and sampled the air again. ‘Well, I could be . . . Snakes can be incredibly dangerous. Some of us crush large animals in our muscular convolutions and slowly swallow whole crocodiles, or maybe canoes, or canoes with people in them.’
‘But you’re only small.’
‘I can get bigger.’
Mary thought this might be a lie, but she didn’t want to hurt the snake’s feelings.
The snake stretched up his little spine and raised his small head so that he could look straight at her. He swayed his neck back and forth as if he were listening to music and stared into her blue eyes with his dark red eyes and his strange narrow pupils which were blacker than the back of a raven and which seemed to go on for ever if you concentrated on them and really paid attention. ‘Some snakes can bite you once and fill you with enough poison to kill twenty men, fifty men, maybe even a hundred men.’
‘I’m not a man,’ said Mary. ‘I’m a little girl.’
The snake blinked. ‘You are being difficult. A snake could poison you even faster than a man because the poison would have less far to travel.’
Mary nodded. ‘I know. Although I think even a very huge and ferocious snake might not kill a hundred men.’
‘Definitely at least twenty.’ The snake sounded slightly cross.
‘But I have learned all the poisonous snakes and their stripes and their habits in case I travel to faraway lands and have adventures when I am older. Your kind of snake is not in any of my books about snakes. And I have read a lot.’
This was true – Mary had read a great many books about snakes. She had borrowed them from the library and taken notes.
‘Some snakes have feathers and drink the blood of warriors and some live in the Underworld in Egypt. And others darken the sun when they fly and crack their tails like thunder,’ boasted the snake.
‘That sounds like stories about snakes, not real snakes at all. And the last one seems more like a dragon than a snake. Dragons are in the books of things that don’t exist,’ said Mary sternly.
The snake sighed and lowered himself to lounge in her hand, suddenly seeming as soft as a piece of silky rope. ‘Oh, well . . . Perhaps I seem less impressive than usual because I am hungry. Would you happen to have a mouse that I could eat?’ The snake’s head lolled off her palm as if he were almost faint with hunger, but his eyes watched her carefully and glowed.
‘If I did have a mouse, it would be my pet mouse and I wouldn’t ever give it to anyone so they could eat it.’
‘But I suppose that you eat fried fishes and grilled cutlets of lambs and stews of cow pieces and goose’s legs . . .’ He lolled again, wheezing as if he were famished.
‘Well, yes, but I had never met the lambs and cows and geese,’ explained Mary. ‘It would be rude to eat somebody I had met. And mostly we eat stews with vegetables and beans and things which don’t cost as much as meat. And we’re very far away from the sea here, so we don’t eat very many fishes. Do you live in a jungle?’
‘No.’
‘I would love to know what a jungle is really like.’
‘Your mind is wandering. I am very hungry.’
‘Tomorrow – which is Monday – we have sewing lessons at school. Mrs Kohlhoffer who teaches sewing always says my mind wanders. She doesn’t understand that I already know enough about sewing for the rest of my life. I am not going to embroider little covers for the backs of chairs ever again. I shall not embellish more slippers, or sew another bag to keep my sewing things in. I am not even going to be a surgeon – which would mean I had to sew my patients back together once I had sliced them open. No surgeon would be very popular if she embroidered flowers on her patient’s operation scars. I am going to explore the world and maybe a lion will bite off my leg, or an arm, or something, or I will need to sew up a wound caused by a machete – but I already know the right stitches for wounds, and for making tidy stumps after amputations.’
The snake was sitting up again – if we can describe a snake as sitting up – because he was interested in Mary and had forgotten that he was pretending to be hungry. ‘Little girl, little girl, the world is an odd place to explore and you must promise me,’ he said in his wonderful voice, ‘that you will be extremely careful wherever you go.’
This seemed a kind thing to say and so Mary gave her name to the snake. ‘I’m Mary.’
‘Thank you, Mary. Mary . . .’ said the snake in a voice that sounded as if he were thinking of something sweet and sad. ‘Well, Mary, I have been in the jungle at times and I know that when you are there you must always keep your machete very sharp so that it cuts easily and smoothly and safely. And put it back tidily in its sheath when you aren’t using it and never annoy a lion so much that it wants to bite you. In fact, avoid lions and all large cats. And also bears. And definitely hippopotamuses.’
‘I thought you were weak with hunger.’
‘I am worried about you. But you are also full of remarkable wisdom – you should write down the things I tell you so you won’t forget.’ The snake blinked. ‘But, yes, I am very hungry, too. Do you have, at least, some cheese? I might be able to survive on cheese. A little Gruyère, perhaps?’
Mary leaned in very close and kissed the snake on its nose. (Although, of course, it didn’t quite have a nose.)
‘You are very forward,’ the snake mumbled. But he also – like poured gold – slipped himself around and around her arm in a pleased way that sparkled his scales delightfully. Then he came to rest peaceably in her hand again. ‘You maybe could call me Camatayon, or Bas, or Lanmo, or . . .’
Because the snake seemed to have a great many names and because Mary liked the sound of that one she told him, ‘Lanmo. I will call you Lanmo.’
‘Yes, that will be good.’ The snake nodded.
‘Thank you for your name.’ Mary realised she was a little bit hungry herself. ‘Shall we go indoors? I can toast some cheese on bread. I know how to toast cheese.’
The snake angled his head as if he were thinking. ‘I think I would have to have cold cheese with no bread – because of my teeth. Toasted cheese would be too sticky.’ He opened his dark mouth carefully and slowly so that Mary could see his teeth, which were as white as bones and pointed. To the left and to the right of his front teeth he had a longer fang that was most especially pointed.
‘Goodness.’
‘I eeth ill oh ur oooh,’ said Lanmo the snake.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mary had been taught to be polite.
Lanmo closed his mouth and his needly teeth fitted together perfectly for an instant, before he tried again to speak. ‘My teeth will not hurt you.’
‘Oh.’
‘I promise.’
‘And what kind of snake are you?’
‘The kind that is never in books.’ And he nuzzled his head against the back of her hand and flickered his tongue.
Mary
