The Liberation of Gabriel King Read online

  “You could at least tell me what we’re looking for,” I yelled, but Frita didn’t answer, so I stuck the jar in the crook of an old bent tree and sat down on a dead branch.

  It was quiet for a long time and I started to worry Frita’d been eaten, until I heard her hollering.

  “Quick! Get the jar! Hurry!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I found one! I found one!”

  “Found what?”

  “A spider!” Frita yelled. “Come quick!”

  I’d been hurrying, but soon as she said that, I slowed way down.

  A spider?!

  Frita jumped up and down, waving her arms. Her yellow slicker had belonged to Terrance first, so it was too big for her and the arms looked like flags in the distance. I stalled for a long time so the spider could hightail it out of there. First, I pretended I couldn’t remember where I’d put the jar. Then I walked real slow, like I was trying to avoid all the deep spots.

  “The jar! The jar!” Frita yelled.

  When I finally reached her, she was standing in front of a giant spiderweb that stretched the whole distance between two huge cypress trees. A human being could get caught and eaten in a web that big. I swallowed hard, hoping the spider had made its getaway, and Frita danced from one leg to the other.

  “Quick! Give me the jar.”

  I paused real long. “You mean this jar?”

  “Yes! Hurry!”

  I studied the jar, thinking maybe it needed some polishing up before I could hand it over, but I didn’t have a chance to do anything because Frita grabbed it out of my hands.

  “I found the best spider,” she said.

  Now, in my book there was no such thing as a best spider. Maybe an invisible spider would be a best spider, but even that wouldn’t be any good because I didn’t want to think of invisible spiders crawling on me when I didn’t know about it.

  I squinted at the web. “I don’t see any spider,” I said, thinking it probably took the hint and scrammed, but that’s when Frita pointed up. There, right above my head, was the biggest yellow-and-black spider I had ever seen. It was so big and fat, I wondered how it could stay on the web without falling through. Every last drop of blood drained from my face and rushed to my toes.

  Frita was some excited. She reached toward the spider with the jar, but she could hardly stop fidgeting. She positioned the jar in back of the spider and the lid in front of the spider, and then she started to move real slow…

  That’s when I felt it on me. Spiders were famous for jumping long distances, and I could feel its hairy legs on my neck. I let loose a scream, and then I started shaking and twisting, trying to get it off. Frita was yelling and hollering too, but I couldn’t stop to listen.

  “It’s on me,” I yelled. “Get it off! Get it off!”

  I imagined it slipping inside the neck of my shirt, so I tore that shirt off and peeled out of my overalls. I was dancing around in my underwear and sneakers, and all I could think about was getting out of that swamp and getting home once and for all. I ran fast as I could, yelling and splashing, and every step I took, I felt that spider on me. I ran so fast, I blazed a trail straight back to the trailer park.

  I didn’t stop moving until I reached my place. Then I flung open the front door and ran straight past Momma into my bedroom, where I tore off my sneakers and underwear. I shook my whole body and watched for flinging spiders, but there weren’t any. Then I stood in front of my mirror and looked real careful. I even checked my hair to make sure it hadn’t hitched a ride in there.

  Momma kept knocking on the door, saying she was going to come in, and when your momma says she’s coming in, it’s pretty much true even if you tell her you are naked and checking for huge man-eating spiders. I pulled a new pair of overalls out of my dresser and I was buttoning them up just as Momma opened the door.

  “Gabriel King, what on earth were you doing running through the trailer in your underwear? What happened to your overalls and shirt?”

  I shrugged. Truth was, I couldn’t quite recall.

  “Were you out in the woods with—”

  Just like that, Frita appeared at the front door. She was carrying my overalls and trying hard not to laugh. Momma opened the front door and Frita walked in carrying the jar with the spider. She tried to hand the jar to me, but I wouldn’t take it. Momma shook her head.

  “I don’t want to know,” she said. “I just don’t want to know.”

  That was a good call on Momma’s part. She went back to the living room and once she was gone, I gave Frita a hard look.

