Buying Cars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter One:

 

 

“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”—Mark Twain—

 

 

Zormna Clendar stared at the vehicle and grimaced.

“It’s a piece of junk,” she said flatly, her Irish-like lilt rather thick. The fourteen-year-old immigrant didn’t really look the Irish stereotype though. Her dark green eyes had an Asian shape to them, to begin with. Pasty white skin with nary a freckle. And her fiery blonde hair was so wild in its curls that she reminded people of the sun. She had a lot of loose ringlets near the ends and wavy on the top, with all sorts of reddish gold streaks throughout. Some days she looked absolutely cherubic—a visitor from the heavens, depending on which sort of god you actually believed in. Fact was, if it weren’t for her often-angry expression, people would have taken her for a sweet porcelain doll—but a doll in military clothes, as she stood like a soldier most of time. That, or a kung fu doll, as she frequently dealt with creeps who dared touch her in the good old-fashioned martial arts way. They usually ended up on their backs with her foot at their throat.

But her friend, sixteen-year-old Jennifer McLenna, was redheaded and freckled. And she looked as Irish as her family claimed to be. Jennifer used to think she was of Irish descent too. But recent events had knocked that notion out of her head—recent events such as Zormna’s arrival to the neighborhood and Jennifer’s home.

“It’s not junk. It is a classic. You are never going to find such an inexpensive Mustang convertible,” Jennifer countered with a controlled annoyance in her voice. Zormna just didn’t mentally grasp certain things, even though she had been in the US for several months now. It wasn’t stupidity. It was cultural. And though Jennifer had learned to bear the girl’s quirks with patience, there were days she wanted to strangle the blonde—like right now.

“Look at it. It isn’t even aerodynamic.” Zormna sullenly marched around the vehicle, inspecting it as she would something that had to be flightworthy. “It is bad enough that it has an archaic combustion engine, but does it have to have such a drag to it? I won’t even enjoy driving it.”

Jennifer stared at her and sighed. “You don’t need an aerodynamic car. And knowing you, all that will do is encourage you to speed. And the last thing you need is to be arrested for speeding.”

“They don’t arrest you for speeding,” Zormna argued, sticking her head inside the sleeker car that was parked just next to the convertible. “They just give you a ticket.”

“And tickets go on record.” Jennifer pointed out, listing with her fingers in a very mother-preach-me sort of way that frequently annoyed Zormna. “And records are read by the FBI. And you don’t want to give the FBI more reasons to follow you, do you?”

Zormna was already scowling at Jennifer. “Give me a break. Speeding would be the least reason to follow me. Besides, they are quite decided on following me everywhere anyway. I mean, they’re right over there.” Zormna pointed to a green Pinto across the street. Inside, two plain-clothed men sat, watching the two girls.

Shuddering, Jennifer turned back towards her friend, hissing. “I hate it when you do that. Just when I feel like I have some privacy, you just have to go and let me know they are still there.” She peeked over her shoulder again at the car with another shudder. “When are they going to give it up and leave? They’re not going to find anything new.”

Almost used to the watching eyes of the federal agents, Zormna shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe you should bring them doughnuts. I’m sure they’re starved.”

Jennifer rolled her eyes. “That’s not funny. You’d think they would have figured out you’re stuck here. It’s not like you can run. I mean, they’ve gotta know Dad had that radio thing hauled off so you can’t contact… you know, your people again.”

Zormna thought the notion of teasing the FBI was funny, though. After all, there were few things those days that could take her mind off the stress she felt while attempting to act ‘normal’ in that ordinary American suburb, mostly because the FBI was always watching.

It had been almost a half a year since the FBI started following her, and definitely more than six months since her arrival to Pennington Heights when she moved in with Jennifer’s family. Heavily sighing as she mused over her circumstances, Zormna knew Jennifer had been more than generous to her. Humoring Jennifer McLenna was the only payback Zormna could think of. After all, what was a girl from another planet to do?

Zormna stared at the convertible and frowned. “So, I have to get this one, huh?”

Smiling triumphantly, Jennifer nodded. “It is the best choice—the least conspicuous. Besides, it is a great car.”

“Yeah, sure. A great car.” Zormna’s sarcasm leaked out. “It is still a pile of junk.”

Jennifer merely shook her head then went off to call for the car salesman who was sure he had found a few suckers. Zormna eyed him sharply, especially as he cheerfully massaged his hands and strode up to them both.

Jeff Streigle was bent over the engine of a rusty green jeep, reaching inside to reattach a spark plug when they drove up to the auto shop where he worked part time. Hearing the rumbling engine of the used car in desperate need of engine work, the seventeen-year-old glanced under his arm through his dark moppish bangs, spotting the old white Mustang convertible with two familiar faces in the front seat. Jennifer was driving. Zormna looked like she had eaten a really sour lemon.

The tiny blonde hopped over the door as soon as the car had stopped as if being inside such a ‘repugnant’ vehicle was too much for her. Jeff shook his head, smiling wearily to himself. A techno-snob forever, Zormna was going to make herself a pain.   

“Hi, Jennifer, Zormna,” he said while rising from the jeep’s innards, approaching them. “Nice car.”

“Isn’t it?’ Jennifer nodded enthusiastically as she exited the vehicle with a great deal more satisfaction.

 “Al del’rein’ell arnch ‘orn en’em, Jafarr,” Zormna grumbled in their native tongue, sulking. It was especially annoying when a girl like her sulked. She was too smart for it.

“Speak English, Zormna. You’re setting poor Jennifer at a disadvantage. And who knows who could be listening in.” Jeff rubbed his greasy hands on a rag. He flipped his midnight black hair out of his fathomless indigo eyes to see better, as his hair needed a trim. 

Smiling at the consideration, Jennifer peeked once to the road to see if those FBI agents who had been at the car dealership were now there. Jennifer hated being kept out of Zormna’s and Jeff’s conversations. It happened occasionally. After all, Jeff and Zormna were from the same place, which had been a very well-kept secret from most people.

Zormna darkly rolled her green eyes at him. “I said, noojra[1], I didn’t pick it—and she knows I don’t like it.”

“You’re in a sour mood.” Jeff lifted his head back in an old knee-jerk response to Zormna’s snotty remarks. Recently, they had been on better terms, but there were days when he wanted slap her.

“She hates not getting her way,” Jennifer put in with a condescending nod.

Folding her arms with a glare at the pair of them, Zormna snapped, “It was my money, and it is my car.”

Jennifer peeked sheepishly at Jeff who smirked back at her for manipulating the situation so expertly. She immediately cleared off a guilty expression as she said, “Well, this car is better than what you wanted anyway.”

Jeff decided to chime in. “It isn’t that bad of a car, Zormna. Really, it isn’t.” He peered over it, taking in the size while already thinking about ways to make it better.

With a skeptical glance at the machine, Zormna peered dryly at him. “I’ll bet.”

“We figured you could check it out, fix whatever needs to be repaired,” Jennifer said, ignoring Zormna’s skepticism.

“I know my machines,” Zormna added one last time. “And that is a piece of junk.”

Jeff laughed and nodded, comprehending quite well what she really meant. “Take it over here, and I’ll get to it after I finish up with this jeep.”

Jennifer smiled then jogged back to the car, dragging Zormna with her.

“See, I told you he’d help. Jeff isn’t still holding a grudge like you thought he was,” Jeff heard Jennifer say. He watched Zormna’s reluctant glance back at him as Jennifer said this.

The truth was, Jeff and Zormna had mutually hated each other for a time for various reasons, all going back to when they knew each other before coming to Pennington. Their history went way back—so far back that Jennifer did not know the half of it, though she did have the basic story. It had to do with who they were.

And who were they? That was the question the FBI had been asking since they discovered Zormna in Pennington. Even now they were thinking over it while watching Jennifer park the newly bought car alongside the jeep. The FBI knew Zormna’s connection to the town and the reason she claimed for coming to Pennington. Her great aunt had lived in Pennington for decades—famously known as the crazy lady of Hayes Street who early on declared to the world that she was a Martian. And the entire world had been contented to believe in the woman’s insanity. For that matter, it would have stayed that way forever if it were not for a chain of events that had convinced the FBI otherwise.

