Ivy looked doubtful, but I thought it was kind of genius.

“Rachel, plug me in,” my mom said, moving closer to the snake with the vacuum tube.

I plugged her in, and the machine roared to life. My mom quickly aimed the hose at the snake, and it slipped right up the tube.

“Mom!” Ivy yelled. “I bet you hurt it!”

My mom kicked off her shoe and stuffed her sock in the end of the hose. “I didn’t hurt it. Don’t be silly. Now take this thing out to the woods and leave the vacuum bag out there so the snake can slither back out.”

Ivy looked at me as if this was my job.

“You do it,” I said.

“You’ll both do it. Now.”

Ivy carried the hose ahead of me while I lugged the body of the vacuum out behind the house and into the woods behind the barn. When we found a nice place near the big rock we loved to climb, Ivy slowly pulled out my mom’s sock and I opened the machine to remove the vacuum bag. We put the two next to each other, then climbed onto the rock to watch from above and wait.

Ivy put the sock on her hand and pretended it was a puppet.

“Come on out, little snake,” she made the sock puppet say. “You’re safe and sound in the woods, where you belong.”

We both peered down expectantly, but the vacuum bag didn’t rustle and nothing slithered out of the hose.

“Mom killed it,” Ivy said. She pulled off the sock and threw it at the bag. Just then, a little dark head poked out of the dusty bag and looked around.

“Shhh,” I told Ivy so she wouldn’t scare it back in.

Slowly the little snake inched out of the bag. It flicked its tongue at the sock before it wriggled under the old leaves on the ground and disappeared.

“See? She didn’t kill it,” I said. “It seems fine.”

“Mom does weird stuff,” Ivy said.

I jumped down off the rock and put the bag in the vacuum cleaner. “C’mon, help me bring this back to the house.”

She followed behind me with the hose, moving the tube like a snake and hissing.

“Earth to Rachel!” Ivy says, sticking her face right in mine. Her breath smells like spoiled milk.

“When’s the last time you brushed your teeth?” I ask.

She scrunches up her face in thought, then shrugs. “I don’t actually remember.”

“Gross.”

She grins and blows her breath at me.

“Ack! You’re killing me!”

She runs away and hops on her bike before I can grab her.