The Little Snake

by A. L. Kennedy

  Naturally, this kind of thing always made Mary feel horrible and if she hadn’t tried very hard not to she would have burst into tears. Today she was with her friend Lanmo and so she just stood very still and folded her arms and looked at her scuffed old shoes that were a bit too small. She was sad and her shoes made her even sadder.

  But on her shoulder, Lanmo was bristling his scales with fury. This sounded like someone dragging a sword along stones in the far, far distance. He was so furious that he actually began to rattle and he wasn’t that kind of snake at all. He lifted his head and said in his most persuasive voice, loudly and clearly, ‘You should start skipping again, girls who are not beautiful. That’s what you would like to do right now.’

  Although the Very Attractive Girls weren’t exactly sure who had suggested this, they stopped dancing and chanting and did indeed organise themselves into a line waiting to skip while a pair of girls held the ends of a big skipping rope.

  Except, of course, they were not holding the ends of a big skipping rope, because the snake had rushed down from Mary’s shoulder and grown into an extremely long and flexible shape and he had made sure that he appeared to be a much more persuasive rope than the real rope. Because sometimes magnificent lies are much easier to believe than boring truths, the girls had duly picked him up and now began to swing him back and forth and round and round and to leap across him. He found this rather delightful and, as Mary watched, he glittered and glistened in the winter sunlight and flickered his tongue while he gathered up news of how mean and tiny the Very Attractive Girls were inside.

  This made Mary laugh and clap her hands together.

  Now, skipping over a snake is a strange game and has special rules. It makes odd things happen. Without in any way meaning to, the Very Attractive Girls found that they were skipping faster and faster and faster. Their tiny, shapely feet were kicking and stepping in ways that they never had and the arms of the Very Attractive Girls who were turning what they thought was a rope were impossible to see clearly any more, because their arms were swirling round so high and low and terribly quickly. The snake shone and chuckled as the Very Attractive Girls’ arms and legs and bodies jumped and flapped and twirled and windmilled, and they all grew hot and tired and worried. But then the Very Attractive Girls became scared.

  Mary saw their Very Attractive Faces change, and although it pleased her a tiny bit that they were unhappy, she also felt sorry for them. ‘Lanmo, perhaps you should stop now.’

  But the snake was having too much fun. He was also still furious.

  Slowly, everyone in the playground stopped what they were doing and stared in amazement at the huge, strange, glittering, blurring shape which the pelting girls and the lashing snake now made. Even Paul stopped running around with his jumper pulled over his head because he had scored yet another goal – which made three.

  ‘Lanmo, please,’ Mary said, extra quietly.

  And because Mary had said please and meant it and because she was his friend, Lanmo did stop, extremely suddenly, by changing his shape again and sliding out of the Very Attractive Girls’ sore and weary hands. At this, the girls mostly fell over, or stumbled about as if they must be dizzy. One of them was sick. And, to be honest, they no longer looked even a Tiny Bit Attractive. Their perfectly formed faces were red and sweaty, their carefully-prepared-this-morning hair was knotted and tangled and their willowy limbs were jangled and twitchy. Not one of the Very Attractive Girls mentioned this, but they knew it in their hearts, and when they looked at each other they were dismayed.

  Meanwhile, Lanmo wasn’t finished. He altered himself again to become the shape of a golden cobra. Cobras, as you will know, have a broad hood that they spread to either side of their head and neck. They also enjoy rearing up impressively and perhaps hissing, and some can even spit venom if they are annoyed. Lanmo was still extremely annoyed, you’ll remember, and so he had decided to become a magnificent cobra as tall as a tall grown-up. For a few moments this meant that everyone in the playground couldn’t avoid seeing him very clearly for what he was. Even the headmaster, glancing out of his office window, was unable to stop himself noticing that there was a giant glimmering golden cobra rising from the dirty tarmac of the playground. The sight of it made him want to lie down at once until everything went back to normal, and so he hid under his desk. Once he was there, he shut his eyes and pretended that nothing was wrong so hard that he was never quite the same again.

