One summer, Spinnenwilli — Spider Willi — was big on the beach. Every afternoon, five to ten children gathered on and around our blanket and chanted: Spinnenwilli! I had to improvise and tell stories. At the time, my work sometimes left me quite exhausted. Perhaps that was why Spinnenwilli became a superhero who was always tired of constantly saving the world. Unlike the supervillains he had to contend with, my adversaries were more likely to be deadlines, budgets and sometimes colleagues on a different mission from mine. My audience, of course, did not care. They just wanted a story. About Spinnenwilli, Doctor Thang and a green door with a little pink heart.
All Willi wanted was a holiday
Spinnenwilli was nine years old, with reddish hair, a knobbly nose and so many freckles that nobody could count them.
He was also almost always tired.
Saving the world makes you tired. Especially when you are also supposed to go to school, do homework and be a perfectly ordinary nine-year-old boy in between.
So Willi’s greatest wish was not to become famous or acquire even more amazing powers.
He simply wanted a whole week’s holiday for once.
Seven days.
No monsters. No supervillains. No world-domination machines.
And, above all, no Spinnenwilli phone.
At first glance, the Spinnenwilli phone looked perfectly ordinary. But only the very most important people in the world knew its number. Heads of government, police chiefs and a few other people who usually called Willi only when something somewhere had gone very badly wrong.
So whenever the Spinnenwilli phone rang, Willi knew two things before answering.
First: somewhere, the world was in danger.
Second: his holiday was probably over again.
Why a nine-year-old boy, of all people, was responsible for such things was something the very most important people in the world probably did not know themselves.
It had to do with Willi’s secret.
Willi could do things other nine-year-old boys could not. He could move with incredible agility and shoot sticky threads from his hands that held on to almost anything. With them, he could pull himself up, swing across chasms, stick things together or wrap someone up so thoroughly that even Doctor Thang could not escape.
Usually, anyway.
Where did these abilities come from?
Nobody knew exactly.
Not even Willi.
Only his best friend Wilma knew about them at all. When necessary, she helped him as Spinnenwilma. She had no special powers. But she usually thought a little longer than Willi before jumping into something.
Which was often useful.
Unfortunately, quite a few people in the world felt that they ought to rule it. The worst was Doctor Thang. Together with his partner Thangine, he invented machines, robots and plans that were usually very complicated and almost always ended with Doctor Thang wanting to become ruler of the world.
Willi did not understand why anyone would insist on ruling the world.
He would have been quite happy simply to be left alone for seven days.
This time, it was finally going to work.
Willi had travelled to Beijing. Deliberately far away. He had brought his camera, a guidebook and a fairly precise plan for his first holiday day: visit the Imperial Palace, eat something, perhaps have an ice cream.
No monsters. No robots. No Doctor Thang.
Willi yawned.
Then the Spinnenwilli phone rang.
He looked at it.
“No.”
It kept ringing.
“I’m on holiday.”
The Spinnenwilli phone was unimpressed.
Willi let it ring three more times.
Then he answered.
At the other end was one of the very most important people in China. Enormous spaceships were hovering over Beijing, he explained. Monster robots were landing in the middle of the city. The police did not know what to do.
Only Spinnenwilli could help.
Of course.
Willi put his guidebook back in his backpack.
“Not even one day,” he muttered. “I only wanted one single day.”
Then he put on his Spinnenwilli suit and ran.
The flying saucer
An enormous silver saucer hovered above the great square in front of the Imperial Palace. A blue opening glowed at its centre. Monster robots were descending from it to the ground.
They were about as tall as a bus, with four arms, enormous pincers and circular saws.
Willi looked up.
“Of course. Circular saws.”
He climbed onto a roof and shot a spider thread towards the saucer.
The thread hit the silver surface.
And fell back down.
Willi stared at it.
That was new.
He tried a second time. Nothing again.
On his third attempt, he leaned a little too far forward and slipped off the roof. At the last moment, his thread caught a little tower and Willi pulled himself back up.
Now he knew what “almost anything” meant. His threads did not stick to the saucers.
He sat on the edge of the roof for a moment and yawned. Then he thought.
Down in the square, he spotted a boy with a trampoline. Willi climbed down, pointed upwards, then at the trampoline and then back at the saucer.