It had started with the old woman taking electricity from her neighbor’s houses to power a high-charged radio that had broadcasted into (and presumably communicated with someone from) space. Originally, the FBI had come knocking only to investigate her home as a possible drug house. What they found was weirder.

So, they took the woman in for a short weekend at the local sanitarium for mental evaluation. And what they learned was even stranger. But even then, they were ready to blow her strangeness entirely off as the acts of a raving yet harmless lunatic—if it weren’t for her sudden, totally and entirely unexpected death.

Murder, they discovered. And it was made to look like a drug overdose. Only they knew that could not be the case, as Asiah Clendar was clean when they had tested her earlier. Someone else had targeted her.

Unfortunately for their case, they never caught the killer.

The file on Asiah Clendar would have been closed that year if it were not for the inexplicable arrival of Zormna Clendar—who was entirely devastated to find her only family dead.

The thing was, they would not have noticed Zormna’s arrival at all had she not reactivated the high-charged radio system to contact her home. And though it had been dismantled before the FBI could inspect the machinery closer, Zormna herself posed a problem. Because the girl was completely different in behavior than her great aunt—though they were definitely related. All soldier-like. Claimed to be Irish—except when under the influence of sodium pentothal. Then she too had admitted she was from Mars.

But really, the idea of Martians among us? Martians? It really was lunatic. And the FBI did not have the entire story either. They knew it, but could not get it.

For example: who was Jeff really? That summer they had discovered the boy was deeply connected to Zormna, though they did not know in what way. He spoke with a natural American accent, so it was not difficult to believe his claims that he had met Zormna in Ireland during a vacation rather than on some distant planet as the head of their project proposed. People around town either thought Jeff was from Chicago or somewhere in Missouri. But Zormna occasionally called him Jafarr, which made them wonder.

And as for Jennifer McLenna—Zormna’s first friend in Pennington— they could tell Zormna had told her things about herself that she had not told others. But Jennifer was more guarded than any of their other targets, and a little freaked out. Currently Jennifer was steering the car into the shop, setting the brake. She regarded Jeff and Zormna with a degree of caution mixed with curiosity.

And as the FBI listened, they hoped to learn something they could not get out from prior interrogations…for they had forcibly taken information from both Jeff and Zormna when they had no other recourse. So far, all they got today was that Jennifer’s father had refused to let Zormna into his tools so she could fix the car herself, which is why they had come to the auto shop on Pete’s Hill Drive. They could also tell that Jeff actually made Jennifer nervous. They just wished they knew why, as he was her older brother’s close friend.

Jennifer hopped out from the car again, glancing once more to the road where the FBI had a good view of them all, trying to keep it casual. She didn’t know how much of the details they knew about Zormna or Jeff. She only hoped they did not know that her parents also came from the same world. So far, there had been no indication that the FBI were aware.

Zormna had walked alongside the car, ignoring the FBI watching them. Being under constant surveillance was awful. But letting it get to her always made it worse. And though she pretended that she was used to it, Zormna’s flesh crawled every time she saw them. Instead, she currently occupied her time by walking around the shop and poking at things. She had been in plenty of repair shops before, but this one was definitely a new experience—especially since everyone tried to shoo her away from the machines, telling her she would get her nice clothes all greasy. But their tools were foreign. She was fascinated by them.

With a bored huff, sweeping back through the garage, Zormna popped alongside Jeff. She stuck her head under the jeep’s hood next to his. “You know, I can save you a lot of time if you just let me use the tools you’ve got to fix my own car.”

Jeff shot her look as he laughed. “No. This is a work place. Not a play area.”

“Funny.” She delivered him the dirtiest look. But on her face, it only made heads turn. After all, Zormna was shockingly beautiful, the kind of girl often compared to Marilyn Monroe or Aphrodite. “I’ll have you know that I am—”

“Not Home,” Jeff interrupted her, affixing a part so that would not move anymore.

Sulking, Zormna huffed. “You men get all sexist when you come here. I know more about machines than—”

“I worked at a repair shop with my dad for years,” Jeff hissed in an extremely low voice, hardly above a whisper. “Don’t you start comparing me to you. I’ve dealt with junk and made them good. You’ve had top of the line parts—”

“Which I have improved beyond their original engineering capabilities,” she snapped back. Then she shook her head. “I will allow that you are good at what you do. But don’t you dare say what I do is play. And I don’t want to sit back and watch—”

“Well, you’re gonna have to, because this is an auto shop. And you are not an employee,” he said.

Zormna jerked back with a glower.

Irritated, Jeff replied under his arm, “Go sit somewhere. You’re crowding me.”

“Fine.” She whipped around, stomping over to the bench, her fiery curls flying.

When she was out of his space, one of Jeff’s co-workers snickered with a peek back to her. “What a prima donna. Does she actually think she knows more than the mechanic?”

Jeff laughed, rubbing his forehead—because he knew she believed that she knew more than the mechanic. And though he had never had a chance to see if that was true, he did occasionally wonder if she was right. As he had said, she had grown up with the top-of-the-line new machinery, while he had been working with junk. Truth was, they were a lot alike, even for fellow countrymen from different social classes. Of course, she craved to be useful again. She craved to dig her hands into machinery like she used to. But, no. She had to play the part of the innocent high-schooler. And innocent high-schoolers, especially blonde fourteen-year-old cheerleaders —her newfound role—never, never knew anything about complex machinery. She would have to sit and watch.

But it was nearly fifteen minutes before Jeff could even touch the old convertible. And by then Zormna had walked out of the garage and onto the street, leaving him alone with the car.

Seeing Zormna go, Jennifer hopped up from her seat and meandered over to where Jeff was finally opening the hood to inspect her vehicle.  “So… How’s it going with, uh, that protection thing?”

Jeff peeked once at the FBI car, knowing they were trying to get his verbal exchanges as much as Zormna’s. He hardly moved his head when he replied, “Not the time for that conversation.”

He kept working.

Leaning a little closer, Jennifer whispered, “You think they have listening devices in that car?”

Glancing at her wide-eyed naïveté, he smirked. “I said, not the time. Talk about something else if you have to talk to me at all.”

Jennifer leaned back from him, put out. Though she shrugged and said, “Ok. I was thinking you could help us also redo the paint job.”

He lifted his head in a blink at her then glanced to where Zormna stood near the road. “What do you want? Racing stripes?”

Jennifer rolled her eyes, knowing he was only joking.

Yet as he watched her, Jeff rose to his full six feet to look at Jennifer more squarely. He knew from her older brother Todd that Jennifer was the family conniver.

“Fine, but it will cost you.”

He had expected Jennifer to groan, but she merely grinned wider with a glance at where Zormna was standing just inside the garage doors. “I’m sure she’ll pay for it, since it is her car.”

It was impossible not to laugh. Jeff kept shaking his head as he said, “Jennifer, Zormna isn’t going to fork over money for every scheme you have.”

“Scheme?” Jennifer backed off innocently. “Me?”

Jeff laughed again, knowing Jennifer had been using Zormna for a great many conveniences that summer, from trips to the theater to buying ice cream at the mall and going paint-balling with a group of friends from her flag team.

“I know you want this car more than she does,” he said, delivering a chiding look. “How is she paying for it anyway?”  

Jennifer stared up at the ceiling while trying to avoid his gaze, but it didn’t work. “Ok… So, I want the car. Mom and Dad won’t buy me one, and Zormna is a sucker for a good idea—anything that will give her more freedom.”

He chuckled, shaking his head.

“I think she’s just sulking because they refuse to let her completely own it. It has to be in my name too,” Jennifer said. “Or we can’t keep it.”

“Yeah,” Jeff laughed with some pain, asking, “But what about the money?”

