Spiderman 1 Read Online Free

that his parents could be watching right over his shoulder, without being seen, was an exciting one. It made them almost like invisible heroes or something. More importantly, it eased—ever so slightly—the aching melancholy that had threatened to overwhelm him.
    Uncle Ben pulled out a ballpoint, balanced the notebook carefully on his knees, and waited expectantly for Peter to start talking. He had a very serious demeanor, like an executive secretary about to take dictation from the president of the United States.
    "Mom and Dad," Peter said finally, "I love you and I miss you. Maybe I'll see you soon. Uncle Ben is nice," and he glanced surreptitiously at his uncle to see his reaction. The only hint of it was the edges of his mouth twitching upward. Peter took that as a good sign. "Aunt May is nice, too. I think she made cookies. They smell good."
    "They are good," Ben assured him under his breath.
    "Uncle Ben says they're good. I think maybe I'll have one, if that's okay. But I won't sit on the couch or chair or anything to eat them, because I don't like how they feel."
    "Know what? Neither do I," said Ben, even as he contin ued to write. He spoke very distantly, as if thinking aloud. "I think I'll have a chat with your aunt about removing them. No reason we can't make the house more little-boy friendly."
    "That'd be good," Peter said.
    Ben hesitated, waited. "Anything else you want to say?" he inquired.
    "No. That's all for now," said Peter after thinking about it a little.
    They went downstairs and had cookies and milk while
    Aunt May insisted that she would attend to putting away all Peter's clothes, just to help him feel more at home. Uncle Ben kept telling Peter how pleased he was to see Peter's mood improve, and how they were going to be great friends and a great family, just you wait and see. Peter's spirits im proved with each bite of a cookie and each sip of milk. It was the warmth of the freshly baked cookie versus the chill of the refrigerated milk, and the warmth won out, giving him a pleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach.
    Then he went upstairs, and the first thing he noticed was that the spider was gone. "Oh, that awful thing," said Aunt May. "Don't worry, Peter. I vacuumed it right up. That nasty spider is dead."

    For the next hour it was very difficult to hear the shouts of "Thanks a lot, May!" and "How was I supposed to know?" over Peter's pained howls. It took a full day of coaxing and an entire tray of brownies to get Peter to even talk to his Aunt May, and even then there was occasional snuffling or hurt looks. As time passed, the relationship between Peter and his aunt and uncle smoothed out and became a consis tent and loving one.
    His relationships with the rest of the world, on the other hand, were a bit more problematic....

    II.
    THE DEPARTURE

    Why did I listen to her?!?!
    Peter Parker adored Mary Jane Watson. There was no question in his mind about that. She was, indeed, hard not to adore. With that luscious red hair . . . with that exquisite mouth that could start as a pout that could crush your heart, then transform into a smile that could send it soaring into the stratosphere ... with those stunning green eyes that could evoke a spring day in the dead of winter . . . with that laugh ter as light as a meringue ... from head to toe, the girl was as close to absolute perfection as any high school senior girl could be.
    She had just one teensy, tiny little problem.
    The girl had no sense of time.
    At all.
    Not only that, but she could never remember times that were told to her. Times of meetings, of appointments, of tests ... there and gone. Her mind was filled with the simple joys of living each day to the fullest, and didn't do well with being bound by such inconveniences as deadlines. Timeliness was for lesser mortals.
    So what in the hell had possessed Peter to believe her for so much as a microsecond when she'd said that the bus for the field trip left the school at precisely 8:30 that