  Down in the playground, Lanmo was ignoring the children who were now running up and down and screaming and waving their arms about in highly satisfying ways. He was peering into the eyes of the Very Attractive Girl who had been so rude to Mary. As a result of this, the Very Attractive Girl couldn’t move. She could only stare back.

  And Lanmo gently, gently opened his mouth and let the world see his needle teeth that were as white as bones.

  ‘No,’ said Mary. ‘Please, Lanmo.’ And she reached out her hand to stop the snake from perhaps doing something wicked.

  Lanmo was so furious that he didn’t quite notice Mary in time to stop himself as he darted his head forwards and so his smallest, smallest tooth just brushed the edge of her right hand.

  And so then Mary fell.

  Mary woke up at home in her own little bed. She felt tired, but also really hungry and excited. It was dark, so a number of hours must have passed since she was in the playground. Over to her left, when she looked about, she could see the glow of Lanmo’s eyes. He was no longer in the form of a vast and terrifying cobra. He was perhaps a bit smaller than usual and he seemed thinner. He wriggled gently towards her and rubbed his warm forehead against her ear. Then he said to her in his best and kindest voice, ‘I am so sorry. I was angry.’

  ‘What happened? Did I faint?’

  ‘That is what the grown-ups have decided to think. They have told everyone that cobras never come to this country and are never golden or as tall as a tall grown-up when they stand. They have decided that nothing especially unusual happened today, or could ever happen, and that everyone must have been asleep and dreaming the same dream. The school will now give pupils new tests on standing up, falling over and sleeping. There will also be Dream Examination Forms to take home and fill in so that all possibly dangerous dreams can be recorded and monitored. And the headmaster has retired to take up beekeeping.’

  Mary nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose all that would happen. Those are the kinds of things they would do.’ Children are good at understanding grown-ups, but grown-ups are rarely able to understand children, which is odd because they have already been children and ought to remember what it’s like.

  Lanmo whispered, ‘Your mother and father were worried about you. They borrowed the school janitor’s wheelbarrow and brought you home in it and then they put you to bed. They have only just left you, because I pushed the idea into their heads that you are all better now and they can leave you be and go to sleep.’

  ‘Am I better?’

  The snake rubbed her ear again. ‘My bite is a serious bite. I am so sorry. Even brushing my littlest tooth with your hand was enough to take the colour from twenty-one of your lovely hairs. When you look tomorrow you will see that you have a white streak now, going back from your forehead.’ He paused. ‘It will be something to talk about when you are older and will seem dramatic.’ He paused again. ‘I truly am very sorry. Your white hairs show that I have taken a tiny piece of your livingness from you.’

  But Mary was very young and full of livingness so this did not worry her. ‘Am I better now, though?’

  ‘You are as better as humans get.’

  ‘Will you stay with me? I like you. Only maybe you shouldn’t go to school with me again. In case anyone else is nasty to me and makes you cross.’

  ‘I think you will find that no one is nasty to you at school, not ever again. They will be very polite to you from now on,’ said the snake, sounding as boastful as he usually did. Only then he whispered more gloomily, ‘I will stay until the morning, but
then I will go away for a while.’

  This worried Mary much more than having twenty-one white hairs. ‘Why?’

  ‘I am going because I feel guilty and I have never felt guilty before. I harmed you. I have to think about this until I understand it.’

  ‘Well, how long will it take you to think? And where will you think and will it be nice and will you be able to get cheese there?’ asked Mary, because the snake was her friend.

  ‘I will be safe. I am never in danger,’ said Lanmo, making all of those words seem a bit sad.

  ‘You didn’t mean to hurt me. And I don’t really mind.’ Mary imagined her white streak and how it would be an exciting thing and pictured herself being a remarkable woman in exploring clothes and adventuring boots with her dramatic hair blowing about in the wind on the top of a mountain she had just climbed.

  Lanmo sighed, tasting her thoughts with his clever tongue. ‘Yes, being an explorer with a white streak in your hair would be exciting. You may say that you were changed by an encounter with an extraordinary and beautiful snake if you like.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ replied Mary. ‘I will say it was caused by a shark bite.’