“Oh, that.” Jennifer looked skyward again, blushing. “Her great aunt left her a bundle….”

“Yeah, but that will run out,” he said. “Doesn’t Zormna know that?”

“Sure, I know that.” Zormna walked into the garage up to the pair of them. “I got myself a job, and Jennifer is paying me back in gas money.”

Jennifer flinched, remembering the promise she had made the night before. She had hoped Zormna had forgotten about it. But Jeff, knowing better, peeked at Jennifer crookedly while hardly hiding his ‘I-told-you-so’ smile.

Despite that, as he stood up from the guts of the engine with a cockeyed glance at Zormna, he said, “You got a job?”

Zormna nodded once. “Yesterday. Which is why I have to go now.” Turning to Jennifer, she said, “You have the keys. I want them back when you are done here.”

But Jeff cringed as if she had given him a headache. As she walked out the garage back to the street, he followed her.

“What do you mean you got a job? Where? We didn’t discuss this!”

Zormna turned back around, squinting through the afternoon sun to the darkened garage, looking a bit too much like visitor from that glowing orb. “I don’t have to discuss it with you. You have a job. I should have one too.”

“Where, Zormna?” Jeff marched straight to her. He stood a foot taller than her, like a dark shadow of night resisting the day.

Going backward, she merely sighed, still heading to the curb. “Roller Burger on Davis Street, if you must know.”

Then she crossed the street, barely looking at the sparse traffic.

“Zormna!” Jeff shouted after her, but unable to leave his workplace.

Zormna merely waved with a laugh. “See you in school!”

And she turned away, quickly escaping into the side streets where he figured Zormna would ditch her FBI tail. He was glad she knew how to do it, but it made him uneasy to see her go without an escort, especially considering who she was.

His FBI car was still there.

Tromping back inside the shop, he growled to himself. “How am I supposed to keep an eye on her if she goes on keeping secrets like that?”

Jennifer shrugged guiltily.

Delving back into the engine he had been working on, Jeff grumbled under his breath. He slipped once and dropped a wrench inside the machine.

“Skavee!”

He rarely cursed in his native tongue—so meticulous about keeping his secret. But Zormna often drove him to madness.

“What kind of person just does that?” he muttered.

Jennifer gritted her teeth, getting a little nervous listening to his peevish growling. Jeff was usually good-natured and easy-going, or had become such over the past year. But Zormna tended to bring back his old, edgy nature, sometimes bringing out the worst in him.

“That little….” He griped. Then looking up a Jennifer’s pained face, he asked, “How am I supposed to protect her if she does this all the time? Jennifer, I know she doesn’t tell you everything, but where does this wacko idea of…” He stared at her. A pained smirk and a clearer glare rested in his eyes as he fixed them on Jennifer. “It was your idea, wasn’t it?”

But instead of exploding at her, as he might have at Zormna, he just shook his head. He rubbed his oil and callous-covered hands.

Ducking with an apologetic smile, Jennifer said, “I didn’t think it would hurt. It might help her ego or something. She thinks she is so perfect. And now that she knows she’s a princess, I think it has gone to her head.”

Jeff rolled his eyes with exasperation, though he looked around to see if anyone heard their conversation.

“No, Jennifer. She’s always been a bit of a prima donna. I guess she is just becoming more comfortable here—enough to be herself.” In disgust, Jeff sat down with glare at the car. “Thank you,” he peevishly added.

“Sorry,” Jennifer whined. “I told you I didn’t know it would cause you problems.” Then thinking a moment, she added, “Don’t worry, when school starts, she’ll be running from gymnastics to cheer practice to football games to work. She won’t have time to get into trouble. She said it herself: if she is at places where people expect her then it won’t be a problem to keep an eye on her.”

Jeff nodded. “Of course, the FBI will be thinking the same thing.”

“But they can’t pick her off either,” Jennifer said, earnestly. “Not like last time.”

He nodded resignedly. “True.”

“Don’t worry, Jeff.” Jennifer stepped back so she could also leave. “We have a whole new school year. Starting tomorrow, we’ll be too busy to even care what the FBI is thinking.”

And she walked out into the warm afternoon summer sun feeling lighter in her heart than in a long while.

Jeff shook his head as she went off. “I’ve never been that busy.”

He went quickly back to his work.

And though the FBI car remained to watch Jeff as he took apart and examined the pieces of the white mustang convertible, they would not get much. In fact, since the day at camp when they had discovered that he was most likely from the same place as Zormna Clendar, he had given no other proof that their assumption was true.

They had watched his house.

They had attempted to bug it, though without success as Jeff was just as adept at destroying electronic bugs as Zormna Clendar. That, and no one ever left that home unoccupied. There was always someone there, be it the woman known as Aunt Mary or one of the college boarders like Eric or Aaron.

The FBI had also watched Jeff with his friends. He usually hung out with his buddies from school when he was not at work. Most of the time he popped in at the Hendersons’ home, hanging around with Brian and Joy… almost whenever Zormna stopped by, though often more frequently. The entire group occasionally met up at the park or the mall and just hung out.

Though, with their high-tech audio recordings, the FBI occasionally recorded him practicing his musical instruments in his bedroom at home. Jeff played about five different ones, including the ukulele, a violin, and what sounded like a banjo. His tunes were mostly folk pieces, though he dabbled in what people once termed as alternative rock, and he played some classical pieces rather well.

And what did all this amount to?

Not much.

Jeff Streigle was an enigma. And unlike Zormna Clendar, he was great at pretending that everything was all right.

But that only meant the FBI had to work a little more creatively.

 

[1] Idiot

Class Schedules

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two:

 

Tact is the ability to close your mouth before someone else wants to.

 

 

Darren Asher strode across the senior lawn to the main doors of the administration building, gripping his schedule tightly in his hand. Several students joined him in his march to the registration office, all irritably clutching computerized schedules in their hands. Though there were lines extending down the hall, several irate students pushed to the front of the line to complain about the computer mix-up.

“I am not supposed to have Home-Ec., Ms. Keyes. I’m a football player!” one large senior complained.

“Just wait one minute, and we’ll get to you, Daniel.” The small woman right behind the counter looked like she would get swallowed up in stampede of bodies as they leaned in the window. The counter was the only thing keeping her from getting crushed. Yet she calmly turned back to the scrawny freshman that she had just been talking to. “I’m sorry, Robert, I can’t change your Algebra class to another hour so you can squeeze into Mr. Hyde’s Art class. You’ll have to try and take it another semester.”

“But he’s not giving it another semester!” the tiny freshman protested, his skinny face almost sickly in despair.

“Ms. Keyes!” Darren called out, trying to catch her attention.

“Not now, young man. Take a number and wait your turn. I go by the signup sheet and not shouting crowds,” the woman replied with a control that was only a façade. She was sweating.

Though taller than most and able to see over the sea of heads, Darren frowned as he squeezed in to look at the already long list on the paper. Shaking his head, he glanced back at his schedule. It had Wood Shop listed instead of his chosen elective—Driver’s Training. He had to change it, or he’d be stuck making something he’d sell in a garage sale a year later.

“Samuel Perkins!” Ms. Keyes’ voice echoed piercingly above the din.

A five-eleven dark-haired boy squeezed into the crowd to the front desk. In overwhelm, Darren watched the mass of bodies filled with irate boys and girls pushing and squeezing like lemmings. He sighed. Perhaps Wood Shop wasn’t so bad.

“Paul Rulens!” Ms. Keyes called out again, barely heard over the disgruntled murmurs and grumbles of the mob. Samuel Perkins extracted himself from the crowd, and Paul pushed his way in, squeezing through the anxious first-timers and tired old-timers. Sam tripped on his last exit and crashed into Darren, grasping his own worn schedule to his chest.

“Sorry,” the boy apologized. “Crazy, isn’t it? Is it like this every year?”

Darren looked down at him with a shrug. “Computer upgrade. Are you new?”

The guy nodded. “Yeah, and they screwed up my schedule.”

