We Dine With Cannibals Read Online Free PDF Page A

American wandering spider was the most venomous spider in the world.
    â€œBeverly,” Oliver whispered. “Where are you? You still hungry, girl? A little dessert after your bat? There’s a yummy spider on my head. …”
    Oliver couldn’t believe he was actually
trying
to get the most poisonous lizard in the world to jump on his head, even if it was so it would eat the most poisonous spider in the world. This was not how he imagined his day would go when he woke up that morning.
    Beverly, however, did not jump on his head. She had just eaten a bat and half a snack cake and shewas scurrying around in the dark, crunching on beetle shells like they were popcorn. She was as happy as a
Heloderma horridum
could be. She had no desire to fight the poisonous spider on top of Oliver’s head.
    â€œJust stay calm,” Celia told her brother. “I’ll think of something.”
    Celia thought about her favorite soap operas.
Amores Enchiladas
was no help.
Love at 30,000 Feet
wasn’t either. Why would there be spiders on a show about an airplane? Captain Sinclair once had an affair with a woman called the Black Widow, which was a kind of spider. She tried to poison his doughnut. That wasn’t really helpful. What did
The Celebrity Adventurist
have to say about this?
    Don’t let go of the rope,
she thought.
    That was not helpful. She remembered an interview with Corey Brandt on
Celebrity Access Tonight.
He grew up in Idaho. He liked to swim. His astrological sign was Capricorn.
    She pictured him sitting with the interviewer, slouched in his chair, a wisp of brown hair falling across his forehead. The freckle under his eye looking like a little teardrop. “I’m a normal guy,you know? I don’t have a personal shopper. I don’t hang out with supermodels. I’m afraid of heights.”
    How was that supposed to help her? Why couldn’t celebrities say useful things in interviews? She didn’t know what to do.
    She
did
know that she hated standing in the dark thinking about TV shows that couldn’t help her. She
did
know that this was a terribly dangerous place for two eleven-year-olds to be, and that if it weren’t for their father’s dumb bet with Sir Edmund or their mother’s disappearance or the Lost Library of Alexandria, they wouldn’t be there at all.
    She thought about what her parents would do in this situation.
    They would want to study the spider and think about why it behaved the way it did, and wonder what they could learn from it about
biodiversity
, which was just an explorer’s way of saying “weird stuff in nature.” She decided to do the opposite of what her parents would do.
    Celia took a deep breath and then snatched the giant spider with her bare hands. In one swift motion, she tossed it to the floor and stomped it under her foot into a squishy mess.
    â€œAh!” Oliver screamed.
    â€œIt’s gone!” Celia screamed back.
    â€œWhy did you do that?”
    â€œSomeone had to do something!”
    â€œBut that was the most poisonous spider in the world.”
    â€œWell, I didn’t know that!”
    â€œThey’re very rare!”
    â€œWell, it could have killed you!”
    â€œIt could have killed you!”
    â€œWell, it didn’t.”
    â€œSometimes you need to stop and think more,” Oliver told his sister. She could be very impatient.
    â€œAre you still alive?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThen stop complaining and come on.”
    â€œThere’s some good news,” Oliver added.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œWe’ve found the janitor’s closet.”
    â€œThe what?”
    Oliver pointed his flashlight ahead of him. The hall opened up into a grand chamber and the far wall was covered with what looked like hundreds of colorful mops.
    â€œWe’ve found mops,” Celia said into the walkie-talkie. “A room full of ancient mops.