Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace (16 page)

The second bit of good news was that her mother had been right: Vague statements were enough for her friends. Eddie and Skip had warm greetings for her, accepted her fumbling explanations without a blink, then instantly dived back into the complicated morasses of their own lives. They had missed Jennifer, but her peers were just as self-absorbed as she was. Probably just as well, she thought.

She wondered if she would have noticed that sort of thing before that first crescent moon.

Susan also seemed ready to be friends again. Jennifer knew this when Susan announced, “Okay, so, I’m ready to be friends again.”

“Huh?” They were in study hall, ten minutes before the bell would ring and free them. Jennifer had been half-asleep, shading in sketches of the pigs and sheep she hoped she’d never see again. Suddenly, she came to full attention. “Hey, did you just say we’re friends again?”

“Yeah, I guess. Just don’t blow me off again … and try to stay off the drugs, okay?”

“Hilarious. Your future is in comedy.”

“I mean it, Jenny. Just—keep it together, okay?”

Jennifer ignored the nickname. “You don’t react well to change,” she observed, not unkindly.

Susan wiped her eyes. “I just want things back to normal.”

Jennifer looked at her friend sadly. Things had changed, and Susan’s clinging to the past was only part of what bothered her. She realized with a start that in some ways she felt closer to Catherine, a high school junior who thrilled at every new lizard she called, than to Susan, who hadn’t really changed since they were six.

Later, on the school’s front steps, Skip bounded up to them with his usual alarming energy, flirted outrageously, and had her and Susan talked into a trip to the local fudge shop when Eddie wandered up.

“Fudge run, Eddie? C’mon, I’m buying. How ‘bout a half pound of peanut butter marble chip marshmallow swirl?”

“Ugh, have another ingredient!” Susan spat.

“Well, he wasn’t offering it to
you
,” Eddie said. He turned back to Skip. “I’m ready for that mission!”

“Well, come on, ladies—you, too, Susan. If we don’t get there quick, those rat bastards from the basketball team will have hogged it all.”

“You just call them that because they lose, lose, lose. They need Jennifer on their team,” Susan suggested. It was an obvious ploy at flattery, which Jennifer didn’t mind at all.

They trooped down the steps, and Jennifer blushed when Skip threw his arm around her waist. Since he was flirting with Susan and tormenting Eddie at the same time, she decided it was just a friendly gesture and made no move to throw him off.

Besides, it was nice. And he smelled great.

A squeal of brakes interrupted her internal musing, and she looked up in time to see Eddie’s father pull up beside the curb in the familiar brown pickup. He leaned over and bawled through the open window, “Ed! Shake a leg, boy. Training!”

They all stopped and stared at the stern face, which was redder and bulgier than ever. When Mr. Blacktooth caught sight of Jennifer, and then Skip’s arm around her waist, his head quietly shifted from red to purple, and his cheeks looked like they might burst.

Uh-oh
, Jennifer thought wryly,
I’ve tainted Skip
.

“Aw, geez, Dad, we were just gonna make for the—” “
Edward James Blacktooth
!
NOW
!”

“Bye.” With that sullen word, Eddie broke away from their little group, trotted to the car, and climbed in without looking back. As the car roared off, Skip spoke first. “Yeouch! Wonder what ‘training’ means?”

Susan sniffed. “Probably some anal-retentive lawn-mowing exercise. Mr. Blacktooth freaks out over everything. You know him, he’s a total jerk. If my father acted like that, I’d ditch and go to my grandparents’.”

“My father gets upset sometimes,” Skip offered quietly. “But he knows not to push me too far. Not since Mom…”

Jennifer, who caught Skip’s discomfort at the mention of family again, brought them back on track. “Come on, guys. The fudge won’t come to us.”

More subdued now, the three of them left the school grounds. Skip’s arm slipped from Jennifer’s waist. But before she could feel bad about that, she felt his fingers poke at her palm. She grasped his hand back.

The new kid had been there for her in Mr. Blacktooth’s truck. And outside Mr. Pool’s office. And drawing sketches in her room. And now, he was there for her more than anyone else was. Even Eddie. It made her happy, and also a little sad somehow.

“You should come over for dinner sometime with me and my dad.” It was the next day. Jennifer and Skip were coming out of Ms. Graf’s class after a deadening slide show on the anatomy of crabs, lobsters, and scorpions.