Grimacing, Darren peered at the paper in his own hand. “Mine too.” Then looking up at the mob of students he shook his head.

“Listen up!” Ms. Keyes squeaked over the rumble of student voices. “New policy. You have to see your counselor and get approval—a stamp—and then come back to me to get readmitted. No counselor, no stamp, no class change. Got it?”

The crowd stampeded in mass down to the counseling department. Darren backed against the wall along with Sam and a few other students.

Waving away the crowd as he staggered back to the front doors, Darren said, “Nah, it isn’t worth it.”

He walked down the corridor back outside.

“Hello,” another young face said at the registration window. “I’m new here. Where do I pick up my schedule?”

Ms. Keyes took a breath and frowned. “Name?”

“Adam Alexander Arbor, please.”

Jeff Streigle walked into his first hour class with a glance about the room. The first-floor room had broad windows along one wall and long bulletin boards with inspirational quotes about reading on two walls. He smiled as he recognized faces and friends, juniors and seniors, and old classmates sitting in mostly straight rows facing an old-fashioned chalkboard. This room had the cheap orange desk-chair combo with book rack underneath the seat. Many faces lit up when they saw him enter—nearly all except Zormna who was sitting in the center back with her friend Joy Henderson, a pretty, tan sophomore with a brown-haired bob. They sat next to Joy’s older brother, Brian, who was an all-American boy on the Pennington wrestling team with Jeff.

Brian waved at Jeff, beckoning him over.

After one look at Jeff, Zormna rolled her eyes, probably thinking ‘Why did we have to be in the same class?’

Smirking at her, Jeff crossed the room and sat down in the seat in front of Brian, which also happened to be next to her. For everyone, who knew that Zormna and Jeff barely got along, they would assume that it was really Brian he had intended to be near. But the look in Zormna’s eyes said she was annoyed that he was taking his duty to protect her a little too extreme. After all, she frequently reminded him that she had once been the top student of her martial arts lessons back Home. But his eyes replied that even a martial artist needed someone to watch their back. Especially one whose family was hunted.

Yet as this silent exchange was taking place, Joy cast a smirk at Zormna, making eyes and winking at her as Jeff settled in his seat. It was an old, tiresome joke between Zormna’s cheerleading friends that Jeff had a crush on the small blonde—or at least that they had a secret relationship. And why not? Jeff did seem to follow Zormna everywhere. He had at camp, and during the summer, he showed up at the public places where she went.

But, of course, they didn’t know the real reason he was keeping her in sight. And as he stretched his legs long, he ignored the silent joke Joy was making at Zormna’s expense.

“So, Jeff. You have this class too?” Brian asked with his characteristic grin. “That’s fortuitous.”

Jeff nodded with a peek at Zormna. “Yeah, but why did you choose a spot all the way across the room?”

Brian shrugged and opened his folder. “I like to be near the window. Natural light is nice.”

Laughing, Jeff glanced at Zormna again. She looked tired, not at all as chipper as she had been that summer. Summer had done her a great deal of good. It had helped her relax and enjoy being a teenager—something she had sort of skipped when growing up back Home. After all, she had become an adult at twelve, according to the test their people used to gauge useful and responsible citizens. And she had become a responsible military leader soon after that. Having a sliver of childhood back Home had been a blessing.

But no one else seemed to notice her weariness. Brian immediately became engrossed in inspecting the pages of his heavy text. He had started to read it. Joy was also looking at her book while arranging her new notebook and pens from her bookbag on her desk.

“I hope you didn’t reschedule your classes just because of me, Jafarr,” Zormna whispered from across the aisle, again with using his real name. Despite all his efforts, he could never break her of that habit.

“’Course not,” Jeff replied, trying to bury his annoyance as he leaned across the aisle towards her with a similar whisper. “This class is required, and I haven’t taken it yet. This is my last year.”

Zormna smirked. “You actually intend to graduate from this place?”

“Why not?” Jeff pulled out his textbook and peered at the cover. “I’ve always wanted to know about… um… English Affecting Our Lives.”

She moaned, slumping back in her seat. “If it isn’t an instructional text on how to speak the language better, I’m not impressed.”

“You know it’s a Lit book. Don’t be a dufus.” Jeff opened the book and peered at the table of contents. “It looks like we’ll be reading some Shakespeare.”

“And what’s that?” Zormna asked without any real interest.

Before Jeff could answer, their instructor, Mr. Humphries, walked into the room then pulled out the textbook. The man spoke in a booming base. “Welcome to English Literature. I hope you are all in the right class.”

The students let out a murmur. This teacher had a reputation for being peculiarly interesting if not downright scary. He was dressed conservatively, middle-aged with love handles, a short haircut and the beginnings of male pattern baldness. But he did not look as rigid as others had described him, so they were not sure what to expect.

Mr. Humphries lifted up a paper and said, “First we will go over the rules of the class….”

Zormna glanced over at Jeff, uninterested and tired. Her life had been framed by rules, as she had been raised by the military back Home, but this felt silly. She leaned forward and slumped over her desk—another thing she didn’t normally do.

 Jeff stared at the ceiling a moment then glanced at Joy, who was poking Zormna on the head so she would keep it up instead of leaning it on her back. Brian smirked as he pulled out a pen, following along with the teacher.

Jeff chuckled then leaned across the aisle with a whisper. “Didn’t you get any sleep last night?”

Zormna blinked, looked at him then rested her head in her arms on her desk.

“No, not really. They trained me to close the restaurant last night. I barely made it home when Mr. McLenna found me sneaking in.” Zormna yawned. “He lectured at me for nearly an hour. By the time I got to bed, it was two in the morning.” She closed her eyes, trying to block out the blinding florescent lights above.

“Rule three: No gum chewing—ever. If I catch you with gum you are on clean-up duty and Saturday detention. Don’t test me on this….” The teacher continued his list.

“What? You didn’t sleep during his lecture?” Jeff put in jokingly.

Wearily, Zormna lifted up her head and delivered a pained look. “Oh please, sleep through an Irishman’s lecture? That’s like volunteering to be executed.” She looked up a moment at the teacher and continued in a mild whisper, sticking to their public code words as Zormna knew the classroom could be bugged by the FBI. “I’m grateful that he only lectures at me when he is mad. If he were any other Irishman, he would have slit my throat.”

Jeff grimaced. “Point.”

“Rule five: No late papers. You can, however, drive up to my house just before midnight to drop it off—if you are that desperate for extra time, but I only allow this for the final paper. Anything later than midnight is an automatic fail. No marked down papers if late. It is simply an automatic F. Don’t test me on this.” Mr. Humphries’s voice boomed over their whispers like a deep foghorn. The class murmured. No one dared protest the rules as he laid them out. It was like facing a general.

“Maybe you can get an earlier shift at the burger place so you don’t come home so late,” Jeff suggested.

Zormna shook her head. “My shift really isn’t that late. They don’t even need me that much.”

“I could just talk to Mr. McLenna for you. He still only knows me as Todd’s friend. I would just be helping out a friend—helping them keep their promise while he is off at college,” Jeff suggested.

Zormna shook her head. “Don’t be stupid. The McLennas think you are trouble. Maybe it is instinctive.”

“Very funny.” Now a bit irritated, Jeff replied under the masculine rumble of his teacher’s voice as he laid out another rule, “You could always quit and sell that stupid car.”

Zormna scowled. She opened her mouth retort.  

“You two! Rule number seven: No whispering! Haven’t you been listening?” Mr. Humphries bellowed across the room.

“Well—” Jeff started, sitting up straighter in his seat as his face colored.

“Rule number two:” Mr. Humphries cut him off. “Stand when I call on you! You haven’t been listening! You have been talking this ENTIRE TIME!”

Their teacher’s voice carried into the nearby classrooms as he shouted. They could feel the school quiet to stillness around them.

Brian looked up from his rule list, blinking toward Jeff. And Joy turned around in her seat and stared at them.

Both Jeff and Zormna had leaned back from the teacher in surprise.

