She lifted the creature’s long bely off her with both hands.

The fanged head raised up, dripping fluid from its teeth, and then swooped towards her bare, dirt-crusted left foot. She cried out as the head struck her ankle.

But it didn’t bite her. Instead, its head slid off her leg and into the dirt, and Jenny held her breath and watched it, keeping herself very stil. The creature didn’t move again.

Along the segment of the snake’s body that drooped between her hands, its scaly skin had busted open al over and dark blood seeped out. The blistering infection spread out along its skin in both directions from her hands, towards its head and towards its tail. Al her fingers felt sticky and gross.

Jenny dropped the snake in the dirt and crawled over to the tail end. She tapped the rattle, but the snake didn’t react. She picked up the rattle end and shook it, and it made the funny sound.

She giggled.

Excited now, her fright already fading, Jenny jumped to her feet and ran toward the front porch, dragging the long dead snake behind her. She stopped at the porch steps and shook the rattle again.

“Daddy!” she caled, not sure if he were awake yet. “Daddy daddy!”

Daddy didn’t answer. She went up the three steps and through the open front door.

Daddy was snoring on the couch, in front of a heap of shiny silver cans and an overflowing ashtray on the coffee table. Jenny grabbed his arm—careful to touch only the sleeve, not the skin—and shook him.

“Daddy! Toy!” she screamed at his heavily stubbled, drooling face. She shook the rattle at him. “Daddy!”

“Wha…?” His eyes eased open, bleary and unfocused.

“Toy!” Jenny gave the rattle a good, hard shake to realy make her point.

Now Daddy’s eyes snapped open wide and she could see al the little red veins in them. He smacked Jenny’s hand, hard, slapping the snake rattle out of it. The snake tail flopped to the floor while he snatched Jenny up onto the couch, putting her behind himself and away from the new toy. The shock of the slap wore off and bright red pain flared up to replace it, and Jenny started crying.

Daddy looked along the length of the snake. Its head lay just inside the front door.

“Did you kil it, Jenny?” he asked. This only made her cry harder. She’d thought the snake was more of a toy than a live animal.

Daddy chucked an empty beer can at the snake. The can struck the creature’s body, then roled across the floor and stopped against the far baseboard, where it would remain for several months. The snake didn’t respond to this insult.