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It was a bother, but Leah had managed to blindfold all of Lydia’s eyes so she didn’t see where the evil hideout was. They webbed her to a wall, and Frank insisted that their prisoner be given some of their flies and a drop of water.

“What are you going to do with me,” Lydia wailed. She was really scared since these evil spiders were supposed to be so mean.

“Shush,” demanded Leah. Then Leah turned to Frank and asked, “What are we going to do with her, eat her?”

“You’re always talking about eating other spiders. Would you forget about eating spiders?”

“But if you eat your enemies, they stop being a problem.”

“Look Leah, if we have a hostage, we can make Lilly and her gang do anything, including staying out of our way.”

“You know this means that Lilly’s gang must have a hideout near ours.”

“That’s why this is going to work.”

“What is, Frank?”

“You’ll see. Just activate the loudspeaker on the slime gun. I think they’re close enough to hear it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Please quit questioning all of my orders, Leah. I know what I’m doing.”

Leah started to ask if he really did know, but figured arguing was useless right now. If he kept making mistakes, she’d take over and run things her way.

Kayden, who had been listening, had turned on the loudspeaker and handed Frank the microphone. “Here you go, boss.”

Frank took the mike and noticed that Leah seemed annoyed that Kayden had called Frank “boss.”

“Attention, Lilly and the gang of good spiders.” He was speaking in spider, so even if the humans in Hayfield heard him, they wouldn’t understand anything.

“We have your spider Lydia. We won’t hurt her as long as you stay out of our way. We intend to take over the town of Hayfield and all of the humans in it. This is our first step in the conquest of the Earth.

“We are doing this to protect all spiders everywhere, including you. If you want to join us, send us a signal and give us your force field machine. Otherwise, do not interfere. The life of Lydia depends on it.”

Frank cut off the mike and gave it back to Kayden. Then he turned to Leah and said, “Satisfied?”

“I guess for now.”

Frank was getting really annoyed with Leah and wished there were some way of getting rid of her. But the rest of the gang respected her as much as they did him. If he kicked her out, the rest of the gang would rebel and have to decide to either follow her or him.

Lydia had been watching and listening while eating the flies and drinking the water. She could tell there was tension between Frank and Leah and also sensed that Frank might be more reasonable. She kept all this in mind, hoping it would be useful later on.

In the good spider hideout, Lilly was very worried. Sam said to her, “Maybe we can find the evil spider headquarters and rescue Lydia.”

“Too risky,” Lilly answered. “Even if we could find them, Lydia might be hurt or killed. I think we should do what they say for the time being.”

Gloria said, “I might be able to build a machine that can detect electrical power usage. Frank’s slime cannon must use a lot of power, and they must have a chemical factory to make the slime.”

“How long would that take,” Lilly asked?

“With the parts we have available…” she looked around their lair. “…actually, I can’t make it with these parts. We’d have to go out for more. I could take days or even weeks.”

“We don’t have that kind of time, Gloria.”

“I’m sorry, Lilly. I don’t know what else to do.”

Lilly thought for a moment. “I think I know. Here’s what we’re going to do.” Then Lilly laid out her brilliant plan to the rest of the gang.

This is the fifth installment of eight chapters in a story I co-wrote with my seven-year-old granddaughter starting last Halloween. If you have missed the other chapters, you can start with Chapter 1 and then click through the links at end of the subsequent chapters to get back to here.

I publish one chapter a week on Fridays just so you know. All of the drawings are mine. If you enjoy them, and they’re perfectly “kid-friendly,” pass them along to your own children or grandchildren (or nieces, nephews, and so on).

Let me know what you think. I’ll pass any complements along to my granddaughter.

On to Chapter 6!