Mr. Humphries marched to their back half of the room like some kind of educated grizzly, fully in suit and tie. He folded his arms.

“WELL?” He tapped his foot impatiently.

Jeff slowly rose out of his seat, staring at the man who now seemed like didn’t belong in his nicely white, pressed shirt, but a lumberjack outfit. Looking around the room once, Jeff shrugged his shoulders and said, “Yes, sir… I was sort of listening.”

“Sort of listening? Either you are or you aren’t listening.” Mr. Humphries’ scowl deepened. “What’s your name?”         

“Jeff Streigle, sir,” Jeff said. Taking a breath while peeking once more to the others around him who fearfully hoped their famous wrestler wouldn’t attack the teacher (as Jeff’s pretended reputation let on), he added to show he had no intentions to be violent, “I was trying to listen.”

“You were talking,” Mr. Humphries replied curtly, his eyes taking in Jeff’s face. They traced the scar across Jeff’s nose and his right cheek, then flickered to the faint scars peeking out from under the boy’s shirt at the base of his neck and on the back of his arms.

Zormna bit her lip with a glance up at Jeff then her teacher. Brian winced for his friend. They both knew what their teacher was probably thinking about him.

“It takes two to talk. Who is your accomplice?” the teacher asked, glancing down at Zormna’s pale face.

Zormna stared up at the teacher then closed her eyes. In occasions such as these, being so singled out by an instructor, Zormna would have assumed he was an FBI plant. Thing was, she knew he was a Pennington High school old timer on tenure—one of the few that did not give tenure a bad name. It was one of the reasons why she had chosen his class. She briskly stood up.

Several people jumped, as she had done it fast.

“Zormna Clendar, sir,” she said.

Her teacher gazed down at her and disdainfully replied, “I wasn’t talking to you. I was addressing the boy.”

Zormna nodded, peeking quickly at Jeff. “I know sir, but he was only asking about my health, sir. He noticed that I didn’t sleep well, and he simply tried to—”

“Shut up and sit down, Xena,” he abruptly cut her off. “I said I was talking to this boy here.”

“It’s Zormna,” she put in flatly.

Her teacher didn’t react.

“It is Zormna, sir,” Jeff added, leaning toward him with a degree of warning.

“Irrelevant. Sit down, young lady.” Turning to Jeff, Mr. Humphries said, “And you—”

“He goes by Jeff.” Zormna remained standing, her fists clenching. This time everyone stared at her, hoping she would not attack the teacher as her short temper was almost more famous than Jeff’s made-up history.

Jeff smiled faintly at her gesture. She had struggled with calling him by his assumed name for some time, but at least he knew she was trying.

Their teacher was not amused. “I said sit down.”

People expected a fight. But Zormna sat down immediately—looking put off… but obedient. That moment they remembered that she had been raised a soldier and responded well to orders.

Jeff, of course, remained standing. He was rocking on his heels and waiting for the ‘other shoe to fall’ as it were, though everyone could tell he really didn’t care. Brian was stunned by the notion, actually. Jeff seemed like he was just biding his time. And for Brian, that feeling was little unnerving.

Yet, while gazing at the two, Mr. Humphries took a step back. He stared at them for a long moment, drawing in his own understanding of what and who he was seeing. In fact, he stepped back again to get another look.

Jeff and Zormna watched him as he backed farther, almost to the chalkboard, both growing puzzled. They could see the cogs in their teacher’s mind shift as he gradually smiled to himself. What he knew about them, they didn’t know, but that was enough to make them both worry.

“Let the punishment fit the crime, as I like to say,” their teacher finally declared. “Open your books to page twenty-three.”

Jeff sat down as the class opened up their textbooks. He quickly flipped his to the page entitled Romeo and Juliet. Jeff glanced sideways at his teacher and wondered what he was up to. Then he peeked at Zormna who had merely glanced at the title. She plopped the book open on her desk appearing neither pleased nor otherwise about it. But then why would it make an impression on her since her experience with Earth culture was still so minimal?

Mr. Humphries gazed toward Brian and Joy then the other students who sat around them. He nodded confidently to himself as he said, “You’re that wrestler that consorts with Jonathan Baker and Todd McLenna, aren’t you? Alex’s brother, right?”

Brian peeked at Jeff to see his reaction.

Jeff nodded apprehensively, wondering why Jonathan and Todd were mentioned. Then again, he realized, that they probably had Mr. Humphries the last year, along with ‘Alex’ who had graduated.

“And you’re that girl that embarrassed him last year in the tug-of-war pit, aren’t you?” the teacher continued with a steady gaze toward Zormna.

Jeff closed his eyes with an internal moan. His cheeks grew hot at the reminder of last year’s Olympic events. Of course, this event had been immortalized in last year’s Yearbook with a photo and a caption “Other Wars in the Pit.” In the picture, Jeff had been covered in mud while Zormna stood triumphantly over him, half her head coated in the muck along with most of her clothes. She had just wrestled and pinned him in that mucky pit a few seconds before. And he was last year’s state champ in wrestling.

Eyes turned on Zormna, staring, though Brian and Joy waited for how she would respond. At first, she had averted her gaze toward the ceiling, pretending she didn’t hear. Though, in the waiting silence Zormna finally nodded so the teacher would finish with the questions.

Mr. Humphries grinned darkly, watching the pair of them. “Good. Then you two are perfect for playing our Romeo and Juliet. That way you can talk in class constructively.”

Jeff groaned and hit his head on his desktop.

Zormna looked ahead at the teacher, nonplussed. She glanced back at Jeff a moment, growing more puzzled by his reaction, which seemed entirely illogical. With a glance to her open book, she finally raised her hand.

“Yes?” their teacher innocently asked, waiting for a protest.

Zormna stood up, per the rules, and flatly inquired, “And how is this supposed to be punishment?”

Mr. Humphries nearly laughed. He could see she did not understand, but he found it ridiculous that their professed Irishwoman did not know about the Shakespeare play.

Jeff tugged the hem of her shirt to make her sit down. “No, Zormna. It’s bad. He knows we don’t get along.”

Zormna looked down at him, slowing sitting back in her seat. “So?”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Romeo and Juliet were…” He groaned wishing he didn’t have to explain every embarrassing thing. “Zormna, they were… oh, roach… they were lovers.”

While the teacher smugly watched, Zormna’s face immediately contorted into disgust.

But their friends broke into laughter. This was the Zormna they knew. She hated romance. And the idea of being paired with Jeff (let alone anyone) made her revolt. The rest of the class joined in the laughter, finding her reaction incredibly amusing.

“Do we have to do this?” Zormna asked, turning to her teacher with what seemed to the others the inclination to drop to her knees to beg for mercy.

Mr. Humphries nodded, still smiling.

But instead of begging, or protesting, Zormna folded her arms and sulkily dropped into her chair.

They didn’t talk for the rest of the class period.

 

When the first hour let out, Jeff gathered up his things and slipped out of the aisles with Brian to go to their next class, which was Economics. Mr. Humphries nodded to him as he departed, still enjoying his solution to his minor discipline problem. Jeff could hear other students commenting as he stepped out the door, “I wouldn’t mind playing Romeo with that chick. She’s hot.”

“Yeah, but if you tell her that she’ll clobber you,” Brian warned the boy.

“No way! That tiny—?” his classmate exclaimed.

“Super ninja,” Joy cut in, shaking his head as she walked through them. “Raised in a military school.”

But the boys shot Joy looks as if her opinion was obviously ‘illogical’ and therefore not worth the attention.

“I’d still play opposite her. Maybe get in a kiss before she knows what hit her,” the first guy replied.

Jeff rolled his eyes. Idiots like that deserved what was coming to them. He knew Zormna’s temperament, as did most of the kids at the school. She hated boys hitting on her. It was her first pet peeve. He had heard her once say: “Boys are stupid. They only like me for my looks. How shallow is that? None of them want me. They want the image of me.” It was lucky for them Zormna didn’t over hear their conversation. If she had, they’d be bloody welts on the wall. But no—Mr. Humphries had stopped Zormna before she could leave the room, so she had not overheard any of it.  

