Quatre delivered the essential details to the Maguanac Corps immediately following the incident of the braided boy with the feared arachnid having been sent to the office by his traumatized, spider-hating teacher: Duo was in ”gigantical trouble.” Normally, Quatre wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving his assigned seat without first obtaining permission but he decided that it was “’portent ‘nough to tell Melody right ‘way ‘bout what happened to Duo” to risk getting in trouble himself. He quickly cracked open the window, gave the news and returned to his seat so fast that he was able to accomplish his mini-mission before his teacher had sufficient time to recover from her shock so she didn’t notice the infraction. Quatre ran his hand through his shaggy blonde bangs and sighed; he was greatly relieved.

As the leader of the Maguanac Corps, Rashid decided that he would personally go to bring Quatre-sama’s webmommie to the school. She was walking out the door when he landed his massive mobile suit on the front lawn, which was something he had never done before so Melody knew instantly that the call she had received from the school secretary telling her that her presence was required ASAP was in fact a serious manner.

Bowing respectfully but saying nothing, Rashid greeted the often-puzzled webmommie. Melody nodded once in return and silently followed him to the Maguanac’s bus; they understood each other perfectly so no words were necessary. Rashid escorted her as far as the school office before politely taking his leave. He hurried out of the building and around to the back of the school to be stationed by the chibis’ classroom because it was now his turn—along with two of his comrades—to watch their beloved little boy. The devotees that these three men were replacing then went to the vacant post which was created by the scheduled rotation. The Maguanacs had developed a very efficient monitoring system which was as precise as clockwork in order to make sure that all was well both in and around Quatre-sama’s place of learning.

Duo was sitting alone in the Principal’s office with Zelda’s container between his knees so she wouldn’t get lonely. He was feeling very small in the grown-up sized orange molded plastic chair where he had been told to stay until the Principal returned. When he heard Melody talking with the secretary he quickly stuffed the jar that housed his “sneaked-in” pet into his backpack and stashed the bulging bag into the tight space between his chair and the wall. He had been hoping that there might be some way to get around the fact that he had “ackadently” brought a tarantula to school but he had serious doubts about that possibility when he remembered his teacher’s highly negative reaction to the cool pet he’d proudly brought to school to share with his classmates.

Melody and the Principal, Mr. Owens, entered the tiny room together.

Duo looked up at his webmommie with “I know I’m in REAL TRUBBLE THIS TIME” written all over his face.

The combination of his contrite expression and the pitiful look in his bright blue eyes—Melody’s greatest weakness—tugged at her heartstrings so she sat down in the uncomfortable unoccupied chair next to his and decided to turn her attention from her chibi’s beautiful, pitiful eyes to the man she had come to see.

”Mrs. Meyer will be here shortly,” the tall balding man with a bushy moustache informed them.

The teacher they were waiting for was soon heard asking the school nurse for an aspirin or six and then she joined them in the already crowded space that served as an office.

“Mrs., ah…” Mrs. Meyer stammered.

‘Here we go again,’ thought Melody for the umpteenth time but she only said what she always said, “Just call me Melody” in what she hoped was a pleasant-sounding voice. Would this woman ever remember her name?!

Mrs. Meyer started right in with unmistakable hostility. “Do you know why your boy is in trouble?” she demanded in a way that didn’t endear her to people; the words ‘your boy’ were spoken with such venom-dripping scorn that it sounded as though she held Melody to be personally responsible for whatever it was that her chibi had done.

Melody bristled and said, “No,” as civilly as she could manage.

“He brought a poisonous spider to school today!” the teacher declared with anger flashing in her dark brown eyes.

‘That’s strange,’ Melody mused. ‘Minnesota doesn’t have poisonous spiders.’

“He could have endangered the entire class had I not sent him straight to the office before that thing could hurt anybody,” she said triumphantly, as though she had snatched her students from the very jaws of death.

“What kind of spider is it, Duo?” Mr. Owen asked, leaning forward in his chair with his forearms on the desk and clasping his hands. He had not been told why Duo was there so he was suddenly very interested in this new twist.

“She’s a terantula,” Duo replied proudly. “An’ she’s REAL COOL!”

“A tarantula?” Melody squeaked. “Where on earth did you get a tarantula?”

“When we was at the gross’ry store last night there was a box that the store people was keepin’ ‘em in an’ they was just givin’ ‘em to enyone who wanted ‘em,” Duo enlightened her. “An’ I was lucky ‘nough to get the VERY LAST ONE.”

“How…why…” Melody gulped and became more pale than she usually was, which was quite a feat! “Where did the grocery store get them from?” she asked, now that she had remembered how to link a jumble of words into a coherent sentence.

