A Parthan Summer by Julie Steimle (intellectual books to read TXT) 📕

“She just has a headache. She’ll be fine,” the camp counselor at last said.

Peering in, the girls stared at Zormna. Their whispers, fraught with gossip, asked a billion and six questions. Most of them were why she was in the infirmary over a headache and not a sprained ankle.

“That girl is so stupid,” one of the Monroe girls said behind the Pennington girls. “She should have known better than to jump down like that.”

“She jumped down because she was getting dizzy,” Miss Bianchi lied, rising. “And she was afraid she’d fall and…be hurt worse.”

‘Oh’s echoed through her team. They stepped back, more reassured.

Miss Betiford ushered the girls out the door. “What are you all here for, anyway? Don’t you have routines to organize?”

“It’s been two hours,” said a girl from Harvest High. “And your assistants said you hadn’t given them the rotation schedule for the rest for the activities.”

“Oh!” Miss Betiford pawed her pockets. “So silly of me!” She extracted her schedule, passing it to Amy Fields who handed it along to the other captains of the cheer teams. Michelle and Marissa almost tore the paper, fighting over it.

“Come on now…” Miss Bettiford said, dismayed at how the girls were behaving. Eventually the Billsburg captain grabbed it from the pair of them and held it out of reach to read it herself.

A moan escaped from the infirmary. “Spasp’kai! Al’ men’orn ray shrazh bezh!”[1]

All the girls stopped their fighting and peered back into the cabin.

Zormna still lay on the bed, eyes closed, though her hand was pressed to her forehead.

“Speak English, Zormna,” Joy called back, entering the room. “You sound like you are swearing.”

Realizing that she had been talking in her sleep, Zormna sat up. Holding the cloth to her forehead, she opened her eyes and blinked. She stared at the cheerleaders occupying the doorway. Shaking her head, she flopped right back down. “This can’t be happening.”

“Do you need to go home?” Miss Betiford asked, thinking about the FBI presence at camp causing a panic. “We can get you a ride back to Pennington if you’d like.”

Zormna growled and turned to face the wall, covering her ears. Home was not an option. Either one.

Joy inched close to their cabin mother and whispered, “She kinda came to camp to get away from…well, the house she is staying at.”

Not what she wanted to hear. And it made the camp counselor nervous. Miss Bianchi urged the girls away from the cabin door again. She whispered low to Joy as soon as they were at least a yard from the door, “Can you tell me the truth about her? You are her friend, right?”

Joy nodded, then shrugged. “Though I don’t really know everything.”

All the same, Miss Betiford gazed on Joy and the other Pennington girls with hope. She had to know the truth.

“That girl told me some strange things…”

All the Pennington girls immediately nodded, their eyes going wide. Miss Betiford lifted her head, feeling a little better. So she continued on, thinking of the least scary part.

“About her great aunt…” She did not continue, hoping they really could fill in the details.

“Oh…!” All the girls from Pennington nodded. Some snickered, almost maliciously. Michelle especially laughed, enjoying the uncomfortable details. And all the girls looked to her except Joy who grew annoyed.

Michelle said, “Her great aunt is the crazy lady of Hayes Street.”

“No way!” Marissa from Monroe laughed. And the other girls from that team joined in, sharing gleeful looks. “Bratty Blonde is the Martian woman’s niece?”

“Martian woman?” Miss Betiford stiffened.

“She thought she was from Mars,” one of the Pennington girls confided.

“Advertised it, really,” another put in.

“Does Zormna think that?” Miss Betiford asked.

The girls from the other high schools laughed. But the Pennington girls glowered at them.

“No…” Stacey retorted. “She’s not stupid.”

“She’s from Ireland,” offered another girl.

“She’s not crazy,” Joy replied, shaking her head at that other girl. “But Zormna’s great aunt was murdered.” She shot a look at Marissa then Michelle. “Everyone thinks the FBI did it.”

Miss Betiford stiffened. The exactly same as what Jeff had said. And Zormna.

“Do you think they did it?” Miss Betiford asked.

Joy shrugged. So did a few others.

“I don’t know,” Joy said. “But they’ve been following Zormna since… oh, a while now.”

“Really?” Stacey gasped. So had several others on their team.

“Yep.”

But those from Billsburg, Harvest and Monroe shared skeptical looks. They chuckled and snorted in disbelief.

“But why?” Miss Betiford asked, now sure Joy was good source of the truth.

Joy shrugged again, averting her eyes. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of rumors about Zormna going around school. She’s an orphan. She was raised in a military school after her parents were killed. Her uncle was a cop—”

“Darren Asher thinks she’s an alien,” a girl interjected. And her friends snickered.

“But Todd McLenna—my brother’s friend,” Joy said, ignoring that girl, “says the FBI came to their house—”

“Get real,” snapped Marissa. And a few others chimed in from the other schools. “That’s totally—”

“They showed their IDs.” Joy scowled at them. “Besides, it really does look like they kidnapped her like they did to her great aunt.”

Those from the other schools scoffed immediately. But the Pennington girls murmured that they had heard something like that.  

“Is that true?” Miss Betiford trembled, hoping it wasn’t.

“Yeah, Zormna up and vanished just after the school Olympics,” Joy said, nodding to make sure Miss Betiford did not mistake her meaning. “Jennifer McLenna—Todd’s sister—was going nuts trying to find her. She and Zormna are good friends. But Zormna just up and vanished after a big fight she had with Jennifer’s parents.”

“So Zormna ran off?” Miss Betiford felt a little easier. Teenaged kids ran away all the time—nothing as nutty as the FBI kidnapping someone like Jeff had said. 

“Kinda’,” Joy replied with apprehension. “You see, Zormna inherited this house from her great aunt—a big place that my brother and some of his buddies cleaned up for her. Three floors and a big kitchen and a—”

Stacey elbowed for her to get on with it. Joy made a face back.

