Page 66 of The Nook for Brooks
“Stay calm,” I whispered. “Just walk confidently. Nature can smell fear.”
I walked confidently—straight into a spider’s lair with its network of webs strung between two branches at precisely face level.
I squealed so loud thatIwas the one who startled the forest creatures this time.
Web clung to my nose, my lips, my eyelashes. I flailed like a madman, shrieking, “Get it off! Get it off!” until I toppled backwards over a log.
By the time I managed to pull myself to my feet—plucking web off my face and flicking imaginary arachnids out of my hair—the forest had gone completely silent.
Not a bird call.
Not a cricket.
Even the breeze had stopped.
“Oh, splendid,” I said into the eerie hush. “The quiet before my inevitable death.”
Could the woods sense something I couldn’t?
I didn’t want to hang around and find out.
I pressed on with determination… well, a determined limp, at least… with short, panicked pauses to scratch and check my hair for spiders.
That was when the ground tilted beneath me…
I lost my balance…
And tumbled head over turkey down a muddy slope, hitting every fallen branch and slimy rock on the way down, until I landed in a heap at the bottom.
My shoes squelched in mud that sucked at them like a hungry toddler with pudding.
My corduroys turned to sponge, soaking up the quagmire.
“Quicksand? Are you kidding? I thought that only existed in episodes ofTarzanfrom the seventies.”
I heaved one foot free with a disgustingschlurp, only to topple sideways into a hollow log.
The log buzzed.
I froze.
“No,” I whispered.
The buzzing grew louder.
“Ohno.”
Then the swarm erupted.
Wasps—furious, vengeful, apocalyptic wasps—poured from the log like tiny black demons, whirring around my head in a hurricane of hatred.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
I flailed wildly, slapping at my hair, my ears, my neck. One stung me on the arm. Another on the back of my neck. I hit a high note that would rival an Italian opera soprano. “Leave me alone! I’m not even sweet! I’m cynical and bitter at best!”
With aglugand aslurpand a stomach-turningblurp, I pulled myself free of the bog and away from the log. I bolted through the undergrowth, branches whipping my face, shoes slipping in mud.
Still the buzzing chased me, until a sting landed squarely on my backside.
