The Niamh Chronicles - The Spider Episode

Niamh is home alone on a day off when she's attacked by her worst fear

Oh yeah, this the life - sitting around watching YouTube videos of cats and drinking pink lemonade with my feet up on my bed. Whilst simultaneously worrying that I’m doing nothing productive. Hey, cat videos are productive! They produce happiness. That thought’s going to keep my lazy guilt at bay for a while longer.
                I do have to sit side-on to my desk and face the bedroom door, which plays havoc with my back, as Kev took to shooting nerf darts at me when my back was turned. Scared the s**t out of me more than once, the b*****d. The only time I can relax is when everyone’s gone to bed and it’s socially acceptable for me to shut my door.
                But this is a good compromise. This way I am prepared for visitors. At least of the human variety.
                Then I see something move out the corner of my eye.

                I freeze mid-pink lemonade sip, and the liquid lurches up to invade my nostrils. I snort it out as best I can without moving, my eyes fixed on my left shoulder and the eight-legged beast that’s contaminating the light pink colour of my knitted jumper.
                Spider. On me. It’s huge. Huge spider on me. Spider on my shoulder. Heading towards my face. 

                The pink lemonade bottle flies across the room as I catapult out of my chair and dive over the bed. I bat at my shoulder as I go, but it’s not enough. So I try to wrench my jumper off mid-dive, and end up crumpling to the floor on the other side of the bed, tangled in a mass of pink wool. All I see is pink wool.
                Should have known - pink had never been a lucky colour for me.
                I think I’ve landed on my face; it’s pressed into something flat and squishy, feels like a carpet. Where are my legs? Er… I wiggle them around. Air, lots of air. Are they up in the air? I think I’m smushed against the side of the bed, so I flop forward like the least graceful seal in existence until my legs land on the floor.

                What if the spider is still in here? I might be trapped in this jumper turned straight jacket with it. It might be in my HAIR.
                I’ve seen my cat do this, shrinking up her body like an accordion whenever I throw a blanket over her. Which I do a lot. I squish up, my spine clicking at the small of my back as I try to leave the jumper behind. It takes a lot of wriggling, but my head finally erupts into freedom. But I still can’t see, as my hair tangles in a black fluffy mess over my face.
                I wrench my arms free, throwing away the jumper - it’s dead to me now - and scramble for the door whilst clawing at my hair.
                As a consequence of not looking where I’m going, I run into the hallway wall. But my elbows took the brunt of it.
                Screw vanity! There might be a spider in my hair and I don’t care if I look like a manic cavewoman as I run into the living room and sprint through the kitchen towards the bathroom. I’m not going there or anything, I’m not that frightened. But I need to run from the Shelob that’s trying to kill me and the bathroom is the longest distance away.

                I stop at the sink, as unfortunately this isn’t a cartoon and I can’t run through brick walls to leave a Niamh-shaped hole behind me. More’s the pity.
                My heart’s beating so hard that I’m quite glad this isn’t a cartoon - it would burst from my chest, grow legs and run off otherwise. I’m breathing like an asthmatic in China, but my panic’s never impressive enough to actually make me hyperventilate.
                I smooth my hands over my head, fingers catching in the new tangles of my hair. But no spi…OH GOD IS THAT IT? IT’S STILL IN MY HAIR! STILL IN MY HAIR!
                Even though the thought of touching a spider makes me want to jump off something high, the urge to get it away from me is stronger. So I curl my fingers around the soft lump that’s buried amidst the mass of my hair, and I pull it free. There’s no way to do that quickly; my hair never lets anything go without a fight.
                My breath catches and I’m ready to scream as the lump clears the last strands of my hair and I curl my fist around it.
                It’s going to kill me. It’s going to kill me. It’s going to kill me.
                Kev and Dee are going to come home to find me dead on the bathroom floor with the imprint of eight legs on my throat. That thing was definitely big enough to strangle me.
                Holding my hand out as far away from my face as possible, which isn’t very far, I slowly unfurl my fingers.
                The black, fluffy shape is crumples in the centre of my palm. Several long strands of black hair spring from it to trace lines over my skin. It expands a little as its freed, but otherwise doesn’t move.

                Oh.

                It’s a hair-tie.

                The relief drops me like a puppet with its strings cut. Well, not literally. As much as Dee cleans this bathroom, I still don’t feel like dropping to the floor in here. Kev swears he has good aim, but I’m sure there are remnants of piss around the toilet somewhere.
                So I just lean on the sink, taking in deep breaths as my happiness at being out of danger makes me light-headed. It’s either that or the near-hyperventilation.
                But a thought occurs to me and my heartrate picks up again. If the spider isn’t in my hair…
                Where is it?

                I slowly turn around, my eyes feeling like they’re going to pop out my head. I almost expect the spider to be there, like a horror movie villain. But there are no ominous black splodges on the kitchen floor.                
                Right, Niamh, you can do this. You’ve got rid of spiders before. Admittedly not alone; I can get them into a glass now, sliding the paper underneath it still needs work. Someone else has always chucked it away for me though; the task is fraught with dangers.
                Yep, I’m still going to die today.
                “Kev?” I yell, half-hoping that I’m wrong and Kev is holed up in his room playing computer games. “You there?” Dee would be no help, she’s as frightened of spiders as I am. Whenever we encounter a spider, it turns into an opera of squealing as one of us tries to be brave enough to catch it. Feminism is probably ashamed of us.

