“Thanks for the update. How’s your jaw?”
Skip snorted at the memory of Jennifer laying Bob out with a single punch last year. The noise got the group’s attention.
“You got something you wanna say, Francis?” Bob took a step toward Skip. “You know, you’ve got some nerve coming here tonight wearing a costume like that. My great-uncle died fighting a dragon.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m sure I’ve got an ancestor who died after fighting someone with really bad acne, but you don’t see me crying about your mask.”
Jennifer stopped Bob’s punch, grasping his fist in her hand before he even swung. “Don’t.” She swallowed hard and tried not to show it.
“Come on, Bob.” This was Eddie now, who had looked unhappy for the duration of this conversation. “He’s not worth it.”
“That’s a great endorsement of a friend you used to hang out with last year,” Jennifer snapped. She shoved Bob’s fist back into Eddie’s stomach. “Do yourself and the rest of us a favor, Eddie. Stop moping behind stronger people’s shoulders. Stand up for something.”
The slender, brown-haired boy actually crumpled, his face and posture falling in shame and resentment. When he looked back up, Jennifer barely recognized him anymore. Flushed and snarling with anger, he looked startlingly like his father. The words came out in a flood.
“You never appreciated me! My parents told me you were no good! They told me there was something weird about you! They told me you’d be a lousy friend! You and your family deserve what you’re going to get!”
Nobody even saw Skip coming. Later on, Jennifer realized it must have been because he jumped over Bob. Before she could react, his maroon dinosaur shape dropped as if coming down from the rafters, right on top of Eddie. The two of them were a blur of browns and reds as they pounded away at each other.
“Don’t you threaten Jennifer!” She heard Skip’s voice, high and thin as the two boys rolled back and forth. The soft, fluffy plates along the back of Skip’s costume swayed ferociously. “You stay away from her!”
“Get him off!” Bob shouted to the others. They all pressed forward to peel Skip off of Eddie. One of them reached back, and Jennifer saw the glint of a metal blade.
“HEY!”
Before she could even think to control it, the surge of adrenaline had changed her. Even if she hadn’t felt the powerful ripple of muscle through her spine and seen the nose horn emerge in front of her eyes, she would have been able to tell her new shape from the sheer terror in the faces of the boys before her. None of them, it seemed, had actually seen a real, live dragon before. Just stories from their parents, she guessed.
“Put that away,” she hissed with a forked tongue.
The boy who held a dagger in his hand was trembling too hard to do anything. Sweat beaded quickly on his forehead.
Sensing an advantage, Jennifer reared up, spread her wings, let a froth of smoke pour out of her nostrils, and stomped her right leg on the ground hard enough to make the glossy floorboards shake.
The dagger dropped into a slithering bed of black mambas.
“Don’t eat me!” Jennifer couldn’t tell if that plea came from the boy who had held the knife and was now curled up on the gym floor, or from Bob Jarkmand, who was on his hands and knees as if worshipping an angry god.
Eddie and Skip broke up quickly, scrambling to their feet and backing away slowly from Jennifer and each other. Skip regained his composure first—he had seen her in this shape, once before—but Eddie also soon straightened up, taking in Jennifer’s form with a critical eye. It was almost as if he was looking for weaknesses.
Battle training from his parents, she told herself. It occurred to her Eddie looked far braver facing her down as a dragon than he had for months facing her down as the girl he betrayed.
Suddenly, a fire alarm went off and the gym’s automatic sprinkler system activated.
“Oh, the smoke!” she muttered. Morphing quickly back to angel shape, she grabbed Skip’s hand, shooed the snakes away, and headed for the back door. There wasn’t a teacher at this school—not even Mr. Slider, she feared—who would look kindly upon what had happened here tonight.
“Evangelos is ours!” Eddie’s voice pursued them through the drizzling water. He had never sounded more like his father. “That beast will die, just like you, your family, and your boyfriend!”
He’s not my boyfriend, Jennifer thought irritably as she and Skip burst through the fire doors together, and escaped into the dry darkness under a half-moon.