“Mrs. Ryant talked to me about you. She wanted me to help you continue your study program from last year. She said you’d get bored otherwise.” Her teacher looked amused as he handed her a pile of books, all from her former teacher’s private stash, including, Of Mice and Men, The Moon is Down, Red Badge of Courage, The Jungle Book, and Vanity Fair.

Zormna picked up the pile, loading them in her already textbook-filled arms. She then painfully smiled at him.

“Thank you,” she said, “and please tell Mrs. Ryant thank you for me also.”

“Why don’t you tell her yourself? She wants to have you join the English club after school when you aren’t cheerleading so she can check up on your progress.” Mr. Humphries gazed at her as if he was feeling a mixture of annoyance and amusement. “What are you, some kind of child prodigy?”

“Something like that,” Zormna said. She delivered another practiced smile while balancing her books.

Rubbing his temple, Mr. Humphries laughed in disbelief. “Well, Mrs. Ryant certainly has decided to make you her pet project. However, if you can finish these books and still make it in your school work—let alone your other extracurricular activities—I might agree with her.” His eyes fixed more determinedly on her as his voice went grave. “But don’t sleep in my class if you exhaust yourself. I saw you this morning. That boy was keeping you up. He kept you from breaking rule number ten: no sleeping in my class. I really hate that.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Zormna replied while still struggling with her book stack.

The teacher nodded to her.

Zormna took that as a ‘you can go’, so she walked out the door.

She barely had time to run to her locker with her stack of books so she went straight to her next classroom instead. When she did arrive, the room was already full. There were only a few open seats left. One was next to Michelle Clay and Stacey Price two of her fellow cheerleaders. The other seat was next to Jennifer McLenna.

Michelle, the head cheerleader who always dressed like one of those girls who wanted to be a pop star someday, waved for Zormna to join her in her corner, while Jennifer waved her over to her side of the room. Apparently, Jennifer had saved her the seat as she knew they would be together that year. Zormna clenched her teeth and joined Jennifer, knowing that she was offending the captain of the cheer team, but that was a great deal better than offending the girl whom she lived with. Michelle scowled when Zormna turned away. But it seemed as if Stacey was reminding Michelle that ‘Zormna and Jennifer were like sisters since she lived with her and all’—or that was how Zormna imagined she was saying it.

Stacey was a bleached blonde, petite pixie-cut devotee of Michelle’s who seemed mostly devoted to being on the up-and-up with all things ‘modern’, including attitude about boys, life and being in with the crowd. Zormna had mentally nicknamed her ‘the little follower’.

Dropping all her books onto the desk, Zormna then plopped into the chair. She looked about the room to get her bearings. Like Mr. Humphries’s classroom, these desks were the cheap ones and they were set in rows. But unlike Mr. Humphries’s room, the door was at the back, and the room itself was decorated up to the window panes with old, almost musty, displays of colorful (bleached out, mind you) ethnic something or other artifacts and imagery. The writing alongside these images had words like Apartheid and Multicultural and Globalization. There were also a fair number of maps and flags. Small rectangular flags rimmed the entire top edge of the room like the wallpaper trim in the fancied-up living room in Kevin Jacobson’s house. The entire room had a worn out, re-used appearance to it.

Their instructor, who was a woman of tall, almost willowy, stature sat at the front desk shuffling a heaping stack of papers, counting them. She was either ignoring the murmur of the students and the buzzing of the late bell, or didn’t hear it. Everyone watched her once she stood up. She was old, nearly fifty anyway, and she wore old pea green polyester pants and a matching pea green and orange blouse—a throwback outfit from the seventies. Or maybe she just shopped at thrift stores. That’s what the girls behind Zormna whispered. The teacher had a pleasant face. Her manner was rather hushing as she walked to the front of each of the rows of seats and handed the first person in the rows a stack of stapled papers.

“Take one and pass the rest back. The ends of the rows bring the extras forward to me.” The teacher returned to the center front of the room and sat back in her chair, her movements akin to a swami seeking a Zen state, or something like that. She appeared to be a mishmash of different ideologies. Zormna could not tell if she did it for show, or if she really thought that way.

Jennifer peeked over her shoulder at Zormna, raising her eyebrows as if to make a comment. Zormna didn’t read her expression though, as she peered back at the teacher who, to her, just seemed odd.

“I wonder if she has a list of rules she’d going to read off. That stack looked very thick,” Zormna murmured aloud to herself.

Jennifer smirked with another peek back and shrugged. The girl ahead of her handed back the stack. She took it, removing one for herself, and passed it to Zormna. Zormna took one and passed it back without even looking at who was behind her. Soon the ends of each line walked up to the front of the room and returned the extras to the teacher.

“Everyone, turn to the second page. We will go over class rules,” their instructor said. “But before we begin, we are in American History. If you were not planning on taking American History or if you are lost, I suggest you leave now and hand back the syllabus.”

A low murmur ran through the room.

One student stood up and walked to the front of the class, handing the teacher a transfer slip. Their teacher signed it without as much as a word. When done, the girl that wanted to get out of the class quickly gathered her things and rushed from the room.

“Anyone else?” the teacher asked.

Everyone looked around at one another, but no one else made a move.

“Good.” Their teacher walked to the open class door and closed it. She then silently strode back to the front of the room.

Everyone felt like the room had immediately become smaller and they were ensnared in some sort of evil trap, or at least that was how Zormna was starting to feel. Closed doors these days bothered her. Like Brian, she saw the benefits of sitting near a window. Besides giving her view, having an escape route near was comforting. Besides, the woman’s silence made her nervous. False stoicism, it felt like. Staged, like the woman was waiting for something.

“Ok. Now we’ll read page two,” the teacher said.

Zormna flipped her syllabus open and looked at the page. In the center was one word, printed in bold type.

 

Respect

 

Zormna glanced over at Jennifer’s paper to see if perhaps she had gotten an incomplete packet, but Jennifer was also staring blankly at the small word in the middle of the enormously blank paper.

“This is what I expect of you. You are old enough to know what that is. If you need it clarified into itty bitty details so you can stretch the rules to their maximum then perhaps you are not as mature as you all claim to be.” Their teacher stood up and wrote the words I have rights on the chalkboard. “This is a claim most people use flippantly today. Instead of respecting others and their own privileges, they assume they can ram their way through life and say, ‘I have my rights.’ Well, in this class you cannot do that. We will learn about our responsibility as Americans. We will learn about our privileges as Americans. We will learn our duty as Americans. And we will learn respect.”

Their teacher seemed rather remarkable in spite of her outdated polyester outfit. Zormna felt a strange, yes, respect for her. Though, she withheld any judgment except for a hope that she was going to like this woman.

A hand raised in the back of the class.

“Yes?” their teacher said, seeing it and pointing to the one.

“But what if you aren’t an American? Wouldn’t this be completely pointless then?”

Zormna recognized Michelle Clay’s voice. Part of her wanted to sink into her chair as she knew Michelle was razzing her. The other part of her wanted to declare she was happy not to be an American, especially considering the political garbage on the news recently. Of course, it was best to simply ignore Michelle entirely.

Their teacher held a pained expression. “This class is relevant for everyone, Miss…?”

“Clay, Michelle Clay,” Michelle said, though she glanced at Zormna with a sneer.

Zormna rolled her eyes and tried to ignore it.

“Has it in for you?” a voice whispered to her right.

Zormna looked to the source. A rather handsome boy with dark hair sat next to her, leaning in to listen. But it was not him who had spoken. It was a girl in the seat behind him who seemed familiar, though Zormna could not place who she was. Yet the watchful gaze of boy’s bright inspecting eyes caused Zormna to blush.

Zormna shrugged to her.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” The girl at her right was silently laughing, peeking up at the teacher who was continuing on with her overview of their plans for the school year.

