7 Eat This!

Chapter 7 EAT THIS! "YAAAAAH!" hollered Judy. "Holy moly!" said Andrew. He tried to pull the net off. But the more he struggled, the more tangled he got. Eek! squeaked Thudd. "Net-throwing spider! Spider weave net from spider silk. Watch for prey. Throw net on top of prey. Then spider bite prey with poison fangs! Gotta get out fast, fast, fast!" "I'm trying!" said Judy, pulling at the spider silk. It stretched like chewing gum. The more they pulled, the more net there was to trap them. "Noop! Noop! Noop!" squeaked Thudd. "Not pull web. Gotta eat web! Saliva in mouth break web!" Judy's mouth dropped open and her eyes grew wide.

meep… "EAT! EAT! EAT!" screeched Thudd. Andrew heard a rustle behind him. He spun around. A leaf quivered. In the shadow under the leaf, Andrew spied a hairy head. Below its two enormous, round black eyes were two gigantic, hairy fangs. "YAAARGH!" cried Andrew. His legs felt like pudding. Andrew turned and began stuffing globs of spider net into his mouth. Tastes kind of like milk, he thought. Judy was eating frantically, too. Her cheeks bulged with spiderweb. Suddenly Andrew felt something brush his back. The hairy brown fangs of the spider were rising up behind him!

Andrew froze. Judy grabbed his arm and shoved him through the hole they'd eaten in the net. Broken strands of silk caught on their clothes, but they ripped themselves away. They were free! But the spider tore through its net. It was scuttling after them! "Ack!" screamed Judy as a claw scratched her scalp.

They stumbled as fast as they could over the rough bark of the tree branch. Andrew looked frantically for a place to hide from the spider. meep… "Look, Drewd!" Thudd squeaked. He was pointing to a group of tall, thick green towers sticking up from the branch. Hanging down from one of the towers was a star-shaped, red-and-white-striped flower. It was as big as a person's foot. Andrew and Judy ducked under ferns and mosses as they scrambled toward the strange- looking thing. "Ugh!" said Judy breathlessly. "Something stinks!" "Woofers!" said Andrew. "It's worse than when we got lost in the garbage! What is that thing?" The closer they got to the strange plant, the worse the smell grew. The giant flower was covered with fuzzy red hairs—and lots of flies. meep… "Called dead-horse plant," said Thudd. "Cuz flower stink like dead thing.

"Smell of dead-horse flower bring flies. Pollen from flower stick to flies. Flies carry pollen to other dead-horse flowers. Then flowers make seeds. Seeds make more baby dead-horse plants." meep… "Hide under dead-horse plant," said Thudd. One of the spider's clawed feet pricked Andrew's leg. "YEOW!" hollered Andrew. With a burst of energy, he flung himself between the green cactus-like columns of the dead-horse plant. Suddenly the spider stopped. It scuttled to the monster flower. In a blur of speed, the fangs snatched a fly. Judy shivered. "That could have been you—or me!" she whispered. meep… "Spider busy eating fly," said Thudd. "Drewd and Oody gotta get out now. Gotta go up tree. Gotta find river." Slowly, quietly, Andrew and Judy crawled out from the green columns and away from the spider.

They reached the tree trunk and began climbing again. Thudd pointed out the birds that flashed through the trees—screaming orange-and-green king parrots, black riflebirds that made a sound like a gunshot, and green catbirds that meowed. These sounds were all part of the whistling, buzzing, cackling, screaming, screeching music of the rain forest. meep… "Drewd and Oody near treetops now," Thudd said. "Called canopy of rain forest. Lotsa animals live in canopy. Lotsa light up here. Lotsa water from lotsa, lotsa rain. Canopy make shade for stuff that live underneath. Keep rain forest cool."