“Mother makes him smell the pee-a-bed so he won’t wet the mattress any more.”
“I don’t pee the bed!”
William’s wide blue eyes begin to fill, and Honora immediately changes the subject. “Did it work when Mother put dandelion milk on your wart?”
She examines her fingers. “I don’t have a wart.”
“Then it must have worked. Gram says they bring good luck, too.”
She nods. She has helped her grandmother wash young, tender dandelion leaves for salads, brew spring roots for a medicinal tea, and dry larger ones in the sun to be ground for coffee. She tosses a handful of dandelions into the air. “If the pee-a-beds bring luck, then you’ll get your baby doll.”
“It won’t matter.” Honora’s words belie her expression, which says it matters very much. “Gram must know something. They must have bought me shoes like last year.”
Big thick brown ones, Mabel remembers. She watches as the neighbours’ black-and-white cat sidles near a dignified covey of feeding quail. Their soft pit, pit, pit sounds escalate, and the cat’s rippling, well-groomed coat shimmers as it moves—a black silk jacket over immaculate white trousers. The cat approaches stealthily, nose twitching.
“Or a new winter coat so I can give you my old one.”
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