Shaking her head, Zormna whispered, “No. But you’re familiar.”

Jennifer looked back also, then stared at the girl as if she had been slapped.

“I sat next to you in Science class last year,” the girl said, still not telling her name while continuing to look incredibly amused. “I used to wear lots of black eyeliner.”

Zormna gasped, pulling back. “Jessica? Jessica Clark?”

The girl had been severely Goth the last time Zormna had seen her, including white face, black lipstick and tons of black eye makeup. She still wore a Megadeath tee shirt and torn jeans, but her hair was a more natural shade rather than her previous ink black, and she wore no makeup at all. Jessica was also an old ex-best friend of Jennifer’s, which was why both girls were bristling when their eyes connected.

Their teacher continued talking as Zormna stared at Jessica’s clean face.

“The rest of the packet is for the projects you will be doing for the remainder of the year. The first project will be contributing to the Culture Fair. Our class will be providing the booths. You need to research a cultural background—either one of your own or one you are interested in—and present it at the fair….”

“I’ve changed a lot, huh?” Jessica said, though eyeing Jennifer as if waiting for a snide remark to come from her ex-friend’s mouth.

But the teacher’s words instantly distracted Zormna. And what was being said sent a shudder through her, as it did not sound like regular book work.

“…The next project will be Oktoberfest. You must write a paper about one tradition your family participates in and why it is significant. Honesty is valued more than B.S. It must be five pages long and clear. I’m grading on content, not grammar. Though, I will mark you down for excessive errors.”

Zormna swallowed. She started to think of all the things she could write about or do. Her claims about being Irish weren’t disputed, yet if they knew how little she did know about Ireland, it might be. The only ones who knew the truth were Jeff (of course), Jennifer and two others whom she had really hoped to have kept out of the secret. However, these projects would reveal the truth to all if she was not careful. Maybe she could research Korea instead. 

“At Christmas, when the semester ends, we’ll contribute to the Christmas Around the World celebration by providing food for the festivities and doing other useful things,” the teacher said with a broad, almost giddy sort of grin. Zormna realized then that she had been mistaken. Her teacher was actually one of those people she would have avoided back Home—the ‘excitable party planner’.

Zormna internally groaned.

Jessica chimed in with a similar huff.

“Isn’t this an American History class?” Jennifer murmured out loud, flipping through the papers. “What’s with all the World History stuff?”

Zormna looked up. It did seem odd that they were doing so many multicultural projects.

Her teacher perked her long neck, overhearing that.

“America is made up of the many different people of the world. That is what makes us unique as a nation,” their teacher said in a strong defensive tone. “I think this is exceedingly appropriate, Miss…?”

Jennifer blushed, realizing that she had been overheard. “McLenna, Jennifer McLenna.”

Jessica snickered. Jennifer shot her a dirty look.

Nearby, Tammy Davis, a know-it-all who was also in Zormna’s English class, also chuckled. Zormna peered at her, wondering what her deal was. She knew why Jessica was acting the way she was.

The teacher nodded and ticked something off in her book.

“And you are of Scottish heritage?” her teacher asked while perusing her class folder. Her mouth twisted up in thought.

Jennifer slowly shook her head, peeking once at Zormna when she said, “Irish.”

Zormna covered a smirk with her hand. Of course, Jennifer had to maintain she was Irish as much as she had. She couldn’t rightly say Martian in the surrounding company.

The teacher smiled with veiled calculation, somehow recognizing her. “I see.” She then continued to lecture the class, though still mostly at Jennifer. “I expect the best effort from you on your projects. Now onto our text.”

The teacher picked up the book and started to explain it, thumbing through the table of contents while mentioning each chapter. Zormna glanced at it while Jennifer grimly flopped it open on her desk. And though history of the nation she was living in was important to learn, Zormna finally decided she was going to dread this class. She realized that her teacher was not really intending to teach history, but to teach her point-of-view of history. And that, Zormna knew, was a dangerous place to tread.

 

“I thought she was cool,” Stacey said as she walked out of the room arm in arm with Michelle while practically elbowing Jessica aside. Jessica shot Stacey an ugly look before waving to Zormna as she went off to her other classes. She and Zormna had no time to catch up about their summer vacation, especially with Jennifer so close, so Jessica had promised to explain the ‘transformation’ in Health class after lunch—a class they had together.  

Jennifer tried to keep a tight lip, knowing that Zormna might not react well to remarks about her ‘cheering friends’, never mind Jessica. When she glanced over at her ‘alien’ friend to see what Zormna was thinking, she noticed the blonde looked worried and entirely preoccupied. Such an expression had not crossed Zormna’s face since the end of the last school year, and it wasn’t one she usually held after a class. Had she spotted a new FBI agent on campus? Did she find bugs around their classroom? If Zormna worried, then Jennifer believed she had to worry also. Because usually Zormna was smug about her IQ and felt free to brag about how advanced her schooling had been. And yet, the first thing that came out of Zormna’s mouth was: “How am I supposed to do any of those projects?”

Jennifer blinked at that thought, and stiffened. Of course… But thank heaven it had nothing to do with the FBI.

Under her breath as she trudged down the hallway, Zormna muttered, “I don’t know anything about Irish traditions. I was raised military. And she said she can tell if you are making things up.”

“You can always just tell her that,” a boy’s voice came from behind the gaggle of girls.

Zormna looked back. So did Jennifer. They were surprised to see that same boy that had sat next to them in History. The good-looking newcomer. He was walking not far behind them with his heavy books weighing down his arms.

“Hi, I’m Sam, Sam Perkins. I also have English with you,” he said to Zormna, trying to extend a hand while balancing his books.

Zormna glanced sideways at him then gingerly took his hand. “Are you following me to Biology?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “No, my locker is this way.” He then tried to clear his throat. “I… I could work on the History project with you. We could… we could be partners.”

A crooked smile bent at the corners or her mouth. It was the most polite way a boy had ever hit on her. “That’s very flattering.”

“But she’s with me,” Jennifer said, breaking in. “Come on, Zormna, we’ll be late for Biology.”

She dragged the blonde by the arm, which Zormna resisted, watching the boy with a blushing grin on her face.

Sam watched her go, clearly sighing. He heaved his books and bent towards his new locker.

“That’s a hottie,” a blond boy from the same class said with a similar yearning grin while standing next to Sam. He had also followed them. “I hear she’s hard to get. But for a second there it looked like you almost got her.”

Lifting his eyes toward him a moment, Sam dumped his books inside the locker and slammed the door shut. “Do you think she’s going out with that senior, that wrestler guy with the scar?”

“That’s the rumor.” The blonde smiled. “However, I also heard she once broke his nose.”

Sam choked on a laugh. “You’re kidding.”

“That’s the rumor,” the blonde replied.

Extending his hand, he said, “I’m Sam.”

Taking it. “Adam Arbor.”

Health class after lunch with Jessica was enlightening. Besides, finding out that they would have lessons on sex-education in the course, Zormna caught up with her friend whom she had not seen since last June.  

They sat in the back of the room, whispering while the teacher delivered his lecture about the kind of homework they would be doing, including a large paper about contraceptives. The usual faces peeked back at them, or rather at Zormna since many had a hard time remembering who Jessica was. But Jessica finally explained her dramatic change.

“It goes like this,” Jessica said once their teacher turned off the lights and started a short film about the necessity of clean water, “When school ended, I decided to paint my walls black. And Mom and Dad flipped out.”

Zormna scratched the side of her head, agreeing it was a good reason to ‘flip out’.

 “And so they sent me to live with my aunt out west in California where she had me work on an organic farm.” Jessica sighed and shook her head as if it had been too much at the time to handle. “I almost ran away, but my aunt took me places and showed me what happens in those makeup places. You know, those manufacturers. And she showed me all the animal testing they did on the animals. And I was like, seriously grossed out. I mean, really grossed out.”

Zormna stared, a little confused. She never really wore makeup herself, but that was mostly because it seemed superficial and silly.

