If There Be Thorns (Dollanganger 3)

"Will he bite me?"

"No, of course not. Darling, look at him, how happy he is to see a boy. Put out your hand and let him sniff your palm. Treat him kindly, feed him well, and keep his hair free of briars and tangles, and you will not only have the most beautiful dog in the world, but the best friend of your life."

Fearfully I inched my hand away from my body--and the puppy licked it like ice cream. Slurpy kisses. I laughed because it tickled. "Go way, Grandmother," I ordered.

She backed away reluctantly while I knelt in front of the pony so I could tell it what it was. "Now you look here," I said firmly, "and you remember what I say. You are not a dog but a pony. You are not meant to carry brandy in kegs to people who are lost and snowed in--you are meant for carrying me only. You are my pony, and mine alone!"

He looked at me as if bewildered, cocking his big shaggy head to one side as he sat on his haunches. "Don't you sit like that!" I yelled. "Ponies don't sit, only dogs."

"Bart," came my grandmother's soft voice, "be kind, remember."

I ignored her. Women didn't count in mandoings like this. John Amos had told me that. Men ruled the world, and women had to sit back and keep quiet.

I had to cast a spell and make a puppy over into a pony. Mean witches on stage knew how to do that. I thought and thought about every stage witch I'd seen in ballets and finally I thought I knew just how it was done.

Needed a long hooked nose and a jutting long chin, and hollowed-out eyes and bony long fingers with black nails two inches long. Only thing I had right was mean, black, piercing eyes--maybe that would do the trick. Knew how to make mean eyes real good.

I flung my arms overhead, curled my fingers into claws, hunched my back and cast my spell: "I chrisss-en thee Apple! With this magic potion I give, and with this spell I put upon thee, I make you into a pony." I gave him the magic potion which was an apple. "Now you are mine, all mine! Never will you eat or drink if I am not the one to give you the food and water. Never will you love anyone but me. You will run to me and die when I do. MINE, APPLE, MINE! NOW AND FOREVERMORE . . . MINE!"

The power of my magic spell had Apple sniffing at the fruit I offered. He whimpered unhappily and turned his nose away, showing more interest in the sugar I was saving for later. "Now, don't you whinny and try to eat everything," I scolded, biting into the apple myself to show him how it was done. Again I held the apple out for my pony to eat. Again he turned away his giant white and golden head. Some of his fur was reddish gold and sorta pretty. I bit into the apple again and chewed, showing him what good food he was missing.

"Bart," called Grandmother with a choke in her voice, "perhaps I made a mistake. I'll take the puppy back to the pet shop and buy you that pony you wanted."

I looked from her to my new pet, then toward my home, considering. They'd be sure to smell a horse, if ponies smelled horsey. And doggy smells would seem natural; they'd be convinced Clover had finally learned to trust me--when he never would let me near him. "Grandmother, I'm going to keep this here puppy- pony. I'll teach him all about how to play horse. If he doesn't learn before I go to Disneyland you can take him back--and never can I come to visit you again."

Laughing and happy then, I fell onto the hay and frolicked with my puppy-pony, the only puppypony in the whole wide world. And his big warm body felt good in my arms, real good.

I looked at her, then, and I knew John Amos was wrong. Women were not evil and devious, and I was so relieved to have found out at last that it was John Amos who was devious, and Momma and my grandmother were the best things in my whole life-- next to Apple.

"Grandmother, are you truly my real

grandmother, and my real daddy was your second husband?"

"Yes, it's true," she said with her head bowed. "But it's a secret. Just between us. You must promise not to tell anyone." She seemed to droop, looking sad, but I was so happy inside I wanted to burst. A puppypony and a real grandmother who had been married to my real father. Gosh, I was getting lucky at last.

And there I was saying my "ings." That's what loving Apple and my grandmother did for me, taught me how to prounce the "ings" with a G. In only one day they had succeeded, when Momma and Daddy had been trying for years and years.

Soon I found out that eating had lots to do with loving. The more food I gave Apple, the more he loved me. And without the help of more spells, he was mine, all mine. When I came in the mornings he raced to me, jumping up and spinning in circles, wagging his tail, licking my face. When I hitched him to the new pony cart he bucked just like a real horse. Tried his best to rid himself of the small saddle I put on his back too. Boy, just wait until Jory got a load of the kind of magic I could work.

"Gonna be eleven soon," I said to Grandmother one day, in hopes of giving her a few ideas.

"Ten," she corrected. "You will be ten on your next birthday."

"Eleven!" I shouted, insisting. "Al

l year I've been going on ten. I have to be eleven by now."

"Bart, don't start wishing your life away. Time goes by quickly enough. Hold onto your youth, stay as you are."

I went on stroking Apple's head. "Granny, tell me about your little boys."

She looked sad again, not from her face I couldn't see, but from the way her shoulders drooped. "One went to heaven," she whispered hoarsely, "the other ran away."

"Where did the other go?" I asked, thinking maybe I'd go there too.

"South," she said simply, drooping more.

"I'm going south too. Hate that place!--full of ole graves and full of ole grandmothers. One is locked up in a looney bin. The other is a mean-faced ole witch. You're my best grandmother," for by now I knew she couldn't be Daddy's crazy mother, but the mother of my real daddy. And women changed names when they changed husbands, so that's . . . and then I knew I didn't even know her last or first name. "Corrine Winslow," she said when I asked, her head still bowed. I could see a little of her face where her nose lifted the black veil from her cheeks. A bit of her hair showed too. Gray hair with streaks of gleaming gold, soft hair. I pitied her. She was really going to suffer when I was gone.