The Silver Moon Elm

by MaryJanice Davidson

  “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 (KCLO4)

  “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?”

  “It’s not my choice, I—”

  “Are you going to kill anyone?”

  “Oh, Andi, don’t be afraid.”

  “Tell me you won’t kill anyone.”

  “I’m not going to kill anyone. Maybe we can help each other. I—”

  “Success!” Bobbie’s voice rang out over the lockers a few seconds before she appeared with a steaming hot washcloth. “Let’s get started!”

  It took some time to clean the wound and dress it. Bobbie tried it first, but she dropped the washcloth and knocked the bandages on the grimy carpet, so she had to get new material. After that, Andi took over, grabbing the supplies from Bobbie and sitting down next to Jennifer.

  Even this young, her hands were clearly quite skilled at this sort of work. She briskly rolled up Jennifer’s skirt just above the knee, careful to support the wounded calf the entire time. Then she slowly pressed her fingers around the wound, as if looking for something.

  “You’ve done this before?” Jennifer guessed.

  “Medicine runs in my family.”

  “Mine, too.” She swallowed at Andi’s guarded look. “It did, anyway.”

  “I don’t suppose you can find some hydrogen peroxide?” Andi asked Bobbie.

  “Probably locked in the coach’s office.”

  “Hmm.” She looked at Jennifer. “You’ll probably need to head home once this is bandaged. You’re staying with Skip Wilson, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He knows?”

  “How can he know?” Bobbie interrupted. “We came straight here from chemistry.”

  Jennifer answered Andi’s true question. “He knows.” Then she turned to Bobbie. “He knows what to do with an injured leg. He’s, um, had one.”

  “But she can’t go home!” Bobbie’s face fell. “We were going to have her come to soccer practice!”

  Andi pursed her lips. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Still cradling Jennifer’s leg under one hand, she used the other to gently pat the wound with the washcloth. “Hand me the bandage, Bobbie? Preferably without dropping it.”

  Bobbie handed her the new roll. “She only has to watch. We’ve already got a good team, and Jenny says she’s played varsity before! I’ll bet she’s great, Andi.”

  Chewing her tongue nervously, Jennifer sided with the girl who held her leg—and life—in her hands. “It’s okay, Bobbie. Andi’s right. I’ll catch practice on Friday. You need me to hold that end?”

  “Thanks.” Andi began winding the bandage around Jennifer’s calf. She slowly lowered it as she did so, cradling Jennifer by the knee instead of the ankle so she could get around and around. “Soccer’s important, Bobbie. But it’s not everything. The world will still be spinning Friday, just the way it is now. And it will for Saturday’s big game, or at the practice next Wednesday for the next game!”

  This didn’t seem to please Bobbie much, but there was nothing the hulking girl could do. She crossed her arms and let out a deep sigh. “This sucks. Why’dja have to go blow yourself up, Jenny?”

  Despite herself, Jennifer began to chuckle. So did the other two girls.

  Until Andi’s hand accidentally brushed under Jennifer’s skirt and hit the dagger strapped to her left thigh.

  Jennifer and Andi both froze. Without breaking off her stare with Jennifer, Andi slowly withdrew her hand and finished up the bandage.

  “I think we should get you out of those clothes now,” she said firmly.

  “Oh, no, it’s okay, I—”

  “Jenny, they’re burned!” Bobbie’s tone was completely casual, in contrast to Andi’s severe expression. “The back of your sweater had holes in it, even before we left chemistry class. I’ve got some spare stuff in my locker you can use.”

  “But everyone will—”

  “Now.” Andi wasn’t taking any nonsense.

  Jennifer sighed, sat up, and pulled off her sweater. When she examined it, she saw Bobbie was right: The wool had several small burn holes in it.

  “Got your shell, too.” Bobbie pointed to a yellowish-brown stain on the cream-colored fabric. “You’re lucky you had two layers. Get rid of that, too, Jenny. My shirt’ll look better.” She turned to a locker right next to them and began dialing the combination.

  With no reason to argue, Jennifer took the shirt off.

  “Your skirt, too.” Andi insisted. “It’s wrecked all down the back.”

  She gave Andi a pleading look and received nothing in return but cool air.

  “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’m just glad it’s my clothes that got hit, and not yours, dear. What you’re wearing looks so much more…fragile than what I had on! Thank goodness I could protect you!”

  The heavy hint found its mark. Andi swallowed and softened her expression. “I know,” she said softly. “Thanks.”

  Jennifer slid the skirt down, careful not to let it catch on the daggers or the buckles on their sheaths. She had been in locker rooms in front of other girls with less than the underwear she had left, but she had never felt more exposed in her life.

  Both girls stared at the daggers. Bobbie whistled.

  “Wow, Jenny. You kn
ow there’s a strict no-weapons policy at the school. Mouton would expel you in a second if he found out!”

  “They’re j-just for self-defense,” Jennifer stammered. “You guys won’t tell anyone, will you? I can explain…”

  “Don’t worry. That can wait,” said Andi. “For now, you should get dressed. Bobbie, what do you have in there? My stuff ’s too small for her.”

  “I always keep an extra gym outfit in here. It’s clean. Might be a size too big for you, but it shouldn’t matter.”

  Andi carefully folded up Jennifer’s clothes and gave them to Bobbie, who put them away in the locker.

  “You’ll need to give those up, too,” Andi ordered, pointing at the weapons on Jennifer’s bare thighs. “The shorts won’t hide them.”

  With a heavy heart, Jennifer unstrapped both daggers and handed them over. Andi passed them on to Bobbie, who put them on top of the folded clothes. The larger girl rearranged the locker contents so that a soccer ball hid most of the contraband from a casual glance, and then pressed the locker shut with a clang.

  “Okay, I should get dressed now.” Jennifer held her hands out for the clothes.

  Andi took the extra outfit from Bobbie, but then held it. “Hang on.”

  Jennifer felt her whole body turn cold and warm at the same time as she glanced at the secure locker that held her only possessions. She tried to grab for the gym clothes but the other girl took a quick step back. “Andi, please.”

  “I want you to tell me and Bobbie something.”

  Realizing Andi could simply run away if she wanted to, Jennifer let her arms rest protectively in front of her chest. “What?”

  “I want you to tell us you’re going straight home after Spanish, and you won’t try to come to soccer practice.” Andi flicked her magenta-streaked hair behind her left ear. “Do you promise?”

  Jennifer let out a breath. “Yes, I promise. Just, please, let me get dressed!”

  Andi grinned and handed her the clothes.

  “There’s a sports bra in there, too,” Bobbie offered helpfully. “It might go a bit better than what you’ve got on there.”