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But I thought I knew what people they were; I would have preferred the spiders.

'Got four of them!' said someone -- a voice with a locker-room familiarity to it. 'Got fucking four of them at once!'

'Got a little one and three big ones,' said another familiar voice, a ballcarrier's voice or a blocking back's voice -- it was hard to tell.

Flashlights, like the blinking eyes of rather mechanical spiders in the night, looked us over.

'Well, look who's here,' said the voice in command, said the quarterback called Chipper Dove.

'Got pretty little feet,' said Harold Swallow.

'Got beautiful skin,' said Chester Pulasik.

'She has a nice smile, too,' said Lenny Metz.

'And the best ass in the whole school,' said Chipper Dove. Franny rested on her knees.

'Howard Tuck had a heart attack!' I told them all. 'We've got to get an ambulance!'

'Let the fucking monkey go,' said Chip Dove. The net shifted. The thin black arm of Harold Swallow snatched the kid in the gorilla suit out of the spider's web and released him into the night. 'Trick or treat!' said Harold, and the little gorilla was gone.

'Is that you, Firestone?' Dove asked, and the flashlight shone on the bland boy named Firestone, who looked as if he were trying to fall asleep at the bottom of the net, his knees drawn fetus-tight up to his chest, his eyes closed, his hand over his mouth.

'You fag, Firestone,' said Lenny Metz. 'What are you doing?'

'He's suckin' his thumb,' said Harold Swallow.

'Let him go,' the quarterback said, and Chester Pulaski's painful complexion blossomed, momentarily, in the flashlight; he dragged the dormant Firestone from the net. After a slight pounding sound, of flesh on flesh, we heard the awakened Firestone trot away.

'Now look who's left,' said Chipper Dove.

'A man had a heart attack,' Franny said. 'We really are going to the infirmary for the ambulance.'

'You're not going there now,' said Dove. 'Hey, kid,' he said to me, holding a flashlight on my face. 'You know what I want you to do, kid?'

'No,' I said. And someone kicked me through the net.

'What I want you to do, kid,' Chipper Dove said, 'is stay right here, in our giant spider web, until one of the spiders tells you you can go. You understand?'

'No,' I said, and someone kicked me again, a little harder.

'Be smart,' Franny said to me.

'That's right,' said Lenny Metz. 'Be smart.'

'And you know what I want you to do, Franny?' said Chipper Dove, but Franny didn't respond. 'I want you to show me that place, again,' he said. That place where we can be alone. Remember?'

I tried to crawl closer to Franny, but someone was tightening the net around me.

'She stays with me!' I yelled. 'Franny stays with me.'

I was down on my hip, then, with the net growing tighter and someone was kneeling on my back.

'Leave him alone,' Franny said. 'I'll show you the place.'

'Just stay here and don't move, Franny,' I said, but she let Lenny Metz pull her out from under the net. 'Remember what you said, Franny!' I cried to her. 'Remember -- about the first time?'

'It probably isn't true,' she said, dully. 'It probably isn't anything.'