“They come from a FAR ‘WAY land called Coaster Rica,” Duo explained dramatically. “Sometimes terantulas hide inside HUGE bunches of bananas an’ stow ‘way just like people do on ships sometimes an’ then they travel ALL THE WAY to ‘Merica to be free just like the immigrationers do so they can see the Statue of Librity.”

“Well, that proves we’re getting our money’s worth out of the cable bill,” Melody thought. “At least he’s learning something from watching educational television.”

Mr. Owens had an unmistakable twinkle in his pale blue eyes which was not missed by Melody. He was trying not to smile but was making a poor job of it.

Duo turned to his teacher. “An' she’s NOT DANG’ROUS!” he cried indignantly. “She wouldn’t hurt a fly—uh, well, I guess she would ‘cause she hasta eat but she wouldn’t hurt much else!”

Mr. Owens began to chuckle.

Mrs. Meyer responded with a look of pure evil. “This isn’t funny!” she insisted.

“I think it is,” he responded. “Let me see her,” the amused man in charge said pleasantly.

Duo pulled the jar from its hiding place and gave it to him.

“Oh, it’s an Avicularia avicularia, commonly known as the Pinktoe. She’s a real beauty!” Mr. Owens exclaimed as he removed the perforated lid from the jar and let the spider in question step out onto his sleeve.

“What are you doing?!” Mrs. Meyer shrieked.

Melody turned away—she couldn’t bear to watch.

“I had one just like this when I was a boy,” the spider-enthusiast explained.

“Could you put it back in the jar please?” Melody asked in a high-pitched, strangulated voice.

“It’s bad enough to have it in the room without having to watch it running around,” the teacher grumbled.

So Duo stood up and held the jar in front of Zelda and the cooperative furry black spider went back into the mayonnaise jar that she called ‘home.’ To the great relief of both of the arachnophobic women, Duo then hid her from view without being told to.

“You see,” Duo directed his words toward his teacher, “she’s not dang’rous at all an’ she’s not poise-a-ness neither. Zelda’s a very nice spider who knows how t’ be real ‘haved!”

“Zelda?!” the man yelped before he broke into a hearty laugh. “You named her Zelda?” he managed to say and kept right on laughing.

“Yes,” Duo said seriously, “I named her after my teacher.” He gave Mrs. Meyer a look of contempt. “But I’m sorry I did it now. She don’t deserve to have my spider named after her.”

The man who liked spiders laughed until his sides ached. Melody joined in; normally she could suppress the amusement she felt when the chibis said something cute but the Principal’s delight was contagious.

A bewildered chibi looked at Mr. Owens, then at his webmommie and back at the head of the school.

“This isn’t funny!” the red-faced angry teacher insisted, addressing her superior. “You’re not supposed to be laughing—you’re supposed to be defending me!”

“No I’m not,” he managed to reply, wiping away the tears that were coursing down his cheeks. “My job is to mediate.”

“Well, mediate then!”

“What’s so funny?” Duo finally asked Melody.

“Duo,” Mr. Owens responded for her. “It’s just that it’s not...very flattering...to name a tarantula after a woman.” Just saying that aloud tickled him so much that he couldn't help himself--this was the best laugh he’d had in a long time!

“It’s not?” This revelation came as a complete surprise to the well-meaning boy. “I thought she’d like Zelda bein’ named after her. I was tryin’ to cheer her up after her faintin’ ‘bout Quatre bringin’ his baby circus effelent Queenie to school.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” the man’s subordinate demanded, completely forgetting her place.

“Nothing.”

Duo’s teacher was taken aback farther than she had ever been before. Mr. Owens stood up, indicating that the meeting was over and everyone walked into the main office.

"So am I still in trubble?" the small child asked, looking up at his fellow spider-enthusiast with confusion in his big blue eyes.

"Don't worry about it," the big man answered.

"Alright!" Duo shouted, but refrained from doing his usual victory dance because he didn't want to "shake up Zelda and confuse her brain". He settled for happily half-running down the hallway in the direction of his classroom.

“Duo, just take it home and that will be the end of it, okay?” the nice man called after him.

“O-KAY!” Duo replied happily.

“He’s not taking it home.” Melody was horrified at the thought. “You like tarantulas—would you consider giving Zelda a home?” she suggested hopefully.

“Sorry, no can do,” the spider fan reluctantly declined. “When we got married I promised my wife there would be no more pet spiders.”

As Mr. Owens watched the energetic boy hurrying back to class he realized that he had a new appreciation of the little guy; although Duo had a history of creating chaos the Principal decided that he was a ‘pretty neat kid’ because he was a friend to tarantulas. He could see that Duo was an endearing and unique child who could charm everybody who knew him—Mrs. Meyer excepted.

