For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [26]
“Hush, be quiet!” she warned him. “I don’t know how this thing got into your room, but—”
Flinx sat up quickly. He glanced up at the hovering snake, admiring it for the first time in daylight, and bestowed a reassuring grin on Mother Mastiff.
“Oh, that. That’s just Pip.”
The broom dipped slightly, and she stared narrowly at her charge. “Ye mean, ye know what it be?”
“Sure,” he said cheerfully. “I, uh, heard something last night, so I went outside to investigate.” He gestured with a thumb at the snake. “It was back in the garbage, cold and hungry. Hey, I bet he’s still hungry, and—”
“I’ll bet it is, too,” she snapped, “and I’ll not have some scaly, gluttonous carrion eater crawling about my house. Get out!” she yelled at it. “Shoo!” She swung the broom at the snake once, twice, a third time, forcing Flinx to duck the flying bristles. Each time, the snake dodged nimbly in the air, displaying unexpected aerial agility. Once it darted straight to its left, then backward, then toward the ceiling.
“Don’t!” Flinx shouted, suddenly alarmed. “It might think you’re trying to hurt me.”
“A guardian angel with beady eyes and scales? Mockmush, boy, it knows well what I’m swinging at!”
In fact, the snake was well aware the new human had no intention of harming its symbiote, for it could feel the honest affection and warmth flowing between them. It did not worry on that score. Conversely, no love flowed toward it from the new person, and the shiny thing that was being thrust at it was hard to avoid in the small, enclosed space.
“Please, Mother,” Flinx pleaded anxiously, scrambling out of bed and dragging the blanket with him, “stop it. I don’t know how it’ll react.”
“We’re going to find out, boy,” she told him grimly. The broom struck, missed, bounced off the far wall. She cocked her arms for another swing.
The snake had been patient, very patient. It understood the bond between the two humans. But the broom had backed it into a corner, and the hard bristles promised danger if they connected solidly with the snake’s wings. It opened its mouth. There was a barely perceptible squirting sound. A thin, tight stream of clear liquid shot forward. It sparkled in the light and impacted on the broom as it was swinging forward. As Mother Mastiff recovered and brought the broom back for yet another strike, she heard a faint but definite hissing that did not come from the snake. She hesitated, frowning, then realized the noise was coming from the broom. A glance showed that approximately half of the metal bristles had melted away. Something was foaming and sizzling as it methodically ate its way down the broom.
She dropped the weapon as if the metal handle had abruptly become red hot, her expression fearful. The liquid continued to sputter and hiss as it ate away the metal. Soon it had worked its way through the last stubble and was beginning to eat holes in the metal handle itself.
“Boy, get out of the room while ye have the chance,” she called huskily, staring wide-eyed at the snake while continuing to back toward her own bedroom. “If it can do that to metal, there’s no telling what—”
Flinx laughed, then hurriedly put a hand to his mouth and forced himself to be understanding. “I’m sorry, Mother,” he said apologetically. “It’s just that Pip would never hurt me. And he’s just proved that he wouldn’t hurt anyone close to me, either.”
“How do ye know that?” she sputtered.
“You know,” he replied, sounding puzzled, “I don’t know how I know it. But it’s true. Here, see?” He extended his left arm.
Still keeping a wary eye on the woman, who continued to block the exit, the snake zipped down to land on the proffered perch. In an instant, it had multiple coils wrapped around the human’s shoulder. Then the snake relaxed, the pleated wings folding up to