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

until then.”

“Oh.” Zormna’s mind blanked. There were times she had forgotten how much age dictated the freedoms of people within this culture. And yet, the notion to wait to date sounding kind of nice. It would take so much pressure off. If boys stopped staring… If they stopped asking her out… If they just let her be…. Zormna yearned for that. And while lost in that thought, both Jennifer and Joy stared at her.

“Not to worry.” Jennifer threw an arm around Zormna’s shoulders, declaring in a loud voice as if she were rescuing her, “I doubt Mom or Dad will bother to regulate you with a rule like that.”

“Huh?” Zormna lifted her eyebrows. She said without thinking, “That’s a shame, I think I’d rather have the excuse to say ‘No’. It’d make it easier.”

Joy broke into a laugh. She shared a look with Jennifer who was equally stunned.

Jennifer slid her arm off Zormna’s shoulder. “Are you saying you’ve turned down an invitation to Prom?”

Shrugging, Zormna quickly headed towards the main building. Jennifer’s voice had that tone in it again.

“Maybe.” Her face felt hot.

“Maybe?” Jennifer chased after her. “What do you mean ‘Maybe’? I can’t go to Prom! Kevin’s parents won’t let him go to Prom unless he agrees to have the ‘sex talk’, with me present. I mean, oh, my gosh—so embarrassing. And there is no way I can go with anyone else!”

“Well, I don’t want to go,” Zormna announced as she hastily went inside.

 Jennifer rushed in on her heels.

And though Joy followed after them, she soon turned a corner and waved good-bye as she went to class.

“It’s just some lousy excuse to get a girl in a dress, and I don’t know what else.” Zormna hurried past her locker to the stairs, hoping to lose Jennifer, or at least convince her to drop the subject. She had all her books anyway. “I have been listening to some of the things people have been saying. And I don’t think I want to be stuck alone in a car with any of those boys that have been asking me. They have strange ideas.”

“What boys?” Jennifer attempted to pull her aside into the girls’ restroom—but Zormna dodged around her onto the stairs. Jennifer chased her to the second floor. “You said boys, as in plural. Which boys? How many boys?”

Going as fast as possible without running, maneuvering around those in the hallways, Zormna skipped steps on the stairway. Her face felt steamy hot now. She was probably a dark pink. But Jennifer was right behind her, waiting for an answer. And that girl never let something go. So finally, Zormna enumerated on her fingers, then stopped. “I think the number is eight, so far.”

Then she went on.

“So far?” Jennifer shouted.

Several heads turned. Many necks craned to listen.

On the second floor, Zormna veered to her classroom almost at a run. But Jennifer was right behind her. The nosy McLenna girl grabbed her arm, jerking her back from the doorway.

Finally, turning around with a glare, first at Jennifer’s face then at the grip on her arm, Zormna snapped, “Look. What is with you?”

Jennifer pulled back, letting go as if her hand had been set on fire.

“You have been tetchy with me since the gym,” Zormna snapped. “Am I not allowed to have a life outside of you?”

Taking another step back from Zormna’s searing glare, Jennifer replied through a tight-lipped frown. “Fine. I’m sorry. This whole thing with you and Joy Henderson getting all buddy-buddy…is…is fine. Todd and I practically set it up anyway.”

And Jennifer turned as if to go.

But when she noticed all the people from inside the classroom peering at them, Jessica smirking at her most especially, Jennifer indignantly said, “But this other thing—you talking about turning down tons of boys when other girls would kill for the chance to go to Prom is just…ugh! You know? Ugh!”

Zormna groaned inside. She didn’t care if a billion boys had asked her out. She wasn’t interested in this stupid hormonal game called dating. Going googly-eyed over a pubescent teen simply because it was expected was just dumb. Romance was a distraction from duty.

Unfortunately her look irritated Jennifer more.

“I mean, how dare you take for granted something that others would die for?”

Leaning just slightly forward, Zormna smirked. “To die for? Jennifer, do you have any idea what is going through those boys’ heads when they are asking me out?”

Jennifer averted her eyes, tapping her foot. “Do you, Miss Psychic? Is that some sort of alien power you have?”

Those listening snickered.

Now really irritated, Zormna ground out, “Psychic? No. But I have been approached by men since I was twelve—asked out by I-don’t-know-how-many of them—and I can tell you they were all thinking the same thing.”

“I’d like to get my hands on that,” Brandon called from inside Mr. Keller’s room.

Cackles burst out, echoing from the classroom in chorus.

Zormna thumbed over her shoulder at them. “See?”

Jennifer’s face flushed again. She cast Brandon’s gang and the rest of them a glare. “Ok. Fine. But at least they look at you.”

“At, at, at….” Zormna pivoted on the ball of her foot and marched into the room. She was done with this conversation. “They look at me. And not even at me. Half the time they are talking to my chest.”

She gestured to her breasts, which she had always seen as two back-aching things in the way. A soldier didn’t need such things. What was the appeal of them anyway?

The boys in the class whooped it up with whistles. Though, the girls stared—blinking with open eyes, absorbing what she was saying. It was strange how they were staring at her. Was it finally without jealousy? Did they understand now what she had to deal with?

She said, “I wouldn’t go to the dance with anybody that just talked to my chest instead of my face.” She almost snarled to silence Brandon and his pals. “And that pretty much constitutes every boy in this school.”

