The Secret of Zormna Clendar by Julie Steimle (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📕

not do anything freaky.”

“Like the Macarena?” Alex snickered.

Zormna rolled her eyes. “We’re not aliens, Kevin. Forget what Darren said. We’re just like you, human beings just trying to live.”

“Ok, ok!” Kevin raised his hands. “I know. I’m glad, but I get it. I just….” He shook his head then glanced at Jennifer who had maintained her silence. “I just don’t like all this secrecy.”

 “But it’s necessary,” Jeff said.

Kevin nodded. “Fine. Everybody would think I was a nut anyway if I said that you were from somewhere different than Chicago. Besides, I don’t trust those FBI. What they did to Zormna was not right.”

The room practically sighed with relief.

Then all turned toward Darren again.

“I want to hear you say it once more.” Jeff glared down at the tall teenager.

Darren nodded, visually smothering his enjoyment. “I swear on the pain of death that I will not mention any of this to the FBI.”

“Or to anyone else,” Zormna added with emphasis.

Emitting a reluctant huff, like one caught trying to use a loophole, Darren replied, “And not anyone else.”

“Good.” Zormna turned to go to the front door. She looked weary, like one of her headaches was coming.

But Jeff yanked Darren off the couch, hissing close to his face. “You’d better not.”

Jennifer and Kevin stepped out of the door as soon as Zormna opened it. She let them out first, lingering with a suspicious look to the road.

No FBI car was in sight. Neither were there suspicious looking people in the shadows. Quite possibly, somewhere else in Pennington the FBI were scrambling about in worry over where their targets had gone.

Jennifer took Kevin’s hand, first for her support, though he clenched it for his own. Honestly, though, Jennifer was now floating on the euphoria that a foreign princess had been living in her house with her family this entire time—never mind that she really was a princess from another planet. She was more than happy to keep the alien secret from her boyfriend.

Jennifer looked back once as she tugged Kevin towards an alley for a more roundabout way home. Darren stood outside on the lawn, gazing up at the darkening sky, just as ecstatic as Jennifer felt. It was still quite light, not yet dark enough for stars. The idiot was still enjoying the whole let-into-the-alien-secret bit. Undoubtedly he still did not think Zormna was anything but a Martian. He smiled in that dopey sort of way, clearly waiting for Zormna so he could walk her home. Of course, when Jennifer looked back at Jeff, she realized that was not going to happen. Jeff stood in the doorway with his arms folded, glaring at Darren with irritation that said, “Get out of my sight.”

He was still as enigmatic as ever.

But Zormna remained in the doorway, talking with ‘Aunt Mary’ who went back in to fetch something for Zormna—probably an aspirin with the way Zormna chucked the small object into her mouth and swallowed.

“Let’s go,” Kevin said, tugging on Jennifer’s hand.

Yeah, the aliens would take care of themselves. Together, they walked back into the shadows, going home with lots to think about.

*

Darren finally gave up and went home after Al threw a shoe at him.

Zormna almost thanked Al.

She lingered at the rebels’ house only because she still felt there were loose ends. Jafarr watched her with those eyes of his, wondering. Finally he said, “Want me to walk you home?”

Peering at him to see if he was serious, Zormna choked on a laugh. She shook her head. “Walk me home? Since when are you so polite?”

Jafarr rolled his eyes. “I thought that since I am now your bodyguard, I ought to at least—”

Zormna snorted, going down from his front steps. “Oh, please. I can get to the McLenna’s from here without trouble.”

“Can you?” He followed after her. “I can recall a time you didn’t make it to your destination. Do you really feel safe enough to do that now?”

Halting, she glowered at him. “I got here didn’t I?”

He merely shrugged.

Rolling her eyes, she said, “Look. Let’s make a deal. We finish this year the way we started it. No radical change in behavior towards one another—ok? The FBI does not suspect you as far as I can tell, so you really ought not to act familiar with me any more than you already do. That way they never come here. Got it?”

He lifted his eyebrows, thinking about it. He folded his arms.

“That means no following me or acting all bodyguard-ish on me,” she said. “Keep your distance.”

Sighing, Jafarr nodded. “Yeah. I guess that really is the best for now. But what about during the summer? We won’t be at school. You won’t be among lots of people, and I don’t think you really want to stay home with a couple of High Class folk glaring at you.”

Frowning, Zormna thought about that. It would not do to have anyone following her everywhere. The FBI would notice. And though they shared friends, there was no viable excuse she knew of for them to change that—except…. She lifted her head and said, “There’s that sports camp this summer. Starting the end of June. I play it safe, stay close to Jennifer until then, or with Joy and Brian. Then at camp we can play up some pretended friendship. Fine with you?”

But Jafarr cringed. He glanced to Al who was standing in the doorway listening in to their conversation. They shared a quiet look of discussion. Then Al chuckled and walked inside.

“That’s problematic, since I had planned to skip that camp because of Jared,” Jafarr muttered. “But ok. If I’ve got to do it, I’ve got to do it.”

“Who?” Zormna puzzled.

