An Eensy Weensy Story

Thanks to all of you who read and commented on my first page of April Magic. It's on hold for now, while I try to figure out where I want the story to go. In the meantime I wrote a short little children's story, for fun. I haven't decided if it's just a good writing exercise, or something I want to refine and maybe send to a children's publisher, but I thought I'd at least post it here, and see if any of you like it! No title yet. If anyone has any cute suggestions for one, let me know!


He cast his many eyes up the dark tunnel that was his personal mountain to overcome. Reaching the end of that vertical tube of metal would open a world of opportunities to him. Food, glory, honor. He has no name, because spiders don't have names. They do however, have goals.

He wasn't a special spider. He was simply an ordinary brown spider, without special advantages like jumping, or a poisonous bite. He wasn't even large. In fact, he could even be described as eensy or weensy. Despite his insignificance, he dreamed big. His dream was to build a web to be proud of. From the corner of the gutter to the wooden siding of the big house, it would sparkle with dew from the morning sun. By mid afternoon it would be large and invisible to prey, promising an end to his hungry nights. Stunning even humans, they would pause to gaze at the glory of its geometric beauty, thinking it too perfect to destroy. He could already picture his almost living dream, there at the end of the tunnel. The tall, slippery, black tunnel that was the water spout.

Wayne sighed as he kicked his grass stained sneaker against a rock in the garden. His mood was as gray as the stormy clouds overhead. "Leonard" he mumbled, "Leonard the bully."

Scratching at the tears peeking out his eyes, he recalled the hurtful names Leonard screamed at him during the recess basketball game. Wayne had worked so hard, and practiced so long. Not long enough. He still stumbled over his feet, and missed crucial baskets. The other boys might have been more patient with him, if it weren't for Leonard. Leonard made laughing at him part of the game. Wayne gazed up at the basketball hoop above him. So high. So impossible. He'd never be good, and Leonard would never go away. It wasn't worth the effort to keep practicing. In frustration, he kicked his basketball across the yard. Running to go kick it again, he noticed a tiny spider by the foot of the ball. Lifting his foot to smash it, Wayne yelled, "I hate spiders! I hate basketball, and I hate Leonards!"

The spider scurried away, barely avoiding disaster that would come from Wayne's shoe. As he lifted his foot high to stomp again, the spider dodged into a crack in the cement. Eight legs flying, he made it to the water spout, and started his precarious assent. His goal and precious dream now combined with a desperate will to survive.

"NOOOOO!" screamed Wayne in frustration, "I hate you! I hate you Leonard! You wont win. I wont let you!!!"

Wayne ran around the side of the house for the garden hose. With a squeak from the pipes, he twisted it on so the water sprayed at full force.

Frantic were the spider's thoughts as he scrambled up the steep, dark tunnel. He had the will power to survive, and a dream to push him forward. He'd reach the top, and make his web, his web to be proud of. Even this hateful human boy wouldn't dare harm him then. Not when he saw his glittering, perfect, masterpiece. He could see something bright at the end of the darkness, and knew he was almost there. It was a shining source of hope, so very close. And then the water came. Great cold bursts of it, sending him crashing down the metal tunnel and swirling into a small pool at the base of the waterspout.

Standing over the tiny spider, hose in hand, was Wayne. Trembling in his shadow, the spider looked up, his many eyes giving him a dozen perspectives of this monster boy. Wayne glared back, seeing not the spider, but Leonard's mocking face. Just then a ray of sun peeked out of the clouds, filtered around the trees, and brought a soft yellow glow to the yard. Wayne could feel it warming his cheeks, and watched it reflect off the puddle at his feet. Relaxing his clenched fist that held the hose, he saw the little spider again. "You're not Leonard", Wayne whispered. Tossing the hose into the flower bed, he said under his breath, "You're me".

Slowly he bent down, picked up his ball, and turned back to his basketball hoop. The spider dashed to the safety of the shadows. He stared up the long, metal tunnel, a faint light sparkling at its end, and started climbing.

April Magic

I've had the beginings of a story running around in my head for a few years, and I decided it's time I stop daydreaming about it, and actually write it down. It's still a draft, so don't be too critical, but if this were the first page of a book you picked up, would you keep reading? Let me know what you think!

April felt the book slide from her fingers as she started to nod off. It hit the floor with a soft thud. She glanced at Mindy, her roommate. Sound asleep. Good. Her fingertips tingled slightly as she willed the magic to bring the book back to her hand. It was the painting on the dust cover that brought this one to April's attention. Delicately poised by a flower, was a tiny fairy, glowing slightly. The creature seemed much too pretty to be real, which is exactly why April bought the book. So far the story hadn't disappointed her. It was filled with rich descriptions of a beautiful land, and fantastic creatures. The very words on the page seemed to sparkle, and April felt instantly transported into a place more exotic and wonderful than the dull college dormitory where she lived. Her clock read 2:15 AM. She needed to stop staying up so late reading. It's not as if she didn't have other things she should be studying. College professors seemed to take pleasure in assigning weeks worth of material to learn each night. April often wondered how her peers managed it. How did they absorb all that knowledge and keep up with the heavy workload? She refused to find out. Her father had warned her against this. "Don't become dependant on the magic," he had said. "It feels like an extra hand, and very easily becomes a second nature you're barely aware of. Where would I be though if I hadn't learned to do everything on my own, with out its aid?"
April let out a soft sigh. She knew he was right. It was much easier than she had thought, discovering her new gift. The magic wasn't at all like it was in her fantasy books. Those stories described something wild, and hard to master. Magic was something with a mind of it's own, that daring warlocks tried to control. To April, it was simply an extension of her self. She controlled it as easily as she controlled her own limbs. It was special, but not exactly mysterious. She probably hadn't discovered all it's posiblities yet, but so far it seemed pretty simple. When she wanted something she couldn't reach, it came. If she needed to absorb the knowledge of a book for a test, she picked up the book, and let the knowledge seep into her mind. She wasn't a computer, with every sentence locked in her memory. Learning the book felt more like watching a movie she hadn't seen in awhile. Just as the distant memory of the movie becomes clear again, the lessons from the book would come to the forefront of her mind. It wasn't that way with every book she touched. She controlled it. When she wanted to learn the contents of a book without reading it, she did.
"I'm not lazy," April told herself. "I just want to be able to choose for myself what I spend all my time thinking about. If I tried to actually read every word in those textbooks, I'd never have time for this," she thought, while tracing the wings of the pretty fairy on the cover with her finger. She had this amazing mysterious skill, yet nothing about her life seemed magical at all. It still showed no resemblance to the fairy tales she couldn't get enough of.