  ‘As you wish. Although some of my finest acquaintances are sharks. Sleep now, though, because you should rest.’

  ‘But I don’t wa—’ began Mary, because she would rather have talked all night to Lanmo and persuaded him not to go away. But he had persuaded her with his eyes that she should sleep. He was extremely persuasive.

  When it was dawn and Mary woke, Lanmo was snuggled under her chin, all warm like a little scarf. She felt him wriggle as if he were pretending to be cheerful and not quite managing. Then he slipped along to rest on her pillow and look at her. ‘You may kiss my nose if you wish.’

  Mary did so, frowning a little because this seemed like goodbye.

  ‘You must now take care of yourself for a while. Try to ignore your teachers without offending them. And do not talk to any other snakes. And avoid lions. And sharks. You will find that the girls like you now, although you will discover most of them are boring to speak with and quite unpleasant. Their eggs must have had nothing at all written inside them. You might enjoy talking to the ginger-headed boy called Paul. And when you eat cheese you can think of me . . . And when the sun sets I will wish you sweet dreams and you will have them. That is how you will know I am thinking of you and that you are my friend and I am yours.’

  ‘Well, when will you come back?’

  ‘When I have learned not to be angry.’

  ‘Do you still feel guilty?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why should you be guilty when I have forgiven you and I would like you to stay?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I think that is how being guilty works. I will return as soon as I can.’ And then the snake shimmered all his scales so that he looked especially beautiful to remember and he flickered his tongue at her ear and he sighed. After that he was gone.

  The snake Mary called Lanmo was away from her for a month and then another month and then for much longer than Mary would have liked. She kept a tally of the days in her notebook so that she could be cross with him when he did appear. Then she kept a tally so that she could show him she had missed him very much and noticed that he hadn’t been with her.

  In the meantime, she went to school and found the other pupils were, indeed, as nice to her as they could manage. Most of them were quite boring. She learned her lessons quietly, even though she didn’t always agree with them, and sometimes she went for walks with the boy called Paul and they would collect bottle tops, or string, or discuss new names for stars and what the moon might be thinking and whether it minded very much when it shrank to a curvy line, or swelled up to a silver-yellow eye that stared.

  Whatever she did, she never forgot the snake, and when she rested her head on her pillow she wished Lanmo well and then enjoyed the wonderful dreams he sent her. She never mentioned those dreams on her Dream Assessment Form, of course; she just made things up about riding ponies and making pies.

  Away from Mary, the snake she called Lanmo travelled to many far lands in the world and many near lands. He rode in tiny boats and wriggled into deep mines full of gold and coal and all manner of other substances which humans believe to be precious. He looked out across desert cities from the tops of new buildings in construction and looked out across rubble and dust from the ruins of buildings which had been destroyed. He sat up nicely in expensive restaurants and lay under pillows in hospitals. He slipped very delicately here and there in great towns built out of tents and slid along inside little wooden shelters and into shallow wells and cups and between folded blankets. He watched at the corners of streets next to busy crossings and quiet crossings and lounged across the dashboards of cars. He was very busy. Lanmo was always very busy. He could not remember a time when he had been idle, although he did, if he thought about it hard, recall a time when there had been far fewer humans and more trees. Lanmo liked trees. They were good for climbing. Sometimes he sent Mary special dreams where the two of them journeyed through old, old forests and scrambled and undulated together up to the highest branches where they could see the sunrise and be immensely glad together. This made him happy. It was much better than just climbing up and then climbing back down again.

  The snake knew that he would have been much busier had it not been for humans helping him with his work. When night rolled over the curve of the world and across whichever country he was visiting, Lanmo would sometimes be able to rest and curl himself into a coil and flicker his clever tongue through the breeze so that he could taste how many, many times the humans of each darkened land were busy instead of him. They worked hard and saved him the task of visiting this or that other human and showing them his needle teeth as white as bones and making them hear his beautiful voice and look into his honest red eyes. But this did not make Lanmo love the humans. In fact it made him think rather badly of them, although his opinion made no difference to either the humans or his duties.

