Free The Night of the Moonbow by Thomas Tryon Page A

wet pink tongue passionately washed Leo’s face.
    “Harpo! Hey, boy - hey, boy!” He wrestled the dog and hugged him to his chest. “Good dog, good dog!”
    Tiger flopped down beside Leo and regarded him quizzically. “What were you doing, flapping your arms like that?”
    Leo reddened. “I wanted to fly.” He said it like “I wanted some rice pudding; a new union suit.” How foolish it sounded, put into words. Yet, something told him it was okay, he could express such ideas to Tiger. Flights of fancy served Tiger’s mind, too.
    “How did you find me?” Leo asked. “Did Harpo sniff me out?”
    “This is where you usually are mornings,” Tiger explained, adding that he himself was on his way to Orcutt’s store at Four Corners; Harpo had trailed along. “Great spot, isn’t it?” he added, looking around.
    Leo agreed; Kelsoe’s Pond was indeed a fine spot. That Tiger also considered it such gave him considerable satisfaction. He had discovered the place several days ago, while on a spider hunt. Spurred on by Oats Gurley, who had promised to put Leo’s accumulated arachids on permanent display in the Nature Lodge (and to award him and Jeremiah a generous number of happy points for every new addition), he had visited here several mornings since, slipping away on a solitary “nature walk,” his violin and music case in tow, along with a couple of empty codfish boxes in his canvas knapsack (a loan from Tiger), while the majority of the campers were hard at work in the crafts barn, banging away at copper ashtrays to take home to their Uncle Louies.
    “What d’you think of my latest prize?” he asked tentatively, gesturing toward his most recent find, a black-and-gold specimen whose web glittered in the sun like a diamond necklace suspended between twin stalks of milkweed, gossamer filaments spun out of the abdominal workings of a creature the size of a quarter. For the past half-hour the spider had been industriously engaged in this miraculous act of manufacture, tossing out the silken threads to create the delicate design characteristic of her species.
    Tiger conceded that the spider was worth Leo’s time and patience, and Leo lay back, fingers laced behind his ears, well pleased. Though Tiger did not share his fascination for spiders - indeed, he had shown a decided aversion to them -this morning, sprawling companionably beside Leo on the turf, he, too, watched closely to see what wonders the little creature would perform next.
    A moment more, and her preliminary work was done; she scurried to the upper quadrant of the newly fashioned web, where, camouflaged by the flickering light and shade, she sat waiting for her prey. Before long an errant, pale-winged bug came flitting by, a poor, innocent bug up to no bad, but not a careful bug at all. It bumped into the web head-on, and in a flash the spider abandoned her corner, scrambling down the ladder of her web to pounce on the trapped insect. In ' his notebook, Leo detailed what happened next: the quick injection of paralyzing fluids, the last flutter of hapless wings, the wrapping of the victim in more filament until it resembled a miniature mummy. At last the spider dragged her dinner to the heart of the web, where she deposited it for safekeeping; then, having resumed her corner, she settled down again to wait.
    Having rounded out his notes with a quick sketch of the spider’s web, Leo capped his pen and lay back, reaching his hands over his head and stretching his body like a cat. He really was tall for his age, Tiger thought, secretly envying him his height; he wished his own arms and legs were longer; his physical size, or its lack, had always 'been to him a disadvantage, and something told him he’d never see six feet, never be tall like Reece Hartsig. But then, as his dad always said, Napoleon had been forced to deal with the same problem, and look how far he got. You just couldn’t give up on things. “Never Say Die,” that was Tiger’s motto.