But then again, his hand felt so right in hers.
“I know, I know, I’m inhuge trouble!” She said this as she and Skip burst through the front door, startling her parents on the living room couch. Brass quintet music blared from the stereo system, and a gentle fire licked away at the fire-place. “Just let me explain!”
From her parents’ expressions, she could tell two things right away. First, they had been enjoying a quiet evening without their teenaged daughter. Ew! And second, they had no idea what she was talking about.
“Never mind,” she concluded, spinning out of the living room. “Come on, Skip. Let’s go upstairs.”
Later that evening, after Jonathan had driven Skip home and Elizabeth had helped Jennifer wipe off her ruined makeup, she told them what had happened at the dance. Their reaction stunned her.
“Okay,” her mother said.
“Okay,” her father said.
“Okay?!” Jennifer searched the room for a trap, a hidden camera, something.
“Jennifer, revealing yourself tonight may have been a bit reckless,” Jonathan explained. “But most of the dangerous people in this town have already learned what you are. It sounds to us like you were protecting Skip. He’s your boyfriend. You care about him.”
“He’s not—” Jennifer interrupted herself with a sigh. Okay, she did care about Skip. “So you’re not mad at me? I mean, not everyone in that gym was a beaststalker. We were in a pretty dark corner, but I’m sure someone must have seen me when they shouldn’t have.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “It was a Halloween dance with costumes, the gym was dark, there was smoke, sprinklers were going off…who knows what people saw? Ordinary people have seen far clearer evidence of weredragons before and ignored it.”
“I wouldn’t make a habit of it,” Jonathan cautioned. “But there are so many other things happening now, this isn’t the sort of thing we can hammer you on. Your mother and I are actually more disappointed that your time with Skip was ruined. We had hoped the dance would help you relax a bit. Did you have any fun at all?”
“At first. After Susan went off, Skip and I—Oh gosh, Susan! Dad, we gotta go pick her up!”
“Yeah, I saw what happened.” Susan didn’t seem too put off, Jennifer noticed as they sat together in the back of the family minivan. “I figured it would happen one day. I was actually kind of looking forward to it.” She smiled at Jennifer. “You’re amazing.”
“I’m so sorry we had to leave you there!”
“I understand,” Susan said. “They were going to hurt you; you had to go. What else could you do? Besides, I was never in any danger. I’m just a plain, ordinary girl.” Her smile was a bit more rueful now.
“You’re not plain, and you’re not ordinary! You’re my best friend and you’re awesome. So tell me about Gerry! Did the dance calm down enough after we left so you could have a little fun?”
“Yeah, funny thing. After you left, everyone acted as if you and Skip hadn’t even been there. I tried to talk to Eddie about it, but he just shrugged it off and told me to go away. He’s not too wild about me and Gerry, anyway.”
“He’s just sore because he has no real friends now.”
“No doubt. It was hard for me to get back in the mood of the dance, and Gerry seemed pretty preoccupied. He doesn’t talk much. Even when I pressed him about what he likes to do, I barely got an answer. Running, he mumbled, and archery. He spent most of his time moping around the gym floor, search
ing for any snakes you left behind. He likes snakes, I guess. Thinks they’re cool. This is what I learned.”
“I had the snakes disappear as I left.”
“Yeah. I told him they were the most poisonous snakes known to man anyway, so it was for the best. Anyway, we sort of just hung out until you returned. When I saw your minivan outside the school, I told Gerry I had to go, and he didn’t seem to care. I guess it was a bust.”
“You didn’t even kiss!” Jennifer was dismayed. She had ruined her best friend’s evening!
Susan shrugged. “It’s okay. He didn’t seem too much into me from the start. Never asked me anything about myself. Pretty boys. Too self-involved. I can do better.”
“You bet you can!” Jennifer fumed. “Oooh, wait until I get my hands on him!” She formed her hands into a throttling motion.
