Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace by MaryJanice Davidson Read Free Book Online

ever.” She tried to step majestically out of the back of the minivan with her right wing claw, but misjudged her weight placement and ended up tumbling tail over head onto a bed of hay. The horses in stables to either side snorted—derisively, she was sure.
    Jonathan sighed as his claw caught the hidden lever he sought, and the doors into the cabin proper swung inward. The mudroom lights came on automatically, and Jennifer took a good look at her father for the first time.
    The first things that caught her eye were the three thin horns that pierced the back of his head. They shone silver, like his eyes. Jennifer self-consciously reached back and felt her own skull—yep, she could feel three evenly spaced spikes back there as well.
    But unlike his daughter, Jonathan Scales had no nose horn. And there were other differences.
    While her blue was a sharp, electric shade, his was a deeper, almost purplish hue. Black stripes crossed over his back and wings, and his belly was a truer blue than his back. His wings were much larger in proportion to his body than hers were, and the arms at the leading edge of each wing were thinner. And while her tail had two prongs at the end, his tail had a slender, tapered point. Overall, his build was slighter than hers … and thinner, Jennifer noted with some self-contempt.
    “Liz, why don’t you go on in. It doesn’t look like Dad’s having any guests over this cycle. He may have left a message. I’ll stay in the barn and help Jennifer with her new motor skills.”
    “Grandpa Crawford isn’t here?” From her sprawled position on the ground, Jennifer was disappointed and curious. If Grandpa was also a weredragon, shouldn’t he also be in dragon form now? If so, wasn’t home the place to be? If not, when would he be back? And what was this about guests and cycles? She had been to this cabin many times, but had never seen any guests other than herself and her parents.
    “He probably left for the lake. He may come back later. Get up if you can,” said Jonathan Scales, ignoring his daughter’s pout. He raised his wings, pushed gently off the doorway with a hind leg, and floated onto the hay next to her. Elizabeth went inside.
    Jennifer squirmed on the ground. Flipped on her back like this, it wasn’t easy to get up. She wriggled, got nowhere, and groaned. “This is so embarrassing.”
    “Fold your wings in and roll,” he suggested.
    She did, and was soon on all fours, her hind legs pushing her fat bottom higher up into the air than it ever had been in fourteen years, and her wing claws grasping at the ground fruitlessly. Her snout was in the dirt. All she could see was the hay two feet in front of her.
    “The humiliation just never stops, does it?”
    “Push off on your front claws a bit, so your head’s off the ground … there you go…”
    This was better. Now Jennifer was crouched like a cat ready to spring. She was certain she couldn’t move, but she felt somewhat poised as long as she stood still.
    “Walking is not a dragon’s forté,” Jonathan explained. “Even trampler dragons prefer galloping and leaping to a simple walk. But you’ll have to learn a simple step or two before you can even think about flying.”
    He took her through the basics. Jennifer quickly learned that four-legged creatures have more independent movement of legs than bipeds like humans. She discovered she needed to keep her hind legs a half step ahead of the front ones, and she needed to use a scratch-and-pull method with her batlike wing claws to get anywhere. Progress was not easy. She was still pouting, and her father seemed determined to ignore her mood. So he talked more and more, and she said less and less, and before long the walking lesson was a nearly uninterrupted stream of words from the elder dragon.
    “Bend your leg a bit more, that’s it, keep your wings in closer to your body or you’ll just zigzag. No, more, there, now scratch and pull, not bad at all for a first day! No,