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

Shrugging, he replied, “I was liked okay. I had my friends. Alzdar, Dzhon, Malay….” Staring across the water, he remembered his girlfriend, Malay. He sighed. He hadn’t seen her in a long time, much longer than he had been on Earth. Jeff nodded, “Yeah, I suppose I was well-liked.”

“Any enemies?” she asked.

“What? Besides you and the P.M.s?” he said with a roll of his eyes.

Zormna scowled, rolled her eyes back at him, but nodded. 

“Well, there were the gangs that occasionally harassed me,” Jeff said, chucking another rock. “No one ever hated me for being smart, if that’s what you think. I never showed off. P.M.s notice you when you showed off.”

“Dural Korad noticed,” Zormna muttered, peering over at him.

Jeff grimaced. “Yeah…our mutual ‘friend’.”

“I so hated him,” Zormna said.

 Jeff smiled. “At least we agree on something.”

“But you knew he and I hated each other,” Zormna then said. “Remember the fourth time…?” 

He shook his head. “I remember. Don’t remind me.”

Zormna nodded. She picked up another rock and skipped it across the water.

“What about you?” Jeff broke the silence.

“Huh?” Zormna turned and watched Jeff skip a larger rock, taking only one bounce before plunging into the water.

“Were you well-liked?” Jeff picked up another rock. “Since you’re asking.”

“You should know. You’ve seen my record,” she said scathingly. Another rock flew from her hand and skidded across the surface of the lake.

Dryly, he replied, “Ha, ha. No, really. Were you well-liked?”

Jeff picked up his last rock and let it sail briskly at the lake, skimming the water with each touch.

“Half and half,” she replied. “Alea Arden liked me and the Kevin liked me. I didn’t care about the rest.”

She threw her last rock into the lake and sat down. The sky darkened more still. Zormna could almost make out the stars on the edge. 

Jeff sat down beside her.

“How come?” he asked.

Zormna looked above her head, tilting it back and leaning on her hands for balance. “Well, as you know, the Kevin practically raised me since my uncle was killed, and Alea Arden has been like a big brother. I don’t know, sort of my mentor. The others, I suppose even including Salvar—”

“Salvar?” Jeff asked.

“You know, the Kevin’s son. I was raised with him. Yeah, even including Salvar…. Their opinions never mattered much.” Zormna continued to stare into the darkening sky as she said this.

Jeff peered sadly at her.

“Why? Certainly you must have felt lonely—or something like it.” Jeff watched her carefully.

“Perhaps I am,” she replied, “but that doesn’t matter—not when I am afraid all the time that people will kill me.” Turning to her long time enemy and now protector, Zormna said, “You have no idea what it is like to be that afraid.”

Jeff laughed. “Sure I do. I lived in the undercity. My mom was shot when I was seven by a bunch of P.M.s. My neighbors were slaughtered when I was eight. The neighborhood cop who was a great man and tried to protect me—your uncle—was shot a year later. I was terrified.”

Zormna sighed and lay down upon the gritty soil. She stared into the night sky, stars now poking out by the dozens. 

“Do you dream about it?” she said silently.

“Sometimes.” His silence joined hers. There was no point in elaborating on the subject. It was bad enough to remember such things, but to recall them made life unbearable.

Zormna sighed as she stared at the stars. She could see the red star now. Mars shown in the sky brightly, glistening in the dark space like a tiny candle. Zormna could hear Jeff’s soft breathing as he also stared into the sky.

“You do intend to return Home after this is all over, right?” Zormna asked. “I hear Partha can turn the most devout Arrassian from Home.”

Jeff chuckled slightly at the reverential way she said home. “Partha is beautiful, I have to admit. But I’ve made promises that I intend to keep.” Then chuckling a little bit more, he said, “Of course we have to go back to end it all anyway.”

Zormna nodded. “I’m going back as soon as I can.”

Laughing, he replied, “Spoken like a true Tarrn.”

They could hear the dinner bell echo over the hill and out into the lake. Jeff immediately stood up and brushed the dirt off his back and bottom. Zormna followed, though reluctantly. They both climbed up the sandy hill and over the plateau of grass. Zormna noticed that Jeff winced from his bruises. She hadn’t noticed it when he was throwing rocks into the lake.

“Do you want help?” she offered.

Jeff shrugged it off. “If I can keep going after being beaten by the gangs and you, then I can go on after Damon and his buddies.”

Zormna stopped and stared at his back in indignation at being reminded of breaking his nose once more. “Forget I asked.”

Jeff waved to her and continued walking. “No problem,” escaped his lips.

Zormna continued behind him, and both entered the eating hall. They parted without a word. But, truthfully, she had come to make sure he was ok. And she really had hoped to be able to bury the past. Unfortunately, he was still not ready for it.