The girls chuckled. Jessica grinned.

But the boys hushed into whines and moans that Zormna was being unfair.

However, Jennifer finally relaxed, nodding. She stepped back into the hall, peeking at how it was emptying. The second bell would ring soon.

“Ok, fine. But just don’t brag about turning down invites to Prom.”

Zormna gave her that dry look again. “I wasn’t bragging.”

Jennifer just shook her head, backing into the hallway. And though she clearly did not agree with Zormna, she accepted her answer.

One of the girls waved Zormna over once Jennifer had gone.

Curious, Zormna came.

The girl said, “If you are not interested in boys, are you interested in girls?”

Zormna closed her eyes and groaned at the ceiling. “No! Let it alone!”

*

“How are tryouts going?” Brian asked Zormna when she arrived with her lunch at their table. She looked like she was trying to avoid Jennifer.

Alex was not there. And Jeff had already picked up his lunch and gone when he saw her come down the grass to look for a place to eat—which was why they believed she felt free to come. Zormna had watched Jeff leave, actually, pacing her steps across the grass so that when she reached the table it was long after he had removed himself. Brian had not noticed, but Todd and the others had been watching Jeff rush off.

Shrugging, Zormna said as she sat down, “It is exhausting. They drill you more than my A—some of my drill instructors did back in Ireland.”

Mark shook his head, watching Jeff as he slipped inside the boys’ locker room door, perhaps to use the weight room. He nudged Todd who frowned.

Todd didn’t like how Jeff had retreated again into silence whenever Zormna became a topic, which was often. Something had changed since the Olympics. Something had happened. Both Jeff and Alex had been acting weird since.

“Why is Jeff avoiding you again?” Jonathan asked, deciding it was stupid to tip-toe around the issue.

Zormna gazed at him with a shrug and opened her lunch sack. “His choice? Maybe he did something he was not supposed to? Maybe I make him nervous.”

All four boys lifted their eyebrows at her.

Todd got off his seat. This whole thing had to stop. “What did he do?”

She averted her eyes, her voice almost trembling. “Don’t ask me. You find out from him what his problem is. I have been minding my own business.”

They stared. Not one of the four believed her. And why would they? Zormna had pulled her arms close to herself in discomfort every time she saw Jeff and Alex—though most especially Jeff.

Brian scooted nearer to her. He rested his arm around Zormna’s shoulders, pulling her into a hug. “Come on. If he did something wrong to you, you can tell us. We’ll deal with it.”

Blinking in genuine surprise, Zormna peered up at him.

“You can trust us, Zormna.” Todd scooted in closer also, getting more worried. Though he did not want to believe that his friend would manhandle a girl, what they had witnessed proved something serious was up. “If Jeff did anything to—”

Vigorously shaking her head with a faltering smile, Zormna hastily unloaded the contents of her lunch sack onto the table. She shook Brian off. “Please, no. Do not get involved. It is not anything I cannot handle. Ok?”

Both boys pulled back to give her space. But Brian and Todd shared a look. Regardless of what she had said, they would look into it anyway.

*

Wednesday morning, both Joy and Zormna stared at their names on the list. Jennifer peered over their shoulders. They were still candidates.

Honestly, Zormna looked elated. This was the second to the last cut, the varsity team had not cut her off the candidate list out of spite, and the final call would take place Friday. The official list would be out on Monday. Jennifer wondered how that would end up.

Of course, that meant, from here on it would be war. The girls competing would become bitterer, more savage, and most definitely more catty. Funny, though, Joy giggled the moment she read her name, linked arms with Zormna and practically did a Wizard of Oz skip with the blonde into the gym as though she had already chosen her traveling buddy to that fantastic land. Following, Jennifer shook her head and headed immediately towards the bleachers to watch. A number of girls cussed after them, tromping away from the gym doors in disgust. And the rest that had made the cut, strutted in with hope.

The duo worked hard inside. They had to if they wanted to impress those ahead of them. And the seniors had nothing to complain about again—except that Joy was annoyingly cheerful.

Afterward, many of the cheer hopefuls marched out of the gym like warriors. Though some came out hissing conspiratorially over who would end up on the final list. But, as usual, Joy skipped from the gym, linking one arm into Zormna’s and the other into Jennifer’s—much to Jennifer’s surprise—and dragged both of them to the cocoa and doughnut window before it shut.

“You made it out alive!” Brian greeted them with cheers and hugs to congratulate them. Though, he merely shook Jennifer’s hand when she backed away from his open arms.

Pressing the back of her wrist to her forehead, Joy said, “Yes! Though it was almost more than we could bear!”

Zormna laughed. Her bemused expression flowed into real enjoyment while Joy steered them to a table and recounted their victory to her brother. Yet Joy grinned especially when she recalled that she had overheard one of the seniors on the varsity squad say that she and Zormna made a great team.

Jeff passed by about then with his brother Alex. His hands were stuffed in his pockets. With only a flickering glance on Zormna, his eyes set on Joy with a grin—especially when she skipped after him, sharing the great news of her success that morning. As always, with Joy, his smile was genuine.

Yet, Brian and Jennifer both noticed his eyes resumed the fixed cold stare on their foreign blonde, searching for something. They did not know