What Hides Within by Jason Parent Read Free Book Online

activities.
    "What's in your bathroom that's so interesting?" Kyle asked.
    "Beats me." Clive found his brother overprotective of Victoria. Still, his curiosity had been piqued. He followed Kyle toward the bathroom.
    "Holy shit!" Kyle exclaimed, pushing open the bathroom door. "Victoria, don't move!"
    Victoria let out a playful giggle. "Don't worry, Daddy. She won't harm me, even though I disturbed her. She dropped to the floor when I entered, probably looking for a place to hide, but I scooped her up and showed her everything was A-Okay."
    She held her hand out to her father. "See? She's friendly."
    Clive stared in awe at Victoria's hand. Eight glassy, red eyes stared back at him, silent and steady. It was impossible to determine the cognitive processes going on behind those eyes. His ignorance was a source of discomfort. He felt his masculinity questioned by the curious, playful little girl, unafraid of the lifeform that stood sedentary upon her palm.
    Underneath its eyes was a large, powerful jaw. From its jaw protruded two horizontal blades that were small and sharp. They're fangs , Clive thought, entirely disgusted. But something more disturbing controlled Clive's irrational thought. He couldn't shake the feeling that the creature was staring right at him, watching him and waiting for its time to act. What that action would entail, Clive hadn't the faintest idea. But he certainly didn't want to wait around to find out. He grabbed a Zoobook from the sink counter and rolled it up.
    "Speak of the Devil, and he appears, huh, Kyle?"
    "Yeah, now I don't want her to have that particular pet either. That thing on her hand is bad enough."
    "Victoria, keep your hand out, and I'll swipe that bug right off of you."
    "She's not a bug, Uncle Clive. She's an arachnid, a yellow sac spider to be exact. I can tell she's female because males are skinnier."
    Kyle seemed impressed with his daughter's knowledge. Clive was not. He slowly bent closer to the demon that captivated his niece's curiosity. The spider was somewhere in color between that yellow crap he often coughed up in the winter and baby diarrhea green. Its head and body were one, and a rusty orange stripe covered the length of its bulbous abdomen. All along its legs and body were little, wire-like hairs that added to its repulsive countenance. It was only slightly bigger than a quarter, and that included its eight pointy legs. But against the background of Victoria's small hand, the spider was immense and terrifying.
    "Are you sure that's not a brown recluse?" Clive, who knew next to nothing about spiders, wasn't taking any chances. "It looks brownish, maybe. Kyle, those things are dangerous."
    "There are no brown recluse spiders around here," Victoria said. "That's just media-fueled paranoia."
    Now Clive was impressed. Only eight years old and his niece was already a fellow cynic. But Victoria was way too young to know about "media-fueled paranoia," wasn't she?
    "Oh yeah? Where did you hear that?"
    "From watching TV."
    You mean, from the media? Clive shook his head. "You can't believe everything you hear, kiddo."
    "Anyway," Victoria continued, ignoring Clive's ill-informed comments, "these are the guys that do most of the biting that people blame the brown recluse for. And sac spiders don't hurt most people unless they're super-duper allergic. They only bite when you touch them and mostly just at night because they're noctenticle."
    "Nocturnal," Kyle corrected.
    "That's what I said. Noctranal."
    "So, if it bites when you touch it, why is it on your hand?" Clive asked.
    "She's a 'her' not an 'it.' And because I let her walk onto my hand. She won't bite me. I haven't done anything to make her mad."
    Victoria glanced at the rolled up magazine in her uncle's hand. "But if you swing that at her, she'll probably bite me."
    Clive felt stupid, outsmarted by a second-grader. He placed the magazine back on the counter.
    "Can you put it, um, her down, honey?" Kyle asked.
    "Will you and Uncle