“Huh?”

“Dinner. You know. What you eat at night.”

“Yeah, I know dinner. I mean, why?”

“Because if you wait long enough after lunch, you get hungry. You wanna come over tonight or what?” To Jennifer, he appeared nervous and annoyed.

“Is this, like, a date?”

“I dunno. I guess.” Skip was sweating, his cocky expression replaced by something Jennifer had never seen before in him—fear. “You don’t have to come to our house, if you don’t want. We could all go out somewhere, like the food court at the mall.”

“Your dad wants to meet me at the mall?” Part of Jennifer knew it was cruel to do this to Skip, but she had to admit she was enjoying it. She just had to be careful he wouldn’t withdraw the offer completely—she
did
want to go.

“I’ve told him about you, and he wants to meet you. He’s still a bit weird about me dating, since my mom … um…”

“Sure, I’ll go.” Jennifer was embarrassed at the mention of Skip’s late mother. She hadn’t meant to press him that far. “The mall sounds fine. I need to check with my parents when I get home. I’ll call you tonight.”

Both Mother and Father approved and, in fact, seemed relieved at her request.

“It’s good to see you going out with friends again,” Jonathan explained. “Do you want one of us to go with you? I wouldn’t mind meeting this boy—”

“This is going to be stressful enough,” Jennifer interrupted. “Another parent there would kill me.”

“I’m just not sure you should do this alone—”

Fortunately, she had a backup plan already in place. “Susan’s already agreed to go with me. Just drop us off at the mall entrance, and pick us up two hours later. No muss, no fuss. Okay?”

It worked out passably well, Jennifer thought later on after she had gotten back home. Susan and she were dutifully impressed by Skip’s dad. He had the same greenish blue eyes and chocolate hair, he dressed in the casual clothes of a man who made his living in construction, and his eyes seemed always wrinkled at the corners in a friendly laugh.

“Mr. Wilson?!” He chuckled when Jennifer addressed him this way.

“My, what a polite young woman you are, Ms. Scales! Very well, Mr. Wilson will do.”

Over take-out sushi, they discussed school, soccer, the upcoming Christmas holiday, and even a bit of Skip’s mom. According to Skip and his father, she would take her son around the world—western Africa, Australia, and South America—as part of her studies in native cultures.

Suddenly, the conversation turned to Jennifer’s own travels, and the one tense moment of the evening.

“Skip tells me you’re away from school a lot, and that you’re going through a tough time.” His greenish blue eyes lost some of their sparkle. “I know something about what you’re going through. I expect it isn’t easy for your family.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond to this. Her blood was turning cold. What if Skip’s mom, just like Susan’s, had died after a long illness? She would never be able to explain to either of them the truth—not after faking the sort of sickness that had hurt them so deeply.

Seeing everyone stare at her made her realize she should answer. She chose her words carefully. “It’s pretty hard. I’ll be gone a lot this winter and spring. Skip and Susan have been very understanding. I’m lucky to have them as friends.”

Susan reached out next to her and grabbed her hand. They exchanged soft smiles, but Jennifer felt even worse than she had before. She decided then and there:
I’ll tell them both the truth. Soon
.

She just needed a bit more time to get used to the truth herself.

Weeks went by, and Jennifer supposed she was adjusting. Both her strange dreams and the animal visions were gone, and she supposed that had to count for something. She felt she could settle into school a bit, even though it still seemed pointless. The routine of classes and friends was still comforting, for however long it lasted.

Certainly her freakishness had its advantages, even in human form. One mid-December morning she jumped from the ground halfway up the icy trellis to her bedroom window without wings. And the school bullies certainly walked more softly around her. Word of her recurring sickness did not seem to overshadow word of Bob Jarkmand’s pasting at her hands months ago. Skip called her “my bodacious bodyguard,” which was as exasperating as it was endearing.

Christmas morning, she was in the shape of a girl, and even better, she was in the shape of a girl with an alarmingly high stack of presents. Both of her parents and Grandpa Crawford were there—Joseph insisted that he never celebrated the holiday, and would watch the farm for them while they were in Winoka—and they had all been very generous in this most trying of years.

