Tarantula Crossing

Sam and Julie stood at the school bus stop. Impatiently, Sam looked down their country road for the bus.

“See anything?” Julie asked. She was writing her book report.

“I don’t see the bus, but I see something else.”

He tried to sound mysterious so she’d look.

It worked. “What?” Julie looked down the road. “There’s nothing coming yet. I think we’re early.”

“Look on the road,” Sam said. “There are three of them.”

“Tarantulas!” she yelled. “Three of the biggest ones I’ve ever seen. And they’re gorgeous. But what are they doing in the middle of the road?”

“Going home,” Sam answered. “Don’t you remember that Grandpa explained they always go home at the end of September, right after we go back to school?”

“Is it because we go back to school?” Julie teased.

“No, silly. It’s time for them to go home. Grandpa said it was in their genes.”

“If they always go home at this time of year, why do they leave in the first place? Why don’t they just stay home?”

Sam looked at her with surprise. “I’m going to have to ask Grandpa about that.”

“Why don’t you ask a tarantula?” Julie said. “Here they come.”

“Do I look like a tarantula to you?” Sam asked, kneeling down so he could get a closer look at the beautiful creatures as they headed their way.

Julie knelt down too, and watched the first one walk past her. “We need to do something so their relatives won’t get killed by a car or truck.”

Then she remembered her yellow pad of paper on which she’d been writing her book report. She ripped a page off the pad and used a marker to write on it.

“There,” she said, when she finished. Then she fastened the paper to the trunk of a scrub oak growing alongside the school bus stop.

Sam read it. “Tarantula Crossing.” He laughed. “Leave it to my sister to do something nice for tarantulas.”

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Elizabeth Van Steenwyk brakes for tarantulas each September on the country road where she lives. This story will be on The Times’ Web site at www.latimes.com/kids.