Spiders

Holly was afraid of spiders. She thought their eight legs were creepy. She cried whenever she saw one.
Holly had a brother named Fred. Fred loved to tease Holly. He would put a spider in a jar under her pillow. He hung a plastic spider from her chair. Holly cried and cried. One day, Mama said, “Without spiders, we would have too many flies. If you like them, Fred will stop teasing you.”
Holly looked at a garden spider on a web. It looked back at her. Would it jump on her? But the spider just sat there.
Holly realized that the spider was pretty. It caught a fly in its web. “Amazing,” thought Holly.
The next time Fred teased her with a plastic spider, she laughed. When she found a jar under her pillow, Holly let the spider go outside. “Catch a lot of flies,” she said.