CHAPTER 6
Regression
The next few days passed agreeably enough.
Jennifer continued to work on her flying and hunting, and found
time for the occasional game of circus with Phoebe. During the
evenings, she would try sketching with the large chunk of charcoal
and newsprint that Grandpa Crawford used. It seemed a lost cause at
first, but she eventually got the hang of moving her wing claw back
and forth as fluidly as she would move a human hand, so that the
charcoal made gentle, accurate strokes. Before long, she was
sketching trees, water, and other shapes.
Despite her father’s encouragement, however, she
did not get the soccer ball out. Even with her successes this week,
looking at the ball made it too easy to think about her friends,
and how they would react if they ever found out how different and
dangerous she was.
What would Eddie say? What would his parents say?
And Susan? What would happen to her, and her family, if the town
found out? Would they have to move? Would the truth follow them?
Would she ever get to feel, or even act, normal again?
So the soccer ball stayed in the garage, and
Jennifer stayed out of the garage.
The dreams, she was glad to see, settled down a
bit. In fact, sleeping in her favorite vacation house, in her room,
and even the (admittedly reassuring) presence of her parents was
all almost pleasant.
The fourth morning at the cabin, she lay sprawled
out on the grass, shooting smoke rings softly around Phoebe’s long
muzzle while the dog licked her nose horn. The cries of the nearby
family of golden eagles punctuated the still air. Elizabeth was
finishing some cold cereal on the porch, and her father had flown
off somewhere before Jennifer had even woken up.
“Flying today should be good,” she told her mother.
They hadn’t talked much all week; Jennifer figured they both had
been trying to stay out of each other’s way.
Elizabeth didn’t answer right away. Jennifer lifted
her head. “Mom?”
“I heard you. But I’m not sure your father will
want you to fly today.”
Jennifer raised her snout into the air. Her Dad had
taught her how to tell if the weather was changing. “Temperature’s
crisp, not too bad. I don’t smell much change on the wind. Am I
wrong?”
Elizabeth gave a genuine smile. “I wouldn’t know,
dear. But whatever the weather, I think your father wants you to
take it easy today. It is, after all, day five.”
Day five. The words hit Jennifer like
bricks. The crescent moon was ending. Of course it wouldn’t do to
be soaring through the air at two hundred feet if her body picked
that time to change back into human form!
She wondered how much it would hurt. Getting larger
and scalier had definitely not tickled. Would shrinking and growing
hair feel any better? It seemed it might be less traumatic, but she
couldn’t be sure and didn’t know if her father would give her an
honest answer.
“So what’re we going to do today? And where’s
Dad?”
“No plans, just do what you like. On the ground,
that is. Your dad went to see your grandfather.”
“Where has Grandpa been all this time,
anyway? The note he left said ‘Crescent Valley’ but we never saw
him around.”
Her mother paused again.
“Never mind! I can tell I won’t get a straight
answer.”
Elizabeth downed the milk left in her bowl in a
single gulp. “You always were a perceptive girl.”
Jonathan did not return until midday. Jennifer was sketching fish in the sitting room when her mother called her to the patio door and pointed. Two large shapes were pelting the surface of the lake with their wings.
They looked nearly identical—the colors on their
backs and bellies, the three horns at the backs of their skulls,
and even their toothy smiles. Jennifer supposed her grandfather was
the slightly smaller one, since her father was taller than her
grandfather as a human.
She examined the electric blue and silver skin
across her wings, back, and double-pronged tail. Her nose horn and
wider bulk had already made her feel different from her father, but
now she saw just how different she was.
With a glare at her gene-pool-wrecking mother,
Jennifer went out on the porch and watched her father and Grandpa
Crawford reach the shore. Phoebe had been trying to herd some dry
leaves blowing in the wind, but broke off and sped toward the
dragons as they landed.
“Hey, Phoebe!” Grandpa Crawford’s voice was tighter
and higher than her father’s, but it had the same congenial tilt to
it. “Get the worm! Get the worm!” The smaller dragon held one wing
up and wriggled one talon of the wing claw a few feet above the
dog’s head. Phoebe obliged, jumping up and poking the talon with
her nose. Then she bolted away from Grandpa Crawford and up the
porch steps, where she tried to share her enthusiasm with
Jennifer.