“Never mind.” Jafarr waved it off. “I’m just saying there might be trouble with Monroe Wrestling when we get there. But nothing I can’t handle, so don’t worry about it.”

“Fine.” Zormna walked the rest of the way to the grass, rolling her eyes.

Then she broke into a jog across the lawn. Rounding the hedge, she went back into the alley. She could feel him watching her.

Even after that, she could almost feel him with her, watching over her as she went home. It was a peculiar sensation, but not creepy. In fact, it was the first comforting feeling she had had since she had arrived in Pennington. And she hoped it would last. To have a half-blood seer boy watching her back with his kind of history was not a bad thing.  

On the way back to the McLennas’ home, Zormna’s mind rolled over and over the layers and layers of facts. She was like Jafarr, a descendant of kings, though she would have never conceived of it before this day. Yet it felt like the truth. And like him, she could be the last of her kind. And mostly likely, as frightening as it was, she was under the pressure of a prophecy just like he was.

But was it true?

She didn’t know.

The only thing she knew was that she was no longer alone.

*

The last week of school flew by.

Since the FBI had no idea where Zormna had gone that entire afternoon, nor where Darren had been skulking—not even aware that Jennifer and Kevin had run off to rescue the foreign blonde; they hardly noticed that things had changed.

The changes were subtle anyway.

Zormna, Jennifer realized, had calmed down considerably since the event. She also went about a little happier. Especially when she tried out for the gymnastics team. And since Pennington High really needed her, Zormna now had two school activities to guarantee her protection in the coming year.

Kevin pretended that nothing had happened at all. He took to heart that he ought to pretend that Jennifer was nothing more than an American-born Irish girl. And he went along with perpetuating the story that Zormna was just a girl from an Irish military school. Honestly, he was just glad to be in on the secret.

The only ones besides the threesome who noticed any change were Todd’s friends. But then, it affected them the most. Jeff and Alex no longer ditched when Zormna came around. And though Zormna remained aloof from the brothers, the jeers between Zormna and Jeff had ceased. She even came over to the table when the brothers were there to talk with Todd about the graduation party his parents had nixed, which would have been at her place. An open house would be held in the McLenna’s backyard instead.

Finally, after realizing something had changed, Todd had nudged Alex and asked what had happened. With a shrug, Alex openly admitted that both Zormna and Jeff had secretly met and reconciled their differences for the sake of everybody else. It made Todd happy to hear that.

Not that Zormna ate with them or anything. She continued to eat lunch at Jennifer’s tree to stay out of the sun while drawing as little attention to herself as possible. And she still got huffy when Jeff scratched the scar across his nose with a faintly disgruntled look.

Then of course came final exams.

They were excruciating, Jennifer thought. But already by lunch on the first day of the tests, she heard a rumor that Zormna had finished her exams a little too quickly, and had smugly handed them in to the teacher before everyone else. Amazed, Jennifer believed the gossip—even if came from Jessica and Brandon Fry. After all, it was not even three months ago when the alien girl couldn’t read English.

Zormna probably aced the exam too. She was reading at college level by then.

The other exams played out the same.

Then it was Friday—the last day of school for Pennington High. Most of the classes watched movies or had parties.

With scribbles of signatures, mostly from boys, covering their yearbooks with quick and eager hands, it filled with every kind of graffiti possible—from the humorous to the dirty (Joy edited out all the dirty sketches with black marker when she signed her name). Zormna clasped her book within her fingers and grinned as all the others did on the last day, peering at it occasionally and chuckling at the pictures of people she knew. She and Jennifer lingered the most on the photos from the school Olympics (especially the one of Zormna covered in mud from the tug-of-war pit with Jeff), laughing with gentle ease how bizarre life could get. Jennifer especially checked to make sure no one had stuck in any pictures of Zormna’s brand mark. Not a one.

During lunch, Brian, Mark, Jonathan and Jeff serenaded their two graduating friends, Alex and Todd, with a rendition of I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane. They did it loud enough for all the school to hear. Everyone laughed and clapped. They had altered the lyrics, of course.

“But I’m not leaving Pennington for a while, guys,” Alex retorted when they were done, shooting his brother a look with a shake of his head. “I’m just gonna work at the auto shop so I can pay for college. Then I’ll go in two years.”

“Kill joy,” Jeff said while Todd snickered.

But Brian clapped Alex on the back bursting into song again: “He’s not leaving on a jet plane. We don’t know when he’ll be gone again. But he says he’ll be at college in two more years….”

Jennifer chuckled, wondering about that. Would Alex really go off to college in two years? Or was he just waiting for Jeff to graduate to go? As she mused over that, Jennifer remembered that neither boy was in the same situation as she and Todd. They were rebels—in the middle of a rebellion. Not high school students. School was probably over for them.

But Jeff laughed with his buddies like a boy whose future was as simple as that of the boys around him.

When all the classes were done on that very last day, the entire school returned home to change clothes for graduation. It was a Pennington High tradition to hold the graduation ceremony outside on the football stadium where they had enough seats. When it rained during graduation,