The Silver Moon Elm (17 page)

Unfortunately, none of the six authors of the book (all Ph.D.’s in various stultifying and probably imaginary realms of academia) thought to define the word differential. The best Jennifer could come up with was “ridiculously different from anything sensible.”

Of course, everyone else in the class had mastered it and answered every question correctly (if Mr. Slider’s smiles and encouragement were any indication).

Can manifolds be embedded into Euclidean space? Apparently so.

Can a ruled surface be unwrapped? Apparently not.

Does orienting a Boy’s Surface involve anything like what Jennifer would have thought? Not even close.

With her head still spinning from this terminological assault, she stumbled into history class, where she found out three disturbing things about modern Minnesota’s history from an earnest teacher named Mr. Cahoon, who had chestnut hair and freckles and looked about twelve:

1. Minneapolis had the tallest building in North America, an architectural marvel finished less than a decade ago. From the glossy pictures in their brand-new history books, the structure had eight shimmering walls and a unique, funneled roof that spun the wind into glorious melodies for the workers within.

2. St. Paul had emerged as the arts capital of the world over the past thirty or forty years, as prodigy after prodigy emerged from nearby towns like Pinegrove and settled in the larger city.

3. Alexandria, a small city in western Minnesota surrounded by lakes, had been the site of considerable civilian unrest sixty years ago. Hundreds of the “instigators” had died. From the grim photographs, Jennifer could make out a few reptilian skulls.

She didn’t have much time to explore these events since the time given to history was considerably shorter than the time allowed for mathematics, music, or even chemistry. The bell rang before she knew it, and just like that she had to close the textbook, promising to study it later that night.

Music was okay. Andi, the guest star for yesterday’s class, wasn’t there this time. Bobbie was, but something about the blonde Amazon gave Jennifer the creeps. She kept to herself as Tavia turned from the web harp to something a bit more conventional—the piano. She played it with four tarsi, in her spider shape. Like her brother, Otto Saltin, who Jennifer recalled with a shiver, Tavia was predominantly black, with orange and red markings on her abdomen. While four tarsi were not as many as ten fingers, they moved faster and could occupy more ranges on the piano than two hands. The composition, like the player, was striking and disturbing. At the end, Jennifer couldn’t get out of music class fast enough.

Rubbing her temples as she walked past rows of lockers on her way to chemistry, Jennifer bumped into a girl racing down the hallway. They both gasped—the other girl in pain, and Jennifer in utter astonishment.

“Catherine?!”

The girl’s mouth twisted into a skeptical smile as she rubbed her elbows. “Do I know you?”

“Catherine, it’s me! Jennifer! How is this…How did you get here?”

“Get here? I’ve lived in this town my whole life. And my name’s not Catherine. What’s your name again?”

A chill slid into Jennifer’s gut. She’s Catherine, but not Catherine. Like Bobbie isn’t Bob Jarkmand. Like Minneapolis isn’t the real Minneapolis, or my dead parents aren’t really dead.

She composed herself quickly enough to extend a hand. “Um, I’m sorry. You just looked like someone from my old town. I’m Jennifer Scales.”

“Oh! The new girl, right? Andi told me about you. I’m Nakia Brandfire.”

“Nakia. Um, okay.” At least the last name is the same. “Do you have…um, I’m just wondering, because I knew this girl…she had a relative named Winona Brandfire. Do you…?”

Jennifer trailed off, because she saw the expression on Nakia’s face. It hovered somewhere between astonishment and terror.

“Forget I asked,” Jennifer muttered, and spun away to dash off.

Her thoughts were in turmoil as she slipped behind her desk in chemistry. Catherine was here. The fact that she had a different first name meant little or nothing. What meant a lot more was that she had recognized the name of Winona Brandfire, though not necessarily in a positive way.

That makes sense, Jennifer reasoned. Since Winona was a weredragon, her family would want to hide that fact. Just like Andi wants to hide things.

Reassuring herself with the thought of two potential allies in just two days, Jennifer waved at Andi as the girl came into class. This actually got Andi to sit next to her, which thrilled Jennifer. She tried hard not to stare at Andi’s sleeves—navy blue today—and think about what was underneath them.

