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

started to crawl around the cabin, unwinding the rest of the spool of string as she went. Joy nodded and immediately crept toward the door handle of the cabin to tie the string as instructed. The purpose was to wrap the entire cabin with string so the girls inside would be trapped and have to yell for help. The screens in the windows were tacked on, but they were forbidden to remove them unless, of course, there was a fire. However, it was more likely the girls would tear apart the screens than let themselves be trapped inside the cabin.

Zormna followed Joy, acting as lookout while waiting for Michelle to come around the other side of the cabin and circle again. Crouching next to the cement step near the door and keeping an eye out for counselors and stragglers, a deep uncomfortable feeling settled into her stomach. This operation was way too sloppy for her tastes. A decent prank had to be better thought out so that the pranksters did not get caught.

Her premonitions were quickly proved correct. As soon as both girls reached the door, it immediately popped open and water balloons flew out, striking both Zormna and Joy like little bombs. More balloons sailed out the door as screams cheered their success.

Joy dropped the string at once. Squealing, she dashed behind a tree, skidding down the hill back toward their cabin for cover. Zormna scrambled down the hill after her—sliding in the rocks as balloons bombed against her back and ski cap, soaking her right through. Joy was far ahead of her, screaming, “Retreat! Retreat!” as she scurried down the hill.

But so far they were the only ones retreating.

Joy had run ahead to the cabin before Zormna could pull herself off the ground away from the water balloons the Monroe cheer team lobbed at her. By the time Zormna reached the cabin door, she was mostly coated in pine needles and brown dirt. Gasping and swallowing, she scrambled up the steps and closed the door quickly behind her. As she caught her breath, she could see that no one else was inside the cabin except for Joy who crouched down low, panting and shaking her head. Meeting Zormna’s gaze, she nodded.

Screams erupted outside the cabin. Zormna peeked out above the wall through the screen—but what she saw was not what she had expected. The Monroe cheerleaders that had been chasing them and lobbing water balloons at them were now running back up the hill, away from the Pennington cheer cabin. Around them, dumping not just water balloons at them, but buckets of water—also squirting them with huge bazooka-sized water guns—the Pennington cheer team got their revenge. They had set a trap, and Zormna and Joy had been the bait.

They could hear the scattering of rocks with the Monroe team’s screams, them running back inside their cabin, slamming their door shut. The Monroe cheer team was soaked beyond comparison to what they had done to the two Pennington girls. But Zormna sat on the floor next to the door with intense dissatisfaction. Fact was, she and Joy, were probably the only ones wet in their team. The indignity at being used as a decoy washed through her.

Michelle and the others laughed a little too loudly for Zormna’s mood when they returned to the cabin. Zormna sat on her cot, glowering as she wiped off the black grease makeup. She had already changed out of the wet clothes and was now sitting in her nightgown.

Michelle’s eyes fixed on her with a superior snort, lifting her nose into the air. “Don’t look so sour. We won.”

The other girls cheered, though Joy’s didn’t sound as happy. She was also stripping off her soaked things, using her towel to dry off her hair.

“But Joy and I got soaked,” Zormna replied with bite, lifting up her sopping pants as evidence.

Still, Michelle only gave a flippant laugh. “I knew you could handle it. Besides, you said so yourself that you loved pranks.” 

“I didn’t mean I had pranks pulled on me,” Zormna snapped back. “You used me.”

Michelle’s laugh turned frigid. “Well maybe it is about time somebody did pull a few on you. You’re too serious, Zormna.”

Zormna clenched her teeth. “You don’t use people like that.”

“Oh, get real.” Michelle walked back to her own cot. “We needed a decoy, and you said you were game. You should take that stick out of your butt and start having some fun with us.”

And Michelle immediately undressed as if the argument were over. Everyone else smirked at her, hissing in agreement for Zormna to ‘get with it’ and relax. They were young. And she ought to stop being so uptight, they said.

Fine, Zormna thought with a growling smirk—they want her to act childishly and have fun, then she would act childishly and have her fun. And they would be sorry. The reason Zormna had quit her pranks back Home was because she had achieved rank. It wasn’t appropriate, after all, for an alea to do such things. But if her teammates thought she was uptight—she mused as she walked back to her cot—then she would show them how dangerous it was to challenge her in a prank war.

As the girls split off to their beds, giggling to each other as they lay down, exchanges of silent gossip passed between them. Many could not stop giggling. Joy slipped into her blankets on the cot next to Zormna, and whispered. “If you’re planning something to get back at her, I’m in.”

Zormna rolled over to see Joy wink at her and smile. “I thought you were one those who ‘turned the other cheek’.

Joy huffed. “Normally, yes. But Michelle needs to learn a lesson about what it means to be a teammate.”

