Cor!

There was once a huge, hairy spider called Humphrey who lived in a dark hole in the bottom of the Richard's cellar. Every day Lucy Richards came down to play and to feed her Guinea pigs. Humphrey envied them so much because they got lots of love and attention. One day he decided that he would show himself in the hope that Lucy would love him and play with him. So one day, just as she was putting her Guinea pigs away he crept out from his dark hole.

"Ah! Help! Lucy screamed, "there's a horrible, hairy spider! Ugh!"

Humphrey was so upset that he crawled back in his hole and sulked for a long time.

Next day, he went for a walk around the cellar trying to find something to make him more beautiful. He found an old, cracked mirror and took a good look at himself. He couldn't see what Lucy had been so frightened of. He had a lovely hairy coat, nice bristly legs, and the most beautiful, bulging compound eyes on hairy stalks.

He was just about to crawl back to his hole when he saw an old make-up bag. It had soap, shampoo, perfume and lipstick inside it. "Ah!" he thought. "That’s why she thought I was ugly. I had no make-up on!"

So he washed all eight legs, shampooed his bristly coat, sprinkled perfume all over and smeared his mandibles with lipstick. Then he went to look in the mirror again. "Now Lucy will adore me like her Guinea pigs," he said to himself.

Later on that day Lucy came downstairs again. Humphrey walked out very proudly and smiled at her with his bright red mandibles. She screamed even more loudly than before. "Mummy! Mummy! There's a spider down the cellar and it's got red lipstick on and it stinks of perfume!" and she ran upstairs.

Poor Humphrey was so sad he decided that he was going to drown himself so he walked towards the sink very slowly with his head down. When he passed the washing machine he heard a voice, "Cor!" it said. When he looked round he saw a lovely black silky female spider. "I can't be that bad after all," thought Humphrey. "Do you fancy a date?" asked the female spider. "I'll have to think about it," said Humphrey, "my mummy told me to be careful with girl spiders."

When Humphrey got home he decided to find out more about female spiders from an old encyclopaedia. This is what it said, "After mating the female spider eats the male".

"O-oh!" thought Humphrey, "I think I'd better not go."

But whenever he felt unloved all he had to do was walk past the washing machine and he would hear a voice saying, "Cor!" and that really cheered him up.

And the moral of the story? "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". So next time you see a huge, hairy spider, don’t shout, "Ugh!", because you might hurt his feelings; and remember, somebody, somewhere (probably a huge, hairy female spider) might think he’s cute.

© Kit 2007