Dollenganger 03 If There Be a Thorns by V. C. Andrews Page B

most."
    "Where did your children go?"
"Have you forgotten?" she sobbed, tears in her eyes now. "They ran away from me. Bart, that hurts so much. Don't you ever run away from your parents."
Gosh, hadn't intended to run. World out there was too big. Too scary. Safe, had to stay where it was safe. I ran to embrace her, then turned to play with my truck--and that's when John Amos limped into the room, his watery eyes angry. "Madame! You do not develop strength in young children by indulging their every whim. You should know that by now."
"John," she said haughtily, "don't you ever come in this room again without knocking--stay in your place."
Tough. My grandmother was tough. I smiled at John Amos, who backed away, mumbling under his breath about how she wasn't giving him any place, or not the place he deserved. I forgot him the moment he was out of sight as I fell under the spell of my enchanting new dump truck and why it worked like it did. Soon I'd find out--and maybe my curiosity was the same thing as being mean, for everything given to me ended up broken within an hour.
My grandmother sighed and looked unhappy as my truck came apart.
Long summer days passed slowly, with John Amos teaching me lots of important things about being powerful and fearsome like Malcolm, who knew all about being sneaky and clever. In his own kind of way John Amos was fascinating, with his queer shuffling walk, his skinny legs more knobby than mine, his whistling breath, his hissing words, his stringy mustache and bald head where one white hair grew. One day I was gonna pull it out. Wonder why my grandmother didn't like him She was the boss, she could fire him, and yet she didn't. Something hard and mean was between them.
I was happy living between them, blessed on one side by my grandmother, with all her nice gifts, her hugs and kisses, and on the other side by John Amos, who was teaching me how to be a powerful man who could make women do his bidding. And now that I had someone who loved me for myself, no matter how mean or clumsy I was, I began to feel that special kind of magic that Momma and Jory shared. I thought I, too, could hear the music of sunset colors. I thought the lemon tree made little harp chords sound. I had Apple, my puppy-pony. And, best of all, Disneyland was waiting for me and my birthday was coming up soon.
Now that I was getting brilliant like Malcolm, I tried to figure out a way to keep Apple's love while I went away for three weeks. It woke me up at night. Worried me all day. Who would feed Apple and steal his love while I was gone? Who?
I went back to the wall and checked on a peach pit that hadn't sprouted any roots as yet. It was supposed to be growing--and it wasn't. Next I checked my sweetpea seeds. Dumb things were just lying there, not doing anything.
Cursed. I was cursed. I glared at the part of the garden Jory cared for. All his flowers were in full bloom. Wasn't fair how even flowers wouldn't grow for me. I crawled to where Jory's hollyhocks grew. My knees crushed petunias, squashed portulaca. What would Malcolm do if he was me? He'd rip up all of Jory's flowers, dig holes with his thumbs in his own garden, and stick in the blossoms.
One by one I filled my thumb holes with Jory's hollyhocks. They refused to stand up straight, but I arranged them so they could lean against one another-- and now I had blooming flowers in my garden too. Clever. Devious and sneaky--smart too.
Glanced down at my filthy knees and saw I'd ripped my new pants on the doghouse I'd started building for Clover. It was my way of asking forgiveness for tripping over him so often. Right now he was up on that "veranda" keeping a keen eye on me, afraid to sleep while I was in sight. I didn't need him now. Once I had, but now I had a better pet.
Bugs were biting my face. I rubbed at my eyes, not caring if my hands were covered with grease from fooling around in my dad's garage workshop. Emma wouldn't like seeing my new white tank-top that had grease