Bertram smirked as he dropped his handful of dirt onto Aunt Hepzibah’s coffin. Daft old biddy. No sense of humour. Giving him a thrashing just for dropping spiders down her back while she snoozed. What else was he supposed to do on childhood duty visits?

If she hadn’t been so bad tempered, maybe he wouldn’t have put beetles in her bed or ants in the pepper grinder or crickets in her pistachio ice cream. Or maybe he would. He bit his lip, thinking of all those tricks he played on the miserable old girl when he was a kid. What a laugh. 

As others tossed handfuls of dirt and the odd flower into the grave, Bertram leaned over to watch the large spider he’d wrapped in earth, wriggle free and scuttle across the name-plate. He sniggered. Touché Aunt Hepzibah, little Bertie’s done it again. 

Some dusty old relic of a relation glared and tutted, but Bertram just smirked back.

At the post funeral lunch, the cold buffet was as dry as the company. He looked askance at his cousin Angelina, who was dabbing her eyes. But then Angelina always had been as wet as her name, buttering up their aunt with little gifts and hugs; crying whenever Bertram played jokes on her.

He started to creep up to make her shriek when the solicitor announced the reading of the will.

Bertram nearly fell off his chair when the solicitor announced Aunt Hepzibah had left her house to him. All the relations stopped sniffing to stare and mutter.

‘There is a proviso,’ continued the solicitor. ‘The house will only be yours once you’ve spent the whole of tonight in it, not leaving till seven a.m. tomorrow.’

Bertram snorted. It would be a piece of cake.

‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ said Angelina. ‘If you want me, I’ll be in the hotel down the road.’ 

What a drip she was.

***

A few hours later, at three a.m. Bertram found himself in Angelina’s room at the hotel, shaking. He had run all the way down the road stark naked, his glories flapping in the wind, and legged it up the drainpipe despite the flakes of rust and rose thorns stabbing delicate body parts. Now he wore Angelina’s pink frilly dressing gown which just about covered his dignity. A glass of whisky rattled against his teeth.

For a cousin who’d last seen him naked when they were three and who hadn’t seen him at all seen since they were twelve, and whom he’d thought rather prim, Angelina seemed quite mellow despite having a naked, trembling man in her room. 

‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘What made you run?’

A small whimper came from Bertram’s lips before he managed to stutter: ‘Spiders, spiders everywhere. Earwigs, beetles, tarantulas probably. They came out from the walls, down from the ceiling… they were all over me…it was terrible.’

He took a swig of whisky and rearranged the dressing gown which had fallen apart. A man is not at his best when frightened.

He looked up and saw Angelina was biting her lip. How sweet that she was concerned. Then she handed over an envelope.

Inside was a note in Aunt Hepzibah’s scrawl: 

‘Thanks for all the fun Bertram. But at long last, I’ve had the last laugh.’

Words copyright 2021 by Paula Harmon. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission. Image http://www.dreamstime.com/photos-images/spider.html