Virtual Quill

Dad won! Hooray! He's got his first meeting as a full member of the school board this week, and he's nervous and excited. Kell provided the helpful analogy of canines who actually catch the car they're chasing.

However, it's baby Francis that has occupied my time this week. Danielle overnighted a sample of his fur, and I spent three days analyzing his genetic makeup. (Professor Antlerhead pretty much gives me free rein in the lab.) After E-mailing the preliminary findings to Danielle and George on Saturday, I drove back to Domain in the evening for a more in-depth report. I faxed a copy to Dr. Caduceus, and that's as far as it will go.

I easily established that Danielle and George are the parents, but then it got tricky. Francis's DNA is like nothing I've encountered. I (and everyone else) assumed it would be a mixture of rabbit and fennec fox genes, but what I found were a jumble that I couldn't trace to any specific species. Just to be safe, I compared it to the human DNA derived from George's first wife (when she was temporarily transformed into a human), but that didn't fit, either.

So we're left with a happy, healthy ball of fur with an excellent appetite. He seems fine in all respects, with no medical issues of any sort. He's just...unclassifiable.