Book 1 · The trilogy
Tina the Tarantula
Tina is a thoughtful young tarantula who feels the desert’s suffering as keenly as its beauty. In the Creosote Wash, she carries a longing she cannot easily set aside: that life might hold more happy days than hard ones.
With Roxanne, a brave and practical iguana, she leaves the ancestral wash for a dangerous crossing of the Mojave — windstorm, wasp, and open country — toward the Mountain of Three Peaks. Along the way they meet Jasper, an aged tortoise who knows the canyons, and a sacred site that keeps its secrets for those willing to search.
Tina the Tarantula is a quietly adventurous, illustrated story of friendship, courage, and learning to listen when the way ahead is uncertain.
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Sample · Listen or read
From Chapter Seven — on the sacred wall, Roxanne notices a hole bored among the etchings, and Tina climbs to see what waits inside. About two and a half minutes. The words match the narration.
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Over time, the pair became more intent on studying the markings on the sacred walls. One day, as Tina was perched high reviewing a depiction of an unfamiliar constellation, Roxanne was counting the figures assembled in V formation. She counted eighteen on the higher side of the V and thirteen on the lower. This was perplexing because the flocks the pair had observed flew in formations of at least forty. This formation was nine geese short, but why? As she paused, her gaze dropped a bit, and she noticed that a hole had been bored into the wall.
“Such a curious place to bore a hole,” she thought. She called out to Tina.
“Hey!”
Tina hardly paused in tracing the unidentified constellation with her front leg. “What!”
She finally responded without taking her eyes off the etchings.
“There’s a funny hole bored here in the wall. I can’t figure out why. It doesn’t fit with the rest of the markings.”
Tina looked over and decided to come down. The two stood as close to the hole opening as they could but couldn’t determine much more than it was a hole in the wall.
“I’ll crawl over and look inside,” said Tina.
Tina made use of the last two joints of her multi-jointed legs. She bent the tarsus joint and attached her claws to the shallow etchings of the flock of geese. Slowly, she made her way over to the hole. Finally, she positioned herself with back legs braced on the last etching and front legs extended into the edge of the hole opening. She saw that the hole extended only a little way into the wall. Some objects appeared to be lying within. Probing with her front legs, she nudged one of the items toward the opening. It was small, bean-shaped, and blue-gray.
“What is it?” asked Roxanne.
“I don’t know. I’ll have to pull it out. I’ll let it drop. The sand below is soft; we’ll examine it below. I think there’s more.”
“How many more are there?” asked Roxanne.
“Nine,” said Tina. “This one can fall now. We need to see whether it’s anything.”
Tina gave one last nudge to the object, which dropped to the sand floor. They examined the object again and again with no clue what it was. They brought the object to their regular breakfast meeting with Jasper the next day.
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