Cody's mother, Mrs. Alma Houston Barkley, is a good-humored middle-aged woman with long, graying hair hanging well below her waist. She has the type of demeanor that one would associate with gluten-free diets, healing crystals and salt lamps. She is sitting down on the couch with an instruction book open, dressed in lightweight and colorful evening attire and unabashedly inexpensive dangling earrings, as her son leads his new pet out into the living-room.
As Cody comes to a halt and releases his hold on the leash, Mary continues walking about in the room, happy to be let to walk unrestrained outside Cody's bedroom for the first time. Like Cody's bedroom, the house has a robust hodgepodge of different items. There is one end-table that has three different lamps on it in many whimsical shapes, and there are little glass and wooden figurines hiding in every niche and corner of the room. Cute, little wooden rabbits stare up from shadowed portions of the wall, and there is an adorable, although slightly creepy, little garden gnome standing next to the piano as if he were leaning against it. Already stimulated from seeing all the wonders of her master's bedroom, she is eager to explore the rest of the house.
Before she can get far, Mrs. Barkley stands up and grabs the leash that hangs from her neck, and she drags Mary back to Cody, pressing the handle of the leash firmly into the boy's hand. "You have to listen to me, Cody," she lectures, "having a pet is going to be a responsibility, and you're going to have to teach your pet to kneel at your side if you're going to keep her."
"But Mom," Cody tries to reason with her as he reluctantly restrains a rather miffed, little red dragoness by her leash, "really, why can't she just go exploring? I promise she'll behave."
"She can explore with you," Mrs. Barkley says, gently but sternly, as she sits back down and picks the book back up, "but if you just let her loose before going through umbilical training, she might wet or get into some other trouble. Now, I love you and wouldn't take your pet away over something that was actually an accident, but I might have to find her a new home if I don't see you trying to housebreak her. We're going to follow the method described in this book, okay? This is for housebreaking AND obedience."
"Okay, Mom," Cody says in a defeated-sounding tone.
Mrs. Barkley looks back into the book and continues, "here, the book says you should call out 'kneel' in a gentle but firm tone, and as you do so, you should snap your fingers while gesturing at your side. If she doesn't comply immediately, give a sharp yank on her leash, and repeat the gesture while pushing down on her shoulder and squeezing to pinch the nerve, giving your command firmly in the same tone."
Mary's former teenage self is outraged by the idea of being put through such a routine, though, and her wings start to flare out rebelliously as she pulls back against the leash, stirring up papers lying nearby and causing a nearby candelabra to topple over onto the floor. Who is this woman to say she has to be trained in this way? She's been degraded badly enough already, and Mary is going to have to put her foot down.
Her rebellious thoughts are squelched as Cody forcefully rubs his hand on her head and down her neck and pats on her shoulder with the other hand, giving it a firm squeeze. "Easy there, girl." This has the desired effect of calming Mary's temper temporarily.
Mrs. Barkley smiles approvingly. "Very good, Cody," she praises, "you're showing control. Now, give her the command to kneel next to you in the same tone."
"Kneel" Cody says gruffly, and he snaps his fingers as he points to the floor beside him.
Mary still stands stiffly and rebelliously, being too verklempt to process what is going on. She has such conflicting feelings in her. It feels good that Cody is petting on her, but she feels put upon by how forceful he is being about it. It's not that what he is doing feels bad, but her will is being subverted. When she had signed into the Chronivac and asked to be turned into a pet, she had not thought about what it would be like to have her will truly subverted, and she is revolting against it.
Mrs. Barkley gestures with her hand for Cody to repeat the command as she told him.
With that, Mary feels a sharp pain in her shoulder as Cody presses his fingers deep into the muscle, and she cries out pathetically as her knees go out from under her. "Kneel" he repeats as he does so, his voice ringing with precisely the same inflection. Mary's mind reels from the pain, and she would do anything to make it go away. Tears spring from her eyes just from the pain, and she starts to collapse on the floor and cry, starting to throw a tantrum and breathing in to unleash the loudest bratty girl-dragon screech they've ever heard. She'll show them not to bully her and boss her around!
Her screech is broken by a yelp as Cody pulls up forcibly on the collar while holding her in position, forcing his badly behaved pet to kneel next to him against her will in spite of her blubbering, writhing and squalling. Because Mary only weighs 45 Lbs., it is not a difficult feat to force her body to assume a desired position, and just for good measure, Cody swats her three times firmly on her little, red backside, causing her to seize up rigidly with her eyes wide in shock that he would ever do that. He spanked her!
"Okay, she is in the right position," Mrs. Barkley says. "Quick! Give her a treat!" She pulls a dragon-treat out of a bag that she has sitting on the couch next to her, and she shoves one into Cody's hand. "Put it in her mouth, and tell her 'good kneel!'" she commands her son.
Cody quickly shoves the treat into Mary's mouth, and he says what he's told. "Good kneel," he says, "GOOD KNEEL!"
Even as Mary tries to continue squalling in protest, her jaws work over the treat. At first, she intends to spit it out spitefully, but the scent of whatever is in it is so alluring that she can't stop moving her jaws over it. Her senses, as a dragon, are so much better than they ever were as a human, so alluring tastes and smells affect her a hundred times more than they would a human. It doesn't take long before she is distracted completely from throwing her tantrum and only able to think about how much she loves the treat she has just been given. She loves everything. She loves being in this position and chewing on this treat with her draconic jaws. She even loves the continued stinging sensation in her rump from being spanked. Everything in the world feels good.
"Okay, that wasn't so bad, Cody," says Mrs. Barkley, "but the book says that you should be careful not to spank her, since it could create cross-association between the spanking and being given the treat. She could end up rebelling just to get that."
Mary is most terribly embarrassed to realize that, upon the administration of the treat, the tingling in her little bottom had started to feel very good. Oh, this is so humiliating! She can hardly believe she could desire for Cody Rudolph Barkley, the most creepy boy in school, to spank her like a naughty child!
After Cody has put Mary through her new trick several times more and praised her even more, finally getting the reluctant dragoness to kneel obediently at Cody's side upon command. Next, Mary is taught to walk only with her paws held up to her chest, and she is taught to follow meekly at Cody's heels when he walks. Once her training for the evening is done, it is declared to be dinnertime, and on Mrs. Barkley's advice, Mary eats her kibble with the rest of the family, although she must lick her kibble up from a bowl off the floor. After all, only humans must touch things with their hands.
And then...