underwear decorated with Porky and Petunia Pig figures, was collapsed on the settee. Winifred and Chips
Madigan stood over him while Dirk Farrar peered out
from behind the door of Room Four. Angela, Ellie,
Ben, and Dade were nowhere to be seen.
“What’s going on?” Judith asked, noting that Bruno
was shuddering and writhing just as he had done on the
back porch.
Dirk opened the door a few more inches. “Another
damned spider. Big as a house. Or so he says.” He
smothered a smile.
“No!” Judith couldn’t believe it. In late summer,
harmless, if imposing, wood spiders sometimes
crawled into the basement, but it was too late in the
year for them to show up. She marched to Bruno’s
room, where the door was ajar.
Ben Carmody was standing by Bruno’s bed, laughing so hard that his sides shook. “Look,” he finally
managed to say. “It’s a spider, all right, but . . .”
Judith charged over to the bed, then gave a start.
“Ohmigod!”
A black, long-legged creature with a furry body lay
on the bottom sheet just below the pillows. Judith
stood frozen in place until Ben picked the thing up by
one leg and bounced it off the floor.
“It’s fake,” he said, still chuckling. “It’s one of those
rubber spiders kids have for Halloween. Where’s your
garbage? I’ll take it outside and dump the thing in
there.”
“Oh!” Judith put a hand over her wildly beating
heart, then reached out to Ben. “I’ll get rid of it. You
tell Mr. Zepf that the spider wasn’t real.”
Ben had grown serious. “Some prank. It could have
given old Bruno a heart attack.”
Judith stuffed the rubber spider in the pocket of her
bathrobe and went back into the hall. No one except
Dirk seemed to notice her passage as she headed for
the back stairs. Five minutes later she returned to the
second floor, where Ben and Chips were helping a
rubber-legged Bruno back into his room. Winifred had
already disappeared and Dirk had closed his door. Judith continued up to the family quarters. She didn’t get
back to sleep for almost an hour.
Meanwhile, Joe continued to snore softly.
As usual, Judith had breakfast ready to go by eight
o’clock. Since it was a Saturday, and Joe had the day
off, he didn’t come downstairs until eight-fifteen.
“No-shows, huh?” he inquired, pouring himself a