  “You better not tell another living soul…,” I started, but Frita wasn’t laughing.

  “I won’t tell,” she said. “I wouldn’t even tell Terrance if he tortured me. You just got a little bit spooked is all.” She handed me back my shirt and overalls, and I glanced at the spider.

  “Did you get it after it fell off me?” I asked.

  Frita paused for a long time. “Uh-huh,” she said at last.

  “Think we should kill it?”

  Frita grabbed the jar and held it tight against her chest.

  “We can’t kill it,” she said. “You’ve got to make friends with it. That’s how you’ll stop being scared of spiders.”

  Frita patted the jar like a puppy.

  “You got to name him,” she said. “Once you name him, you’ll feel like he’s yours and then you won’t be scared of him anymore.”

  This was the worst plan I’d ever heard.

  “Frita,” I said, “I don’t think this is such a…”

  Frita handed me the jar and smiled the way her daddy smiled from the pulpit.

  “Trust me,” she said. “You just got to have faith.”

  Chapter 9

  WATERGATE AND PEANUT FARMERS

  FRITA SAID FAITH WAS BELIEVING IN WHAT YOU COULD NOT SEE, AND pressing on until you could see it. Well, I wasn’t going to be pressing nowhere with any spider. In fact, I wasn’t going to so much as look at that spider again no matter what Frita had planned. I wasn’t going to name him, make him my pet, or anything. And I sure as heck wasn’t going to overcome any more fears. I was sure of it. At least, I was sure of it until Jimmy Carter got in the way.

  He came up on account of my having to take a bath before dinner because I smelled like swamp muck. My taking a bath meant Pop turned on the news soon as he got home because I wasn’t ready for dinner yet. Most days, Pop and the news didn’t mix because soon as he turned on the TV, he got all riled up. Sometimes it was the cost of gasoline that got under his skin, or them talking about what had happened in Vietnam, but most of the time it was the election.

  When I got out of my bath, I could hear Walter Cronkite, the anchorman, reading the news, and by the time I put on my pajamas and climbed onto the couch, Pop was scowling something fierce.

  “What’s happening, Pop?” I asked, curling up next to him. Pop was still in his work clothes, so he smelled like peanuts and fertilizer.

  “Darn election,” he said. “Jimmy Carter’s not doing so good. Gerald Ford moved ahead in the polls. You’d think people would want a change after everything we’ve been through.”

  I shrugged.

  “Maybe they want things to stay the same,” I said, but Pop gave me a look.

  “Things can’t stay the same forever,” he told me. “Sometimes you’ve got to fight to make sure things do change.”

  Momma hollered from the kitchen. “Allen!” she said to Pop. “Don’t get started. Gabe doesn’t want to hear about politics.”

  But Momma was wrong. I did want to hear about politics.

  “How come you don’t like Gerald Ford?” I asked. “Because he’s not from Georgia?”

  “No,” Pop said. He got up and turned off the TV. “You know what happened with Watergate?”

  I shook my head. I sort of knew, but not exactly.

  “Watergate,” said Pop, “was the reason President Nixon had to resign. You see, the Nixon White House wasn’t ve
ry honest from the beginning. First, the vice president had to quit because he did something sneaky with his taxes. Then President Nixon had to resign because he was caught ordering people to spy on the Democratic Party at the Watergate Hotel.”

  “Wow,” I said. I thought spying was pretty cool, but Pop shook his head.

  “Spying is never a good thing,” he said, “but it’s especially bad when the president does it. He was going to use that information to hurt the Democratic campaign, and if he did that, how would people make good decisions about voting? Elections are supposed to be fair, and if they’re not, then we’re no different from any other country. The president is supposed to understand that.”

  Pop paused. “You know what’s worse?” he asked. “After everyone found out what he’d done, President Nixon still lied about the whole thing, only they caught him on tape.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Did he get in trouble?”

  I figured he went to jail, but Pop shook his head. “No,” he said.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Well, the guy who took over as president—he promised everyone he wasn’t going to do anything sneaky, only right away he let Mr. Nixon off the hook for everything. That’s called a pardon.” Pop leaned in. “You know who that man was?”

