Free For Love of Mother-Not by Alan Dean Foster Page B

and have him make a run for the gun under her pillow.
    The broom she hefted had a light metal handle and wire bristles. Taking it out of storage, she re-entered Flinx’s room and reached past his head with the broom’s business end. The metal bristles prodded the invader.
    The snake stirred at the touch, opened its eyes, and stared at her. She jabbed at it again, harder this time, trying to work the bristles between the snake’s head and the boy’s exposed neck. It opened its mouth, and she instinctively jerked back, but it was only a yawn. Still sleepy, then, she thought. Good, its reactions would be slowed. Leaning forward again, she reached down and shoved hard on the broom. Several of the snake’s coils went rolling over to the side of the bed, and for the first time she had a glimpse of its brilliant coloring.
    Again, she shoved with the broom, but the snake was no longer on the bed. It hovered in midair, its wings moving so rapidly they were no more than a blue-pink blur. They generated a rich, vibrant humming sound in the small room. Aghast and uncertain how to attack this new threat, Mother Mastiff backed away, holding the broom defensively in front of her. Awakened by the last shove of the broom, the boy blinked sleepily at her. “Mother? What is it?”
    “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? Mock-mush, 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