The boy looked puzzled.
Willi mimed a jump.
Nothing.
He bounced.
The boy grinned.
Willi bounced higher, pointing upwards as he did so.
Now the boy understood.
Together, they pushed the trampoline beneath the blue opening. Willi jumped once, twice and, on the third bounce, so high that it briefly occurred to him that this might not have been a particularly good idea after all.
Then the blue light swallowed him.
Doctor Thang’s brilliant plan
Willi landed in a metal tube inside the saucer. Robots whizzed about everywhere. Small robots, large robots, robots on wheels and robots whose purpose Willi could not begin to guess.
They were all moving in the same direction.
Willi followed. Not because he knew where they were going. But you had to start somewhere.
The passage led into an enormous hall. Willi hid behind a machine and peered out carefully.
Then he heard a voice he knew very well.
“Isn’t this the most brilliant plan I’ve ever had?”
Willi briefly closed his eyes.
Doctor Thang.
Of course.
Thangine stood beside him.
“Everyone thinks we want to conquer Beijing with the monster robots,” Thang explained.
“But the robots are only a distraction,” said Thangine.
Doctor Thang rubbed his hands together.
Willi did not like it when Doctor Thang rubbed his hands together. It usually meant trouble.
“While everyone is watching the robots, we’ll take the statue of the mysterious Yang Li from the Imperial Palace!”
Thang explained that the statue was supposed to possess special powers. Combined with his new world-domination machine, it would allow him to control everyone’s thoughts.
“Then everyone will do exactly what I want!”
Willi thought about it.
That sounded exhausting.
If everyone did what Doctor Thang wanted, Doctor Thang would also have to know what eight billion people should do all day. Presumably, he had not thought about that.
Doctor Thang rarely thought about the exhausting parts of his plans.
Willi, on the other hand, was mainly thinking about how nice it would be to lie down somewhere.
But that was probably not going to happen again.
He crept back into the passage.
Now he needed a plan.
Two statues
Two hours later, Spinnenwilli sat in a secret passage beneath the Imperial Palace. Before him stood Doctor Thang’s world-domination machine.
It was about the size of a minibus and consisted of cables, flashing lights, levers, screens and at least three things whose purpose Willi had no idea of. In the middle was a space for the statue.
Willi heard footsteps.
Doctor Thang and Thangine were coming.
“We’ve got it!” cried Thang, holding up a little statue.
Thangine placed it in the machine and attached several cables. Doctor Thang put on a silver helmet.
Willi had to bite his lip. The helmet looked rather ridiculous.
“Just one more moment,” said Thang, “and I shall rule the world!”
On a screen appeared:
WARNING! WORLD DOMINATION!
Willi shook his head.
If Doctor Thang ever took a course in secret plans, he ought to pay particular attention to the topic of “not drawing attention to yourself”.
Thangine threw the main switch.
At first, nothing happened.
Then the statue glowed violet. Doctor Thang’s helmet began to vibrate. His hair stood straight on end.
“What’s happening now?”
Smoke poured from the helmet.
“Aaaaaah!”
Thang tore it off and threw it onto the floor. The helmet bounced twice and lay there smoking.
Thangine switched off the machine and pulled the statue from its holder. She turned it upside down.
On the underside were the words:
Best wishes from Spinnenwilli.
Beside them was a little drawing of a spider.
Thangine’s face turned red.
“SPINNENWILLI!”
Willi stepped out from behind a stack of crates.
“Hello.”
Doctor Thang pointed at the statue.
“What have you done?”
“Swapped it.”
While Doctor Thang and Thangine had been in the saucer, Willi had hidden the real statue and made a copy. Not a particularly beautiful copy. But clearly a rather effective one.
It sent the machine’s power back where it came from.
“That was my favourite helmet!” wailed Thang.
Willi looked at the smoking thing on the floor.
“Why?”
A great many robots
Doctor Thang did not answer. Instead, he leapt towards a large red button and struck it.
Behind him, the walls slid apart.
Behind them stood monster robots.
Many monster robots.
A great many monster robots.
Willi counted to twelve and then stopped. Their circular saws began whirring all at once.
“This is less good,” said Willi.