Instead, as Ms. Sloane took her position at the front of the class, Jennifer thought about Catherine/Nakia. An unbidden memory pricked the back of her mind. What was it Catherine had told her Sunday evening?

Don’t be surprised if something cool happens later this week.

Jennifer shook her head. There was no way any of the Brandfires would think of what had happened this week as cool…

“This,” Ms. Sloane announced as her long, green-tipped finger caressed a small test tube before the chemistry class, “is potassium perchlorate. Also known as potassium salt, perchloric acid, or potassium hyperchlorite.”

She turned to the blackboard and wrote in her graceful script:

POTASSIUM PERCHLORATE (KCLO
4
)

“It has plenty of poisonous properties,” she continued. “It’s a strong irritant to skin, mucous membranes, respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts, and anywhere else it goes. Causes vomiting, fever, and rashes in light to moderate doses, as in the sample I have here. Heavy exposure—the sort you might get if you play around with this school’s locked storage area without knowing what you’re doing—leads to a breakdown of red blood cells and can cause extensive kidney damage. And therefore, possibly, death.”

A murmur of interest suffused the class. Jennifer felt her insides tighten.

Ms. Sloane put the test tube down on her desk. “We are entering the potassium unit today, class. Potassium is a fine start to any serious study of poison. It is a basic element that, like everything else we discussed yesterday, is essential in small quantities—and deadly under certain circumstances.

“By the end of this unit,” she continued as she raised a fresh yardstick (And how many of those does she have, Jennifer wondered), “you will make your own potassium perchlorate. Today, however, we are going to do a far simpler experiment, demonstrating some of potassium’s basic properties. Please pair up around the experiment stations.”

Andi gave Jennifer a nod as the two of them found a station together. While passing out small glass dishes of potassium to each pair, Ms. Sloane related several fun facts about potassium. For example, Jennifer learned that potassium makes up 2.4 percent of the Earth’s crust. (Just this Earth or the real one, too? she wondered.) Easy to cut with a knife (provided), never found free in nature, and susceptible to rapid oxidation, the samples came doused in mineral oil.

“Goggles and gloves,” Ms. Sloane reminded them before they started. “Get a small dish out from under your station and fill it with just a bit of water. Then take a slice of the potassium, and place it in the water…”

Distracted by the thought of the potassium chloride and what she might have to do with the poison at the end of this unit—swallow it? Breathe it in gas form? Smear it all over my face like base?—Jennifer was only half-listening to the instructions. She grabbed the potassium dish and put it directly under the water faucet, and then cranked the cold water on top of it.

“Oh, no,” Andi whispered urgently. “Don’t do it that way, you might—”

Jennifer couldn’t explain how, but she could feel the explosion coming. Whatever sense was operating inside, it gave her just enough warning. A scaled wing shot up as the glass dish flew apart in a cloud of lilac fire. It was a modest explosion but involved blinding light and a sharp, lingering sizzle. A split second later, the wing was gone, leaving only Jennifer’s human arms appearing to protect the other girl.

The sound made everyone duck before they turned, and the bright flash from the reaction had sheltered Jennifer’s odd shape from everyone—everyone but Andi. The girl now scanned Jennifer up and down, her astonished brown eyes nearly bulging through the safety goggles.

“Andi! Jennifer! Are you all right?” Ms. Sloane hurried toward the back of the room, green fingernails clutching Jennifer by the shoulders. “What happened?”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Sloane.” She straightened, trying to ignore Andi. “I used too much potassium, and—”

“Jenny! You’re on fire!” Bobbie rushed over from the next table and began pelting Jennifer’s backside with a rag.

Bobbie was right. The back of Jennifer’s beautiful violet wool skirt was smoldering, from the hem to the waist. It was a miracle that the blades she wore weren’t visible. With a small shriek, she dropped to the speckled linoleum floor and rolled back and forth.

Ms. Sloane was quick with a blanket. A few moments later, everyone was standing up and fire-free.

“Scott,” the teacher told one of the other students, “get down to the office and tell them we have a mess here that needs cleaning up. Jennifer, are you sure you’re okay?”

Jennifer’s nerves were still frazzled, but she was grateful that the situation appeared salvageable. If she could just get Andi alone for a moment…

“What’s that?” Bobbie was pointing a gloved finger at Jennifer’s calf, where an inch-long piece of glass was poking out of her flesh. It was more likely it got there as a result of rolling about in the remains of the glass dish than from the explosive force, and it didn’t even hurt, but blood was slowly trickling from the wound.

