room's usually sleek arachnid inhabitants.

Staci began to reach toward it.

"Noo!" I shrieked, scooting my chair away.

She laughed, drawing her hand back. "What?"

"Don't touch it!"

"I'm just gonna scare it."

"Don't!"

"Why?"

"I don't want it in my room!"

Staci glanced around us. "This your spider-catching cup?" she asked, holding up a large orange glass.

I nodded and shrunk away.

She moved the glass over the spider. Then, "Oops."

"What?" I couldn’t see from where I was and I didn’t want to get any closer.

"I squished it." She looked chagrined, then brought the cup down on the spider's body twice more. I heard a pop, then a squelch as the bubble burst. Brown liquid splattered, then dripped down the wall and onto the spider’s crumpled corpse.

“That’s so gross!” It looked like a tiny bomb had exploded in the spider’s abdomen. I put my face in my hands and shook with half-hysterical laughter while Staci stoically embalmed the spider in toilet paper and sent him to a watery grave.