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

Chapter Eighteen: Missing Persons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Nits make lice”—Custer—

 

Jennifer did not want to believe that the FBI had kidnapped Zormna. Alex Streigle had been so certain, and Jeff so flippant, that she had to go back to make sure Zormna was not just doing an excellent job of evasion. So as soon as she could get out of the house Saturday morning, Jennifer hurried back to the crazy lady’s place to see if Zormna had come back. Jennifer had to break in through a downstairs window that had been left slightly open to search the place. But she had no luck. The house was just as empty as the Friday before.

Zormna was gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.

And though everything told her to just give up and cry, she wrote a note for Zormna on a napkins from the kitchen…just in case she came back. Jennifer left it on the coffee table.

Then Jennifer recruited Kevin, who resisted at the get go.

“You mean she just ran away?” Tired, irritated with Zormna for behaving like a brat as he saw the girl, Kevin only listened to Jennifer’s truncated explanation (sans aliens). “But your parents and Zormna have always been arguing over something.”

“All the same, where do you think she would hide?” Jennifer asked her boyfriend. She knew this was going to be difficult, but she didn’t want to recruit Darren’s help again. Knowing Darren, he’d add up the alien connection. Then she’d really be screwed.

Kevin shrugged. “I don’t know. If I were running away, I’d go to the bus station. Then from there to the city.”

The bus station? Zormna? That did not seem like her. She was more of an on-foot kind of gal.

“How about somewhere more local?”

“Zormna has money, Jennifer,” Kevin impatiently reminded. “She could buy a bus ticket.”

But Jennifer knew he just didn’t want to look.

“I don’t think she had her wallet on her at all,” Jennifer explained, hanging her shoulders “She just ran from the house.”

“Ok.” Finally Kevin gave in, sighing. “Maybe…uh…she’s gone to the…forest. Yeah. There are campgrounds over there.”

Thinking that over, Jennifer nodded.

Campgrounds, yes. And inconspicuous places where spacecraft can land. That’s what Darren had said once. Spacecraft could land in the forest without being seen, especially at night. Zormna could have gone back to a landing area. Maybe she was trying to signal her home from there.

“Let’s check it out.” She pulled him along, eager to get going.

Kevin trudged after her. “Alright….”

It was kind of awful that Zormna’s disappearance was the reason she finally got to be with Kevin out on Star Watching Hill. But he took her hand as if it had been a date.

They walked there. It was an older end of town which had homes that would look natural on that old TV show, the Brady Bunch. Old 70’s paint jobs and sharp edged lawns, most of them. The road itself ended then turned into gravel, leading up to the bald spot just inside the tree line. The path upward led far enough until they could no longer see houses.

But Zormna was not there.

“Should we try the hiking paths?” Jennifer suggested.

Sighing, Kevin shrugged, heading toward one. “But let’s not go too far.”

She nodded.

They only went in far enough to see if there was any trace of a human travel. But Jennifer was no girl scout, and Kevin never went camping without a trailer. So soon they both turned around and walked back.

They looked in a few other trails. But even with their inexperienced tracking skills they could tell that no one had run off into the woods that weekend. By this time it was getting dark, and Kevin insisted that they head home.

Coming out of the woods and back onto the asphalt road, Jennifer and Kevin were more subdued as they walked into the neighborhood. Most of the street was empty except for a pair of college boys who were unloading their hatchback of groceries, taking it to their house. Jennifer decided for one last try.

She hurried up to the stocky blonde, letting go of Kevin’s hand. “I’m sorry. Excuse me, but we’re looking for a girl who may have come this way last night. She’s small. Has blonde hair. She would have been crying…”

The man stared at her then looked to Kevin, blinking. “What is this about?”

Kevin sighed. “Last night, her—our friend ran away from home. And we’re looking for her.”

Jennifer appreciated the change in Kevin’s tone. She smiled at him.

But the college man exchanged a look with his roommate and shrugged. “What does she look like again?”

“Have you seen someone come this way?” Jennifer asked, hope rising.

But his roommate, this lanky redhead, said, “Lots of people come to Star Watching Hill. But I think it was raining Friday.”

Jennifer nodded.

Kevin recited, “She’s about five feet tall. Really pretty blonde with, with…” he peeked at Jennifer, “…crazy green eyes. And really pale, like she’s made out of porcelain. Curly hair, fiery hair. You’d know her if you saw her.”

The college boy shook his head, honestly frowning. “Sorry I missed her. Wow. But I haven’t seen her.”

“Have you?” Jennifer called to his roommate.

That man shook his head. “Nope.”

Heaving a heavy sigh, Jennifer knew it had been a long shot. “Thanks anyway.”

They nodded, waving. “We’ll keep an eye out.”

Kevin nodded back.

They continued down the road.

When they reached the corner, Jennifer spotted Alex Streigle’s truck coming up their road. It went all the way into that same road, driving past.

Jennifer watched it.

And the brothers in the truck noticed them. Alex and Jeff shared a look.