  “Nope.”

  “That man was Gerald Ford.”

  My eyes about bugged out of my head. “The same Gerald Ford who’s running against Jimmy Carter?”

  “Yup,” said Pop. He raised one eyebrow. “Still think things should stay the same?”

  Sure was a lot more complicated than I’d thought.

  “Besides,” Pop told me, settling back on the couch, “even if Watergate hadn’t happened, I’d still be voting for Carter. He’s one of us. Used to be a peanut farmer. Did you know that?”

  I sure didn’t. “You mean a peanut farmer can run for president?”

  Pop nodded, then he looked at me real steady. “You want to hear a story about Jimmy Carter?” he asked. I always wanted to hear a story when Pop was telling it, so I leaned in close and breathed in the smell of peanuts.

  “Well,” said Pop, “when Jimmy Carter was living in Plains, which is a town just about like Hollowell, he ran a peanut warehouse. This was before you were born and lots of stuff was changing between black folks and white folks. Some people weren’t too happy about that. They wanted everything to stay the same.”

  Pop poked me in the stomach. “Some of the men in the South started a group called a White Citizens Council. The whole purpose of that group was to keep up the laws that kept black and white people separate.”

  “Segregation?” I asked. That was a word I’d heard Frita use plenty of times.

  “That’s right,” said Pop. “They wanted to keep up segregation. So you know what they did? They tried to get every white man in Plains to join that council. They were bullies—like that kid at school…”

  “Like Duke?” I said, sitting up.

  “That’s right,” said Pop. “They wanted to bully Jimmy Carter into signing up for their group. They said if he didn’t, they wouldn’t buy from his warehouse anymore and his store would go out of business.”

  “What’d he do?” I asked, leaning forward. “Did he have to join up? Did he move to another state?”

  Pop shook his head.

  “No sir,” he said. “He was the only white man in Plains not to join.”

  I sat back against the couch. Huh. I bet that took some courage.

  “You know why he stood his ground?” Pop asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Because he had something he didn’t want them to take from him. Integrity.” Pop stood up and ruffled my hair. “Maybe you’ll run for president someday,” he said with a wink. “If you make it through the fifth grade.”

  Pop went into the kitchen and I sat on the couch, thinking. I sure could use some courage, and now that Pop mentioned it, maybe I could use some integrity too.

  Maybe it wouldn’t kill me to give Frita’s plan one teeny, tiny try.

  Chapter 10

  A DARN GOOD NAME

  AFTER THAT, I WENT OUT EACH NIGHT AND SAT ON THE FRONT STEPS TO watch the spider. He sure was ugly looking. I didn’t think I could stand having one as a pet, but if I was going to get me any courage, there didn’t seem to be a way around it. So, two days later, I finally called Frita on the phone and told her she should come over because I’d made up my mind. I was keeping the spider.

  Frita couldn’t come over that night because she had a meeting for the Rockford Baptist Peace Warriors. But on Saturday her daddy drove her over in their station wagon and she got out lugging an old fish tank that she’d dug out of her basement.

  “Look,” Frita said, showing me the tank as soon as she arrived. She lifted up the lid, then popped it back on again. “Your spider can live in here. It’s perfect.” She picked up the glass jar I was keeping him in and pressed her finger to the side so it looked like she was tickling the spider’s stomach. “You’re going to keep him for good, right?”

  I stared at the spider’s awful, ugly eyes.

  “Looks like it,” I said.

  Frita twirled around in a circle. “It’s working,” she sang. “My super-duper plan is working.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t have time to press the point because that’s when Pop got home. Pop was working weekends so as to get us some extra money to buy a car. His old truck spattered and coughed as he turned into the driveway.

  “Hey there, Frita,” Pop said, climbing out. “Hey, Gabe.” He walked over and kissed the top of my head. He was filthy from head to foot, but I didn’t mind. “What are you two doing?” he asked.