“Down, Phoebe, down! Hey, Grandpa!”
“Niffer! You’re glorious!”
Part of her knew that grandfathers always said
things like that, and part of her guessed that her father was smart
enough to coach his dad on her state of mind, but most of her could
tell Grandpa Crawford really meant it. She beamed.
“Goodness, Jon, will you look at her!” Crawford
leapt over the porch railing, eschewing the steps, and landed right
next to Jennifer. “She’s a perfect blend! Hasn’t been anything like
her for centuries, I’ll bet. Dash, trample, creep—it’s all
there!”
He was poking at her with a wing claw now. A bit
flattered, and a little taken aback at the prodding, she grinned
and waved his wing away with her own. “Did you just call me a
creep?”
“Wait until you start your lessons!” he went on.
“There’s so much for you to learn, and to do! And we’ve got to get
you to Crescent Valley!”
“Slow down, Dad,” Jonathan interrupted with
something like alarm. “She’s nowhere near ready for Crescent Valley
yet. There’s a long road ahead for her. And if I recall correctly,
you didn’t let me enter Crescent Valley until I was sixteen
years old.”
“You were an idiot.” Crawford winked.
“I’ve already learned a ton, Grandpa—how to fly,
how to breathe fire, how to catch sheep, even how to fish!” Her own
excitement sounded strange to her, as if she were a five-year-old
who had just finished reading her first book all by herself.
“Wonderful!” he laughed. “I’m sorry I missed
it.”
It didn’t matter to her that she had never seen him
in this shape before—his voice, his manner, everything about him
was exactly as she remembered. She almost wanted to ask him to read
her a story, so she could curl up in his lap.
“I’ve made spaghetti sauce,” Elizabeth offered from
just inside the patio doors. “Don’t worry, Dad, it’s your family’s
recipe.”
“That’s no guarantee,” Crawford muttered to
Jennifer. “All right then,” he said more loudly. “Bring it on out,
and we’ll have at it!”
Jennifer had to admit that one of the better things
about being a dragon was the absolute discard of all conventional
manners. Her mother brought out three large pots and simply set
them on the porch. Each dragon then settled down next to a pot, and
stuck his or her head in. Their slurps and gurgles were almost
comic, but Jennifer was too caught up in the aroma of the sauce to
care.
“This isn’t bad at all, Lizzard!” Crawford belched.
The nickname made Jennifer snort. She hadn’t heard that one before.
“You sure my son didn’t help?”
Elizabeth settled down with her own neat bowl of
pasta and sauce onto the only chair on the porch. Her smile
betrayed both amusement and irritation. “I can follow a recipe just
fine. I can also do many other things, all of which are a bit more
important than cooking pitch-perfect meals for your son on a
regular basis.”
Crawford raised his sauce-covered jaws from his
pot. To Jennifer, he looked a bit like a dinosaur peering up from a
fresh kill to look over a challenger. “Now, now, Doctor,
there’s no need to get testy. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
There was silence for a while. Jonathan raised his
head from his own pot and gave them both warning looks. Confused,
Jennifer stopped chewing and let some noodles hang out of her
mouth. She had never noticed this sort of tension between her
mother and her grandfather before.
Her mother finally shrugged her shoulders.
“Whatever. Your son cooks well enough for both of us, so it’s not
an issue. We won’t starve anytime soon.”
This seemed to break the tension. Everyone began
eating again, so Jennifer followed suit. She was just licking the
last bits of sauce out of the still-hot pot when the tremors
began.
“Dad . . .” She couldn’t control her claws, her
wings, her entire body. Shaking from snout to tail, she took a few
steps back as she felt her insides swirl. It was a slightly
different feeling from the first change, but similar enough that
Jennifer became scared. She knew what was coming—her spine, her
skin, her teeth, everything would start to hurt again.
But five days ago, she had been alone. This time,
her family was present and ready.