“Easy, killer. Don’t dragon out for my sake. Susan Elmsmith can take care of herself. You don’t have to pull up in the driveway, Mr. Scales; right here is good. Thanks for the ride! See you tomorrow, Jennifer.” And just like that, she kissed Jennifer on the cheek and slid out of the minivan.
The next morning at school, Skip was absent. No one acted any differently toward Jennifer than before—Eddie moped, Bob Jarkmand stared, and so on. Better yet, neither Mr. Slider nor any other teacher gave any hint that they were even aware of what had happened at the dance.
At one point later in the afternoon, she snuck out of study hall to get a drink of water. On her way down the hall to the girls’ bathroom, she spotted two unlikely figures ahead talking in low voices: Eddie and Susan.
Before they could notice her, she had slid into a dark corner behind a nearby doorway and turned her dragon shape locker green.
“…don’t understand why you have to be so difficult,” Eddie was saying. His tone betrayed a hint of impatience—and arrogance, Jennifer noted, thinking suddenly of his father, Hank. “You know what she is. You’ve seen what she really looks like. She’s a clear and present danger. Doesn’t that scare you?”
“I’ll tell you what scares me,” Susan hissed back. “Jerks like you who try to bully people like Skip and Jennifer—or worse, watch the bullies do their work and don’t stand up for their friends!”
“She’s not my—”
“How long until you put a knife in my back?” Susan asked. “If you’re willing to ditch Jennifer and Skip, what’s to stop you from bullying me someday?”
“I won’t do that.” Eddie sounded shaken. “I’m sorry about all that’s happened, Susan. Including what I said last night. But Jennifer isn’t helping herself. She and her family need to consider a strategic retreat—you know, clear out of town.”
“That’s not your decision to make.”
“No, but it’s a smart idea.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Eddie paused. “My rite of passage is coming up.”
Susan hissed through her teeth. “I’m not exactly sure what that means, Eddie. But it better have nothing to do with Jennifer.”
“I’m not sure.” Eddie’s voice cracked. “My parents get to choose the dragon I will slay. I wouldn’t put it past my father. And Jennifer isn’t helping herself with the way she’s acting!”
“Oh, so if your parents tell you to murder Jennifer, it’s her fault? You and your family—all of the people in this town—are seriously cracked in the head!”
“You know, Susan, you could show more thanks for someone who lives under our town’s protection!”
“Oh, really? To hell with you and your protection. My family came to Winoka years ago because it was scared of shadows. But my mother didn’t die of a shadow—she died from a real danger, a real disease! Since then, I’ve learned more about these beasts you and your parents rant about. And I don’t see what the big deal is. Why not get along with the Scales family? Why not give them a chance? Why can’t we all just live on the same block, like normal neighbors?”
“Because she’s not normal!” His shout echoed down the hallway.
So did the sound of Susan clearing her throat and spitting. “Well, hotshot, I’ve got news. Neither are you.”
Eddie stormed down the hallway, passing no more than three feet from Jennifer without noticing her. He was wiping something off of his face in disgust.
Susan muttered something inaudible but plainly unflattering, and then went the other way.
Reminding herself never to get on her best friend’s bad side, Jennifer morphed back and headed to class. On the way, a voice behind her startled her.
“Hey, Jennifer.” It was Skip. “Watchya up to?”
“Oh. Hey, I didn’t think you were around today. I was just…I…”
“I know. I was laying low, too. I saw you listening in on Eddie and Susan.”
“You saw me?” She didn’t know whether to be insulted or impressed. Was her camouflage that mediocre?
“Well, I saw you walking down the hall normally, and then you changed. Since I kinda knew what to look for…well, eyes are pretty sharp in our family.”
“Huh. So why didn’t you go to classes today? I mean, there’s laying low, and there’s completely disappearing. I was worried about you!”
“Someone’s watching us.”
“What? Right now?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I thought I caught a glimpse of him outside the gym last night while we were running out, but I wasn’t sure so I didn’t say anything. This morning, I caught him looking up at my bedroom window from the street. And then again once or twice on the sidewalks on my way here. I thought I’d check and see if he was following you, too.”
