“Brown recluse venom is necrotic, which means it causes tissue death,” Amy said.

Amy and Parker sat at the kitchen table, doing their science homework together. They had to write about an animal that interested them. Amy was writing about brown recluses and Parker was writing about black widows.

The two became fast friends several years ago when they discovered their mutual interest in bugs. Amy is autistic, and bugs are one of her special interests (to the extent that she corrects me when I use the term “bugs,” as she will often specify “insects and arachnids”). Parker is interested in so far as many of them are snack foods for him, and others are relatives. Parker was glad to find someone who wasn’t creeped out by the animal whose DNA he shared, and Amy enjoyed having someone to talk with about the subjects she was interested in.

“Black widow venom affects…” Parker paused. “The nervous system.”

“Sounds like they would both give some nasty bites,” I said while I chopped up some veggies to use for dinner.

“Yep. Black widows aren’t as bad as people think though. Most of the time, their bites don’t do much. Anti-venom is used mostly for pain-management. And we don’t have any colonies of brown recluse in Maine,” Amy said, flapping her left hand softly.

“But black widows can still cause some cool…” Parker leaned toward his book, squinting. “Symptoms.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what?” I asked, plopping the veggies in a bowl.

“Muscle pain, nau…sea, vomiting, cramps, sweating, itching, rash, swollen eyelids, weakness, and sometimes you can’t move your legs,” Parker listed, nodding his head back and forth as he did so. He seemed more interested in the last symptom. He turned to Amy. “Why does that happen—the leg part?”

“I don’t know. That’s not a symptom I read listed very much. It might happen because of the muscle pain or weakness,” she answered.

“Hey, Dee!” Parker said.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think we could find a black widow and make it bite me and see what happens?”

I swung around. “Um, no—no, we cannot!” I exclaimed, looking at him with a confused gaze and furrowed eyebrows. What kind of question was that? In the back of my mind, I thought about the likeliness that a spider bite would even do anything to Parker. His skin was tougher than typical human skin, and even if the spider broke it, I don’t know that the venom would do anything to him, being that he has venom of his own.

Parker looked down, clearly disappointed.

“That could be dangerous, so I don't want to experiment with you getting hurt," I explained to try and soften the blow. It occurred to me how different that was from the approach of the scientists who raised the rest of us.

“And black widows only bite when they’re scared. It wouldn’t be nice to frighten them,” Amy added helpfully.

Parker nodded. “That’s true,” he said, seeming a little less disappointed.

“Besides, do we even have any near here? It might be too cold,” I said. Maine was colder than any of us preferred, but it’s hard to hide extra limbs in shorts and a tank top, so here we were.

“Oh. I don’t know,” Parker replied, looking down to flip through his book.

“Maybe,” Amy answered, still flapping her hand. “But it would be the northern widow, not the southern one. You can tell the difference between them, because the northern widows look completely different. Their body shape is similar, but they have a lot more markings”

“Well, that’s pretty cool. I didn’t know there were different types,” I said, grabbing a box of pasta out of the pantry.

Amy nodded. “Yep. Actually, black widows are part of the Theridiidae family, which contains 31 species.”

“That’s a lot of spiders, “ I commented. I appreciated listening to Amy’s little lessons. I would never have thought to research bugs, and when she talks about all that she knows about them, I actually find myself interested. Sometimes she even reminds me about the better parts of my own schooling, and the times when we learned without necessarily being exploited.

Parker’s head popped up. “Do you wanna know how they eat their prey?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said as I put some water on to boil. I actually wasn’t terribly keen on hearing about it, but I knew it would make him happy.

“So they catch the bugs in their web and then they bite them and inject di…di—”

“Digestive enzymes,” Amy chirped, looking down at the section Parker was reading from.

“Digestive enzymes,” Parker repeated carefully. “Into them. And they turn the bug insides to mush. And then the spider sucks them out.”

I frowned, but luckily wasn’t facing Parker. That was disgusting. “That’s very interesting,” I said, trying to sound at least a little sincere.

“Like a smoothie!” Parker continued.

The words had effective imagery, and I gagged.

Meanwhile, Sybil quietly meandered into the kitchen. She’d heard the conversation and I noticed a small smirk as she glanced over at me. Evidently, she’d heard me gag as well.

“Speaking of smoothies, how long before dinner’s ready?” she asked.

I glared at her. “Depends if I puke in the pot or not,” I replied, keeping my voice soft enough that hopefully she was the only one who heard me. I tried my best not to make Parker feel self-conscious about his spider genes.

Sybil smiled as she met my gaze. “Do you need any help?” she offered.

“If you wanna keep an eye on the pasta while I get the veggies cooked, that’d be great.”

Sybil nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Great, I’ll be right back.” I headed to the bathroom and looked in the closet where we kept the medicine.

I woke up with a stuffed nose this morning and the last dose of medicine I took for it was starting to wear off. It was unusual for any of us to get sick. I figured our DNA was unusual enough to cause a problem for most viruses, but the occasional one slipped through. I popped a couple pills and went back to the kitchen to finish up dinner before Niall got home.