Spider-Girl: the Life of a Teenage Spider Person

Chapter Six

School was a nightmare.

My headache has continued to grow, everything is still extremely loud, and I am starting to feel light-headed.

The bus comes to a stop in my neighborhood. I force a smile as I say bye to Layla, and stumble through the doors. As soon as my feet touch the sidewalk, I let out a breath that I hadn't realized I'd been holding in.

I start walking slowly towards my house. However, when I realize that the sun is slowly starting to set, I speed up as best as I can.

I live in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Queens, so I definitely don't have to worry as much about crime as people living in the city... But it's better to be safe than sorry.

I arrive in front of my two story house, where I live with my Mom, Dad, and younger sister, Bethany.

At this point, the headache is nearly unbearable.

As I open the door, my mom greets me with a "Hi, sweetie! How was school?" in a calm, casual voice.

But for some reason, her sentence startles me, and it sounds as though she is almost shouting. However, I know she can't be shouting, because she asks me this question nearly everyday, and it is always in the same casual tone.

I try to act normal, "Hi, Mom! School was good, the field trip was interesting. I'm going to head up to my room now, k?"

"Okay, sweetie."

I start climbing the staircase. Normally, I would inform my mom if I was feeling sick. For some reason though, I feel like this is different. Like I shouldn't tell her anything at all, not even that I have a headache.

Once reaching the second floor, I go into the bathroom and find an aspirin. I swallow it and head into my room. I let my backpack drop with a thump, and flop onto my bed. I'll just do my homework sometime this weekend.

I start to reflect on the events of this crazy day.

There was the field trip, during which that spider came around. Later, I started feeling sick, and I couldn't even stand the sight of food. On the bus ride back, everything started getting louder, and I started getting a headache. And the weirdest part so far has been this feeling I keep getting, making me continue to not tell anyone about what happened. In gym, I even felt like something was being thrown at me from behind, and I immediately - almost mechanically - stepped to the side, and watched as a stray basketball whizzed past my head.

I continue to lay on the bed for what seems like hours, but my headache will not go away. The aspirin has somehow done nothing to calm my throbbing head.

"Crissy! Dinner time!" I hear Bethany call.

I groan and stand up. I step into the bathroom and take one more aspirin. Then I square myself up in the mirror, locking eyes with my reflection. "You need to act like everything is normal. Get as much food down as you can. Ignore the headache to the best of your ability. Do not flinch when people talk to you," I demand. I nod to myself and put on the best casual 'everything is perfectly fine' face that I can muster.

I step out of the bathroom and begin the descent to the battlefield.