Spiderman 1 (2 page)

pain and sorrow, longing and heartache, anger and betrayal.
And that just covers the high school years. But let me assure
you, this ... like any story worth telling
...
is all about a
girl... ."

Except . . . in the beginning
. . .
there had been no girl. There had just been the pain and sorrow . . . and the loss . . .

... and the spider....

I.

THE ARRIVAL

It smelled weird.

That was the first thing that Peter noticed. The moment he stepped over the threshold, he noticed the smell of the house. It was
...
it was antiseptic, somehow. Not that young Peter, standing there so neatly attired in his blue shorts, white shirt,
and yellow sweater vest, would have known the word "anti
septic." That was a big, important word. Most four-year-olds
hadn't heard the word, couldn't use it in context, couldn't
even come close to spelling it. In this regard, Peter Parker,
who had celebrated his birthday the previous August at a big
and splendid party where his parents had made a marvelous fuss over him, was no different. By age five, however, he
would be able to correctly define and spell it
. . .
along with
"microbiology," "cellular," and "mitosis." On the other hand,
he would continue to stumble over "photosynthesis" and
"paleontologist" until he reached the ripe old age of six.

Peter, however, wasn't looking that far ahead. Five and
six were an eternity away. All that concerned Peter at that
moment was the here and now. And what was here, and what
wasn't.

He was here. These strange people whom he had suppos
edly met once, when he was a baby—but he sure couldn't re
member—were here. That weird smell was here.

His parents were not.

The living room in which he was standing didn't seem
even remotely inviting. The cushions of the couch were cov-

ered in plastic. He'd tried to sit on one and hadn't liked the
way it had stuck to the underside of his legs. So he'd slid off
it, but it had made this really weird squeaky "ripping" sound,
and he hadn't liked that either.

The man and woman who were bringing the last of his things into the house, who were speaking in hushed whispers to the woman named Miss Hemmings—the "social
worker," she'd been called—those people weren't paying any
attention to him. That suited him fine. Perhaps he could sim
ply reside there like a ghost, no one noticing him. When he was hungry, he could snitch food from the kitchen, presum
ing they had one, and otherwise be left alone.

He wanted that more than anything ... particularly to be left alone by the man, who reminded him a little of his fa
ther. Except it wasn't him, and that made him feel all the
more uneasy.

The door closed, shutting out the outside world. The
smell of the plastic cushions threatened to suffocate him. He would have screamed if he could have worked up the energy
to do so, but he felt wrung out, like a sponge.

The carpet was weird, too. It felt slightly moist under his
feet, as if it had been just washed. Just to add to the assault,
there was a lemony smell coming from all the wood furniture. He stared down at his reflection on the coffee table.
There were flowers arranged neatly on a small lacy thing in the middle of it. He leaned forward to smell the flowers. The
flowers, he realized belatedly, were fake. They were the only
things in the whole living room that
didn't
smell.

"Well, Peter," said the man, coming into the room. He
clapped his hands once and rubbed them briskly together. The magician at Peter's birthday party had done something
similar, right before he'd produced coins from out of
nowhere. He'd pretended he'd pulled them from thin air, but
Peter had spotted the sleight-of-hand. In a loud voice he'd
explained every single one of the magician's tricks, to the

irritation of the conjurer and the endless amusement of his parents. His mother's laugh still rang in his ears. He hadn't yet been able to grasp the notion that he would never hear
that laughter again.

"Well, Peter," the man said again, "would you like to sit
down?"

"No, sir," Peter said politely, addressing the older man as
"sir," just as his parents had always taught him.

"Land sakes, child," the woman said. "You can't just plan
to stand there forever. Why won't you sit?"

He saw no reason to lie. "I don't like the plastic."

"The plastic protects the cushions," she said reasonably.
"You understand that, don't you, Peter?"

"No, ma'am."

"Oh." She seemed vaguely disappointed. He felt as if he'd
let her down in some way.

"Peter . . ." And the man got down on one knee. Closer
up, the resemblance between this man and Peter's father was
more striking. He had that same square jaw, that same laugh
ter in his eyes. His hair was a different color, more red in it, and his eyebrows were bushier. Peter's nostrils flared. The
man smelled funny, too.

"Why are you sniffing me, Peter? Are you part cocker spaniel?"

