Tessa's Web, Spun Anew

A web grown tired

When the morning sun rose over the garden, it lit up thousands of tiny dewdrops caught in Tessa the orb-weaver spider's web. But underneath all that sparkle, the threads sagged, coated in a night's worth of dust. Ollie the caterpillar inched along a nearby leaf and squinted up at it. "Your web looks tired today, Tessa," he said. Tessa flexed her eight long legs and sighed. "She is tired, Ollie. She's caught a whole night of moths and dust and wind. By morning, even the stickiest web starts to lose her grip."

Taking the old web down

Ollie watched, puzzled, as Tessa began plucking her own silken threads loose, one by one. "Wait — you're taking the whole thing down?" he gasped. "But it still looks like a web!" Tessa nodded, unbothered. "Looks aren't everything, Ollie. This old glue has gone dry, and dust doesn't wash off silk. If I want a web that can truly catch my supper tonight, I need to build a brand new one — not patch up this tired old thing."

Nothing goes to waste

Instead of dropping her old threads to the ground, Tessa gathered them into a small silvery bundle and ate every strand. Ollie's eyes went wide. "You're eating your own web?" "Waste not!" Tessa said with a little laugh. "This silk is made of protein — the very same stuff that will spin tomorrow's threads. Nothing goes to waste in a spider's morning meal." By midday, not one trace of the old web remained between the branches.

Spinning fresh at dusk

As the sky turned gold and then rosy-purple, Tessa climbed to the very top of her favorite branch and let out a single silk thread on the evening breeze. Ollie watched, barely breathing, as she spun spoke after spoke, then spiraled outward round and round, faster than his eye could follow. "You're building the whole thing already?" he whispered. "Almost done," Tessa called back, never once slowing her eight busy legs. "Some of us can spin an entire web in under an hour, start to finish."

Ready for moonlight

By the time the moon rose full and silver over the garden, a brand new web hung glistening between the branches, every thread taut, every strand freshly sticky. Ollie gazed up at it, awestruck. "It's even more beautiful than before," he said. Tessa settled proudly at its center. "That's the secret, Ollie. Every single night, I get to start fresh — and every single night, my web gets to be the very best one I've ever spun."