Blossom Promise by Betsy Byars

not going to go one inch farther than he absolutely had to.
    “Where are you, Dump?” he called.
    He heard the sound of Dump’s tail brushing against the ground.
    “I hear you but I don’t see you,” Junior said.
    He pushed aside his paper bag.
    “Nothing works for me today,” Junior grumbled, getting ready to start crawling. “Pap won’t come when I call him. Now you won’t either, Dump.”
    Junior wiggled forward, pulling himself along with his elbows.
    “Well, I can’t do anything about Pap, but I can do something about you. I’m going to make you come, Dump.”
    At last Junior had something purposeful to do. “You’re coming with me, frogs or no frogs.”
    He stopped crawling when he mentioned frogs and looked down. He didn’t want to mash one. He didn’t want one jumping up in his face.
    He peered into the darkness. A lot of bushes grew around the house—and these bushes were seventy years old, so they were big and thick. No sunlight came through. No fresh air got in either.
    “I should have brought matches,” Junior said.
    He propped his head in his hands to let his eyes get used to the darkness. He didn’t want to move until he could see exactly what was ahead of him.
    As his eyes adjusted, he caught sight of Dump. Even in the dark Dump was easy to see because he was white with brown spots. “He’s just like a Dalmatian,” was the way Junior described his dog to other people, “only his spots are brown and his hair’s long.”
    “Dump! I see you! Get over here!”
    Dump wagged his tail, sweeping some dried leaves back and forth in the loose dirt.
    “Didn’t you hear me calling you? Come on.”
    Dump hesitated.
    “Come on, Dump, nice Dump. Good dog.”
    Pap had told Junior he had to speak nicely to Dump because Dump had had a hard life. “This dog,” Pap had said, stroking him gently on his lap, “this dog’s been kicked, he’s been hit, he’s been starved, and he’s been thrown into a garbage Dumpster to die. Now, every time you call this dog, Junior, and he don’t come, you remember what he’s been through. He’ll get to trust you, but it’s going to take time.”
    “I’m not going to hurt you, Dump, I just want you to go somewhere with me.”
    Junior pulled himself forward on his elbows.
    Dump’s tail stopped wagging.
    “I said I wasn’t going to do anything to you,” Junior said. “Have I ever hurt you? No. Have I ever hit you? No. Even if you did something wrong, even if you bit me, Dump, would I hit you? No. You might not believe this, but I have never, ever hit one single person or one single animal in my entire life.”
    Dump gave a feeble wag of his tail.
    “That’s better. Now, remember this. I’m not going to hurt you. I like you. Actually, I love—”
    Junior stopped. A strange, musty scent hung in the still air. Junior had smelled this only once before, but he had never forgotten it.
    He had been in the garden with Pap, weeding, when Pap had stopped. He had lifted his head, leaning slightly on the handle of the hoe. It was a hot morning; there wasn’t enough of a breeze to rustle the corn stalks.
    “Smell that?” Pap said.
    At first Junior could smell only the newly turned earth, and so he took in a deeper breath. There it was—a sweet, musty smell, the smell of old, dark bread.
    “What is it, Pap?”
    “Snake,” Pap said.
    Junior scrambled to his feet.
    “Anytime you smell that, Junior, you know a snake’s nearby.”
    Now here it was again. The same sweet musty smell. Junior was smelling it for the second time in his life, and a chill went up his spine.
    His eyes darted around the dim crawl space. He didn’t see the snake, but he knew it was there. Nothing else smelled like that.
    “Come on, Dump, come on! We got to get out of here.” The urgency in his voice made Dump’s tail stop wagging.
    “Come on, will you? Come on?”
    Junior reached out to beckon. Dump took one step backward. And in that unguarded moment the snake struck.
    Dump