The Mars Project by Julie Steimle (i can read with my eyes shut TXT) 📕

anything if you keep going like this. You’ve been falling asleep in class, and I really think you need to stop this.”

Leaning back against the curio cabinet, Zormna let out a sigh. “You want me to quit my job? I’ll do it. I don’t need the money that bad. Besides, Jennifer has offered to buy the car off of me. I don’t want it.”

Shaking his head, Jeff frowned. “No. You can keep the job. It is this thing with the McLennas. They are running you like a slave. They are wearing you out. I was thinking of you doing something more like…” he paused, swallowing the feeling that had been rising in his throat. “…Like moving in with me.”

Zormna dropped down into the couch. “Wh…what? You want me to what?”

Jeff could feel his ears go hot. “Well, my Uncle Orren says that we can set up space for you in the back. I’ll give up my room and share with Al. Eric and Aaron are sharing the room over the garage. There’s…there’s… th…there is room.”

She nearly laughed at this change. It made Jeff’s ears turn even redder.

“I…I…I can’t,” she replied, finding herself in confused shock.

Jeff blinked. “Well, why not?”

He could feel his heart pounding in his chest now, so much that he was wondering what was wrong with himself since this whole idea sounded so logical when his ‘uncle’ presented it a half an hour ago.

“They aren’t treating you nice here,” he said. “I mean, at least at my place you’ll be able to do your homework and actually live like a teenager instead of slaving over their yardwork.”

Zormna nodded in agreement. “I don’t deny that. But legally they are signed on as my guardians, and I don’t think they are going to let go of that. I think they hate me too much to let go of that. That’s why they did not put me into the foster system.”

Not giving up, Jeff said, “Well, you can sue them. You do have that lawyer, you know.”

Sadly, she conceded. “I know. But also, don’t you think the rumors will spread about you and me even more if I moved in with your family?”

Leaning back and clenching his teeth, Jeff nodded. “Yeah, that crossed my mind.” Then shaking his head he said, “Well, I’m still sending my case worker over. Eric contacted her for me, and she is just waiting for our word. She’ll help relocate you. We found a way.”

The tiniest grin cracked on Zormna’s lips. She sighed but shook her head. “I don’t want to put too much pressure on her. The McLennas aren’t that bad. I don’t really even mind the work.”

Jeff frowned. “Well, I mind it. You may let this blow over but I’m not going to.”

He turned around and marched to the front door. Standing nearby in the family room, Mr. McLenna looked like he was occupying himself with the newspaper. Mrs. McLenna appeared to be busy washing dinner dishes, which hadn’t been there before Jeff had come.

“See ya later, Zormna,” he said, heading opening the door. “Think about what I said.”

He nodded to Mr. and Mrs. McLenna then stepped out. Zormna followed him to the doorway. She closed the door after he walked out, gazing out the front window after him until he was gone. He really worried about her. Never in…well, ever, had she believed that would happen. She shook her head with a sigh.

When she looked up, she noticed the McLenna parents staring at her. Ignoring them, she turned walked back toward the stairs then headed upward.

“What was that about?” Mr. McLenna asked, narrowly glaring at her.

Zormna shrugged as she continued.

“He’s talking to you!” Mrs. McLenna shouted at her from the kitchen.

Zormna stopped then turned around. She squared her shoulders. For the first time since they discovered that she was a Tarrn, she realized that she no longer had to fear them. It was a peculiar feeling, really. And as Zormna stepped down the stairs she held her chest high, remembering that she was an adult on their home world, remembering that she was the commanding officer of an entire district, the elite district in the best military within that entire area. She remembered that she never put up with bullies, no matter who they were or what had happened. She remembered that being a Tarrn was not a reason to fear but to rejoice. It was why Jeff had stopped by. It was reason for him to put hate aside along with all past differences and make an offer that made his ears turn pink. He’d endure anything to make sure she was safe, and if all possible, happy. She had no reason to fear.

“Jeff Streigle came here to see if I was all right.” She smiled. “He saw me Saturday and thought I looked a little beaten down. However, I told him I trusted you to keep your promises to Todd.”

With that, she turned to go back up the stairs.

Mrs. McLenna’s face went dark red. “We’re not done!”

“I am,” Zormna replied midway up with a newfound air.

Clenching her fist, Jennifer’s mother lifted the spatula she was holding in her hand as if to throw it.

Mr. McLenna was not so slow. He picked up a Chinese medicine ball from off the end table and chucked it at her.

Zormna didn’t duck. The bell jingled inside the small porcelain and metal ball as it flew. She whipped around, catching it.

Peering down at the McLennas, Zormna narrowed her eyes before turning to go again. “May I remind you that I was a soldier before I came here?”

Mrs. McLenna went white. Mr. McLenna reached over for the other ball.

“I was also a near champion handball player, so bring it on.” Zormna dropped down a step.

Mr. McLenna put the ball down.

Zormna marched down the stairs, back to the main floor. “I have decided I want things different.”

“You can’t make demands.” Mr. McLenna choked on a haughty laugh.

Smiling, Zormna said, “I can’t, can I? I have a lawyer and an arguable case for abuse.”

