Raelynn Ashton hummed to her favorite song, slipping her iPod into her hoodie pocket and sitting down against her locker, clipboard and pencil in hand. She loved when she had a free period. Shuffling her papers, Raelynn jotted down a bunch of linear equations and did her math homework, occasionally rolling her eyes when the correct answer was something ridiculous along the lines of “Skippy bought 800 rolls of toilet paper.” Just as she took out her History textbook, she felt something on her leg. Brushing it off as her imagination, she went back to learning about the Mongols and how Genghis Khan is the ancestor of 0.5% of the population. Again, she felt something crawling up her leg. Her blood ran cold as she locked eyes with the tan arachnid. Letting out an ear-splitting scream, Raelynn jumped to her feet and whacked the little hairy thing with her clipboard, sending it tumbling to the ground. Her science teacher, Ms. Diao, rushed into the hallway. “I heard you scream,” she said, concerned. “Is something wrong?” “Spider!” Raelynn squeaked as she pointed with a shaky finger at the scuttling creature. Ms. Diao sighed and <em>picked up</em> the spider! Yelping, Raelynn backed away. Frowning, Ms. Diao asked, “Why are you so scared of spiders?” Raelynn explained quickly that her grandmother had died in front of her because of a spider bite on a vacation in Australia. “What did it look like?” Ms. Diao questioned, examining the one-and-a-half-inch-long arachnid she held in her palm. “Um, it was four centimeters long, had long legs, glossy, black in color-” “That was probably a male Sydney funnel-web; the <em>Atrax robustus</em>,” the teacher cut her off. “Those are native to eastern Australia and quite deadly. Don’t worry, nowadays arachnophobia isn’t uncommon. But not all spiders are harmful.” At the doubtful look Raelynn gave her, Ms. Diao added, “See? Look at this wolf spider. It will bite when continuously provoked, but those are rarely lethal. We need to learn to love nature and not judge an entire species of animals. You talk fondly about your dog in class during the mammal unit. What if a dog had, unfortunately, mauled your grandmother? Would you dislike dogs?” Raelynn thought about it. It was true. This spider had contributed nothing to her grandmother’s sad death. And those eight eyes were pretty cute in a way, staring at her intensely. She carefully reached towards it and let it climb onto her hand. “You know?” she mused. “Not all spiders are bad, after all.” “For your information, wolf spiders are common pets,” Ms. Diao’s eyes twinkled with mischief. They would hold pride a year later when Raelynn Ashton and her pet spider Muffet won the award for the coolest pet at the annual animal fair.