"You have a funny smell, sir."

"That would be my aftershave."

"It was his Christmas present," the woman said proudly.
She sat down on the couch, her hands neatly folded in her
lap. The couch made that same weird plastic-creaking sound
when she sat on it. "Do you like it?"

"Smells like poop, ma'am," Peter said.

Her mouth immediately stretched to a thin line, while the
man guffawed heartily. "He has his father's tact," the man
said . . . and then immediately looked contrite. "I'm sorry,
Peter. I spoke without thinking."

Peter's eyebrows knit. "You
have
to think to speak, don't
you, sir?"

"Less often than you've been led to believe. And please,
Peter, call me Uncle Ben. Have you ever heard of your Uncle
Ben?" Encouraged by the boy's prompt nod, he said, "What
have you heard?"

"That you make ..." He frowned, trying to recall the
word. "... perverted rice."

Now it was the woman's turn to laugh, as Uncle Ben's
cheeks reddened slightly. "Different Uncle Ben, Peter. And I
think you mean 'converted' rice."

"Oh." He was studying the woman now, comparing her
automatically to the only woman who'd had a major place in his life. Her face was narrower, her eyes a bit more sunken.
Her hair, which was brown with gray streaks, was tied back
in a severe bun. She had a long neck and her hands tended
to flutter toward it, as if she was trying to cool down waves of heat. "Okay," he added, to fill the silence.

"I'm your Aunt May," she told him. She said this with a
great deal of gravity, as if she were revealing one of the great
secrets of the universe.

"Okay," he said again.

The man clapped his hands together again. Peter waited
for a dove to appear or a coin to drop out of the air. None
was forthcoming. "Would you like to see your room, Peter?"

Finally something he understood. He nodded eagerly. "Do you wanna see where I drew some cowboys on the
wall?" he asked.

Ben and May exchanged puzzled glances. "What do you
mean, Peter?" Ben asked.

"Where I drew some cowboys. When I was little.
Mommy yelled at me, and tried to wash them off, but you
can still see them, 'cause I used markers."

"Ohhh," Ben said, and it sounded a little like a moan
when he said it. "Peter, I mean your new room. Here."

"Can't I go back to my old room?"

"Peter, dear," said May, and she took his hand in hers. Her
hand felt cold, but smooth, as if she'd put some sort of lo
tion on it. He noticed a few brown spots on the back of her hand and wondered what it would be like to connect them. "Your old room is back in Wisconsin. I thought the social
worker explained it.
...
You'll be staying here, in New York.
With us."

"Can't we stay at my house?"

"But Peter, this is where we live. And this is where you're
going to live now," Ben told him, trying desperately to sound
upbeat about it. "We'll make a good home here for you."

Obviously this Uncle Ben and Aunt May weren't getting it. "I have a home," Peter explained, politely but firmly.

"Peter . . ."

"You know what you need?" Aunt May suddenly said
briskly. She didn't clap and rub her hands. Instead she patted them on her knees. "Some nice, freshly baked cookies.
Why don't you go upstairs and get your things unpacked,
and I'll whip up some cookies. Do you like chocolate chip?"
When Peter nodded eagerly, she flicked a finger across the end of his nose in a playful manner. "I thought you might."
She rose as she asked, "Is there anything else you'd like?"

"Yes, please."

"And what would that be?" She leaned over, hands rest
ing on her knees. "What would you like?"

"My mommy and daddy."

She winced at that, and Ben, trying to sound kindly but
firm, said, "Peter ... you have to understand, you're going to
live with us now."

"I don't want to," Peter told him firmly. He wasn't rude, wasn't whining or crying. He couldn't have been more po
lite if he'd been ordering a meal in a restaurant. "I want my
mommy and daddy. Please," he put in almost as an after
thought.

"They're not here, Peter ..." Ben began.

"Can I talk to them at least? Can you call them?"

"Peter," and Ben took him firmly by the shoulders. "Your
parents ... they're with God now."

"When are they coming back?"

Ben's lower lip was quivering. Peter had never seen a grown-up cry, and the feeling made his stomach queasy. He
didn't think it was something that grown-ups did. Ben
coughed loudly, took a deep breath, and said, "They're not
coming back, Peter."

"I want to talk to them."