And when she and Kevin crossed the street, Jennifer looked back once more to see where they were going. Were they going into the forest? Maybe they had picked Zormna up. Zormna had said Jeff was dangerous.

Yet, the brothers did not go up to the gravel road. Instead, they turned, parking into the very same driveway where the two college boys had been unloading their groceries.

She heard Jeff call to one of them. “Hey Eric! What did they want?”

“Missing person,” the redhead replied.

Chills shivered up Jennifer’s arms.

“Let’s go to the bus station next,” Kevin suggested, not noticing the Streigle brothers at all.

Shaking off the bad feeling, Jennifer nodded. She wanted to get away from there anyway.

The bus station was worse than the hill. No one had seen Zormna—or rather, if they had seen her, they had been too busy to pay any one little kid attention than they would another. They were very busy, they said, and had no time for brats. In the least polite language, the ticket people said Jennifer had Kevin had to get a move on or they would call the cops for loitering.

Kevin had to go home after that, anyway. His parents had an important business thing going on—like always—and he was required to entertain their guest’s young daughter on a ‘date’. Never mind that he had a girlfriend. Jennifer was half inclined to crash that date, but she was too upset to really follow through with it.

Trudging, she went back to the crazy lady’s place to see if the note had been taken, touched, or moved.

It was exactly where she had left it.

Dragging her feet home was the worst.

Maybe Darren was right about the FBI picking Zormna up. He had been right about the alien thing, though he did not know about her parents.

And she had to keep it that way.

Oh, yes. With how much Darren chattered about Mars with Zormna around, Jennifer could only imagine what kind of delighted fits the geek would go into if he discovered that her own parents were from the same place as Zormna. And not Ireland. And though nobody would believe him—the FBI might.

Zormna was right. Pressing a hand to her forehead as she thought about it more, Jennifer felt feverish. She should have left it alone. The FBI would watch her family too if they found out the truth. And probably they’d end up dead.

Jennifer let herself in through the front door.

Her parents were in the front room, waiting for her.  

“Where have you been!?” Her mother rose from the couch, her face pale and her eyes wide from worry. Unfortunately, like most parents in that state of mind, they shouted first. “No notice where you were going! You come back when it is dark? Have you no consideration for my heart?”

“Heart?” Jennifer felt the resurgence of all that anger from the night before swell up again. Their alien words to Zormna still rang in her mind like nails on a chalkboard. “What heart? You threatened a perfectly harmless kid—”

“She was not perfectly harmless,” her father argued, standing firmly by her mother. “And you know it.”

Mindy and Andrew peered through the banister railings, drawn out by the noise.

Todd looked over.

“She wasn’t a threat to you!” Jennifer screamed back. Their lies doubled the sick feeling in her stomach.

Todd took a step down the stairs.

Jennifer looked up at her brothers and sister then glared back at her parents again. Todd had come full way down the stairs and was now approaching them. On his face, comprehension spilled over into disbelief.

Her mother said, “You have no idea what kind of person she was. You have no idea what she could have done to this family.” Her mother grew infuriatingly calm, and cold. “It is a good thing she is gone.”

Her father nodded in agreement. It was obvious they were glad Zormna had not returned.

“I know a lot more about her than you realize,” Jennifer said. “If you didn’t scare her off—”

“You made Zormna leave?” Todd asked.

His parents looked at him with fixed glares.

“This is not your business, Todd,” his father said.

“Not my business?” Todd’s mouth opened wider. His face screwed into an expression that even made Jennifer want to step back. “She was living with us!”

“And she is no longer,” his father replied.

Shaking his head, Todd snapped. “Jennifer’s right! You have no heart at all!”

He immediately stormed to the kitchen phone. The old fashioned cordless thing rested on the counter top, as they were not allowed cell phones until they could pay for them themselves.

“What do you think you are you doing?” His father stomped after him.

Todd had already started to dial, placing his hand over the phone rest to stop his father from interfering. “Calling the cops. What else? Zormna’s missing.”

“She went back to where she came from,” his father growled through his teeth. “Put the phone down.”

“She did not go back.” Jennifer rushed over to help Todd out. He was right. She had been going about it all wrong. She should have called the police earlier. That’s what normal people did when someone went missing. “She couldn’t have.”

“Hang that up,” Mr. McLenna ordered, reaching for his hand.

“Get off.” Todd glared at him, fighting to keep the phone active.

The phone rang on the other side of the line.

“I said, hang that up!”

Todd struggled to keep the receiver, but his father wrangled it from his son’s grasp.

 The other side answered. <<Hello? Pennington Police Department.>>

Mr. McLenna slammed the receiver down into the cradle. Turning, he seethed through his teeth as though he would disembowel both of his children, “You two will go to bed right now!”

Jennifer took a step back.

“Or what? You are going to throw me out of the house next?” Todd reached for the phone again.

Their father clamped his hand on the telephone, taking out the batteries. “The police can’t find her. If she is not sulking in her house, she has gone back where she came from.”

“Zormna didn’t inherit that much money from her aunt,” Todd argued, prying at his father’s fingers to get the phone anyway.

“You didn’t