“It’s okay, Jennifer.” Her mother’s voice soothed
her. “It won’t hurt so much this time. I put something in your
sauce to relieve the pain.”
“Something in her sauce?” Jennifer heard her
grandfather ask. His voice sounded disapproving, but that could
have just been the echoes inside her head. Her vision began to
blur.
She heard her father, far away. “We didn’t exactly
talk about this, Liz . . .”
“Doctor’s orders,” her mother replied, farther
off.
The voices continued, but Jennifer couldn’t make
out what they were saying anymore. Her insides were still sliding
about and rubbing against each other. She could feel the same
disturbing changes in her backbone and skull, only this time in
reverse—and with nearly no pain at all, just mild discomfort.
“Whad did hoo pud in he sawce, Mom?” Her voice
seemed tinny and miles away to her own ears. “Morfeeeene?”
She felt her body slump over as the morphine, or
whatever it was, took full effect. Through the blurs before her
eyes, she saw the shapes of her father and grandfather, but
couldn’t read their expressions.
“Grea ressipee, Mom,” she said with a grin, falling
asleep.
The dream was very short.
She was looking in a mirror. Her body was too thin.
Visible bones slid beneath her skin as her dragon jaws and wings
finished receding. There was suddenly a lump in her throat, and
then a bulge in her mouth. She spit it out into her hand.
It was her second heart, the one she had felt when
she had been looking at Grayheart’s Anatomy a few days ago.
The slimy, red mess was still beating in her hand . . .
da-da-thump, da-da-thump, da-da-thump . . .
When she woke up, she was in bed. The softness of the mattress surprised her. Too used to rugs on floors, she chided herself. She sat up and looked around.
It was one of the guest rooms upstairs in Grandpa
Crawford’s cabin. The windows were ajar—the cold autumn air cut
into her fragile skin—and the door to the hallway was wide open.
She could just make out her family’s low-key voices, probably
downstairs.
There was a glass of ginger ale and a slice of
lightly buttered toast on the nightstand next to her. That was a
clear signal in the Scales family. She stayed in bed, reached out
with her pinkish human hands, and grabbed the “sick person food.”
The dishes were heavier than she expected, and she almost dropped
the glass. As she ate, more questions swirled through her
mind.
How long had the transformation taken? Would it
always hurt? Would her mother always be at her side, ready with
painkilling drugs? And where the hell was her tail?
That last question was ridiculous, of course: She
didn’t have a tail anymore. From the moment she had woken up, she
had known she was a girl again. But at the same time, she missed
the tail. She hadn’t thought about it much while she was a dragon,
but making the tail swish behind her had been a source of comfort
to her.
Relax, she told herself. You don’t need a
tail. You’re normal again.
Of course, another part of her mind held firmly to
the idea that she wasn’t normal at all, and wouldn’t be ever
again.
The voices downstairs got a bit closer—definitely
her mother and father. Jennifer could hear multiple footsteps up
the stairs. They were talking about the ride home, and whether
Phoebe had eaten yet, and what supplies they needed to keep here
for next time.
For next time. Half of Jennifer looked forward to
it. Half dreaded it.
She put the empty ginger ale glass back on the
nightstand and settled back down into bed. An urge to close her
eyes and pretend to be asleep washed over her, but that made no
sense. So when her parents entered the doorway, she was staring at
the ceiling.
“How do you feel?” her father asked. He wasn’t a
dragon anymore, either. Two legs, no wings, no horns, thinning
hair. Just like any other dad. Had it all been a stupid dream? Had
they been on vacation as a human family, and the dragon parts were
all one long nightmare?
“My feet are a bit numb,” she replied. “My
stomach’s rolling a bit. And my nose itches like crazy,” she
realized suddenly, reaching up to scratch it.
“The numbness is from the return metamorphosis,” he
explained. “The other stuff is from the morphine.”
“Having a six-inch horn on my snout probably didn’t
help, either,” she complained, still scratching.
“Any difficulty breathing?”
Jennifer took a deep breath and let it out.
“Nope.”