She placed another sweater—this one a gorgeous riot of blue, gold, and green—on her new clothing pile, half-listening to a conversation between the other three. Most of her attention was on the next gift, the size of a shoebox with gold foil wrapping and bow, as her father filled her grandfather in on some development at work.

“—last week’s city council meeting, where we were trying to get approval of a site plan—”

She shook the box. It rattled satisfactorily.

“—ran into Otto Saltin, of all people! I didn’t even know he lived anywhere near here. He happened to have business before the council on the same night. Anyway, we steered clear of each other—”

She smelled it and grinned. The Godiva truffle box! And larger than ever this year, she noticed as she clawed the paper off in a single stroke.

“—company’s been doing business in town for at least the last couple of years. I’ll have to—Hey, not before breakfast, miss!”

“Aw,
Dad
,” she whined. The golden box glittered invitingly. “Just one?”

“Just one would become just eight.” Her father softened a bit. “After breakfast, go crazy. Have a truffle party.”

“Thanks. And thanks for all the great gifts, you guys. It’s—” …
been a tough year
, she thought.
Been great to have my space while I figure things out. Been even better to have us all together for the holidays. Going to be best of all to sneak a truffle out of the box when no one’s looking
. “—er, it’s really great.”

“You’re not done yet,” Jonathan said. He rose and ambled upstairs. A minute later he came back down and handed her a small box with holes punched all over. It fit into her hand neatly. The logo for Daniel’s Pets (the D was a curled up cat and the P was a dog sitting up on its hind legs) marked the sides, top, and bottom.

“What
is
it?” She gently tilted the box. Something skittered inside. “It’s too small to be a puppy, unless you got me one of those irritating, yappy, small ones—”

“Ugh. No. I’d eat one of those before I’d have it in our house,” he said with a shudder. “No, it’s something more, ah, suitable to your nature. Some dragons like to have … well, they like to have companions.”

Phoebe chose that moment to push her muzzle into Jennifer’s lap. The dog got one whiff of the box, raised her enormous ears, and began to growl through her muzzle.

Jennifer flicked her on the snout. “Don’t get jealous, Phoebe! It doesn’t become you.” The dog whimpered softly and jogged out of the room.

Lifting the top flap, Jennifer peered inside the box.

A small, delicate lizard gazed back up at her. It was a joyful, vivid green and sported a red streak down its back. Its eyes were tiny pools of fathomless black. The corners of its mouth were ticked upward in a permanent, silly grin.

“Huh! It’s … um … it’s…”

“It’s a gecko. And let me tell you, that’s no ordinary lizard. He practically leapt into my pocket while your mother and I were browsing the pet store. We had to convince the manager we weren’t trying to shoplift him.”

The gecko smoothly scurried up to the edge of the box, clung to the open flap, and licked its own eye with a lightning-fast, spoon-shaped tongue.

“He’s adorable! What’s his name?”

“You can decide that after you agree to handle his care or feeding. Or hers. Or whatever.” Her mother’s tone suggested not everyone had left the pet store happy.

“The cashier said it’s a he,” Jonathan offered enthusiastically.

“Yes, I’m sure it’s a he! I just know it!”

Her mother smiled vaguely. “Fabulous. A telepathic lizard. The next time you and he commune, make sure you both understand that neither your father nor I are responsible for him. There are some books in our room, and a tank, and supplies. You move it all to
your
room and set it up. Assuming you want to keep him.”

“You bet! Oh, thanks, he’s great, Geddy’s just great! I can’t wait to—”

“Geddy?” Her mother snickered. “Geddy the gecko?”

“You said I could name it, and that’s the name I like,” Jennifer said with a sniff. She didn’t know why she had chosen that one. It just seemed to fit.

Geddy licked his other eye.

“Those books tell you all sorts of neat things,” Jonathan offered. “For example, smaller geckos live for about fifteen or twenty years—the shop owner said he didn’t know how old this one was, but figured he couldn’t be more than a couple years. They shed their skin every six weeks or so in warmer weather and eat it. Also, if a predator catches one, it can detach its own tail! Also—”

“I’ll read the books, Dad. Promise.” She lifted Geddy off the box flap with a finger and held him up to her eyes. “I thought geckos made noise. Isn’t that how they get their name—
gek-ko, gek-ko
?”