I played a new tune and sent a new set of orders. Madam Octa sat still, listening. When she knew what I wanted, she started creeping toward Steve. I saw him shivering and licking his lips. I was going to cancel the act and send the spider back to her cage, but then he stopped shaking and became calmer, so I continued.

He gave a small shudder when she started crawling up the leg of his pants, but that was a natural response. I still got the shakes sometimes when I felt her hairy legs brushing against my skin.

I made Madam Octa crawl up the back of his neck and tickle his ears with her legs. He giggled softly and the last traces of his fear vanished. I felt more confident now that he was calmer, so I moved the spider around to the front of his face, where she built small cobwebs over his eyes and slid down his nose and bounced off his lips.

Steve was enjoying it and so was I. There were lots of new things I was able to do now that I had a partner.

She was on his right shoulder, preparing to slide down his arm, when the door opened and Annie walked in.

Normally Annie never enters my room before knocking. She's a great kid, not like other brats her age, and almost always knocks politely and waits for a reply. But that evening, by sheer bad luck, she happened to barge in.

"Hey, Darren, where's my…" she started to say, then stopped. She saw Steve and the monstrous spider on his shoulder, its fangs glinting as though getting ready to bite, and she did the natural thing.

She screamed.

The sound alarmed me. My head turned, the flute slid from my lips, and my concentration snapped. My link to Madam Octa disintegrated. She shook her head, took a couple of quick steps closer to Steve's throat, then bared her fangs and appeared to grin.

Steve roared with fear and surged to his feet. He swiped at the spider, but she ducked and his hand missed. Before he could try again, Madam Octa lowered her head, quick as a snake, and sank her poison-tipped fangs deep into his neck!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

STEVE STIFFENED AS SOON as the spider bit him. His yells stopped dead in his throat, his lips turned blue, his eyes snapped wide open. For what seemed an eternity (though it couldn't have been more than three or four seconds), he tottered on his feet. Then he crumpled to the floor like a scarecrow.

The fall saved him. As with the goat at the Cirque Du Freak show, Madam Octa's first bite knocked Steve out, but didn't kill him right away. I saw her moving along his neck before he fell, searching for the right spot, preparing for the second, killer bite.

The fall disturbed her. She slipped from Steve's neck and it took her a few seconds to climb back up.

Those seconds were all I needed.

I was in a state of shock, but the sight of her emerging over his shoulder like some terrible arachnid sunrise spurred me back to life. I stooped for the flute, jammed it almost through the back of my throat, and blew the loudest note of my entire life.

"STOP!" I screamed inside my head, and Madam Octa leaped about two feet into the air.

"Back inside the cage!" I commanded, and she hopped down from Steve's body and sped across the floor. As soon as she passed the bars of the door, I lunged forward and slammed it shut.

With Madam Octa taken care of, my attention turned to Steve. Annie was still screaming but I couldn't worry about her until I'd seen to my poisoned friend.

"Steve?" I asked, crawling close to his ear, praying for an answer. "Are you okay? Steve?" There was no reply. He was breathing, so I knew he was alive, but that was all. There was nothing else he could do. He couldn't talk or move his arms. He wasn't even able to blink.

I became aware of Annie standing behind me. She'd stopped screaming but I could feel her shaking.

"Is…is he…dead?" she asked in a tiny voice.

"Of course not!" I snapped. "You can see him breathing, can't you? Look at his belly and chest."

"But…why can't he move?" she asked.

"He's paralyzed," I told her. "The spider injected him with poison that stops his limbs. It's like putting him to sleep, except his brain's still active and he can see and hear everything."

I didn't know if this was true. I hoped it was. If the poison had left the heart and lungs alone, it might also have skipped his brain. But if it had gotten into his skull…

The thought was too terrible to consider.

"Steve, I'm going to help you up," I said. "I think if we move you around, the poison will wear off."

I stuck my arms around Steve's waist and hauled him to his feet. He was heavy but I took no notice of the weight. I dragged him around the room, shaking his arms and legs, talking to him as I went, telling him he was going to be all right, there wasn't enough poison in one bite to kill him, he would recover.

After ten minutes of this, there was no change and I was too tired to carry him any longer. I dropped him on the bed, then carefully arranged his body so he would be comfortable. His eyelids were open. His eyes looked weird and were scaring me, so I closed them, but then he looked like a corpse, so I opened them again.

"Will he be all right?" Annie asked.

"Of course he will," I said, trying to sound positive. "The poison will wear off after a while and he'll be fine. It's only a matter of time."

I don't think she believed me but she said nothing, only sat on the edge of the bed and watched Steve's face like a hawk. I began wondering why Mom hadn't been up to investigate. I crept over to the open door and listened at the top of the stairs. I could hear the washing machine rumbling in the kitchen below. That explained it: our washing machine is old and clunky. You can't hear anything over the noise it makes if you're in the kitchen and it's turned on.

Annie was no longer on the bed when I returned. She was down on the floor, studying Madam Octa.

"It's the spider from the freak show, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes," I admitted.

"The poisonous one?"

"Yes."

"How did you get it?" she asked.

"That's not important," I said, blushing.

"How did she get loose?" Annie asked.

"I let her out," I said.

"You what?!"

"It wasn't the first time," I told her. "I've had her for almost two weeks. I've played with her lots of times. It's perfectly safe as long as there are no noises. If you hadn't come barging in when you did, she would have been…"

"No you don't," she growled. "You aren't laying the blame on me. Why didn't you tell me about her? If I'd known, I wouldn't have come busting in."

"I was going to," I said. "I was waiting until I was sure it was safe. Then Steve came and…"I couldn't continue.

I stuck the cage back in the closet, where I wouldn't have to look at Madam Octa. I joined Annie by the bed and studied Steve's motionless form. We sat silently for almost an hour, just watching.

"I don't think he's going to recover," she finally said.

"Give it more time," I pleaded.

"I don't think time will help," she insisted. "If he was going to recover, he should be moving a little by now."

"What do you know about it?" I asked roughly. "You're a child. You know nothing!"

"That's right," she agreed calmly. "But you don't know any more about it than me, do you?" I shook my head unhappily. "So stop pretending you do," she said.

She laid a hand on my arm and smiled bravely to show she wasn't trying to make me feel bad. "We have to tell Mom," she said. "We have to get her up here. She might know what to do."

"And if she doesn't?" I asked.

"Then we have to take him to a hospital," Annie said.

I knew she was right. I'd known it all along. I just didn't want to admit it.

"Let's give it another fifteen minutes," I said. "If he hasn't moved by then, we call her."