“Good. Your mother and I think we should all be
ready to go in about an hour. The moon’s waxing, so it’ll be a few
weeks before our next morph. You’ve got school tomorrow, and your
mother’s got surgeries scheduled. I’ll be glad to swing by the
office for a day or two, myself.”
Jonathan Scales was an architect. He did just about
all of his work from home when he wasn’t on a “business trip.”
Since he could pick and choose clients, he could make his work fit
an unconventional schedule. His job made complete sense to Jennifer
now—as did the phone in the downstairs kitchen with the oversized
push-buttons and speakerphone feature.
“I think I could be ready to go in an hour,”
Jennifer ventured without a smile.
“The clothes you were wearing last Thursday are in
the wash,” her mother explained. “I brought some other stuff up for
you to wear. You’ll find it in the dresser.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Next time, you may want to set your clothes aside
before you morph,” her father suggested. “It doesn’t hurt what you
wear, but getting the smell of smoke, fish, and blood out afterward
is a bit of a chore.”
“Right. Sorry, didn’t know that.”
There was an awkward silence. Then her parents
smiled nervously and closed the door so she could be alone.
Getting up and getting dressed was much harder than
Jennifer expected. For one, the early October breeze slipping into
the room chilled her fragile skin. So she tried to get over to the
window to close it, and then found out that walking on legs again
was like stepping on stilts.
The dresser was closer than the window, so she
decided to get dressed instead. The top drawer wouldn’t respond to
her feeble tugs at first, but she finally managed to get it open
and reach in with fumbling fingers. She wasn’t sure how the jeans
and sweatshirt her mother had carefully folded into the drawer
would fit her. Every limb felt too long and lanky. The dragon shape
had been muscular and powerful. This shape felt like one of those
overly thin, pasty aliens with warped hands and feet, big bulging
head and eyes.
And no tail. Tail had helped with balance.
She stumbled forward onto the bed and decided to
dress lying down.
By the time she got everything on (it all fit
fine), she figured she had regained enough coordination to stand up
again. She slowly rose and stepped over to the mirror on the far
wall to look at herself for the first time.
A sad, tired teenager stared back. Her shoulders
were slumped, her weight was on one foot, and her fingers were
anxiously twisting her stringy hair. There were more silver streaks
in her hair than before, but it wasn’t shiny like it sometimes
was.
“I should have taken a shower,” her reflection said
aloud. Jennifer couldn’t have agreed more.
The ride home was quiet and uneventful. Phoebe snuggled up next to Jennifer on the backseat of the minivan for most of the way, occasionally licking her ear. Once in a while, one parent or the other would ask her a question about how she felt, or whether she had enjoyed seeing Grandpa again (she had, though seeing his human form that morning had reminded her how old he truly was), or if she still had homework to do.
Jennifer answered all of these with the fewest
words possible. Noncommittal grunts were her favorite. She knew
these drove her mom and dad nuts, but she didn’t care. Who has a
normal conversation after something like this past week, she
asked herself. Nobody came to mind. The next dream took Jennifer a
bit by surprise, since it didn’t happen at night, but rather on the
school bus the following morning. Eddie wasn’t at the bus stop like
he usually was in the morning, so she was riding alone.
As she stared out the bus window, she began to see
the strangest farm animals.
Skinny horses, with joints almost protruding from
their hides, walking down the street and driving cars. Plump pigs,
with legs practically disappearing under folds of tender flesh,
clustered together at bus stops. Stringy chickens, most with only a
few feathers, crossing the road in jumps and starts.
Then she felt a poke on her shoulder. She turned
and pulled back in surprise. Two tall and thin sheep stood in the
aisle. Each had impossibly long legs, with strange joints that
shook with the vibrations of the accelerating bus. One rested a
fragile, spindly hoof on the seat by her neck. It leaned forward
and stared at her with two bulging black eyes.
“This seat taken?” It said in a familiar
voice.
Jennifer shook her head and rubbed her eyes. When
she looked back up, the sheep were gone, as well as all the other
farm animals on the bus. Skip stood in front of her instead, with
his sly grin.
“Nope. Have a seat,” she said with a mixture of
relief and caution. She dreaded trying to explain her absence to
Skip, although her parents had worked out an elaborate story of
tragic illness.
