It was just another damp and drizzly morning in the garden and as Beetle and Woodlouse perched on an old broken plant pot, they both agreed that they were bored. When would the sunshine come back, bringing the lovely fuzzy bees and bright, gently floating butterflies along with it?
The only other creature in their little corner of the garden just now was Eberhardt, the spider, who wasn’t fuzzy or brightly coloured, and whose daily comings and goings did not interest them at all. Every day, it was exactly the same routine.
“What does he do up there?” Beetle pondered out loud.
“I think he might be dancing,” whispered Woodlouse, “or trying to make himself dizzy.” He added thoughtfully.
“Why would he want to make himself dizzy?” said Beetle, looking at Woodlouse as if he were a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve.
Eberhardt scuttled past the pair of perplexed pals, scampering quickly up the side of the rickety, old garden shed before dropping a silken thread and swinging across the lowest branch of the apple tree, where he began to spin himself another web. The web was an intricate pattern of circles and straight lines which tugged the circles together and made the beautiful feathery web shape, so perfect and precise that Eberhardt was known to his spider friends as Eberhardt the Excellent, known far and wide for his excellence in web making.
Meanwhile down on the ground Beetle & Woodlouse looked on, confused as to what Eberhardt was doing and why. They were just about to shuffle off to find some lunch when a small snuffling dormouse peeped out from beneath the woodpile, rubbing at her eyes with tiny velvet feet before giving a wide, sharp toothed yawn.
“Good morning,” squeaked Mouse, “Isn’t he marvellous?”
“Who,” spluttered Beetle, “that dull brown spider up there?” he asked in confusion.
“Dull, dull! Are you quite alright?” Mouse peered down at Beetle, shaking her head. “If you can’t see what I can see then maybe you ought to go to Saver Specs!”
Just then the sunshine swung by, turning her beautiful rays towards the shed and, all at once, the sun caught on the web, lighting each drop of morning dew and sending out a million miniature rainbows from every strand. The stunning magnificence of Eberhardt’s web could be seen by one and all. Beetle and Woodlouse were speechless, it was so perfect, like a shimmering miracle!
“Whoah,” breathed Woodlouse, “what is that called Mouse?”
“That,” replied Mouse “is what I call excellence.”
Written by Mrs Burrows