Once upon a time, there was a spider named Larry. He lived on his little web in the corner of the giant’s castle with a wood roof above him. It was the only home he had ever known, and he liked it a lot. Especially the food. There were sooo many flies. Plus, the giants never noticed him. He was up in a corner. Often, he would crawl up onto the roof and look around. All he ever saw the clearing he lived in, and all of the four buildings in it. And trees. So many trees. He was sure he was in a forest full of them, and as far as he could tell, that was what the world was made of. He’d heard enough stories to know what the woods were like. They were terrifying. Monsters everywhere, hunting you, swarming you. He would never go there as long as he lived!
There was one thing that puzzled him, however. There was a gray line more than twenty five spiders wide in the ground. It curved out of view and into the forest. The weirdest part was the monsters. They roared down the path, destroying anything in their way. He simply could not understand why the giants would want those… monstosities anywhere near them. Why, the monsters could eat them whole! And then that led him to thinking, “Could the path be a prison of the monsters?” Of course, that just led back to his first thought.
But… it couldn’t be, for the giants walked calmly into the monster’s jaws. Why would they do such things? Alas, these were the questions that kept him up at night.
One day, after many nights of bad sleep, Larry had enough! He would sneak into the monster’s maw and find out the secrets hidden within. He would be a hero!
Only if he made it out alive.
That thought chilled him to the bone.
He tried to postpone it as much as he could, but he knew he had to do it. He had procrastinated enough. It was long past time.
So, early on a Wednesday morning, he woke up with a purpose.
He didn’t know when they arrived. They had simply appeared out of thin air, it seemed. Whatever; he had made a promise; and he was going to keep it. That only left him with one major problem: how to get into the monster.
He could not just hop into the jaws, as he could only jump so far and high. Plus, the giants would see him. He knew they hated his kind. He had to be stealthy. Maybe he could climb up from its legs onto the monster’s underbelly. Larry didn’t know what was there, though; and he was more curious about the inside.
Then he saw the bags.
When his mother had made him bags, they where maybe…a leg long. No no no no no, that was not what these were like. They were ginormous! (Although he supposed that they were the size of the giants’ legs). The perfect place to hide. He crawled up onto an especially large bag while the giants were not looking and found exactly what he was looking for. A hole. A tiny hole, but it was big enough for him. He squeezed through the hole
Inside the bag it was dark. He didn’t care. He could still see. He looked around, barely fitting in the spaces between giant boulders. He found a small cave, settled down, and fell asleep.
He woke up to the jostling of the bag he was in. He was safe, but his heart pounded. He felt like he had the best sleep ever and he was ready for adventure.
Ten minutes later, he was bored. He had forgotten to bring anything for entertainment. He had thought he would be entertained by just the prospect of being in one of those monsters, but there was nothing to do!
That was where he was wrong. He thought about it and realized: he had never actually seen the inside of whatever he was in! He crawled back to the top and squeezed out of the hole and looked around.
It was not what he expected.
He was not in a monster, he realized, he was in a transportation device. With windows. He didn’t feel any wind, so he assumed he was not moving. He could see the bright, blue sky from his vantage point on the ground, but not anything else. If he wanted to see where he was, he would have to be sneaky about it. He crawled up the back of the seat in the back onto the top and went to the window.
He was moving. He could feel it now. The trees breezed by as he stared in amazement. He must have been there for hours. He decided to name it the MTD; Moving Transportation Device. He wondered what the giants called it, as the MTD slowed down and came to a stop. He frantically scrambled back to his bag and dove in. He was just in time, too, because he wasn’t even at the cave when he was jostled again and (he assumed) put on the ground. He crawled out and onto the bag. He was about to get off of the bag when the ground seemed to be just out of reach. It was then that he realized he wasn’t on the ground, as he had previously thought. He was, in fact, being carried. By a giant. He almost screamed! He ran back into the bag and hid until he was sure that the giants hadn’t seen him. Even when he was set down, he crept cautiously to look out of the bag. It was a good thing too, because as soon as he got out, he was picked up once again.
Once he was put down, and had heard the giants rush away, he crawled out of his bag and started to explore.
He was in a room, apparently. He had never been inside one before. He had always thought that it was too dangerous. Then again, he had thought that the MTDs were monsters. Well, he was there, so whatever.
After he had thoroughly explored the inside, he decided to go outside. Only, he was blocked! He could see through it, but there was some metallic thread preventing his escape. After trying for a while to push past it, he sat down and yelled in frustration.
He wasn’t expecting an answer.
“Are you new?”
A voice. Calling to him. Wait, was it…
He decided to respond anyway, “Yes.” The response, “To get out, crawl to the top. There’s a hole.” He followed the instructions. He was out! “Thank you phantom voice,” he responded. “Look up,” the voice instructed. He looked up.
He saw the BIGGEST spider he had ever seen (though he hadn’t seen many)! He jumped back! “Don’t worry. I will not harm you,”.
“Wherearewewhoareyouwhatishappening!!!!!”, he asked. “Ok, slow down. My name is Zoe, and you are at Camp Kirkwood and you are going to be my eternal slave!!! MWA HA HAAAA!!!”. “AHHHHHHHHH”, Larry ran. “Wait, I’m just kidding,”.
He stopped. “I can show you around.” Larry went back slowly, “As long as I don’t have to be your eternal slave,” he agreed.
“Deal.”
And so Zoe showed him the camp. “This is where the giants play,” she explained and these are my friends and this is a pool.”
He watched the giants play in the pool, on the V-Swing (which was like a giant swing/zip line), on the zip line, and on the giant blob that no one knew the name of. All of them looked so fun. She even showed him the food that the giants ate (Spoiler: it was not flies or mosquitoes). It still looked yummy though.
They sat in a boat that was rowed by giants across a lake.
Life was beautiful.
When the MTD went back he did not come.
He was already at home.
HONK!!! – famous quote from Gooseman, Harbinger of Honks.