Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace by MaryJanice Davidson Page A

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.
     
----

CHAPTER 7
The Farm Under
Crescent Moon
    « ^ »
    “I’ve never thought this about you before, Jennifer,” her father hissed once they were in the car and headed home, “but either you’re not nearly as smart as we’ve always thought, or you don’t care whether your family lives or dies.”
    “Oh come on, Dad! Mouton’s a dork, and I was just having a little fun—”
    “
This is not a game
!” He was shouting into the rearview mirror. “There are enemies—things you’ve never even heard of—that would cut my head off in an instant if they knew what I was. Yours, too.”
    “That doesn’t sound so bad,” she pouted. “I hate living like this, anyway.” Looking out the backseat window, she spotted a black-haired ram in a suit, holding hooves with a scrawny blonde ewe in a floral print dress. A trio of fluffy lambs wove in and out of their path on the sidewalk. She rubbed her eyes, but the animal shapes were still there when she looked again… This was getting worse…
    Her father went on. “We had hoped that you could have attended school for a few days, before pulling you out for ‘medical’ reasons. Missing school like you did last week, coming back for one day, and then disappearing overnight again will look suspicious. And then on top of that—on top of that!—you punch out an enormous kid like Bob Jarkmand. He may have deserved it, but a hallway boxing match is hardly compatible with a tale of chronic and debilitating sickness!”
    “Maybe you can just say I’m mentally ill,” she sneered. “I feel like I’m going crazy anyway!”
    The expression in the rearview mirror softened, but only slightly. “Of course you’re not crazy, Jennifer. And we’re trying not to land too hard on you, here—”
    “You could have fooled me.”
    “—but you need to use your head!”
    She sniffed and wiped away tears in time to see a Jersey cow driving a minivan by them. Several peach piglets were strapped in the backseats. “I’m sorry I can’t get every detail of being a dragon down exactly right the first time.”
    Elizabeth cut in. “Being a teenager while this is happening can’t be easy. But whether we understand your pain or not, you’ve got to listen to your father. He’s trying to tell you there are codes of behavior. When you break those codes, you put us all in danger. So you need to grow up.”
    The way her mother inserted herself into this conversation infuriated Jennifer. She glared at the back of her parents’ heads. “In other words, this is a big vaudeville show, I’m your puppet, and you’re both annoyed that I’m not moving and talking the way I’m supposed to with an arm jammed