“And then… I dunno, I realized I was just doing the same thing that Jenny… uh, Jennifer, was doing when I first got mad at her.” Jessica sighed, thinking about it. “You know, going with the crowd. Only the crowd I was following was the Goth crowd.”

Zormna waited, still confused, but sure Jessica would explain.

“You know how last year I said there were all these cliques that kids try to fit into?”

Zormna nodded slowly, listening. The conversation Jessica was mentioning happened when she had asked about what broke up Jennifer and Jessica’s friendship. It was mostly about them both getting mad at each other and parting ways into separate cliques. Yet after that, the conversation meandered over to Jeff and Jessica’s odd crush on him. Jessica liked bad boys. Reminded of it, Zormna realized that she never had the opportunity to explain to her that Jeff was a lot more like Brian Henderson and Todd McLenna, whom Jessica had described as oatmeal. At the core, he was a very good boy. Spiritually minded. He just had that bad boy façade. Zormna wondered if now was a good time to tell her.

“Well, anyway,” Jessica murmured, turning her eyes to the movie screen. “I realized during the summer that I was just fitting myself into another box, and I really wasn’t happy. So… I quit doing the whole makeup thing. And now I am trying to find myself.”

Staring, Zormna felt even more confused.

And Jessica nodded, chuckling at her expression. “I know. I know. It sounds so cliché. But really… I kind of don’t know who I am right now. Or what I am supposed to do with my life.”

That, Zormna understood. Deeply. Only her problem, she thought with a heavy sigh, was that she had been told exactly who she was and what she had to do with her life. And it was just too much.

“I just don’t like people telling me what to do,” Jessica murmured, huffing.

Zormna nodded. She hated it too.

“Mom wants me to go into activism…” Jessica rolled her eyes. “Dad wants me to pursue art.”

Lifting her gaze, Zormna blinked at her. “You paint?”

Jessica grinned, nodding. “You wanna see?”

Interested, Zormna nodded.

Jessica opened up one of her folders and slipped out a small sketchbook. She showed Zormna the pictures slowly, one by one. They were mostly sketches, some realistic, some stylistic. All were beautiful.

“These are amazing,” Zormna murmured, raking them in. She could not take her eyes off them. “I can’t even draw.”

Chuckling, Jessica said, “I doubt that. Everybody is an artist. Picasso said so.”

“Who?” Zormna stared at the picture, though.

Chuckling more, Jessica shook her head. “You… you really need to get out more, soldier girl.”

When school let out, Zormna met Jennifer outside her English class with a towering stack of heavy books in her arms. As they lugged their loads home, Zormna groaned under the enormous weight. “I can’t believe Mr. Zimmer gave us three chapters to read in that chemistry book.”

“Mr. Zimmer was always a hard teacher. I told you not to take him,” Jennifer said, trotting home with a much lighter load.

Zormna scowled. “I didn’t pick him, the computer did. The entire school was messed over by that new computer. In Chemistry, Darren told me he ended up in Wood Shop with Kevin.”

“Kevin is in Wood Shop? He didn’t tell me. I didn’t think he liked the class.” Jennifer picked at her fingernails, thinking about her boyfriend, who, like Darren Asher, was in the know on Zormna’s secret—or, at least part of it. Kevin believed Zormna was a princess from a tiny country in Europe on the brink of a revolution, and secrecy was vital for her survival. They kept the Mars detail out of it. 

“Well, at least this week is half over,” Zormna said, hefting her books higher in her arms.

“It’s Tuesday. Halfway point isn’t until Wednesday.” Jennifer’s smugness seemed to be amplified by the fact that she had no homework and the hardest of her classes would be Biology. “By the way, what did Jessica say to you? I mean about the no makeup, half-goth thing.”

Chuckling weakly, Zormna eyed Jennifer. “You know, you could have asked her in History.”

Jennifer shot her a dark look that said, ‘Quit stalling.’

Of course, Zormna knew Jennifer would never purposely talk with her ex-best friend if she could help it. She finally replied, “Jessica said that her parents decided to put their foot down about the Goth stuff—especially after Jessica wanted to paint the walls in her bedroom black. And her mother insisted that Jessica take a break from makeup altogether because of animal testing—I think it was. I am not quite sure how they correlate…”

With a snicker, Jennifer nodded. “Her mom’s all nature and pro-environment stuff. You never pay attention to those issues because you never wear makeup.”

Zormna struggled with her books. They were slipping. “Well, I hope you get that car from Jafarr soon so we can drive our books home instead of carrying them five blocks.”

Jennifer could feel that stab of guilt again. She continued to walk while trying not to acknowledge the fact that Jeff had told her at lunch that the car wouldn’t be ready for at least another week.

They reached the McLenna home. But Zormna halted sharply on the sidewalk. She took a breath and closed her eyes, and for good reason. Entering Jennifer’s home was like entering a battleground. Zormna hated facing it every day.

That summer, Zormna had done everything to get out of the house. The parents had still refused to grant her status as an emancipated minor. But they had also retracted their plan to send her into the foster system after Zormna informed them that the Henderson family intended to pick her up and take her into their home if she went into foster care. Jennifer’s parents didn’t like that. They considered a move to the Hendersons’ a reward for misbehavior. So, they went back to just keeping Zormna under their eye—all the time. And though that meant she would be living with others who could watch her back, Zormna daily dreaded facing Jennifer’s parents. After all, it was their people… their caste that had murdered her parents and all her ancestors.

It made her limbs shake at the thought that one day Jennifer’s parents might give in to their hatred towards her family. And that thought was not one she liked to linger on much.

“I… I think I’ll just go to my house,” Zormna said, taking a step back.

Jennifer stopped, now at the side door which led into the kitchen, pulling it open. “Are you sure that’s wise? Mom gets awfully cranky when she doesn’t know exactly where you are.”

Zormna swallowed. Jennifer was right. She marched up the driveway and joined Jennifer at the side door, setting her books on the steps. “Alright, but I’m not leaving my books here.”

Jennifer nodded and opened the door. They walked into the kitchen together.

The kitchen was clean and rather typical for their neighborhood. The walls and drapes were in the Americana color scheme with farm houses, chickens, ducks and cows. It was Mrs. McLenna’s way of acclimatizing to American culture. Jennifer’s mom wasn’t in sight, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in the house.

Tearing out a piece of paper from her spiral notebook, Zormna went directly to the counter and started to write. “I think I’ll just leave her a note.”

But Zormna did not even get halfway through writing the note when Mrs. McLenna walk down the carpeted stairs and step into the room. Her eyes took in the pair of them.

“You’re home,” Mrs. McLenna said, gazing darkly at Zormna though more brightly at her eldest daughter. “How was school? Do you have any homework?”

“School was fine,” Jennifer said. “And I have no homework today.”

Zormna had halted in her writing. She kept her face expressionless to avoid any accusation of contempt or any other imagined sass. It was too late to escape. She had to give up her futile attempt to run off to her the house she had inherited from her great aunt. Not that she ever had much success in sneaking off anyway. The parents were remarkably vigilant. And not just towards her, but towards everyone. Jennifer often said they were naturally paranoid and their kids could get away with nothing.

Mrs. McLenna smiled at her daughter. “Good. You,” pointing to Zormna, “can start mowing the back lawn. It needs trimming.” Mrs. McLenna then attempted to shoo off Jennifer to do something else. She started to pull out dishes to make dinner.

But Jennifer didn’t budge. “Mom, you can’t just make her do all the work. Besides, she actually does have homework.”

Glared past her daughter at Zormna, Jennifer’s mother replied, “She has to earn her keep.”

Zormna nodded and moved to do the chore, as she really didn’t want to be the topic of yet another argument between mother and daughter.

“She has her own house!” Jennifer retorted in exasperation, watching Zormna go. “For pity’s sake! Let her move out!”

“Well, the law makes us her guardian,” her mother argued back, urging Zormna faster

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 03.04.2017
ISBN: 978-3-7554-7918-5

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