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Tuesday 7:45 a.m. Wolf Spider of Pennsylvania, Washington County School Basement, March 2026

This morning, when I got to my classroom at the hospital, a large “wolf-spider” was crouching calmly alongside the 3 bean bags left on the floor (that I didn’t clean up Monday, after school)

and as I scanned the room, prioritizing my next steps to prepare for the day, my eyes landed on Mr. Wolf the Spider. I immediately got weird about it, talking to him softly. No one else arrived yet, so I started pretending the spider was there on purpose, for me, to talk to me, to give me a sign, and also that I’m the queen of the wolf spiders Then I had to tell him, you needs to go hide before others come and want to kill you for no reason.

Last week, I even carried a small cockroach to safety outside of our classroom. In previous classrooms like with boys who primarily liked bullying, I’d have to hide this from them. I placed Cousin Cockroach higher up on the gym wall/pole.
Reflecting, I can’t guarantee to him he’ll be better off there That on our floor, and he also doesn’t need it my supposed help.
He’s a cockroach. I’m the one with no shell or ability to survive poison, extreme temperatures, dehydration, fire, nuclear warfare.
I’m the one that’s not safe. Cockroaches and those tiny water walruses— it’s the tiny, hardy things that will inherit the earth corporations destroyed for profit. [insert present tense] And my students, hell we could get trapped in here- the basement- and burn or drown or asphyxiate any day of the week.
It’s an old building with janky, shitty locks, bad ventilation, questionable structure, janky keys, broken door handles, and the unbreakable glass that they break once per week.

Anyway, the wolf spider was just fucking around. I said, for real, bro, you need to go on somewhere else. All the people are about to get here and one of them will step on you on accident, if nothing else. I don’t want someone else to see you and be screaming shit about a spider.

Plus, I have to put these black bean bags away, or the kids will think we get to start the day with movies, rather than how we have to earn them by doing a million difficult things (it will be the easiest thing, i swear, they make it the hardest) It’s hard for us too (the staff) getting up early, driving here, Making people do things yell and refuse?

You think I want to get up and talk to you all day? No, I wanna sit on my fattening butt and check my phone And I want everyone to fuck off too, but guess what we’re poor So I have to work, and you have to go to school here. So, I make them do shit like read and think about math (as much as I can) without them crashing out.

So, I got up to put the bean bags away (don’t call them black again!) I shook them off gently, trying to let Wolfie down easy, but dammit he had already jumped off, and I had already stepped on part of him. I got down on the floor and started trying to assess the damage.

Everything we do is filmed in seemingly technicolor detail, so i did hope nobody was watching me on cameras at the moment Two legs were fucked up. Listen, I told him, I really, really really really fucking sorry. Not as sorry as I was when I broke a young buck’s back leg with my stupid Chevy Cruise, on a rainy Wednesday 4pm, on a slippery road, right where I usually start to speed up and gun for home. So that- I’ll never forget. I begged for that lil guy’s forgiveness, but I don’t deserve it. None of us do. But the spider— don’t their legs grow back?

So I said to him, look I need to take you somewhere. You keep trying to stay in the most obvious, trample-able places, and I started trying to scoop him up with a paper But he was quicker, and kept jumping off He didn’t even land right, so finally I said suit yourself. He was against the side of the blue gym mat where Martinez likes to pass out after his meds kick in And it was really the safest spot he could have chosen besides the closet, which was my goal Even in there he might scare one of my teammates and they smash his guts

I don’t know if Wolfie made it or not, through the day. A couple minutes later, students arrived from their units. Martinez strode up to me and proudly pointed to his arm, “Look! Look! I’m getting a new roommate!” He was smiling, but also agitated. On his arm was an cresent red slash with bleeding puncture wounds on either side. You’re hurt! You’re hurt! I paged it, Can we have a nurse in 3? They got on the pager, We already know, they said, we’ll come soon I gave Martinez a napkin.
Is that a bite? I asked. Yes, he said, nodding emphatically. Who did it? He told me his roommate. So, a vampire bat then. A new roommate is certainly in order. I love Martinez. When I think of his laughter, and bright joyous face I laugh, myself. If I had nothing else to do, I would adopt that kid. But he’s willing to really hurt people who say no to him about food. And you just gotta say no, sometimes. He’s one of my favorites though. Another one of my favorites is obsessed with the Marvel Universe, and most of all, Spiderman.

One of my silly thoughts this morning was, maybe the spider is here for the kid. When we watched Spider Verse They asked, can a spider really do that? They have no idea what can really happen. and what can’t.