Mrs. McLenna looked at her husband. “David, we can’t afford—”

He raised his hand for silence. “So what do you want? You want a bigger room? You want us to buy things for you?”

Zormna rolled her eyes with a fraction of a wicked grin. “No. Though I wouldn’t mind permanently moving to my own house. But since you so clearly pointed out last year that it wouldn’t be safe, I will be satisfied with not being overladen with jobs.”

Jennifer’s parents both snapped at her at once.

“How then are you going to work off your stay?” Mrs. McLenna cried. “Where will we get the money to compensate for your waste here?”

Mr. McLenna was angered in quite another way. “Do you expect to stay here for free? Do you expect us to wait on you hand and foot? Well, not us! We’ll be serving no Tarrn.”

“How is it you became this way after you knew I was a Tarrn? You had no problem when you thought I was just Surface Patrol.” Zormna abruptly laughed. “Well, I don’t care for special treatment. But I won’t be your slave anymore. Go ahead and lecture me. Go ahead and throw things at me. Any evidence of abuse, and I can sue you for damages. Then I can live in my own home without you interfering in my life.”

She turned to walk back upstairs, but Mr. McLenna grabbed her arm to stop her. Jostling Zormna with all his anger, he said through his teeth, hissing nearly, “You’re all alike. You just want to ruin us all.”

Zormna just glared at him, a deep acid green glare that said everything she always wanted to say. “Let go of me right now.”

He wouldn’t.

Repeating again, Zormna said, “I said, let go.”

He still wouldn’t.

Giving him one last chance, Zormna placed her hand on his, curling her fingers onto his finger as she said, “One more time, let go.”

“You festering flea rot of a Tarrn,” he started to curse.

But Zormna wouldn’t listen to another word. She wrenched his hands from her arm then threw him hard to the floor.

Mrs. McLenna nearly fainted, running to her husband’s aid. He lay there on the carpet, stunned and staring up at the now gigantic-looking girl that stood over him. 

“Don’t you dare tell me about ruin,” Zormna shouted over his prone body. “Your people murdered my parents when I was only five. How do you think it felt? Did it ever occur to you to have compassion? Did mercy ever occur to you?”

Shaking her head, she closed her eyes. Zormna abruptly turned to march back upstairs. “Jeff offered for me live at his place, since he knows what abuse is like. I think I’ll take him up on that offer.”  

Zormna reached the landing and walked to her room, passing Jennifer who stood outside her door to investigate the noise from downstairs. Zormna handed her the medicine ball as she passed by, saying nothing.

Andrew and Mindy were also sticking their heads out into the hall, but they pulled them back in when they saw Zormna march past. When Zormna closed her attic bedroom door, Jennifer crept down the stairs then peered over the banister to the bottom. She saw her father being tended by her mother on the floor. Going white, Jennifer whipped back around and plunged herself into Zormna’s room.

“What did you do to my dad?” Jennifer demanded to know, flinging the door open. It banged against the wall.

Zormna turned around. She was already sitting on the bare mattress in the middle of the empty room. The junk from the garage sale was still sitting in the carport covered by sheets.

“He grabbed me. I made him let go,” Zormna replied with a mild glance over her shoulder. She turned back and opened a textbook, starting to read the next scene in Romeo and Juliet.

Jennifer looked back at the door as if she could see through it to the downstairs, gasping. “But you hurt him.”           

Zormna smirked with a peek up at Jennifer. “He isn’t hurt. Just stunned. Besides, he tried to bludgeon me with that ball there.”

Glancing back to the hall again with a wince, Jennifer went in further and closed the door, and then sat on the mattress next to Zormna. Leaning over, she whispered, “Was that true what you said out there? Did Jeff invite you to live with him?”

“Yeah, he did.” Zormna nodded, half-laughing. “It was the strangest thing I have ever heard.”

“He is really worried, isn’t he?” Jennifer murmured, glancing about the bare attic again.

Nodding once more, Zormna turned to look at her. “Yeah, I really think he is.”

“That is seriously weird,” Jennifer muttered.

Zormna nodded.

*

After reading scene two and skipping around scene three in the third act of Romeo and Juliet, Mr. Humphries kept them busy with another of his writing assignments, focusing on school violence. They all had to then write about the recent news report of violence in a school in somewhere in the Midwest and how it affected them. But Zormna kept daydreaming about how she wished she had her flight scooter and her laser, all while Jeff wondered how his neighborhood in the undercity avoided all that sort of thing when with all the destructive technology his own people had. Both of them had to make up lies for their teacher.

The rest of the day blurred in front of both of their faces. Conversation at lunch rambled about upcoming events and the football game that Friday. Zormna didn’t talk much at all. She ate her tuna melt, the dish of the day, and stared at the grass, thinking.

“Earth to Zormna, come in, Zormna,” Sam said, amazed that she hadn’t heard a thing he had said.

“I’m listening,” she replied, looking up. “I know. You want to hurry up and get the booth made tonight. However, I think I need to call my lawyer tonight.”

Adam nearly choked on his hotdog.

Jeff smiled.

Sam gaped. “You have a lawyer?”

She nodded, taking another bite of her sandwich.

“W…well, why?” Sam gazed at