Aha! Luck at last! “Oh! Gosh, Ms. Sloane, I should get down to the nurse’s office right away, shouldn’t I? Andi, could you help me? I might need to hold onto someone.”

“Sure,” Andi answered carefully, pulling off her safety goggles and gloves. Jennifer still wasn’t sure how this girl was going to react to what she had seen. But at least they’d have a chance to talk.

“I’ll go, too!”

Jennifer snapped her goggles off. Crap. “Thanks, Bobbie. But could you stay until class ends, and take notes—”

“No, it’s a good idea for two of you to go,” Ms. Sloane cut in. “Class, let this be a lesson to everyone! ‘Poison tests us,’ indeed! Andi, Bobbie, do come back when you can and let me know how Jennifer’s doing.”

“Sure, Ms. Sloane,” they answered together. Before Jennifer could protest further, they each had a shoulder under one of her arms and were helping her walk out of class.

“Wow, Jenny,” Bobbie giggled as they maneuvered down the empty hall together like some limping, six-legged beast. “You were barely in this school twenty-four hours before you blew something up!”

Jennifer tried a short laugh, but it sounded fake even to her own ears. “Listen, you two, don’t take me to the nurse’s office.”

“Why not?” Andi asked.

You know why not. A medically trained werachnid might ask inconvenient questions about Jennifer’s shape-changing abilities—or worse, might be able to detect differences without even asking. “It’s just that it’s…it’s not that bad. I don’t want this to be a big deal. It’s so embarrassing!”

“Where to, then?” Bobbie asked.

She thought fast. “Locker room. We’ve got study hall next anyway…If this takes a while, no one will miss us. Then I go to Spanish class, while you guys have math and geometry. And then we can meet for soccer practice after that.”

“Soccer!” Bobbie couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Jenny, you’ve gotta be made out of steel! Come on, Andi. She’s not bleeding to death or anything. If it happened to me, I guess I’d wanna keep it quiet, too.”

“That’s exactly what I want.” She tried to give Andi a meaningful look, but couldn’t tell if it had any impact. “Thanks, you two. You’re the best.”

It was quiet in the girls’ locker room. They settled Jennifer down on one of the narrow benches among the lockers, and then Bobbie helped elevate the leg.

“We should get bandages ready before you try to pull that out,” Bobbie suggested. “I cut my arm against a shattered window once, and you wouldn’t believe how—”

“Where’s Andi?” Jennifer’s blood chilled.

Bobbie looked around. “Huh. She probably already went to go get some. I’ll go help. You okay here?”

Jennifer was in a true fix. If she let Bobbie find Andi, the two of them might talk before Jennifer got a chance to explain anything. If she asked Bobbie to stay, Andi would find someone else—someone possibly less sympathetic.

As it turned out, she didn’t even have time to make a decision. “I’ll just be a second,” Bobbie said, and then she was gone.

Alone, Jennifer figured she had nothing to lose. She reached down and yanked the piece of glass out with a wince. Blood came out a bit more thickly, but a quick morph into dragon shape helped close the wound a bit. Something in the process of changing, she had noticed in the past, seemed to help healing.

It was only a few seconds before she heard both girls’ voices echoing through the locker room again. They were using low voices, and she couldn’t make the words out. She quickly changed her shape back and was lying down by the time they turned the corner and saw her.

“Oh, you got it out!” If Andi had said anything about Jennifer, Bobbie appeared no less friendly for it. “And it doesn’t look like it’s bleeding too bad. We found some bandages, and a washcloth. Let me go rinse this out, and then we can start wrapping…”

Then she was off again, still babbling about hot water and the state of the school plumbing system. Andi stayed with Jennifer. The two of them stared at each other for a moment, until Bobbie’s voice faded.

“You saw,” Jennifer finally ventured.

Andi nodded, and her brown eyes fell.

“Andi, please. You can’t tell anyone.”

The brunette looked around nervously. “I don’t know. I…”

“Please, Andi.” She could feel the sweat leaking from her pores. “I’m alone. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t have anybody I can trust. I need someone, Andi. I need you to help me.”

“What are you doing here?”