'cause next to masks, peanuts were the thing) under the sofa, I answered. "Nothing against him. O. K. rabbit. Peter. With it." Before I knew what was happening, the Spider had handed me a rabbit mask with the most ears I ever saw on a rabbit-most amount that is. So there I was ten months later, tied into this floppy-eared mess. Trying to figure what old Marley really was and looked like . . . what the Spider thought he wanted to be... what anybody wanted to be. I began to dig the fact that we were lost, man, I mean thirty miles from Nowheresville. We'd lost track, what with being hot and cool at one and the same time. The group in Aztec masks, robber masks, Mighty Mouse masks, false eyebrows and good fairy masks was strictly for no one. When I came to, I wasn't digging the library bit-not in the least. It was the furthest and the least-just wow. What did we want with the public library-the peanuts-the masks? We'd been gone before . . . but now we were the quite squares and all up a haystack. Everyone got up to fade to the library. The Spider trounced edgily out the door ahead of them all, he was the quite quite first. I followed old Marley. The Spider was eating peanuts-always peanuts, it took a lot of them to generate the energy for the great brain. I haven't said anything about the Spider and squirrels. As far as the Spider went, they were the least . . . so least that they weren't even within flying distance of Nowheresville . . . they swung him sick, swung him sicker than anything. Not even sightseeing busses, after the accident, swung the Spider any sicker than squirrels.

All the time that the Spider was edging and we were trotting through the park, I was trying to remember Marley before the masks. I had nearly remembered, when the Spider noticed that a couple of quite quite squirrels were clattering after him along the pavement. The Spider edged faster and faster until he was making the most time he could, but still those two, cool, beady-eyed cats tracked him. When the first two were joined by relatives (Marley said later, in the privacy of the I.R.T. subway, it was the peanuts, 'cause the Spider was never strong on the St. Francis bit), as far as the Spider was concerned, it was just wow. The Spider tore off down the path, setting every sort of record and closely tracked by the squirrel delegation. The Spider hadn't given up on the edging... but he was yelling the worst jazz at those furry gangsters. The rest of the group thought that it was a general bit and part of the scene we were all making... and cut off down the path after the Spider and his little friends. I was never one for the track scene and just wandered along behind the frantic little mob. Marley stopped to light her pipe and I stopped beside her . . . still wondering what she'd looked like before we'd all got the word.

Far away in the distance, the most far-I saw the Spider still edging. Edging at high speed had confused the rest of the group. The group had mistaken in the worst way the direction that the Spider was fading to. At a sharp bend, the Spider continued his quick fade, while the group as a whole blew off to right angles... they were the quite frantic and enthusiastic!

When I dug the Spider disappearing in the direction of Nowheresville . . . and the rest of the group making a beach scene in the lake-where a big redfaced cat in blue, on a mean looking brown horse, and a lot of square types in little boats... were raising hell and yelling at them to look out I felt that it was time to blow to Anywhereselseville. I took old Marley's hand and said come on, things are the most frantic and entirely too thick, so let's fade. Marley looked as nicely as she could through the mask and said just wow. Then we started to walk hand in hand to the nearest subway, talking up a storm that had the least to do with the group or the Spider or the masks.

We left the masks under the most rock we could lift.

13