Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light by MaryJanice Davidson

thing as Jennifer!
    “Of course, we know Jennifer exists—we can see that much! So logic makes us go back to our assumptions and ask if either of them could be wrong. If Jennifer exists, either unicorns are real, too, or she’s not a unicorn!”
    “I swear I’m not a unicorn,” Jennifer offered helpfully. This got the class tittering a bit. Mr. Slider looked up at her and the others gratefully.
    “Thanks, girls, you can all sit down now. Class, you’ll use proofs and logic all year to figure out things where you’re missing information. ‘What shape is it?’ ‘How large is it?’ ‘Will this hold enough liquid?’ And so on. But the most important questions are those I mentioned earlier: What do we know, and what don’t we know?
    “For now, let’s apply logic to some geometric shapes…”
    He began working at the chalkboard, but Jennifer didn’t pay much attention to the rest of what happened that class. A thought consumed her. Mr. Slider had said logic was accurate and ruthless. And he had said you could use it to figure out things when you were missing information.
    And there were definitely some things going on where she was missing information.
     
    Walking home from school alone, she recognized Eddie’s voice calling her. She didn’t turn around.
    “Jennifer, come on, wait up! Just for a second!”
    She answered without slowing down. “You want to talk, move faster. And don’t expect me to answer!”
    His footsteps quickened to a jog, and after a few seconds he was walking next to her and breathing heavily. “You don’t have to answer, just listen. It’s important. I’m starting to hear stuff, Jennifer. Not just from my mom and dad. People are talking, all over town. They say something bad is coming. Some even say it’s already here.”
    “Must be the horrible Scales family on the rampage,” she quipped. “What, you’ve told every idiot in town that we’re weredragons?”
    “No, I wouldn’t do that,” he insisted. “But I don’t know if my parents have. It won’t take long anyway before people trace trouble back to you guys. At that point, you know full well you’re outnumbered. How long do you think it will take?”
    She stopped, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked him down and around so that his back was nearly parallel to the ground. “How long do you think what will take?”
    To his credit, he didn’t flinch. “How long do you think it will take for this town to turn on your mother, once and for all?”
    Then it clicked. Logic. Accurate. Relentless. She dropped Eddie with a satisfying smack onto the sidewalk and began to run. She didn’t stop until she had gotten home.
    Both of her parents were sitting in the living room, listening to Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen at an unnatural volume. She flipped the stereo off and faced the couch squarely.
    “When did Pinegrove change its name to Winoka?”
    They both blinked in silence.
    “Okay, let’s try another one. Why the hell are we living in a town full of beaststalkers?”
    They both blinked again. Phoebe padded into the living room to greet Jennifer, took in the tension for a moment, and then padded away with ears down and tail between her legs.
    “How did you find out?” Elizabeth finally asked.
    “I used logic. Sixty years ago, beaststalkers invaded a town called Pinegrove. Then they settled there. The Blacktooths are beaststalkers. Eddie talks about more beaststalkers being around, and us being outnumbered, and the town turning on us. Should I go on?”
    “That’s not exactly airtight—”
    “Then tell me I’m wrong.”
    Jonathan lifted his hand. “You’re not wrong, Jennifer. Winoka reincorporated, and changed its name from Pinegrove soon after the weredragons were pushed out. The beaststalkers wanted nothing of the town’s old identity to remain, not even its name.”
    “So after Eveningstar burned down, you guys decided it would be smart to move into a town full of people who would kill Dad and me if