Duo sat on the front porch in the late afternoon sunshine with the other boys and the ownerless spider in her jar keeping him company.

“You know, she IS really cool,” Trowa complimented Zelda, thinking that perhaps saying so would cheer Duo up a bit.

It didn’t.

“I don’t know what to do,” Duo worried, leaning with his elbow on his knee, resting his chin on his palm and looking very dejected. “Melody says she can’t come in the house an' that I gotta find a home for her,” Duo told his friends. “The gross'ry store man just laughed when I asked him if he would take Zelda back an' when Treize took me to some of the neighbors’ houses on the way home from the gross'ry store the ladies was really rude to Zelda an’ didn’t even give her a chance. One lady said that she’d call the cops if I didn’t get outta there just before she fainted. After Treize woke her up he told me that goin' door to door just wasn’t gonna work.”

A small plan hatched in Wufei’s mind. “Why don’t you give it to Hilde? Then she’ll be mad at you an’ maybe she’ll stop droolin’ all over you.”

That was an intriguing thought and Duo decided it had definite possibilites until the following thought squelched the first one. “Yeah, an’ if I upset Hilde Howard probly won’t let me work in his workingshop no more an’ we got that trebble-you-shay to finish buildin’.

“I hadn’t a thought of that,” Wufei admitted. “You really got a point there.”

Everyone agreed that it was not a good idea to alienate their neighbor’s darling niece.

“How ‘bout if you leave it on Howard's doorstep menomenously?” Quatre suggested. “I know that Howard don’t want more pets ‘cause he’s already got a boa constricted an’ a skink that gots a blue tongue, but if it is just ‘bandoned he might feel sorry for it an’ ‘dopt it.”

“Good thinkin', Quatre.” Heero gave his support to Quatre’s solution. “He likes weird animals.”

“That might work!” Duo brightened. “Let’s do it!”

“I’ll get a bow for the top of her jar. Wufei, you find somethin' to wrap it up in an’ Trowa can you get a basket to carry it in? An’ Duo, you write the menomenous letter sayin’ to please take good care of this poor or-fanned spider,” Quatre instructed before hurrying into the house.

“Hi, Hilde! It’s Relena,” Hilde heard her friend’s voice over the telephone. “How come you wasn’t at school today? Oh—can you see me?” Relena waved at Hilde from the seat built into the living room’s bay window. This was a little game they played when they were talking on the phone.

“Yeah, I can see you even though it’s gettin’ kinda dark with the sun goin’ down but I can still see you. Can you see me?” Hilde waved at Relena from her bedroom window on the upper floor. “I catched a cold so I couldn’t a gone to school today,” she explained.

“That’s too bad. I hope you feel betterer real soon,” Relena said sincerely. “Hey, what’s Duo doin’?” She watched the braided boy furtively carrying a small basket with a bow on it over to Hilde’s house. “Looks like he gots a present for you.”

“A present?!” Hilde squealed. She ran out of her room and rushed through the house, carrying her portable phone with her.

“He’s probly tryin’ to cheer you up ‘cause you’re sick,” Relena guessed. “He put it down on the step an’ is leavin’. I’ll bet he’s givin’ it to you monogamously ‘cause he’s shy so he’s too imbarrassed or somethin’ Romantical like that. Go see what it is an’ call me back, ‘kay?”

“Okay!”

Hilde opened the front door and called to the retreating boy. “Duo! Thanks for bringin’ me a get well present!”

“Get well?” Duo was puzzled; his next thought was “I’m doomed.”

“Come back an’ watch me open it,” the giddy girl insisted so the menomenous gift-giver turned and went back to talk with the thorn in his side because he’d already been caught red-handed.

“Hope Howard don’t get mad at me,” Duo wished earnestly as he reached the step. “I really wanna help with finishin’ that trebble-you-shay.” He watched apprehensively as Hilde removed the pink bow which was supposed to suggest that Zelda might be a girl but now he saw that it had been a mistake to use it because since it was a ‘girly’ color Hilde had automatically assumed this was a present for her.

“Oh, Duo! She’s SOOO cute! An’ her name is Zelda, just like the video game! An' it’s Mrs. Meyer’s name too!” she gushed while Duo stood stone-still and slack-jawed. “You’re SOOO thoughtful! How did ya know that I’ve ALWAYS wanted a trantula? It must be fate, sweetie-pie—we was MADE for each other!”

Glomp.

Two days later Hilde’s cold was getting better so she was able to return to school.

“Welcome back, Hilde,” Mrs. Meyer greeted her student pleasantly. “Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes, Mrs. Meyer. An’ I hafta tell ev’rybody that it was SO ROMANTICAL when Duo gave me a get well present an’ so I brought it for Show ‘n Tell today.”