But Skip didn’t press her much. “Say, you feeling
okay? Ms. Graf told us you were sick.”
“Yeah, sick,” she mumbled. She tried to change the
topic. “So I’ve never seen you get on the bus before. Your family’s
house is around here?”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “My aunt sold
it to Dad, yeah. Since Mom died . . .”
The uncomfortable silence lay on them for a while.
Jennifer didn’t want to talk about her illness, and Skip clearly
didn’t want to talk about his dead mother. Finally, she took a deep
breath.
“So, seen Eddie lately?”
That worked fine. Skip set in on a string of topics
ranging from how he and Eddie had spent all weekend playing catch
to how much homework they had gotten in Ms. Graf’s class and
whether Jennifer would ever catch up.
But Jennifer discovered as she listened that she
didn’t much care if she caught up, or fell further behind, or ever
graduated from Winoka High. With every word of Skip’s that passed
through one ear and out the other, she felt more and more that
coming to school at all anymore was pointless.
She knew how to read and write. She could do math
better than some college students. History never interested her.
And science? Her admiration of her mother’s career would remain
that—admiration, bounded by the very real limits that getting
“chronically, terminally ill” would present to a fourteen-year-old.
So why was she here? What possible use was school to a creature
like her?
Running her hand through her hair, she felt disgust
at touching the graying strands. For every moment she had spent
hating her dragon body the week before, she hated this one more.
This biped thing she had going on seemed wrong somehow. And how
could that be, when she’d only been a dragon for a few days, but
had walked around on two miserable, pale legs all her life?
Skip didn’t seem to notice her inattention. In
fact, he kept talking to her as the bus finally reached the school
and they all got off. Apparently, he took her silence and
occasional eye contact as approval to talk nonstop. As Jennifer got
off the bus, she almost keeled over with the stress the steps gave
her body. She muffled a desperate chuckle. The star athlete of her
class, and she could hardly stand to be in her own skin!
She marched through the first couple of classes in
a daze. One time in the hallway she passed Susan, but her friend
seemed uncomfortable even looking at her. Jennifer guessed this was
probably for the best.
In the classroom, she didn’t talk, no matter how
hard her teachers tried to engage her. When Ms. Graf tried to make
an issue of it in science, Jennifer fixed her with glassy,
contemptuous gray eyes. Ms. Graf returned a withering look for the
rudeness, but left Jennifer alone for the rest of the period.
The bell rang and the class filed out. Jennifer
once again lapsed into a stream of sour thoughts, broken suddenly
by Bob Jarkmand’s loud, “S’matter, Scabs? You seem all pissed off.
You got girly problems?”
Girly problems. Ovulation. Reproduction.
Bob’s brief interruption set Jennifer thinking again. What kind of
kid would she have, years from now? It had always seemed weird to
guess at before, but now the very thought of it made her sick to
her stomach. Of course, thinking of sex and children—
“Look at her, she’s all freaked out by her girly
problems. I bet that’s what happens when you lose your virginity
and start slutting around the school . . .”
—was beside the point. There was no way she was
putting a kid of her own through this. Nope, sorry, everybody
off the genetic train, time’s up. She would enjoy her life as a
lizard-spinster-hermit—
“Don’t talk to her like that, punk!”
That broke her train of thought. Skip had stomped
up to within a few feet of Bob. The nearby students all stopped
talking to look. Bob wasn’t much taller than Skip, but he was far
broader. Unlike the last time they sparred, there were no teachers
or classroom chairs to get in the way. How sweet, thought
Jennifer watching Skip’s direct challenge. Suicidal, but
sweet. She offered him a grim smile, but he was busy staring
down the larger boy.
“Don’t ever talk to her,” Skip continued. “Don’t
you even look at her.”
“Why, Francis? You her boyfriend for the
day? Lotsa luck. Scabs seems like the kind of girl who likes to get
around. She’ll be hangin’ with someone else tomorrow, I bet.” Bob
stepped forward, putting Skip entirely in his shadow. “In fact, I
know she will. Because you’ll be in the hospital.”
