Ivan told Leonardo he didn’t know where Elena was, so Leonardo sauntered off, saying, “Yeah, well, tell her how I saved you guys, okay?” In the Allgoods’ window, we could see Dawn and her blond combination ponytail-beehive peering out, and then she rapped on the glass impatiently, even though Leonardo was nearly to her door. We’d heard the story about the girl who had roaches in her beehive, and the Shreve boys swore they’d seen one crawl out of Dawn’s hair.
“Man, look at this,” I said. My Brownie had a crack on its side, and it rattled. “Do you think it’ll still work?”
“My dad can fix it. He can fix anything.” Max was rubbing the angry red spot on his arm. “We need to get back at that moron. We’ve got to find a spider that’s at least as cool as his black widow and we’ve got to find it now.” He slapped his leg with the Big Chief pad for emphasis.
“Yeah,” Ivan said. “If we don’t find one soon, all the spiders will be dead.”
“I’m telling you guys,” Max said. “Pond Lady’s.”
“Maybe we should think about it,” I said.
“ ‘Maybe we should think about it’!” Max echoed me with a prissy voice. “Think about this!” He cocked a leg and cut a big one, one of his specialties. “I say we go for the Pond Lady’s tomorrow.”
Ivan said, “I do, too!”
I reluctantly agreed, remembering that I had to go to the beach with my dad the day after, so this might be my only chance.
“All for one and one for all!” Max put an arm around me and Ivan and we stumbled up the lane together, singing the only verse we knew of a Coasters song we liked to associate with ourselves:
I couldn’t resist asking Ivan, “Have you ever seen Elena naked?” I’d walked in on my sister once and she slapped me, even though it was accidental. Sort of. Also not very interesting, since she was about ten at the time.
Ivan said, “I saw her in her slip once, and I could see through it. It was scary! But she didn’t care.”
“My sister told me if I ever tried to peek at her she’d make earrings out of my nuts,” Max said. Then, “I hope that black widow bites Slutcheon on his stupid butt and it rots off.” He broke away from our embrace and pulled down the back of his shorts, mooning us, and started hopping down the lane, hands on his rear, crying, “Oh, no! My butt’s rotting off! My butt’s rotting off! I’m pooping everywhere!” Ivan and I doubled over, laughing at him.
Later that evening, as we were idly riding our bikes in circles, Beatriz appeared, coming toward us up the lane, her red hula hoop rotating expertly around her hips as she walked. “That’s amazing!” Ivan cried. “How can you do that?” We boys weren’t great hula-hoopers—maybe it was not having hips or butts? We could only hula hoop on our arms. Or get them hung up in trees; mine was actually on our roof. Beatriz stopped in front of us and kept swiveling, a big grin on her pretty face.
“Cool, man, cool!” Max didn’t hand out a lot of compliments, especially to Beatriz, but that’s how impressed he was.
Still hooping, Beatriz said, “Wait till you see my routine for the Fiesta!” We begged her to show us, but she wouldn’t. “Surprises are more fun!” She stopped her hoop and we threw down our bikes by the Friedmanns’ porch. Then she declared, “And I decided that for the entertainment you guys can do what you’re already good at—Max can do his yo-yo tricks, Ivan will do magic tricks, and John can do archery! That way we don’t have to worry about learning anything new!”
Max said, “Good. I’m sick of learning all the time.” He was always cranky about having to go to Hebrew school and regular school.
We told Beatriz—we could trust her—about our miserable encounter with Slutcheon earlier and spelled out our plan to get into the Pond Lady’s yard to find a revenge spider, although I was having serious reservations. She said, “I want to come, too!” She didn’t care about catching spiders, but she also wanted to see the iron lung. “I like adventures and I never get to have any.”
“How can you go with us?” Ivan asked. “You can’t spend the night with boys.”
“My mama and papa are going out tomorrow, and they’ll be home late, and my brother just stays in my parents’ room and talks on the phone all night.”
We agreed to meet the next night at eleven o’clock, among the yews across the lane, where there wasn’t a streetlight. “Everybody wear dark clothes!” I said, sucked into the excitement and proud that I’d thought of something.
Beatriz said, “I don’t have any dark clothes. Except my school uniform.”
Max said, “Well, wear that, Miss Priss.”
“Okay,” said Beatriz, concerned. “But I can’t get it messed up.”
“Anybody who’s worried about messing up their clothes isn’t ready for an adventure,” Max scoffed.
“Well, I am ready, and I’m coming,” she said defiantly, stomping a foot. “So there.” I wondered why so many females, with the exception of Elena and my mother, seemed like our leopard-legged silver argiope, who would eat the males in her life if she felt so inclined.
7
The Pond Lady’s yard on the corner was extremely overgrown—Dimma said that it wasn’t overgrown; it was an English garden and was supposed to be natural—and her stagnant pond was irresistible to us and all manner of creatures. When we’d snuck in before, we managed to get some good frogs’ eggs, which turned into tadpoles and then died. Ivan had fed them to Linda and Rudo, who gobbled them up like they were caviar. But we’d gotten caught and been cruelly punished by being separated for a weekend.
“You just want to see the iron lung,” I said, still worrying.
“I. WANT. A. SPIDER!” Max shouted.
Surprisingly, Ivan yelled, “I. DO. TOO! We only got caught last time because there was a full moon,” he said, always thinking. “And Josephine was still awake. It’s cloudy today, and if we go really late this time, we can do it.”
Max said, “I also wanna catch Peachy.” Max was obsessed with the transparent frog in the pond.
We decided that we’d use our usual ploy to sneak out that night: The adults would be told that we were all spending the night at Max’s house, which was easy to get in and out of because there was a good climbing maple outside the Friedmanns’ upstairs bathroom window.
That night, the boys and I quietly played poker in Max’s disheveled room to stay awake. We were prepared with a tiny penlight that would give us enough, but not too much, light. Brickie had all sorts of gadgets that he’d bring home from work. Sometimes he gave them to me, and other times, like this night, I lifted them from his bureau drawer.
A creaky hassock fan made enough noise to cover up any of ours. Brickie had taught me to gamble—he played a lot of cards with a group of friends at the Chevy Chase Club who called themselves the Jolly Boys. I taught Max and Ivan. We didn’t play with money because we rarely had any, and instead used things from our collections. So far, Ivan had won the promise of my neon-green grasshopper and a scarab beetle from Max.
Just before eleven, when everyone in the house seemed to be asleep, we tiptoed to the bathroom, where the window was already open. We had to jimmy the screen out, but it wasn’t a problem because the wood was soft with rot. I went first, then Ivan. Max came last in case someone caught us—he could think up the best lie. It was an easy climb down. We slunk to the yews across the lane. No Beatriz. Or so we thought—she was hiding, invisible in her uniform, and scared us to death when she whispered, “Hi, you guys!” Ivan and I pulled her up from her squatting position.