Fuzzy the Spider meets some new friends

Fuzzy the Spider was not happy. Someone was sitting in his living room, and it wasn't a bug.

He crept out of his favorite potted plant to peer over the Terra cotta edge.

A woman and man were sitting on the porch chairs, each smoking a cigarette. Fuzzy's eyebrows twitched in irritation.

"Excuse me!" he called. "Excuse me! I decorated those chairs with my web for Halloween! Please don't sit on them."

The people didn't move. They continued to smoke and chat in the warm afternoon sun.

Grumbling to himself, Fuzzy climbed out of the pot and began to scuttle across the wall. The woman shrieked, and Fuzzy stopped in his tracks.

"Frank!" she shouted. "Frank! Look at that spider!"

"That's a big one," the man agreed, taking off his shoe. "I'll take care of it."

Terrified, Fuzzy began to run up the wall as fast as his eight legs would carry him. The man's shoe was coming closer and closer. Just a few more feet....his tiny legs moved furiously over the wooden sideboards.

"Stop!" a familiar voice commanded. It was Ben, the Man who operated the Grill. "Dad, that's Fuzzy. You can't kill Fuzzy!"

"You have a pet spider?" the man seemed doubtful.

The man shrugged and sat down again, and Fuzzy scuttled into the rafters. Later, he crept across the porch beam to see the man and woman back on the porch.

"It's Fuzzy!" the woman pointed. "Look honey, it's Fuzzy!"

"Fuzzy!" the man cheered.

Fuzzy raised an eyebrow. "Why are these people talking to me?" he wondered to himself. "Why are they shouting?"

Ben came out on the porch, and the woman pointed again. "Look, Ben, it's Fuzzy!"

"Yes, we've established that I'm outside," Fuzzy thought to himself. "I live here." He continued along his business, turning his head occasionally to catch them all watching his every movement.

"I wonder if this is what Britney Spears feels like," Fuzzy thought. "Being followed all the time."

He crawled down the wall and back to his pot to return to his prime bug-catching post. As he hopped from leaf to leaf, the man jumped up in excitement.

"Look!" he cried. "A bug! I'll kill the bug for Fuzzy!"

"A bug?" Fuzzy twitched in excitement. "I adore bugs!" The man squished a bug and threw it in the pot. Fuzzy scuttled down the leaf and gobbled it up.

"He ate it!" the man cheered. "Let's kill another bug!"

"Another bug?" Fuzzy thought in astonishment. "For me? Hooray!" For the next day, the man and Ben killed several bugs, and he ate them all. He had never had that many bugs in one day before. Fuzzy decided he liked the porch people. He liked them so much that he scuttled out to their car and attached a sack of his children to the car.

"Be safe, little ones," he whispered. "I know you'll have good luck with these people! They like spiders. They'll take good care of you." Blowing them a kiss, he scuttled back to the porch. As he hopped up the wall and began to crawl across, the woman cheered again.

"Hey, it's Fuzzy!" she cried happily.

"Here's another bug!" the man said, squishing a bug in his pot. Fuzzy scurried over the the pot and grinned to himself as he ate a fly.

"Very well indeed," he whispered.