Abruptly, Jennifer ran out of patience. It was
charming of Skip to help and all, but . . .
She stepped forward and slammed Bob right across
the face with her fist. The crack made the surrounding crowd
gasp and from all the way down the hall heads turned. Even more,
the shot knocked Bob off his feet and a couple of yards to the
left, where he hit the wall by the guidance counselor’s office with
a satisfying whoomph. He slid to the floor and rolled across
the doorway. A quick hand clapped to his mouth, but not before
Jennifer saw blood spurt through his split lips.
Skip stared at the fallen thug, then at Jennifer.
He crouched and shook a finger in Bob’s face. “And there’s plenty
more where that came from, buster!”
Jennifer waved her hand, expecting it to hurt from
the punch—but it didn’t.
“Humiliating,” Skip said cheerfully, “yet
exhilarating. So much for my knight in shining armor routine, eh?
Amazing punch, Jenny—I mean, Jennifer! Wow! I’ll . . .” His eyes
got a little wider as he stared past Jennifer. “I’ll . . . um . . .
see you later.”
“Why, where are you going?”
“You should worry about where you’re going,
young lady.” A hand closed over her shoulder. She knew without
turning that it was the reclusive guidance counselor, Mr. Pool. He
must have stepped over Bob to get out of his office. “You’re in a
lot of trouble.”
“She’s in trouble?” Skip’s look was
incredulous, and he pointed to the bully plastered on the floor.
“He started it.”
Mr. Pool’s oily eyes rested on the new kid. “You
may not be familiar with the code of conduct at this high school
yet, Mr. Wilson,” he hissed, “but you will be soon. It includes
showing respect to your elders.”
“I’ll show respect for those elders that deserve
it,” Skip shot back.
Jennifer wasn’t sure what to do here. The solution
last time had involved a straight punch to the jaw; but somehow
that seemed less appropriate this time around. She didn’t have time
to figure it all out: Mr. Pool decided to drag her away without
further comment. She saw Skip fix a hot glare at the back of the
counselor’s neck as Pool dragged her off.
“I don’t mind saying I’m shocked! According to her records, Jennifer never had any sort of disciplinary problems before high school.” The principal of Winoka High School, Mr. Mouton, settled down behind his desk after shaking both Jonathan’s and Elizabeth’s hands, and motioning them to take the two vinyl chairs in front of him. Jennifer chewed her tongue in an uncomfortable fiberglass chair off to one side.
“Mr. Mutton—” Jonathan began.
“That’s Moo-TONE, if you please. May I add,
Mr. and Mrs. Scales, it’s nice to meet you both. Though the
circumstances could be better, of course. As the new principal
here, I’ve been trying to meet parents before there’s a problem. I
wish we could have done so in this case. My assistant tells me
she’s had trouble scheduling a time when Mr. Scales is available .
. . ?”
Jennifer shot an accusing look at her father, and
then a triumphant one at her mother. HA!
“I’m usually on the road,” Jonathan explained
slowly. “Elizabeth has been in closer contact with Jennifer’s
schools, as a rule.”
“Hmmm.”
“We’re both very interested in Jennifer’s
education, Mr. Mouton. But schedules sometimes . . .”
“It hasn’t hurt her academic performance one bit,”
the principal interrupted congenially. “At least not yet. But these
years are usually the point when the rules change, Mr. and Mrs.
Scales.”
Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
Jonathan got the signal. “My wife makes every parent-teacher
conference, soccer game, and art fair. And I make such events when
I can. We’ve always supported Jennifer—”
“Yes, of course, of course.” It was a concession
and a dismissal at the same time. Mr. Mouton ruffled some papers
and produced a file. It was rather thin, but he fanned through the
skimpy pages as though he were thumbing through a dictionary. “It’s
not unusual in these cases, Mr. and Mrs. Scales, for a child to act
out in the absence of her parents. You say you spend lots of time
on the road. Jennifer may have been calling for your
attention.”
“Or she may have been calling the school
bully on his atrocious behavior.”
Jennifer nearly fell out of her chair. Her
mother had said that! Not only did Elizabeth seem to know
about Bob Jarkmand already, she was taking sides—her
side!
