The Only One Left

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.

The entire morning, I’d stayed outside, guarding the small pile of leaves that the gardener had raked. I absolutely refused to go inside, because if I did, the gardener would burn the leaves.

But here I was, staring at the pile of leaves that were bursting into flames. I was angry at myself for even going inside in the first place. 

“How could you?!” I yelled to the gardener in despair. Without waiting for an answer, I grabbed a bucket from my sister’s sandpit and poured water into it. I splashed the water onto the pile of leaves, and instantly, the fire was put out. “No, no, no, no,” I sobbed as I uncovered the leaves, trying to find a trace of any survivors.

I was only twelve years old at the time but by then I already knew I needed to become an environmentalist one day. Animals are amazing, especially spiders. They weave such complicated webs and deserve more credit than they already have. I had been looking after five spiders, all of them less than a day old. They’d hatched that morning, all of them so cute! 

I’d found a pile of leaves to keep them safe, and I’d guarded them for the past five hours. When I finally went inside a for a small break, someone had lit the pile of leaves on fire.

Now all of them were dead. Because of me.

Loud rustling made me stop crying. I looked and saw a tiny little spider. A Goliath Birdeater

It was alive.

“Yes!” I yelled happily.

Five years later, on my seventeenth birthday, my parents brought me to one of my favorite parks ever: Central Montreal Park. I’d never been to it before, but I knew that it was a place that environmentalists could freely study animals, and no one could come and harm the animals there.

“Wow! Mom, Dad, you’re the best!” I cried, hugging them fiercely. “Thank you so much. This is the best birthday present ever! I love you.”

My parents laughed. “We love you too, Pam.”

I smiled and my brown eyes sparkled with joy. For the special day, I was wearing a green shirt that promoted Green Givers, my sponsor that help me fund all my studies, and some camouflage pants. I thought that it would be best if I could blend in with my surroundings. Of course, I had a tool belt that contained the various notebooks that I always kept in case I found something interesting, and my ever-present pet spider, Felicia, who was the Goliath Birdeater. She was very young, only five years old, and Goliath’s normally live for about fifteen to twenty years.

Seeing Felicia, my parents instinctively stepped back. 

When I was fifteen, Felicia had accidentally jumped on my mom’s face. Not a good experience, I tell you.

Since then, we’d become warier of Felicia, but she was a really friendly spider, more friendly than I’d actually expected.

“Pam!” yelled my best friend, Tony, who was a fellow environmentalist.

“Hey!” I waved to him. I could easily find him because his red hair always stood out like an inferno. He was dressed exactly like I was, except that his toolbelt was nowhere as cool as mine was.

“Well,” my dad said, “I hope you enjoy staying here. We’ll pick you up in four hours.”

“Thank you!” I hugged them both.

“Love you,” my mom called. 

“Love you!” I said as Tony and I went into the woods.

Once we were alone, Tony immediately began staring at Felicia, who was on my shoulder.

“Wow, I’ve never seen a spider this friendly!” he said in awe. 

I smiled. “Felicia’s awesome, isn’t she?”

We continued walking, occasionally sketching some pictures and taking some notes.

After three hours of walking, I was exhausted, but happy. Once in a while, Tony would ooh and ah over Felicia, but other than that, we didn’t talk much.

“Pam,” said Tony, quite unexpectedly, “Felicia’s old enough to look after herself, you know that, right?”

“I know,” I sighed. “But she’s stayed with me for ages, and if she leaves, then everything will be different.”

“You should release her to the wild,” Tony said. It wasn’t a suggestion, but it was more like an order.

“Okay, I will. Some day. Maybe not now, but maybe soon.”

Tony could tell I wasn’t going to change my mind. “Okay,”

Suddenly, we spotted every environmentalists’ nightmare- a fire.

Fires in the forest could spread very quickly and kill many animals. Felicia hid under my shirt as Tony and I ran towards the fire, leaping over various tree branches. The fire wasn’t big, just one about the size of a campfire. I locked eyes with Tony and he nodded. We grabbed some dirt and put over the fire. It quickly died out.

It looked like the source of the fire was a pile of leaves; just like the one Felicia used to live in. Well, like the one she lived in for less than a day. Frowning, I inspected the leaves and moved some out of the way. But there it stood. One spider. The only spider that lived. The living spider in the burning leaves. Just like Felicia was.

Felicia hopped down to the ground, and the two spiders met. Felicia locked all of her eyes onto me. I smiled, although it was a sad smile. I knew it was the right time to release her into the wild.

“Go,” I urged her. “Find your place in the wild.”

With that, they were gone.

Tony put his hand on my shoulder. “She’ll be fine,” he assured me. “After all, you did raise her,”

“I hope so,” I responded, wiping a tear away. I’d been with Felicia for five years already. I hoped she’d be okay.

I raised my hand in farewell. “Goodbye, Felicia.”

Then Tony and I trudged through the woods to get back to the entrance of the park. While we walked, I made a promise to myself that I would visit this park as often as I could, just to see Felicia.

Maybe even meet that other spider.