“So, anyway,” Joy said, “If she really ran off, she’d just go there and lock the doors. But she didn’t.”

“I remember. I overheard Jennifer at the dance,” Jennifer McCabe put in, nodding vigorously. “She was with Darren, of all people, soaked to the bone ‘cause it was pouring outside. And she told Todd that was the first place she looked.”

Hearing the story made Miss Betiford feel sick. Such things couldn’t be true. “So what really happened to her?”

All the girls shrugged.

Joy cringed and admitted, “Honestly? I heard that Kevin Jacobson, Jennifer’s boyfriend, saw Zormna at the asylum—and she was trying to escape. Maybe the FBI did pick her up. But Zormna really doesn’t remember anything. She gets these headaches whenever she starts to recall something.”

Miss Betiford put a hand to her head. She leaned against the building. Zormna’s headache was not a fluke then. PTSD, Jeff had said.

“So maybe the FBI did pick her up,” Jennifer murmured with a nod to the others.

“Darren Asher would say it was aliens,” Stacey added with a roll of her eyes.

“Aliens?” Miss Betiford stared at Stacey.

The other Pennington girls waved it off, shooting Stacey dirty looks.

“Just some kid who believed Zormna’s great aunt,” Michelle said then shoved Stacey out of the way. “The point is, Zormna’s got problems.”

“I see.” Miss Betiford wondered what she ought to do now. She murmured out loud, “Why would the FBI follow her though?”

“Give me a break,” snapped Marissa from Monroe. “Such things don’t happen.”

“Says you.”

Zormna had stepped from the cabin, cloth to her head and a glare on her face.

With a dirty look, Marissa turned, propping her hands on her hips. She cocked her head to the side and said with enormous disdain, “You are just doing this for attention.”

“Yeah,” her team chimed in, sharing looks. The sentiment rumbled through a few other girls on the other teams.

But rolling her eyes, Zormna turned to Miss Betiford. “Look, you people are really loud. If you are not going to let me rest, can I at least have a look at that schedule so I can see where I need to go next?”

Amy Fields from Harvest High quickly handed it over.

“Amy!” shouted out her friends, all of them staring at the bubbly blonde.

Ducking sheepishly, Amy dodged away.

“Oh…” Zormna sighed, reading the paper as if she had not just been dealing with a migraine. “Gymnastics introduction the gym.”

Amy nodded.

“Amy!” her friends exclaimed again. Some swatted her and she ducked.

The Pennington girls shot her dirty looks also. Zormna looked paler than usual, weak on her feet.

“Zormna, you should rest.” Joy inched in closer. “You look pale.”

“Rest? With this ruckus?” Shaking her head, Zormna handed the schedule back to Miss Betiford. “Besides, I am always pale. And the main pain is gone.” She shot Miss Betiford a look.

The woman drew back. Zormna’s stare was a little frightening, practically shouting for her to stop talking about her situation.

“Do you believe me now?” was all Zormna said as she stepped past her, though.

Miss Betiford stiffened.

“I don’t,” Marissa snapped. She then looked to her teammates. “It is more likely you are crazy—like that aunt of yours.”

Zormna halted. She had barely made it through the crowd of girls. Turning around, she blinked at the girl from Monroe with those wide green eyes. Such a foreign stare, taking in Marissa seriously now, Zormna finally replied, “My great aunt may have believed that she was from Mars. But all that stuff about the FBI following her is true. Miss Betiford just a met a pair of them a moment ago. So would you just shut up about such things not happening? Because they do.”

Marissa gawped, watching Zormna turn back around to continue on. But the Monroe girl looked to Miss Betiford to see if it was true.

The woman blanched. After all, every eye had turned on her, widening.

“Is that true?” Michelle asked, drawing in a breath.

Cringing, Miss Betiford finally nodded.

“Oh my gosh!” Everyone immediately burst into gossip. The girls from the other schools stared, disbelieving. Joy stood like she had been slapped with a brick. And Michelle cringed, staring back after Zormna.

“That is so stupid!” Marissa snapped amid the exclamations and clamor. “It has to be a lie.”

But Miss Betiford clenched her head. “No. It isn’t. I spoke with them. They came to see the camp director. They claim they are here to protect her. But I didn’t want you girls to stress out about it.”

“To protect her?” Marissa’s jaw dropped further.

Joy put a hand to her face, nodding. “Of course. They say her great aunt’s murderer might come after her.”

The girls gasped now.

“Do you think that’s true?” Miss Betiford asked.

Joy glanced at her friends and shrugged. “Honestly, Zormna doesn’t really believe it.”

The other girls whispered feverishly over it.

“She thinks the FBI have an ulterior motive, though I don’t know what it is,” Joy said. “Maybe it is some weird Irish thing going on. I don’t know.”

Stroking her forehead, Miss Betiford took in all the worried faces. She had to dispel the tension somehow.

“Look, you should all go to your activities,” Miss Betiford said. She then looked to Amy and the other girls. “You have gymnastics.”

Amy bobbed her head obediently, glancing back to where Zormna had gone. They could still see her crossing the gravel lot, though Zormna was almost at the lodge.  

“Will you watch out for her?” Miss Betiford asked Amy in particular.

Nodding again, Amy turned immediately to go. “Of course.”

She hurried off, though the other girls who had signed up for gymnastics exchanged worried glances before following after. They went slower.

The girls from the other teams shared looks, almost shivering.

Miss Betiford said, “Look—the FBI are trained professionals. Their job is to keep us safe. So don’t worry. I am sure Zormna is just being paranoid.”

The girls from Harvest, Billsburg and Monroe nodded, agreeing—and feeling a little better. They hurried off to their cabin