Free White Fur Flying by Patricia MacLachlan

chapter 1
    â€œOnce upon a time there was a wicked queen,” said my younger sister, Alice.
    She peered out the window at the house over the field and across the small brook. I looked and saw a woman, her hair piled on top of her head, walking up the sidewalk. She was followed by movers carrying furniture.
    â€œThe wicked queen had two children. They were bad children and she often punished them.”
    â€œAlice!” said Mama from the screened side porch. “Can’t you tell a pleasant story?”
    Alice was the storyteller in the family, some of her stories filled with hilariously mean characters.
    â€œHow did she punish them?” I asked.
    â€œZoe! Don’t encourage her.”
    I watched my mother through the open door to the porch. She brushed Kodi. She always brushed dogs on the screened porch, then swept all the hair up.
    â€œIf I brush them outside,” she had said, “the hair blows around and hangs on the trees and bushes.”
    Kodi was a Great Pyrenees, 140 pounds of white fur. May, almost as big, stood waiting for her turn. There was fur everywhere—porch floor, furniture, and on Mama’s jeans. Soon May would be adopted into a new family, and there would be other new dogs, one after the other.
    Mama rescued Pyrs, as she called them, and found homes for them so they wouldn’t be put to sleep. Once, we had five of them in our house. When they lay on the wood living-room floor, they made a huge, deep white rug.
    I watched the movers carry a sapphire blue velvet couch into the house along with two matching chairs.
    Mama came to look out the window too.
    â€œNo Great Pyrs on that furniture,” I said.
    â€œThat’s for sure,” Mama said. “Not on that beautiful couch and those chairs. There’s probably no dogs there at all,” said Mama. “Or cats.”
    â€œAnd no children,” I said.
    We watched a series of tables with carved legs be carried in. And then velvet drapes were carefully lifted by two men.
    â€œShe punished her children in the drapes,” announced Alice, making me jump. I’d almost forgotten she was there.
    â€œShe rolled them up like burritos, so only their heads showed. They couldn’t get into trouble that way.”
    Mama couldn’t help laughing.
    â€œYou have a way, Alice,” she said.
    We watched the second pair of bright velvet drapes be carried in.
    â€œI suppose I should be neighborly and invite her over for tea,” said Mama.
    â€œNot in this house, Mama,” I said. “Not during shedding season.”
    We watched white fur flying into the room, carried by the summer breezes coming off the porch. Some stuck to Mama’s shirt. A clump floated by my nose, so close I caught the satisfying smell of dog.
    â€œYou can invite her,” said Alice. “She won’t punish you. We don’t have drapes.”
    Mama put one arm around Alice and one around me.
    â€œNo. No drapes,” she said. “Just dogs.”
    We watched a wooden carved porch swing being hooked up on the porch.
    â€œWe could weave drapes from the fur of the dogs,” Alice said. “It would make life much more exciting.”
    Before Mama could answer, a long black car pulled up and a man stepped out.
    â€œAnd suddenly the king arrives,” said Alice in what Daddy called her hushed-wildlife-documentary voice. Usually that voice whispered, “And then the leopard sees its prey.”
    Even though it was summer, the man wore a jacket and tie. He opened the passenger door. After a moment a small boy climbed out.
    â€œAnd the prince!” said Alice, surprised.
    The man turned and began to walk up to the house. The boy stood still. Then he turned and stared at our house. He saw us all in the window: a mother, two children, and two huge white dogs. Beside me Kodi’s tail began to wag. The boy stared.
    Then the man/king turned and came back, taking the boy’s hand, pulling him up