With that, Zormna closed her eyes and sighed. Yes, Michelle was going to regret messing with her. 

 

 

 

Chapter Seven: So It’s War You Want

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The test of tolerance comes when we are in a majority; the test of courage comes when we are in a minority—Ralph W. Stochman—

 

 

Dawn brought a cheery glow to the forest air and a cool breeze into the cabins at Camp Lake Dale. Zormna awoke to the noise of a woodpecker hammering against a tree. Blinking her eyes open she then moaned. She didn’t know it was a bird at all and turned over in her cot, wondering who was doing construction at that time of the morning and how she could find him and kill him.

She sat up and rubbed the moisture out of her eyes, lazily gazing at the scenery through the open screen windows. Already some girls were walking past their cabin to the showers. A handful were dressed, roaming cheerfully as if they were native animals bouncing around with the morning light.

Zormna made a face.

As usual, she hadn’t slept well in a bed that wasn’t hers. Though, the cot’s size did remind her a bit of her bunk back home, and she was actually more comfortable in that than in the bed the McLennas had let her sleep in. Zormna stretched and looked around the cabin. Some of the girl were still asleep. Michelle, Joy and Stacey were out of the cabin already. Their sleeping bags and blankets were empty and straightened out at little. Looking around to see if anyone was watching, Zormna slid out of her sleeping bag then dropped to her knees beside her cot. Peeking one eye open to make sure no one was looking, she then closed her eyes and attempted a short Arrassian version of what an onlooker would call a prayer. Her people called it morning devotion. She was uncomfortable doing it. Even when she was alone in her own private quarters back Home she found performing her morning and evening devotions awkward. But since she was still alive, and had not been murdered like the rest of her family, she felt it was necessary to at least express her gratitude for that. And, of course, all she could muster was the strength to ask to live just one more day.

She opened one eye. Then both—since upon opening the one, she noticed Jennifer McCabe standing in the doorway blinking at her with honest surprise.

Zormna tried to stand up without looking self-conscious.

“I never took you for religious,” Jennifer said, walking from the door. Her dirty clothes were in her hands and a towel was wrapped around her head.

Flushing pink on her cheeks Zormna just shrugged. “I was not advertising it.”

“Joy does,” Jennifer murmured, setting her things down on her cot.

Glancing at Jennifer’s wet towel, Zormna realized that she also needed to take a shower—especially after the fiasco the night before.

 She asked, “Where did you bathe?”

“Bathe?” Jennifer smirked at her, probably finding Zormna’s wording quaint.

“I mean shower,” Zormna said, her cheeks getting hot.

Jennifer nodded. “I know what you meant. The shower is down the hill to the right. But you’d better hurry. There’s a long line.”

“Thanks. I will go now.”

Crouching down, Zormna reached under her cot for her duffle bag to get a change of clothes. But when she extracted her peach bag, it sagged in her hands.

Zormna lifted the light bag higher. The zipper was undone. Groping inside the empty space, her heart beat harder. Immediately, Zormna dropped onto her hands and knees and pawed under her cot to see if the Monroe team had scattered her things there. Michelle had said the opposing team had raided their cabin before dinner. But the floor was bare, including the place where she knew she had left her shoes the night before. In fact, even the dirty clothes she had worn the day before were gone—and she recalled that she had her clothes when she had gone to bed.

Popping up her head, Zormna narrowed her eyes. She glared at Michelle’s cot. On her feet in a snap, she rushed over to the head cheerleader’s bed—but not a scrap of her clothes was there among Michelle’s things.

“Oh, scrapes!” Zormna glanced around the cabin, her eyes going wider. She dropped to the floor again searching around each and every cot, crawling on her hands and knees. Jennifer watched her for several minutes while others rose, rubbing their eyes and staring at Zormna. She furiously crawled around the entire cabin floor.

“Zormna, what are you doing?” Amanda (their team mascot) asked, sliding out of her sleeping bag.

“My clothes!” Zormna shouted out. “Some one took all my clothes!”

Somebody laughed.

“It’s not funny!”

She kicked the pipe frame of the cot with her heel. It shifted about a foot. The rest of the sleeping girls jumped awake. All turned to stare at Zormna. She sprang to her feet, stomping barefoot to Michelle’s cot again and tore off her sleeping bag. She shook it out to make sure Michelle hadn’t hidden the clothes inside it.

Nothing.

“Somebody really stole all your clothes?” Jennifer stared after her, half between a smile and a look of shock.

“Except for the ones I’m wearing!” Zormna her foot boomed against the wood as she stomped it. “Did you help Michelle do this?”

Dropping her towel to her bed and reaching for her hairbrush, Jennifer shook her head. “No. I swear I didn’t.” But she was smothering a laugh.

“Are you sure Michelle is the one who took your stuff?” one of her teammates asked while