Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace by MaryJanice Davidson; Anthony Alongi

Author:MaryJanice Davidson; Anthony Alongi
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Teenage girls, Transformations (Magic), Fiction, Animals, Dragons, Fantasy - General, American Science Fiction And Fantasy, Species identity, Science Fiction, Magic, Mythical, Secrets, Juvenile Fiction, Family life, Fantasy & Magic, & Magic, Family secrets, Family, Fantasy fiction, Contemporary, General, Fantasy, Metamorphosis, Teenagers
ISBN: 9780441014743
Publisher: Ace
Published: 2005-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

"So, you wanna go turf-whomping?"

"Pardon?"

Catherine's eyes were full of mischief. "Turf-whomping! My grandma taught it to me. Tramplers do it a lot, since we can't fly for long distances."

Jennifer shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

"Follow me."

They left the cabin and went out to the southern pas-tures. There were still hundreds of sheep grazing—

Jennifer supposed her grandfather bought herds and herds of them to support the refuge. While the fluffy white shapes scattered at their approach, Catherine paid no attention to them, but instead began running out onto the grass, parallel to the tree line.

"Just watch!" she called back over her wing.

Her bulky olive form rolled over the gentle, grassy slope. Flapping her tiny wings, she barely got off the ground. Instead of soaring higher, as Jennifer had learned to do, she let herself glide back down to the ground. Then, with a magnificent kick, she heaved into the air again. Another kick— whomp—and another— whomp. They were huge, slow-motion steps by the clumsiest lizard Jennifer had ever seen.

She chuckled to herself. It looked like bad flying, but it also looked like a ton of fun. Before she knew it she was off after her new friend, letting her wings cut through the autumn air and kicking at the pale grass with trem-bling legs.

"The dashers laugh at us when they see us do this, but frankly, I like being this close to the ground!"

Catherine called out as Jennifer pulled up, so that they were whomping side by side. "It makes for easier acceleration, like a sprinter using quicker steps. Check this out."

She slammed her heels down harder and shortened her stride. And just like that she was leaping ahead of Jen-nifer. Then she suddenly veered sharply to the left, into the forest.

"You don't have to use the ground every time!" she called out behind her. "I tried this last time and crashed, 'cause I'm still new at this, but let me see ..."

Jennifer turned to follow, her stomach fluttering—the trunks of the trees were fairly close together, and some of them had very low branches with heavy knots. She tilted her wings enough to slow down to a gentle glide with each whomp, so that she could watch.

But Catherine didn't get far. After maneuvering fairly gracefully through a cluster of oaks and kicking off a thick trunk so that she could accelerate, she found herself faced with some heavy, fragrant pines that were just too fat to avoid and too bushy to find purchase for another kick. She slammed into two pines at Page 72

once, and with a squawk tumbled through the lower branches into a flurry of dead leaves.

"Catherine! You okay?" Jennifer couldn't stop giggling—it didn't look serious, by any definition. "I'm not sure that's how you're supposed to do it."

"Maybe I should watch my grandma a few more times," Catherine muttered, shaking the leaves and twigs from her wingtips. "Of course, she spends most of her time inCrescentValley, and I don't get to go there yet."

"Do you think what the dragonflies told her is true?" Jennifer picked a string of moss off of her friend's scaly back.

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