  Frita showed him my spider and the new tank. She put a layer of grass in the bottom, then stuck a couple sticks inside.

  “Gabe’s going to keep him as a pet,” Frita said. “He’s not scared of spiders anymore because he likes this one.”

  Like was an awful strong word.

  Pop squinted at the spider. “Is that so?” he asked. “Well, what kind of spider is he?”

  Me and Frita shrugged. We hadn’t figured that part out yet.

  “What are you feeding him?” Pop asked. “A spider needs food and water to live. And it’s a good thing you’ve got him a nice new tank because that jar is too small to keep a spider that size in.”

  Pop sat down on the front step beside me and Frita and held the jar up to get a better look.

  “Lee Ann, bring out the guidebook,” he yelled to Momma, who was inside getting hot dogs ready for dinner. Pop had a whole series of guidebooks—one for birds, one for reptiles, and one for insects and spiders. He once said he might’ve gone to school to study stuff like that if he’d been a smart man, but he wasn’t book smart, just hands smart. I thought Pop was just about every ways smart.

  Momma brought out the guidebook. Plus, she had a tray full of hot dogs, ketchup, mustard, chili, soda pops, and a big glass of water with ice cubes. She set the tray down where the spider’s jar had been, then she sat on the top step behind Pop and put her chin on his shoulder to get a better look.

  “He’s a beauty,” Momma said.

  How come even Momma thought this was a good-looking spider?

  Pop found a couple pictures in the guidebook that weren’t quite right, then he turned the page and there was our spider staring back at us.

  “Argiope aurantia—the yellow garden spider,” Pop read. “Says here, the yellow garden spider is found throughout the United States. The body of the female is three-fourths to one and one-eighth inches across and the body of the male is one-fourth to three-eighths inches across.” Pop surveyed my spider. “I’d say you’ve got a male here. He’s not too big.”

  Not too big? This was one gigantic spider, but I didn’t argue.

  “The yellow garden spider is diurnal—that means they’re active in the daytime. And they’re carnivorous. That means they eat meat.”

  Ha! I knew it.

  “People?” I asked
.

  “Hot dogs?” Frita suggested, but Pop laughed.

  “No,” said Pop. “They eat insects—bees, wasps, and grasshoppers.”

  Now I was starting to lose my appetite.

  I didn’t think I could take any more learning, and Pop must have guessed that, because he closed the guidebook, drank his soda, then started making a little water dish out of his can. He used his pocket knife to cut off the bottom of it. Then he filled that with water from Momma’s drinking glass and put it inside the new tank. He picked up the jar and slid the spider out. The tank already had airholes, but Pop made some of them bigger with his knife.

  “There,” he said. “Not a bad home for a spider.”

  Momma looked from me to Frita.

  “Did you catch this spider for Gabe?” she asked. I knew Momma was thinking about me streaking by in my underwear. I held my breath, hoping she wouldn’t tell Pop.

  Frita nodded.

  “I’m glad,” Momma said. “He’ll be a good pet. Fun to watch.” She tapped on the glass tank. “What’s his name?”

  Funny how everyone thought a spider should have a name. Fortunately, I’d given this some thought.

  “His name’s Jimmy,” I said, and Pop smiled.

  “That’s a good name,” he said. “A darn good name.”

  Chapter 11

  SIGNS AND PORTENTS

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER FRITA WENT HOME, MOMMA, POP, ME, AND JIMMY the spider sat outside on the front steps. Momma said it was too hot to go inside. Felt cooler outdoors where a breeze might kick up every now and then. She leaned her head on Pop’s shoulder and he kissed her neck instead of her cheek, which made her smile. Then we sat quiet while the neighbor’s lights blinked off and the stars blinked on, one by one.

  All around the trailer it got dark, but the fireflies lit up the night with hundreds of little lights. When one came close, Momma reached out and cupped it in her hand so I could watch it light up. She let it go by throwing it up in the air, only it stayed stuck to her palm like it wanted to stay there for good. Then Pop reached over and pushed it off with his thick, rough finger, but he was real gentle.