  One evening, Lanmo came to call upon a grandmother. Lanmo met a lot of grandmothers. This granny was seventy-seven years, three months and fourteen days old and she was called Mrs Dorothy Higginbottom. When the snake arrived at the foot of Granny Higginbottom’s bed she was sitting up in it, leaning against her pillows and turning over a page in her magazine about terrible things happening to strangers and amusing things happening to cats. Unlike many of the other grandmothers, as Granny Higginbottom glanced beyond a picture of a cat wearing a knitted waistcoat and looking annoyed, she was able to see Lanmo.

  She put down her magazine. ‘Hello,’ she said in a whispery grandmothery voice.

  ‘Hello,’ said Lanmo in his best pearls-and-chocolate voice. ‘I have come—’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ interrupted Granny Higginbottom. ‘I know quite well why you have come and I am content, but I would like to talk a while, if you don’t mind.’

  Since leaving Mary, because he had been too angry and then too guilty, Lanmo had missed talking to a sensible human. This meant he was happy to smooth along, all the way up the bed, until he could rest on the covers above Granny Higginbottom’s lap. ‘What would you like to talk about?’

  ‘Well, I suppose it is too late to discuss most things.’

  The snake nodded and made himself comfortable in the warmth of the quilt. He waited. Although he was always busy, he was never in a hurry. That was the nature of the snake.

  Granny Higginbottom began: ‘I think I would like to tell someone how much I dislike my grandchildren. They are very mean-spirited and when they come to visit they bring me grapefruit which I do not like and presents that other people have given them and which they don’t want. I once found a little card they had forgotten to remove from one offering – a plastic box containing nail clippers and a nose-hair remover. The card said: “Please enjoy this free gift from Gentleman’s Grooming Monthly.”’

  ‘That is unimpressive,’ said the snake. No one but Mary had ever given him any kin
d of present. She had given him food and kisses and conversation and company.

  ‘Quite,’ said Granny Higginbottom. ‘I gave birth to three children – two girls and a boy. I loved them and showed them sunsets and the insides of apples and let them hear the voices in shells and we walked in meadows and slid on slides, but the boy and one of the girls were only ever interested in shiny pennies and gossip and making their other sister cry. And the children they gave birth to and raised are terrible children. My cruel daughter and my cruel son come and visit me with their herds of ghastly offspring every Sunday. While some of them stay in here with me, I can hear the rest of them searching my house for nice ornaments to sell, or jewels, or money. I ask them, “What is that noise of someone lifting up my floorboards?” and they tell me, “Nothing, silly Granny – it’s the wind in the rafters.” I ask them, “What’s that noise like greedy fingers opening my boxes and rifling through my cupboards?” and they tell me, “It’s just the rats in this big, old house, silly Granny. You should let us sell it and move you into a home.” And I ask them, “What’s that sound like my pictures being taken down and my chairs being carried away?” and they tell me, “You are going mad in your old age, silly Granny, and you should let us put you in a home at once and take care of all your belongings so they don’t bother you any longer.” It has begun to wear me out. The only pleasant thing they do is send me a bunch of roses on the first day of January. Roses are my favourite and they make my new year smell sweet and they fill it with colours.’

  ‘That would be pleasant,’ agreed the snake, tasting the essence of Granny Higginbottom which was kind and puzzled and very, very tired. ‘What happened to your other daughter?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think they sent her away. Or maybe they drove her away. Inside my mattress I have hidden my engagement ring and my wedding ring and the ring my husband gave me when we had been married for forty years – that was just before he died – and I have also tucked away four jewels and sixteen gold pieces. That is all I have worth having and it is for my good daughter, but I do not know where to send it. When I am gone my dreadful other daughter and my horrible son and their ghastly children will come and take everything.’ Granny Higginbottom fell silent and looked very sad. Since the snake had left Mary he understood a lot more about being sad.