By: Lauren Stein

Angela, an average garden spider was spinning a web to lay her eggs on. She chose a small hidden place underneath a newly planted rose bush in Mrs. Green’s garden . After she finished her web she stood back to admire her work when she caught something out of the corner of her eye. It was an abandoned egg. She looked around carefully to see if it’s mother was close by, but saw no sign of another spider. So Angela carefully placed the egg on her web then laid her eggs next to it.

This egg was quite larger than the others, Angela knew it would be different but couldn’t abandon it. She named this egg Freddie. After a few months the eggs hatched and where carried off by the breeze to find there own homes. But Freddie hatched late and never flew away.

As Freddie got older he grew to be almost 3 inches which was about three times larger than his mother Angela. He made himself a home not to far away from her web. He dug himself a cozy hole in the ground but spent most of his time with Angela. Most days she tried to teach Freddie how to spin a web. He had the silky string but no matter how much he tried he could not spin a web. It just came out in a big sticky ball.

When Freddie’s brothers and sisters came to visit their mother they would laugh at Freddie’s hole in the ground. They asked why such a big ugly spider had to hide in the ground. Freddie would just scurry back into his hole, ashamed of himself.

Angela asked her children to be nicer to him, but they saw no reason to befriend such a strange spider. “Because he’s your brother!” She told them. “He doesn’t feel like a brother.” Said one spider. “Yea he’s not like any of us!” Said a brother.“He’s got four eyes where we have one! He’s brown and Hairy. And three times our size!” Said a sister.

That night while Freddie was having dinner with Angela he asked her why he was so different. She wasn’t sure what to say, was it time for her to tell him the truth? She was worried that he’d be angry with her, but she knew she couldn’t keep this secrete any longer. “Freddie,” she said nervously. “ When you where an egg I found you under this rose bush all alone, so I took you in as my own son.”

At first Freddie didn’t know what to think. He sat next to Angela thinking about what she just told him. And after a few minutes he realized something. “ You know what mom, I think this is great news!”

“It is?” She asked confused. “Yes, because this means that their isn’t anything wrong with me I’m just different, and I’ve got the best mom in the world!

“You think so Freddie?” Angela asked surprised.“Yes because you loved me, just the same as all

the others even though I wasn’t yours, and you will always be my mother even though I wasn’t your egg.” Angela then realized she should have told Freddie this a long time ago.

The next morning Angela asked all her children to come to her web. She told them the news that Freddie wasn’t really their brother, but they should still treat as one. She explained that being different isn’t wrong. The brothers and sisters saw how much love their mother had for all of them including Freddie, and realized they where wrong in being so mean to him.

Freddie was a wolf spider, a type of spider that does not spin a web. So from that day on his brothers and sisters treated him kindly. They often visited his cave for lunch or dinner. And if Mrs. Green the gardener ever tried to hurt his siblings he’d come to their rescue and scare her away. So this spider family lived happily ever after.