Zormna’s friends jumped in to tease her about Jeff when she sat down with her meal, but this time she ignored every word as she stared out the lodge window. She hardly noticed the intense stares from the Harvest karate team, even the furious glares from Holly Joyce. Oblivious, Zormna remained with her muddled thoughts until the end of the night.

Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing the self is enlightenment—Lao Tzu—

Zormna slept on her duffle bag full of clothes as a pillow and awoke early the next morning. It was still dark when she and Jennifer snuck into the shower stalls, and it was still dark when they crept back to their beds to wait out the dawn.

“Don’t use the odd numbered showers in the bathroom—pass it on to your friends,” Jennifer whispered to Joy when she woke.

Joy was not the only one she had told. She told Michelle and the rest of the cheer team. Then she sent someone to warn their cabins up the hill. Zormna took the same time to warn the Pennington cabins near theirs and hide her clothes so no one would take them again. After that, they pretended to go about their usual morning routine, though carefully listening to the quiet forest air.

Shrieks split through the trees around seven o’clock. Marissa ran out of her shower stall, wrapped in a towel, drenched with a green Kool-Ade streak running down her forehead and her back. “I’m gonna get who ever did this!”

Laughs echoed from the Pennington cabins and continued as more screams erupted from other shower stalls. The Harvest girls stood outside the stalls, watching friends return drenched in purple and red powdered drink. But it did not take long to discover which stalls were safe, and the lines for those grew long.

Many girls came late to flag raising, most complaining about their stained skin. A lot of girls covered it with makeup. Somehow the showers near the Billsburg area of the camp were left untouched. They were the first to the flag raising.

“You can tell who did this,” a Monroe girl growled to her teammate, looking at the Billsburg tennis team as the Billsburgians giggled at the green skin of one particular girl.

“Can you?” Jennifer McCabe replied with a smirk. “Which one?”

Zormna snickered and shook her head. She had waited in line with the rest of the girls, pretending to take her shower late. Her act of shock had been pretty convincing when she saw the long line and asked what the matter was.

Tattling cries went out to the camp counselors. So of course, not long after, Miss Betiford and the other camp counselors searched the stalls for the cause of the problem. They unstuck wads of soaked fruit drink powder mush from inside the showerheads. There were several. Angered, they then attempted to inspect the hands of every unaffected girl. But all hands came clean. Zormna had snagged plastic gloves from the kitchens the night before. So, of course when she and Jennifer had to stick out their hands they dutifully did so, passing the test without suspicion. In the end, the women assumed the boys must have pulled the prank, so they hurried off to harass them.

Despite this, the flag raising was less eventful than the day before. Zormna stood fully dressed beside her teammates, and she joined them for breakfast right after. She carefully picked her food, inspecting every piece before eating it—especially since the Harvest softball team was serving.

During breakfast, the announcements included warnings not to wander off alone on the hikes scheduled for that day. The camp director had every intention to avoid a repeat of Jeff’s encounter. But that fiasco never quite got resolved. In the end, Mr. Hardt publicly pretended that the Monroe boys and Jeff merely got lost then fell down the mountainside. At least, that was the impression he gave others when the other campers asked what had happened. He was overheard saying: ‘the boy strayed from the path and got hurt’. Not that it suppressed the rumor that Damon Pikes had jumped Jeff Streigle any. It had spread already between the Pennington cabins, and then to the others. And since the Monroe team and the Pennington team were still glaring daggers at each other, most assumed that it was probably true.

Breakfast finished and activities started.

The cheer teams glared at each other as they practiced on the grassy knoll—but nothing dramatic such as fights took place between them. In fact, there was a relative peace. Besides, most were waiting for Holly to retaliate against Zormna, though some believed that they were even—or at least said they were. But as a natural prankster herself, Zormna knew vengeance was never truly satisfied. It always escalated, which was another reason why she had stopped pulling pranks as a ranking solider. But Holly was not a soldier. Zormna figured that Holly had either failed to retaliate, or she had yet to think of anything good to get her with. And if that was the case, she still had to be careful.

Then, of course, was Damon Pikes. Zormna figured that he would pretend that the fight had not happened. To acknowledge it would also mean he had to admit to defeat by a younger, smaller girl—three heavy blows to a male ego. Never mind her background. Yet Zormna also knew that he considered the fight with Jeff not over. Damon would be brooding. He would be plotting. And that meant she had to watch out for Jeff as well. Good thing was, Jeff was allowed to return to his cabin straight after breakfast to recover, so he was no longer required to go to wrestling. Not while he was so bruised.

That had been Jeff’s plan anyway. He ached all over. Many of his bruises throbbed. So he returned to his cabin with every intention of convalescing in his cot with a book or just a really long nap. But when he lay down, he found that he had to lie incredibly still. And when he did, the only achy feeling he