Minnalouche was a young, and very ambitious, jumping spider. Shortly after she hatched, Grandmama looked at her and said to the girl's mother: "Aurelia, she'll be quite the hunter some day!" Every time thereafter that Grandmama came to visit, she said: "Yes, quite the hunter!" Unfortunately, Grandmama's words went straight to Minnalouche's head. Soon, her siblings and other playmates got very sick of hearing: "I'm going to be a great hunter; just you wait!" It wasn't long before no one would play with her. "Fine!" said Minnalouche, though in fact it pained her to be so lonely. "I don't need them holding me back!"

One day, the mama spiders called all their young together. One of them said: "Children, it's time to practice your pouncing. Go out in groups of three-never less than three-and exercise those legs of yours! Now remember: you don't have to catch anything; this is practice! And don't go after anything bigger than you are!" The mother spider gave an especial stress to these last words.

Minnalouche's heart leapt up. "Practice!" she cried. "Practice! Here's my big chance!"

"Sure, Minnalouche," said one of the other girls. "I can't wait to see what you bring back."

The young spiders went off in groups of three. Within minutes, the two who accompanied Minnalouche had contrived to abandon her. When she realized she was alone, her happiness rose to an even higher pitch. "It's all up to me now," she said out loud. Like lonely people everywhere, she often spoke to herself.

She moved as quietly as she could into the high grass. After what seemed like an hour, she came to a clearing where the greenery gave way to black earth. Being careful to stay hidden in the grasses, she looked out into the clearing. What luck! There, within pouncing range, was a fairy! She was an adult, easily twice Minnalouche's size. She was very pretty, with shoulder-length hair of the brightest red, feathered antennae, and a pair of transparent wings with gold veins. She wore a sleeveless yellow dress with a very short bell skirt. The skirt appeared to be jam-packed with transparent crinolines. Yellow high heels completed her ensemble.

As the spider watched, the Girl (that's the name Minnalouche immediately coined for her) crouched down, hiked back her skirt and petty, and tugged a pair of white panties to her knees. Soon a stream of fairy pee was spattering the ground.

"Now or never," Minnalouche almost said out loud; and then she pounced. Her strong young spider legs catapulted her into the air. She landed on the Girl and knocked her to her knees. The Girl screamed, and Minnalouche shouted: "I've got you now!" It was unfortunate that she spoke then, instead of trying to use her fangs (weak as her youthful venom doubtless was),--for the prey was by no means incapacitated. In a swift movement, the Girl tore Minnalouche free and then slammed her hard on the ground. While the spider was still dazed, the Girl got up and kicked her in the abdomen. Now it was Minnalouche who screamed.

Instead of kicking her attacker again, the Girl paused to work her panties back into place. This gave Minnalouche, who could barely breathe from the excruciating pain, time to scuttle away. And now came one of those "watershed moments" one always reads about in melodramatic fiction. The difference is: this time it really happened. The Girl could have spread her wings and flown to safety. But the young spider's impertinent attack had enraged her. She wanted her attacker dead. And so she went in hot pursuit. "Bad spider!" she cried. "Bad spider!"

When Minnalouche saw that the Girl was after her, her heart nearly stopped. "Got to think, got to think," she gasped out loud. It then occurred to her that if she littered her trail with swatches of webbing, these might slow down her pursuer. So, like a little glue bottle, she pumped out blob after blob of sticky silk. The Girl, intent only on catching up with Minnalouche and cracking her exoskeleton, ran right into one of these blobs. Suddenly, she was moving forward, but her feet weren't. As a result, she fell flat on her pretty face.

When Minnalouche looked behind her, she beheld a wonder: the Girl was trying to get back up, but couldn't, because both her feet were stuck in the webbing! Minnalouche had many faults, but a slow brain wasn't one of them. Seeing her opportunity, she came running back.

How best to take advantage of the situation? A head-on attack had proved disastrous, so Minnalouche tried something new. She squirted out a little, sticky ball and attached it to a silken line. She twirled the line a few times like a lasso, then sent the ball flying through the air. It hit the Girl on her left arm. Minnalouche pulled back hard on the line. The Girl's arm was yanked to the ground and stuck there. "Stop it, you wicked spider!" she cried. "Stop it!"

"I don't think so," said Minnalouche, as she prepared another ball. This time she pinned the Girl's right arm.

What to do next? The Girl was thrashing frantically and might still disengage her feet. So Minnalouche ran up and taped her legs in place with a band of webbing across her calves. There'd be no kicking free, not now, not ever. Then the spider made things even more certain by thrusting a new web-ball under her victim's madly arching back.

And still the Girl struggled. "I've caught you," said Minnalouche. "Why don't you stop?"

"Because I don't want to die, you bitch!" the Girl cried. "I . . . don't . . . want to die . . . ."

That prey would fight on even when escape was no longer possible-this was news to Minnalouche. She thought a bit, and then she remembered something her mother had once said. Inspired by that recollection, she now took hold of her victim's skirt and crinolines and thrust them back. Oh how the Girl screamed! Then she glued them in place, so they wouldn't get in the way. Next, she pulled the Girl's panties down. The Girl screamed again; her whole body shook; and she spurted more urine; but her struggles immediately weakened.

Momma had been right! It was a lecture that Aurelia had given to some of the older youth. "It's not enough to catch your prey," she had said. "You have to convince your prey she's caught. And nothing is more demoralizing to a girl fay than taking her panties down." Minnalouche had not understood what "demoralize" meant. Now she did.

Soon the fight was over. The Girl just trembled and sobbed with the heartache of her capture. Minnalouche now examined more closely what she had uncovered: a damp patch of fiery red hair, transected by a tight little slit. "Golly," she said. "I forgot to bite you!" So she slipped her fangs into the Girl's pussy. The fairy screamed one more time, had a hurtful orgasm or two, and then passed out. The youngster's venom was hardly strong enough to bring on this result unaided. Despair must have played a part.

Minnalouche now rigged up a silken harness and used it to pull her prey back to the Settlement. The other youth had returned long before-empty-clawed, of course-and Minnalouche's mother was sick with worry. When she saw her daughter approaching, she ran out to give her the scolding of a lifetime. Then she saw what the young one had caught.

"Good lord!" she cried. "Good lord! A full-grown girl! Honey, how did you do it?"

"Well, mama, it was actually pretty easy . . . ."

"Easy or not, don't do it again! Do you understand me?"

"Yes mother." Minnalouche hung her head in pretended shame, but inwardly she was exulting. The other young spiders had run up and were gazing at her with something approaching awe. Cassia, a spider particularly prone to teasing her, shouted: "You are a great hunter! You really are! Three cheers for Minnalouche!"

"Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!" the other spiders cried. Even her mother joined in. From that day forth, Minnalouche was even more conceited than she'd been before. Oh well. Here's the good news: she wasn't a great hunter yet, but she soon become one.

THE END