Holiday Project

The last door slams. In the car park, engines roar and fade, bike wheels scatter pebbles. Green-painted walls seem to sigh in relief or yearning, and the only sounds are the soft shuffle of rubber-soled shoes and the jingle of keys as the caretaker goes around locking up classrooms and turning off lights.

There’s a pause as evening light leaches from the greasy windows in the canteen, and tiny bright eyes wink open in stock cupboards. Paws scurry. Teeth gnaw. Wings flutter. In the quiet dark of forgotten spaces, all summer long, things breed and grow.

And not just in school. It’s the second week of the holidays when Tyler gets bored enough of computer games and skateboarding to pull himself up through the trapdoor that leads into the attic of his home, and crawl through the boxes and furniture piled there. That’s when he finds it.

Creamy, teardrop-shaped, delicately beautiful. He reaches out to touch it, but some instinct holds him back. Then, a black blob scuttles across the web, a red flash on its abdomen, and he withdraws his fingers in a hurry. But the sac gets him thinking.

Tyler does something he’s never done before – uses his computer for actual research online. That’s how he figures out he needs to rig a makeshift net using his mom’s kitchen film to catch the hatchling spiders as they try to balloon away.

It’s fascinating to watch them feast on each other in the first few days. Tyler watches their feeding frenzy in awe, imagining it’s Mizz Pooler they’re feasting on, until all that’s left of her is her stupid ugly glasses. It’s a nice fantasy, even if he knows it could never really happen. Black widows aren’t all that dangerous, he’s discovered. A bite would almost certainly not kill the old witch.

But a dozen bites? Tyler smirks. Let’s call it a science experiment.

Tyler cares for his baby spiders with a tenacity he’s never shown for anything before. He catches flies and bugs to feed them, rigging ingenious traps near his dad’s compost heap in the garden, dropping the still struggling insects into the intricate drapery of webs his pets have woven. He loves to watch as each spider stalks toward its prey. Twisting helpless in the sticky threads, each is a miniature Mizz Pooler, her tiny, shrunken voice wailing “help meeeeee!”

Tyler makes sure they’re all as well fed as possible before he transfers them to the biscuit tin he zips into his sports bag. He doesn’t want them getting hungry and eating each other before he’s had a chance to spring his plan. Tomorrow, school will start up again, and Mizz Pooler’s venom will be let loose on a new class full of victims. He can hear her voice in his head, as clear as if she’s looming over him.

Stop that fiddling!

Pay attention!

Are you stupid?

Careless boy!

Tyler might be free of her now, moving up to another class with a different teacher, but it doesn’t mean he’s forgotten. Or forgiven. Not by a long shot.

With a patience Mizz Pooler would never suspect him capable of, Tyler waits and watches until the last car pulls out of the lot after teacher planning day’s done.  Carefully, he sneaks around the back of the school to the boys’ washroom. The far window’s still open. Always is, come summer dust or winter blizzard. Carefully, breathing through his mouth with his tongue between his teeth, he reaches in and lifts the gunky, dust-crusted latch to drag the window wide and heave himself in, pulling his sports bag carefully after him.

His friends wouldn’t believe it if they could see him now – Tyler Morris breaking in to school? Most of the time he’d happily break things trying to get out. The yellowing floor tiles with their smell of new polish wake a familiar faint sickness in his belly, but he screws it down and follows the maze of corridors to the door of Mizz Pooler’s classroom. He traces the bumpy letters of her name on the little metal plaque and scowls. Other teachers have already decorated their doors with welcoming pictures and funny cartoons. Not Mizz Pooler. Her door is as bare and blank as a prison cell. He pushes it open. On the wall inside is a poster in grim black font, “Classroom Rules.” He doesn’t need to read it. She’s made him copy it out so many times he knows it by heart.

Eagerly now, his breath coming fast, he sneaks over to her desk. With trembling fingers he opens the top drawer, hearing its familiar squeak with a mixture of revulsion and glee. The contents are as regulated as Mizz Pooler herself. On the left, a very small pile of miserly rewards, fresh and new in their crinkly plastic wrappers. A spool of gold stars. A pack of cheap lollipops from the dollar store. He tears it open and unwraps one, slurping with satisfaction as he lifts out the pile of red detention slips and rips them into tiny pieces that scatter like bloody confetti on the worn carpet.

Then he goes to work. He takes the gaffer tape from his bag, meticulously sealing up every crack he can find in the drawer. Then he slides the clear plastic bag in there like a skin, taping it in place and rearranging all Mizz Pooler’s supplies inside it. He smirks as he imagines her tsking angrily, tearing it open, thinking it’s a silly prank, stupid, harmless.

Harmless? No.

Stupid? This is about the smartest thing Tyler’s ever done.

With everything in place, he slips the biscuit tin from his bag and holds it over the opening of the taped-in baggie, painstakingly gathering up the loose edge so none of his precious spiders escape during the transfer.

Tongue between his teeth again, he inches his fingers around the lid of the tin and carefully, so carefully, cracks it open.

Small black-and-red bodies scurry for freedom, swarming over each other into the desk. So many. He smiles in satisfaction at the thought of Mizz Pooler’s unsuspecting hand reaching into her drawer. Imagines her shriek as she staggers backwards, her ugly glasses shattering as they hit the floor. How many bites to make her froth at the mouth? How many to finish her off completely?

He's still smiling as he lets himself down from the washroom window, the biscuit tin in his sports bag clanking as he hits the ground.

He doesn’t stop grinning all the way home. He’s so happy he doesn’t even notice the first little nip, like a pin-prick on his shoulder, where the strap of his bag rests.

It takes until the fourth or fifth one for him to realise he’s in trouble.

He just manages to make it through the front door before he collapses onto the carpet in the hallway, vision blurry, breath coming in rasps.

A dozen or more spiders run out from under his shirt and scatter under the skirting boards.

He should have checked the tin was empty. Should have made sure the lid was on tight.

Careless boy.

This story is dedicated to Cheyanne, who got her own back on a mean teacher in a far, far better way. Success is the best form of revenge, after all. Enjoy your dream uni, my dear!