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

unoccupied. There was always someone there, be it the woman known as Aunt Mary or one of the college boarders like Eric or Aaron.

The FBI had also watched Jeff with his friends. He usually hung out with his buddies from school when he was not at work. Most of the time he popped in at Hendersons’ home, hanging around with Brian and Joy…almost whenever Zormna stopped by, though often more frequently. The entire group occasionally met up at the park and just hung out.

Though, with their high tech audio recordings, the FBI occasionally recorded him practicing his musical instruments in his bedroom at home. Jeff played about five different ones, including the ukulele, a violin, and what sounded like a banjo. His tunes were mostly folk pieces, though he dabbled in what people once termed as alternative rock, and he played some classical pieces rather well.

And what did all this amount to?

Not much.

Jeff Streigle was an enigma. And unlike Zormna Clendar, he was great at pretending that everything as all right.

But that only meant the FBI had to work a little more creatively.

 

[1] Idiot

Chapter Two: Class Schedules

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tact is the ability to close your mouth before someone else wants to.

 

 

Darren Asher walked across the senior lawn to the main doors of the administration building, gripping his schedule tightly in his hand. Several students joined him in his march to the registration office, all irritably clutching computerized schedules in their hands. Though there were lines extending down the hall, several irate students pushed to the front of the line to complain about the computer mix-up.

“I am not supposed to have Home-Ec., Ms. Keyes. I’m a football player!” one large senior complained.

“Just wait one minute, and we’ll get to you, Daniel.” The small woman right behind the counter looked like she would get swallowed up in stampede of bodies as they leaned in the window. The counter was the only think keeping her from getting crushed. Yet she calmly turned back to the scrawny freshman that she had just been talking to. “I’m sorry, Robert, I can’t change your Algebra class to another hour so you can squeeze into Mr. Hyde’s Art class. You’ll have to try and take it another semester.”

“But he’s not giving it another semester!” the tiny freshman protested, his skinny face almost sickly in despair.

“Ms. Keyes!” Darren called out, trying to catch her attention.

“Not now, young man. Take a number and wait your turn. I go by the signup sheet and not shouting crowds,” the woman replied with a control that was only a façade. She was sweating.

Though taller than most and able to see over the sea of heads, Darren frowned as he squeezed in to look at the already long list. Shaking his head, he glanced back at his schedule. It had Wood Shop listed instead of his chosen elective—Driver’s Training. He had to change it, or he’d be stuck making something he’d sell in a garage sale a year later.

“Samuel Perkins!” Ms. Keyes’ voice echoed piercingly above the din.

A five-eleven dark-haired boy squeezed into the crowd to the front desk. In overwhelm, Darren watched the mass of bodies filled with irate boys and girls pushing and squeezing like lemmings. He sighed. Perhaps Wood Shop wasn’t so bad.

“Paul Rulens!” Ms. Keyes called out again, barely heard over the disgruntled murmurs and grumbles of the mob. Samuel Perkins extracted himself from the crowd, and Paul pushed his way in, squeezing through the anxious first-timers and tired old-timers. Sam tripped on his last exit and crashed into Darren, grasping his own worn schedule to his chest.

“Sorry,” the boy apologized. “Crazy, isn’t it? Is it like this every year?”

Darren looked down at him with a shrug. “Computer upgrade. Are you new?”

The guy nodded. “Yeah, and they screwed up my schedule.”

Grimacing, Darren peered at the paper in his own hand. “Mine too.” Then looking up at the mass of students he shook his head.

“Listen up!” Ms. Keyes squeaked over the rumble of student voices. “New policy. You have to see your counselor and get approval—a stamp—and then come back to me to get readmitted. No counselor, no stamp, no class change. Got it?”

The crowd stampeded in mass down to the counseling department. Darren backed against the wall along with Sam and a few other students.

Waving away the crowd as he staggered back to the front doors, Darren said, “Nah, it isn’t worth it.”

He walked down to corridor back outside.

“Hello,” another young face said at the registration window. “I’m new here. Where do I pick up my schedule?”

Ms. Keyes took a breath and frowned. “Name?”

“Adam Alexander Arbor, please.”

*

Jeff Streigle walked into his first hour class with a glance about the room. The first floor room had broad windows along one wall and long bulletin boards with inspirational quotes about reading on two walls. He smiled as he recognized faces and friends, juniors and seniors, and old classmates sitting in mostly straight rows facing an old-fashioned chalkboard. This room had the cheap orange desk-chair combo with book rack underneath the seat. Many faces lit up when they saw him enter—nearly all except Zormna who was sitting in the center back with her friend Joy Henderson, a pretty, tan sophomore with a brown-haired bob. They sat next to Joy’s older brother, Brian, who was an all-American boy on the Pennington wrestling team with Jeff.

Brian waved at Jeff, beckoning him over.

