Hiding From Us

16. robin

When I got to his house, Parker was waiting outside. He was wearing a black T-shirt, black jeans, and a black toque. Beside him lay an empty bucket, a roll of duct tape, four cans of shaving cream, a spool of string, and about twenty empty plastic containers. 

     ‘‘Hey. What’s the emergency?’’ I asked. ‘‘And why are you dressed all in black?’’

     Parker smiled grandly. ‘‘Because tonight is a night for mischief, Robin Hardy! The stars are beckoning us to do something evil with all this duct tape and shaving cream. Don’t you hear them?’’

      He put his arm around me, but he had to reach up a bit because I was taller than him. I pushed it away. 

     ‘’No,’’ I said, ‘‘are you, like, high or something?’’

     He feigned shock. ‘‘How could you say something like that? No. I’m simply exited. Are you ready to send Samuel G. Brown into the worst terrors of humiliation and fear?’’

     ‘’I guess? I have to be back by nine.’’ 

     ‘‘It’ll be quick, I promise. Now come come come into the garage.’’ 

     I followed him into the carport that was separated from his house, where he handed me half of the containers and grabbed us both a flashlight. He said, ‘‘Hope you’re good at detective stuff.’’

     ‘‘Not really. Why?’’

     ‘‘Because we have to look for creepy-crawlies.’’

     ‘‘You mean spiders.’’ Honestly, I had no problem with spiders, no matter how venomous or how huge they were (unless one of them bit me and killed me). I did, however, have an intense fear of snakes. But we weren’t looking for snakes. We were looking for spiders. 

     ‘‘Look in the corners,’’ Parker advised. ‘‘And in dusty areas. There’s a reason why Sam never comes in here.’’ 

     And I found that reason in a dusty corner near the door: a pale gray spider the size of a grape, staring at me angrily. I scooped it into a container without hesitation. 

     ‘‘Got one,’’ I said. 

     Parker beamed at me from across the room. ‘‘Brilliant! Only nineteen more to go. We need all these containers filled.’’ 

     We didn’t manage to get twenty containers filled, but we got a satisfactory number of sixteen. Parker and I brought them back to the front of the house and set them beside the shaving cream and duct tape. 

     ‘‘Okay,’’ he said. ‘‘We’ve got everything we need. We just have to set it up. Here’s the plan.’’

     He handed me a scrap of paper with red instructions on it. 1. Shaving-creamed spider crawls onto victim’s hand. 2. Runs to the kitchen to wash hands. While washing, mini-tap sprays water in victim’s face. 3. Runs downstairs in direction of bedroom, but trips over tripwire and collapses down the stairs into pan of spider-infested shaving cream. 4. Robin Hardy tips bucket of more spiders onto victim’s head. 

     When I finished reading, Parker had already finished making a pie of shaving cream and spiders in the pan. There was a plump spider on his shoulder. He had cream all over his fingers. 

     I said, ‘’Um,’’ and brushed the spider on his shoulder back into the pan. 

     Parker grinned. ‘‘Thanks. Okay. So we’re gonna creep inside and set things up. And when Sam goes to the bathroom, I’ll put this spider—’’ he picked one up from the shaving cream ‘’—on the table and let it crawl onto his hand, and the rest will roll on from there.’’ 

     So we did just that. We put the pan of shaving cream and spiders at the bottom of the stairs. Parker tied the tripwire and duct taped the mini-tap so that it was about his brother’s height (which wasn’t very tall. Shortness ran in the family, I guess). Then we hung the bucket of spiders from the chandelier over the doorway. Sam went to the bathroom. Parker put the spider on the table. And we waited. 

     It took a few minutes. We stood in Parker’s bedroom doorway, waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.

     Then Sam screamed, and I choked on laughter that wasn’t allowed to come out. 

     We watched as he dashed out of the living room and into the kitchen, still screaming in rather high-pitched tones. He twisted the sink on violently, only to receive a jet of water in the face; Parker’s aim had been perfect. Still howling, Sam stumbled to the stairs and then made contact with the tripwire. He pitched forward and toppled down the stairs, cussing rather smoothly, and then made a satisfying splat as he hit the pan of shaving cream and spiders. More screaming followed suite. 

     Parker grinned. ‘‘This is so awesome,’’ he hissed, and then touched my shoulder. ‘‘Okay, let’s go let’s go let’s go this is your part three two one go Robin Hood.’’ 

     He shot for the back door, but I stayed put. Annoyance shot through me. I said, ‘’Um, what did you just call me?’’ 

     Parker stopped. ‘‘Robin Hood. Now come on! DROP. THE. BUCKET.’’

     ‘‘Robin Hood?! For your information, Spiderman, it’s Robin Hardy. Not Robin Hood.’’

     ‘‘It’s a nickname! A stupid nickname, okay? I’m sorry. Now go go go go go drop the stupid freaking bucket!’’

     I glared at him for one more second, ready to punch him, but I turned my attention back to the bucket—only to find Sam up on his feet. He was giving us the most murderous look I’d ever seen, but it was a bit funny with the shaving cream all over his face and T-shirt and hair. There were about five spiders on him, but he wasn’t shaking or screaming or panicking. He was just downright mad. 

     Parker said, ‘‘Robin?’’

     I said, ‘‘Yeah.’’

     ‘’Um, I think we should go.’’

     ‘‘Promise not to call me Robin Hood anymore?’’

     ‘’No.’’

     I punched him in the ribs. ‘‘Then let’s go.’’

     We dashed to the back door and ran into the trees until we couldn’t see the house anymore. After we collapsed on the ground, Parker slid out a Snickers bar from his pocket and split it with me. He called me Robin Hood again, so I called him Spiderman. 

     ‘‘Spiderman,’’ Parker said. ‘’Oh, the irony.’’

     He started laughing to himself, hushed and infectious, even though there was no reason to be quiet anymore. I couldn’t see him too well in the dark, but I felt his touch as he undid my shoelace and then knotted it back together with his own. And we sat there, laced together, as he laughed that muted laugh, and I found myself not wanting to go home just yet.