                So I grab the biggest glass I can find from the cupboard, a pint glass stolen from some pub or other, and Kev’s birthday card from the living room table. It’s a horrible double standard; I’m terrified of spiders, but I have to look for one if it’s disappeared from sight. I can’t just sleep in my room with a damn tarantula somewhere in there! It could hug my face, like those things from the Alien movies that look like skeleton hands.

                The living room looks clear as I sneak through into the hallway, scanning the carpet before each step. Crap, Shelob must still be in my room.
                I round the corner, wincing at the aftermath of my fight. The duvet is half-hanging off the bed; it reaches the floor so Shelob could have climbed up there by now. My pink jumper lies by the wall, a heap of potential death that stares me down. I creep towards it.
                It’s times like this I wish my legs were longer; they don’t put much distance between me and the jumper as I do a slow-lunge forward and take hold of the jumper with finger and thumb.
                I wonder what my obituary will say. In Memory of Niamh O’Connell. A brave young girl who died in battle. May her memory live on as inspiration for those still fighting the Arachnid Wars. Dee and Kev will blame themselves - ‘We should never have left her home alone!’ - Maybe Kev will mention that time I tried to open a jar by myself and cut my hand when the glass broke.
                The jumper lifts, and I have to raise my arm above my head before the floor beneath it is revealed. Nothing. Oh dear lord, what if it’s in the jumper? What if I’m holding it right now? I give the jumper a shake. Nothing. I peer into the neck-hole as best I can. Then I squash both arms to be sure. Nope. Not there. Christ! Where the hell is it?
                “Okay, spider. Let’s be real here for a moment. This is my room, and whilst I appreciate your right to live, you can’t live in the same space as me. So just make this easy on both of us and we can both go away happy.”
                Just once I wish a spider would emerge waving a white flag and go on its way.
                “Things are going to get ugly in here, is that what you want? Is it? Okay, b***h! You asked for this!”
                I yank the duvet off the bed. Shelob falls onto the floor, I can almost feel the ground shake when she lands, and she scuttles toward me. I squeal like a terrified piglet and run in a random direction that just happens to be down the hall and out the front door. In my fluffy socks, leggings and my vest top with an owl picture on it.

                Which is where Kev finds me when he gets home from uni two hours later. I watch the thought process in his expressions, from first spotting me to taking in the pint glass and card that I’m still holding. I grin brightly at him as he walks up.
                “Hey Kev, how’s it going?”
                “Good,” he frowns at my fluffy blue socks and owl vest top. “How are you?”
                “Great! I ran out the front door.”
                “I got that.”
                “It closed behind me.”
                “Right.”
                “I can’t get back in!”
                “Uh huh.”
                “There’s a…”
                “Spider in there.”
                “You get me!” I hold out the pint glass and card. Kev rolls his eyes as he gets his keys out and unlocks the door before he takes the spider-defeating weapons from me and steps inside the house.
                I creep behind him, peering over his shoulder to see Shelob sitting there in the hallway waiting for us like an evil Bond villain. “Jesus, that thing is f*****g huge!” Kev exclaims. I refrain from making the obvious joke and pat him on the shoulder.
                “I believe in you Kev. Throw that b***h outta here.” Then I back right out of the front door and leave him to it. If I hear his death scream then I know to run and warn the world that an evil spider mastermind has surfaced and none of us are safe.
                I do hear Kev muttering to himself in the hallway, probably something less than flattering about me, and smile at a guy who gives me a funny look as he walks past on the pavement.
                Oh yeah, I have the hair of a cavewoman.
                As I’m fruitlessly trying to comb my fingers through hair that seems to be fast gaining sentience, Kev squeaks " a girly whoop that he usually makes when he drops food. I’m ready to run. I’m ready to run.
                “Ah!” The yelp is totally involuntary as Kev emerges from the doorway, Shelob held before him like a snarling dog trapped under a pint glass. Jesus, she looks even bigger. I like to think that’s just the magnifying effect of the glass.
                I dance behind Kev and back into the house. I’d also like to think that I wouldn’t shut the door on him if this goes wrong. But I’m definitely kidding myself there. I hold the door and watch as he stops on the pavement, several more passers by giving him funny looks as he prepares to release Shelob into the wild.
                Kev pauses for a moment. Then in one fast movement, like a cat attacking its own reflection, he flicks the pint glass along the card and away from him.
                It’s a solid method for getting rid of a spider. But throwing the entire glass, card and spider away really makes sure the job is done.
                The glass slips from Kev’s fingers and flies off into the road. In a panic, Kev also Frisbees the card away and runs back toward me as the glass shatters on the tarmac.
                Well, at least it didn’t hit any cars.
                Kev zooms into the hallway, a blur before my eyes, and I quickly slam the door shut. There, the mess is left outside, it can’t get in here. Mess out there. Safe in here. Plausible deniability " ‘No, officer. I have no idea who threw a pint glass into the road, I was studying. Kev? Kev who? You found his birthday card? We’ve been looking for that!’ Failing that, I can just run home to Ireland.
                We stop there, Kev catching his breath at the end of the hallway, me at the front door. All in all, I think that could have gone worse. And Kev and I both agree on one thing.
                “Let’s not tell Dee about this,” he suggests.
                “About what?” I grin. The shock that froze us both melts away into a fit of giggles, and we both sink to the floor unable to breath. I haven’t laughed this hard since Dee tried to sit on the shelves in her wardrobe and broke through them all.
                After a while, with my stomach aching and my face stained with tears, I manage to get my feet and Kev and I make our way into the living room to recover with a cup of tea and a rich supply of biscuits.