After one look at Jeff, Zormna rolled her eyes, probably thinking ‘Why did we have to be in the same class?’

Smirking at her, Jeff crossed the room and sat down in the seat in front of Brian, which also happened to be next to her. For everyone, who knew that Zormna and Jeff barely got along, they would assume that it was really Brian he had intended to be near. But the look in Zormna’s eyes said she was annoyed that he was taking his duty to protect her a little too extreme. After all, she frequently reminded him that she had once been the top student of her martial arts course back Home. But his eyes replied that even a martial artist needed someone to watch their back. Especially one whose family was hunted.

Yet as this silent exchange was taking place, Joy cast a smirk at Zormna, making eyes and winking at her as Jeff settled in his seat. It was an old, tiresome joke between Zormna’s cheerleading friends that Jeff had a crush on the small blonde—or at least that they had a secret relationship. And why not? Jeff did seem to follow Zormna everywhere. He had at camp and during the summer, he showed up at the public places where she went.

But, of course, they didn’t know the real reason he was keeping her in sight. And he stretched his legs long, ignoring the silent joke Joy was making at Zormna’s expense.

“So, Jeff. You have this class too?” Brian asked with his characteristic grin. “That’s fortuitous.”

Jeff nodded with a peek at Zormna. “Yeah, but why did you choose a spot all the way across the room?”

Brian shrugged and opened his folder. “I like to be near the window.”

Laughing, Jeff glanced at Zormna again. She looked tired, not at all as chipper as she had been that summer. Summer had done her a great deal of good. It had helped her relax and enjoy being a teenager—something she had sort of skipped when growing up back Home. After all, she had become an adult at twelve, according to the test their people used to gauge useful and responsible citizens. And she had become a responsible military leader soon after that. Having a sliver of childhood back Home had been a blessing.

But no one else seemed to notice her weariness. Brian immediately became engrossed in inspecting the pages of his heavy text. He had started to read it. Joy was also looking at her book while arranging her new notebook and pens from her book bag on her desk.

“I hope you didn’t reschedule your classes just because of me, Jafarr,” Zormna whispered from across the aisle, again with using his real name. Despite all his efforts, he could never break her of that habit.

“’Course not,” Jeff replied, trying to bury his annoyance as he leaned across the aisle towards her with a similar whisper. “This class is required, and I haven’t taken it yet. This is my last year.”

Zormna smirked. “You actually intend to graduate from this place?”

“Why not?” Jeff pulled out his textbook and peered at the cover. “I’ve always wanted to know about…um…English Affecting Our Lives.”

She moaned, slumping back in her seat. “If it isn’t an instructional text on how to speak the language better, I’m not impressed.”

“You know it’s a Lit book. Don’t be a dufus.” Jeff opened the book and peered at the table of contents. “It looks like we’ll be reading some Shakespeare.”

“And what’s that?” Zormna asked without any real interest.

Before Jeff could answer, their instructor Mr. Humphries walked into the room then pulled out the textbook. The man spoke in a booming base. “Welcome to English Literature. I hope you are all in the right class.”

The students let out a murmur. This teacher had a reputation for being peculiarly interesting if not downright scary. He was dressed conservatively, middle-aged with love handles, a short haircut and the beginnings of male pattern baldness. But he did not look as rigid as others had described him. So they were not sure what to expect.

Mr. Humphries lifted up a paper and said, “First we will go over the rules of the class….”

Zormna glanced over at Jeff, uninterested and tired. Her life had been framed by rules, as she had been raised by the military back Home, but this felt silly. She leaned forward and slumped over her desk—another thing she didn’t normally do.

 Jeff stared at the ceiling a moment then glanced at Joy, who was poking Zormna on the head so she would keep it up instead of leaning it on her back. Brian smirked as he pulled out a pen, following along with the teacher.

Jeff chuckled then leaned across the aisle with a whisper. “Didn’t you get any sleep last night?”

Zormna blinked, looked at him then rested her head in her arms on her desk.

“No, not really. They trained me to close the restaurant last night. I barely made it home when Mr. McLenna found me sneaking in.” Zormna yawned. “He lectured at me for nearly an hour. By the time I got to bed it was two in the morning.” She closed her eyes, trying to block out the blinding florescent lights above.

“Rule three: No gum chewing—ever. If I catch you with gum you are on clean up duty and Saturday detention. Don’t test me on this….” The teacher continued his list.

“What? You didn’t sleep during his lecture?” Jeff put in jokingly.

Zormna lifted up her head and delivered a pained look. “Oh please, sleep through an Irishman’s lecture? That’s like volunteering to be executed.” She looked up a moment at the teacher and continued in a mild whisper, sticking to their public code words as Zormna knew the classroom could be bugged by the FBI. “I’m grateful that he only lectures at me when he is mad. If