The robots moved closer. No exit on the right. None on the left either. He could not get over the robots. The ceiling was too low and the robots too tall.
Willi looked around once more.
What would you do?
Willi did not know either.
Not yet.
Then he spotted a smoke detector on the ceiling.
He looked at the smoke detector. Then the robots. Then the smoke detector again.
“This could be either very clever or very stupid.”
He shot a spider thread at the ceiling and pulled himself up. From his belt, he took a lighter.
The robots came closer.
Willi held the flame beneath the smoke detector.
Nothing.
“Come on.”
One robot’s circular saw caught his suit.
RIIIP.
A large piece of fabric suddenly hung from Willi’s backside.
Willi looked down.
“Oh no.”
At that moment, the Spinnenwilli phone rang.
Willi stared at his trouser pocket.
“Not now!”
It kept ringing.
“I’m saving the world!”
The smoke detector remained silent.
The robots came closer.
“Please.”
BEEP!
Willi grinned.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Water and firefighting foam shot from the ceiling. The first robots twitched. One reversed. Another spun in circles faster and faster. A third raised all four arms, gave a sad “Pfffft” and stopped.
Then flashes and crackles erupted everywhere.
Within seconds, the entire robot army was out of action.
Doctor Thang stood in the middle of the foam. So did Thangine.
Willi hung from his thread beneath the ceiling.
The Spinnenwilli phone was still ringing.
Willi answered.
“Yes?”
He listened briefly.
“No. The world’s already been saved.”
A pause.
“Yes. You’re welcome.”
He hung up and yawned.
“Can I please have my holiday now?”
The green door
Willi tied Doctor Thang and Thangine up with thick spider threads and called the police.
That should have settled the matter.
In theory.
But suddenly Doctor Thang began wriggling.
“I need the toilet.”
Willi looked at him.
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no.”
“But I really need to go!”
Thangine pulled a face.
“Willi, please. I’m tied to him.”
Doctor Thang kept whining. “It’s urgent! Really, really urgent!”
Willi knew perfectly well that you must never trust Doctor Thang.
Then he saw the door.
Green.
With a pink heart on it.
Willi stared.
“Not again.”
Doctor Thang looked particularly innocent.
That did not make things better.
“Please,” he whined.
Willi shook his head.
“Absolutely not.”
“Willi!”
“No.”
“I really can’t hold on!”
Thangine turned pale.
“Willi. Please.”
Willi briefly closed his eyes.
He was tired.
Very tired.
Perhaps that was why.
Perhaps Doctor Thang was simply very convincing when he urgently needed the toilet.
Willi sighed.
“All right. But be quick.”
He untied Doctor Thang from the threads.
Thang disappeared behind the green door with the little pink heart.
Willi waited.
After a minute, he grew suspicious. After three minutes, more suspicious still. After five minutes, he knocked.
“Thang?”
No answer.
“Doctor Thang?”
Nothing.
Willi kicked the door.
It flew open.
There was no toilet behind it.
No Doctor Thang either.
Only a deep black hole.
Willi stared into it.
“Not. Again.”
Behind him, Thangine began to laugh.
“He tricked you!”
Willi turned towards her.
“Yes.”
Then he looked at the web she was still stuck in.
“But you’re still caught.”
Thangine stopped laughing.
Seven days
The police collected Thangine. All over Beijing, the monster robots stopped, and the saucers slowly drifted to the ground. The statue of Yang Li returned to its place.
And the world was saved.
Once again.
Willi took off his Spinnenwilli suit. The hole in the seat of his trousers was hard to miss. He stuffed the suit right at the bottom of his backpack.
Perhaps nobody would notice.
Then he took his camera and guidebook.
The Imperial Palace was still there.
An ice cream probably was too.
Willi did the sums.
Six days of his holiday week remained.
Six whole days.
Perhaps now it would finally work.
Then his Spinnenwilli phone rang.
Willi stopped.
The phone rang.
And rang.
He looked at it.
Only the very most important people in the world had this number.
So it was probably important.
Very important.
Willi yawned.
Then he opened his backpack, put the guidebook over the Spinnenwilli phone and zipped it shut.
“Five minutes,” he said. “The world can wait five minutes.”
Then Spinnenwilli went for an ice cream.