The principal’s cheeks grew rosy. “Be that as it
may, Mrs. Scales—”
“That’s Dr. Georges-Scales, if you please.
Why isn’t the thug in here answering questions?” Elizabeth looked
up and down the principal’s office, obviously expecting to see the
largest boy at Winoka High strung up next to the diplomas and
awards on the paneled wall.
“The ‘thug,’ as you put it, is in the nurse’s
office, chewing ice chips in an attempt to get the swelling down,”
Mouton said coolly. “No matter what Robert said to Jennifer,
violence is not the answer.”
“Save your platitudes. I see the consequences of
violence every day, and I know the type that breeds it. I
understand this Robert was not only talking at my daughter as if
she were a whore, but also threatening one of her friends. Did you
talk to this witness?”
“Not yet,” admitted Mr. Mouton. Jennifer could see
from her mother’s expression that she already knew the answer. Skip
had caught her parents on the way into the principal’s office,
then, and told them everything. He skipped class to lurk outside
the office and talk to them. Jennifer smiled to herself.
Knight in shining armor, indeed!
Mr. Mouton caught the smile and turned on her.
“This is not a laughing matter, Ms. Scales.”
Jennifer didn’t drop the corners of her mouth. “I
can’t help what I find funny.”
“Best you keep quiet, dear,” Elizabeth snapped. The
warm mother-daughter relationship dissipated instantly.
“Why should I stay quiet?” she snapped back.
“You’re all talking about me. About my life. About how
I’m stuck here at this pointless school for no reason at
all.”
Elizabeth ignored the rant. “Mr. Mouton. Last week,
our daughter was diagnosed with a rather serious medical condition.
While the tests are not yet conclusive, it appears . . .”
“I’M A FREAK!” Jennifer stood up and screamed at
Mr. Mouton, startling the man against the back of his worn vinyl
chair. “I’M A FREAK AND THERE IS NO CURE! I GET IT FROM MY FATHER,
AND MY GRANDFATHER! WE’RE ALL FREAKS, BUT I’M A BIT MORE OF A
FREAK! CONCENTRATED FREAK! FREAK WITH SPECIAL NEW AND IMPROVED
FREAKY-FEATURES!”
Jonathan got up quickly and braced an arm around
her. Gently but firmly, he pushed her back down into the chair. His
voice was too soft for anyone beyond Jennifer to hear.
“If you continue,” he breathed, “we will
ground you.”
Ground had a new twist on it. No flying? No
fishing? Chained up in the cabin basement, souped up on morphine
and bad samples of her mother’s cooking?
She fumed silently.
Jonathan turned to Mr. Mouton. “I think if you put
together what my wife and my daughter are saying, you’ll see that
discipline in this case is neither completely warranted nor
necessary. I’d appreciate it if you would let us handle this within
the family. Due to certain . . . issues . . . regarding Jennifer’s
health we had . . . her mother and I had discussed the possibility
of homeschooling. Perhaps the time has come to do more than talk
about it.”
Mr. Mouton rubbed his chin thoughtfully, trying to
show how well he had recovered from Jennifer’s outburst. “Well . .
. I could talk to the Jarkmands. Given Robert’s record, it
shouldn’t be too hard to show them both sides of the story. I can’t
guarantee they’ll drop the matter, but Jennifer’s condition . . .
speaking of which, I don’t want to seem insensitive, but, er, it
would help if we had some documentation of . . . er . . .”
“I’ll sign a doctor’s note myself.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Heaven forbid a school principal should
pick his own nose without a signed doctor’s note.”
“We’re going now,” Jonathan announced. Gripping his
daughter’s collar and his wife’s wrist, he began a hasty exit.
“Thank you, Mr. Mouton . . .”
“Mouton . . .” Jennifer managed to resist
her father’s momentum long enough to stare into her school
principal’s eyes. “Mr. Dejarnais in French class taught us that
means sheep, right?”
“That’s right,” Mr. Mouton replied
uncertainly.
Before she could say anything else, she was pulled
through the office doorway with a squawk.