ARACHNE BOY

chapter five, THE SPIDER-MAN WANNABE VISITS CRAIGSLIST

V. The Spider-Man Wannabe Visits Craiglist

THE PAPERS READ THIS THE FOLLOWING MORNING: Spider-Man Wannabe Vigilante Raids Liquor Store and Harms Two. Niko wishes he hadn't even come close to the newspaper laid on top of the dining table, which he usually didn't care for, because all they are full of is the world's calamity, but he had, and now he's pissed. As he reads the sentence, sipping out of a cup of coffee that isn't his to begin with (it's his mom's, and if she'd know, she would, maybe, smack him), he frowns, and spits out some of the mug's contents. Niko can't believe, as his eyes scan the rest of the page, that that dumb vendor didn't even pay mind to what he said after he saved his goddamn life. He said it so clearly, too: not Spider-Man, but Arachne-Boy. Isn't that, kind of, a small favor to do for someone who just prevented your head being blown off? Niko thinks so.

Eve Moore, with her perfect golden perm, instantly sees the distraught expression on her son's face, and admittedly, she has to keep herself from laughing. She knows Niko has big eyes, but she's never seen them go THIS big. She's never seen him frown THIS much, either. Not even that one time when a much younger Niko and Annette were watching a horror film for the first time during a winter where the snow had turned the mountains into ghosts, and Eve had to put the movie off and apologize profusely (with cake and waffles) because Annette couldn't stop crying and Niko was angry because he felt like it was his mom's fault his best friend was upset.

"Niko?" Eve frowns, the same way her son does, the sound of bacon sizzling to be heard. Niko doesn't look up and keeps reading. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost. Worse yet, you look like you've seen the devil. Speaking of, how was Marley's party? Did you have fun?"

At that moment John Moore comes in, nonchalantly as ever, fingers busy with fixing his tie and a lazy grin stretched on his lips. He looks at his son, rising his brows, apparently just as surprised as Eve is. Niko doesn't even avert his gaze from the newspaper in his hands, causing John to grin from ear to ear. "Good morning, adoring audience!"

"It's no use," Eve giggles as her husband kisses her cheek the way he did when they went on their first date, or the way he did when they first saw their sweet, little Niko, laying in a crib, only a year old and destined to make part of their family. "He's in a whole other world. He looks even more distraught than he did when we gave him the talk."

"He looks more distraught than that time at that pool party. Remember that? With Annette and the blue bikini? That was—" John starts to laugh, but Niko does not when he looks at his parents standing there like a couple of ass-hats (according to him, anyway). His cheeks grow red-hot and he gets up, scowl even bigger than it had been a moment before.

"If you think I can't hear you guys, you're obviously wrong," Niko rolls his eyes, "And just so you know, I'm walking away from this conversation. Which, by the way, I didn't even sign up to be involved in. Goodbye. Farewell. Arrivederci."

As he gets up the stairs to get into his clothes, appetite for bacon or any kind of food at all having dropped under zero, he hears his parents laughing.

And while Niko won't ever admit it, he can't help himself from grinning, either.

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  "AS YOU ALL WELL KNOW, there are two kinds of webs constructed by spiders: there is, again, as you all know, no consistency between the classification of spiders and the type of web they build," Mr. Bretve—bald, lithe, looking something like that guy from the Hitman movie Niko regretted going to see (and paying actual, real-life money for) but was too cowardly to ask for his money back—speaks, short fingers moving around and about as he says it, obviously trying hard to make his point clear to the class sitting slumped before him. "First and foremost there is the orb web, from which about half the potential prey can manage to escape. While horizontal orbs are quite common—despite being more vulnerable to damage by rain and less competent when it comes to retaining prey—the majority of spiders build webs that are non-orb."