Read Felix Takes the Stage for Free Online Page A

speech.
    â€œYou have a tiny mind, fitted with ordinary thoughts and downright meanness! You know nothing except your own dismal little ancestral history,” the cat cried out.
    â€œHere! Here! I take offense,” Oliphant Uxbridge fumed.
    â€œYou give offense, sir!” Fat Cat replied.
    There was nothing more satisfying for Edith than seeing the pompous spider taken down a notch. It was as delicious as a tasty cockroach. But beneath the fizz and sizzle of the argument, Edith began to detect a dimmer set of vibrations. What were they? From one of her six eyes she noticed a glistening thread floating softly toward where she perched in the rigging.
    My goodness — a courtship thread! Oh, I’m much too old. A widow with three kids. Then it struck her. The single word formed in her mind, each letter dropping slowly into place. M-I-M-E-T-I-D-A-E — pirate spiders!
    It was an attack.
    â€œNO!” she screamed. “Abandon ship!”
    The pirate spiders used an old ruse. Send out a courtship thread, reel the victim in, and then with one quick bite to the leg, in goes the poison and …
    Edith couldn’t bear the thought. Felix had just grown a new leg!
    Pirates were one of the few spiders Edith knew, aside from black widows, who specialized in killing their own. How cunning they had been in their mimicry of brown recluse vibrations. They had obviously been in the store the entire time. Most likely they had been hiding out on the Kon-Tiki raft that hung above the Constitution .
    â€œGet out, kids! Get out! Pirates!” Edith yelled.

    She could now see the distinctive spinelike hairs that lined the long front legs of the pirate spiders. Four pirates crawled onto the deck and up the rigging after Julep and Jo Bell, who scuttled toward the crow’s nest. Felix was on the foredeck. They’ll be trapped!
    Edith looked around wildly, but her son had disappeared. “Felix, where are you? Felix!” she screamed.
    Fat Cat bounded over, teeth bared.
    â€œDon’t get near them!” Edith shouted. “They’re almost as toxic as we are!”
    Suddenly, there was a glittering flash from the mizzenmast. It was Felix swinging by his fresh new leg. In his forward appendages, his pedipalps, he grasped the miniature cutlasses.
    â€œFelix!” Edith exclaimed.
    â€œMom, catch this!”
    The curved blade sailed toward her on a high quality, number one grade silk thread. It was catch or be killed! But Felix’s aim was perfect. Edith caught the cutlass and slashed the so-called “courtship thread.” Felix quickly suspended himself over the nearest pirate. With a quick flick of the cutlass, he separated the spider’s head from its body. “Bye-bye,” he said as the spider’s head tumbled to the deck.
    The other three spiders were stunned. Then they began to argue.
    â€œHe said it would work!”
    â€œHe said it always worked!”
    Unnoticed by the arguing spiders, Edith scuttled up the ratlines, the small ropes between the shrouds of the mast. She sliced off another pirate head.
    â€œGo, Mom!” Felix yelled.
    â€œNo, they’re going! After them!” she cried.
    This attack was definitely planned. Edith realized that the pirates had worked to create a highway of silk toward the front of the store. They were headed that way — straight toward the Uxbridges. Seconds later, there was a shriek from the figurehead. “My babies! My babies!” It was Mrs. Uxbridge.
    The two remaining pirate spiders were climbing up the lovely neck of the figurehead toward Mrs. Uxbridge.
    â€œYour wife or the egg sac — what’ll it be?”

N ow, shouldn’t we discuss this as civilized spiders?” Oliphant Uxbridge replied. His voice sounded unnaturally calm.
    The two pirates started to laugh. “Who said anything about civilized!” one said. He moved toward Oliphant, waving his spine-studded front legs. “Keep watch on