Felix Takes the Stage Read Online Free PDF

round, children.” She paused. Edith never stayed angry for long. “Here, Felix, tuck in next to me, and Jo Bell, there’s a nice pocket in the starboard corner for you and one to port for Julep.”
    â€œWhat’s port? What’s starboard?” Julep asked.
    â€œSailors’ terms for left and right on a ship. Port is the left side when facing the front of a boat, starboard the right,” Edith explained. “As long as we are on a ship, we might as well use the correct language.”
    Edith folded her fangs neatly and settled herself into the center of her lopsided web. Then she began speaking in that slow, reflective voice that the children called her webtime story voice. It was as if the voice traveled back through a dim, dusty web of time, the gauzy blue mists of “the so long ago.” Human children might call these old stories fairy tales or legends or folktales. It was a time when stories that one wanted so desperately to believe really happened — just like the Place Where Time Has Stopped.

    â€œThere is a place far, far away. Some say it is a grand mansion, some say it is a small cabin in the woods, some say it is across an ocean — but I don’t think that’s so.” And Edith’s three children would always repeat silently to themselves those last six words, for they gave them hope. “Nonetheless —” Edith’s voice would now quicken. “There is a place where it is said that time has stopped.
    â€œWhat does that mean, that time has stopped? Does it mean that there is only summer or only winter? That there is only one moment, which has been frozen into forever-ness? That is not what’s most important about this place. For in this place, spiders are not feared. We are considered no more deadly than a daisy, less annoying than a mosquito. And we can live in peace and harmony. The E word is never mentioned.
    â€œAccording to legend, the place was discovered by a wandering hobo spider, a funnel weaver who had escaped the great extermination. Hobo spiders are also feared because of their venom. But we are decidedly more toxic. The hobo spiders arrived in this country, in the Pacific Northwest, long after we did.”
    She cast a glance toward the snobby orb weaver Oliphant Uxbridge. “But I am not going to get into a my-ancestors-came-earlier-than-yours-did competition. It doesn’t matter where you came from or how long ago. It doesn’t matter who you are in life but, rather, what you do. Remember that, children.” Edith paused, and each one of her six eyes gleamed as she looked at her three children.
    But it does matter, thought Felix. Nobody likes us, just because of our venom. The argument started again inside his head. But now was not the time. He wanted to hear this webtime story.
    â€œIn any case, this hobo spider was unfairly blamed for a lot of ‘attacks’ on humans. The bites were not fatal, and the hobo spider was not at fault. Nonetheless, the word was out and a wide extermination was launched to rid three states of these hobo spiders — Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Only a few spiders survived. And there was one who was said to have left the Northwest for a place far, far away. Some say he caught a ride on a freighter to Japan. Others claim that he went north, into the Arctic with the ice spiders.”

    â€œIt would stop time if he was frozen,” Felix offered.
    â€œThe spider traveled alone, nameless, anonymous. You see, this hobo’s bite had been mistaken for our bite, a brown recluse bite. He wanted nothing to do with any spiders after that. He sought solitude.”
    â€œDoes that mean he doesn’t like us?” Julep asked mournfully.
    â€œIt only means that he likes being alone better than keeping company,” Edith answered. “As the story goes, the hobo’s bites in the Place Where Time Has Stopped made the humans there even stronger and less fearful of