Spoon River Middle School: 31

Billy Belfry

Free Writing

Everyone says I’m crazy,

says stuff like,

“That Belfry kid,

he’s crazy!

He’s really crazy!”

Okay,

there are some things,

a few things,

not many things, really,

but some things

that might make people,

some people, anyway,

make them stop.

And wonder.

Like in second grade,

that time I ate a spider.

It wasn’t a big hairy one,

just one of those little ones

you can sometimes catch

on the ceiling of your room,

if you’re quick

(like me)

and not afraid

(like me).

So I took him to school,

the spider, that is,

and when the teacher said,

“It’s snack time,”

and everyone else brought out

Twinkies and Snickers and Oreos

and Gummy Bears and Fruit Roll-Ups

and pretzels and chips and powdered donuts

and juice boxes and graham crackers,

and some had apples and carrots

and soy milk (you think I’m crazy!)

their moms made them bring,

I took out this tiny Tupperware thing,

the smallest they make,

turned it over,

tapped it on the bottom,

till the spider

dropped into the palm of my hand.

By then,

everyone around me was watching,

the teacher was saying,

“Billy, is that—?”

The spider was kind of groggy—

that Tupperware keeps out the air, you know—

does a good job of that—

so he wasn’t moving too fast.

And so I whacked the palm of my hand

against my mouth,

felt the spider land

in the back of my throat.

And I swallowed him before he could even think about him running along my tongue and

out!

Everyone was yelling stuff:

“Sick!”  “Gross!”

And:

“Billy’s crazy!”

But I never said anything bad

about their snacks!

All that sugar and fat—

they’re not good for you.

Not good to you.

But a spider, you know—

his poofy little body,

all eight legs of him—

is one hundred percent

Pure Protein!