“Who?”
“Dunno. Older guy, maybe forty or fifty. Really white skin. Fringe of white hair. Dark green suit, maybe a size too big. As soon as he saw me looking back at him, he practically vanished into thin air.”
“That sounds an awful lot like a guy I saw at the bea—er, down at city hall a couple of weeks ago. Really thin? Eyes darting all over the place?”
“Sure, I guess. What do you mean, down at city hall? What were you doing there?”
Jennifer tried to make her shrug look offhanded and innocent. “Dad’s architect stuff. They’re planning a development downtown, and he dragged me along. Anyway, I heard his name was Whisper. Rune Whisper. Funny name.”
“Yeah. Funny name.” Skip’s face was skeptical, and Jennifer felt her insides churn at the deceit. “Anyway, you haven’t seen him since?”
“No. Hadn’t really thought of him until you brought him up just now. You think we should tell my parents?”
“I guess.”
“Ms. Scales. Mr. Wilson.” The sound of the wheelchair immediately followed Mr. Slider’s voice down the hallway. “You are the umpteenth students I have seen wandering out of class this afternoon. I’ve seen Ms. Elmsmith slip one way, Mr. Blacktooth march another, Mr. Stowe glide in late, Ms. Harrison use a water fountain for a makeup mirror, and Bob Jarkmand argue—apparently with himself—over which way the gymnasium is. Does anyone in this school actually attend class?”
“Sorry, Mr. Slider…”
“Hold on, before you go. Skip, I wanted to talk about your independent study assignment. Have you thought of a topic for your paper on trigonometry in the real world?”
Skip shrugged. “Not really. Things at home have…”
“Things at home will always be what they are,” Mr. Slider interrupted as gently as possible. “But that doesn’t mean what happens at school is any less important. No matter—I have come up with a study topic for you, if you’re willing. Construction has begun on a new center for the blind here in Winoka, as a new wing of the local hospital. In fact, I believe if you ask your girlfriend here, you’ll find her father—”
“I’m not his girlfriend!” Jennifer barked, immediately regretting it. “Um, I mean, not yet.”
Skip’s wounded look was unforgettable. “Not yet? What does that mean?”
“Well, it means…I mean…we just really haven’t ta
lked about this.”
Mr. Slider’s look was inscrutable. “I see. Nothing fascinates me more than the romantic adventures of children half my age, but if I can get to the point—”
“Talked about it? You won’t even come over to my place for dinner,” Skip pointed out. “My aunt gave you an invite weeks ago, and you never followed up.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s just that—”
“And we haven’t made it to the Mall of America like we planned—”
“I know. So much has happened, and I didn’t know if you wanted—”
“—but you never even ask what I want—”
“—you’re right, I should do a better—”
“Ms. Scales. Mr. Wilson.” Mr. Slider was almost hissing the words as he wiped his palms on his well-creased pants. “If I could get up out of this chair and kick you both, I would. Perhaps you could continue this inane babbling at the construction site for the new rehabilitation center across town, where construction workers will be making considerable use of trigonometry to make sure the building doesn’t fall down and take the existing hospital with it. Jonathan Scales is the architect. It would make for a fabulous independent study paper for Skip. That is all I have to say. Good day!”
He wheeled his chair around and set it to top speed. As he disappeared down the hallway, he added one more thought.
“Get back to class!”
CHAPTER 11
Suspicions
“I’d be happy to take you over to the site,” Jonathan assured them the next day. He was doing weekend gardening, snipping the brown stalks of several plants—“winterizing,” he called it, though Jennifer didn’t see the point of “winterizing” plants that looked dead this time of year. “How does next Thursday work for you?”
Skip bent over to pick up the dead plants from Jonathan’s hand and stuff them in the plastic bag Jennifer was holding open. “Thanks, Mr. Scales. My family feels pretty strongly about math, and I’d like to ace this paper. I don’t want to disappoint them, or Mr. Slider.”
Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light Page 14