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

again at his paper. He did know death. Both of his real parents were dead, killed by enemies that he knew by face and name. Then his neighbors who had been Tarrns. And members of the rebellion who had died right before he became the new leader of the movement. However, an alibi was an alibi, something that must be maintained. With a glance at Zormna again, he smirked and set his pen to his paper. Others peeked to her also for the same reason, though Jeff noticed Joy peeking at him the way she had been doing lately. She averted her eyes when he noticed. He sighed.

 

Tuesday flew by. Wednesday they covered Act Five, scenes one and two. Then they wrote on suicide. By Thursday when they read scene three, Mr. Humphries said they would finish on Friday after the tragic deaths. They wrote about fate. Did they believe in fate or do we make our own fate? That turned out to be a rather sober class.

“See what scourge is laid upon your hate, that heaven finds means to kill your joys with love; and I, for winking at your discords too, have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish’d,” their teacher read as he looked up at the students on Friday, rereading the prince’s lines. “A glooming peace this morning with it brings; the sun for sorrow, will not show his head: go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; some shall be pardon’d, and some punished: for never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

He gazed at the class with a particularly solemn face. “I suppose many of you are thinking right now, ‘Why did we have to read something so depressing?’”

He smiled.

“Answer that for yourselves. There is something to be learned from the mistakes of others—even fictional,” he said.

Jeff smirked with a glance at Zormna. She was sitting back in her seat, bracing for what was coming next. So was Brian, Joy, Sam, Adam, and the others.

“All right. Now we’ll start with reading individual papers.” Mr. Humphries started to flip through the papers. He pulled one out and smiled. “Adam Arbor. Read your paper on death in your family.”

Adam stood up and took his paper. Taking a breath for courage he read: “I can’t say I wish I knew what it was like to have someone die in my family, but I don’t. I lost a fish once when I was five and that was traumatizing enough….”

Zormna chuckled, even as the rest of the class laughed and nodded.

*

They sat at lunch talking about the usual things, including why Darren now no longer joined their group on Mondays and how he now decided to get in an early weekend on homework that Friday—though Mark and Jonathan didn’t seem to care.

“He just said that he was swamped with homework and that he needed to catch up,” shrugging, Jennifer said to Zormna who was the one who was truly concerned.

Zormna frowned. After a moment, spork in hand, she asked, “Did he say which class?”

Jennifer shrugged. “No, but I think it was Chemistry homework. He was taking his textbook with him.”

Sighing and biting the inside of her lip, Zormna sat down on the grass. Sam sat next to her with Adam, leaning against the tree.

“Maybe he wants to get ahead,” Sam offered.

Zormna glanced at him and shrugged. She then picked through the tuna and noodle casserole the school had served her, plucking out the pieces of pickle. She chewed on them pensively, her green eyes fixed on the grass. Jeff glanced down at Zormna, revealing no emotion as he recalled the last conversation he actually had with Darren. Darren was probably still thinking about spies, knowing Darren’s tenacity. As other friends chatted up as usual on other subjects, Jeff glanced toward the school and then ponderously took a bite of his sandwich.

“I still can’t believe Mr. Humphries gave my paper an A. I thought I’d at least get a C for completing the assignment. But I never thought writing about my fish would get me an A.” Adam shook his head as he laughed. He had moved between Mark and Brian at the picnic table, comfortable in the group.

Sam smirked from his spot near Zormna at the tree. “I wrote about my grandmother who had Alzheimer’s. I got a B. I guess he was just moved about your fish.”

Shooting Sam look of disgusted, Zormna winced and shook her head. “Mr. Humphries does not grade on who has the most emotional experience. He grades on content and effort.”

“Well, what did you get?” Sam asked her with his usual teasing smirk.

Shrugging, she said, “An A—but I did not get that for what happened to me. He grades on how well we express ourselves. If you rushed it or if you were unclear, he marks down.”

Sam smirked with a tilted of his head. Admiring her but not agreeing, he let their argument slide. Then he glanced to the others. “What was yours about Brian? Jeff? Did you get A’s?”

Jeff glanced at him and narrowed his eyes with an irritated look Zormna typically gave. “Isn’t that subject rather personal?”

Zormna glanced up at him but then turned her eyes back to her lunch, keeping her expression clear. She knew enough to know that his family was as gone as hers, and the sting was still painful.

“But if you must know, I wrote about Zormna,” Jeff said, taking another bite of sandwich.

Her head popped up again, her nose scrunched in protest.

He saw her look and raised his hands with a playful grin. “He said we could write about friends we knew that had dealt with death. Both my parents are alive. I didn’t have anything to write about.” And adding as the corner of his mouth curled toward a smirk, Jeff said, “I never had a pet.”

Grumbling incomprehensibly, Zormna nodded then shook her head.

Sam noticed her reaction and closed his mouth. Her sensitivity to the subject was apparent enough that he didn’t want to bring it up any more.

“I ended up writing about an uncle of mine that died of cancer,” Brian murmured.

“You had an uncle who died of cancer?” Jonathan asked, between bites of kosher deli sandwich.

“Colon cancer,” Brian said and finished off his orange. He dusted off his hands and searched his lunch bag for anything else to eat.

“What about that fate assignment? I didn’t know what to write on that,” Adam asked. He balled up what was left of his lunch bag, tucking his bag of chips under his arm.

Brian shrugged, extracting a baggie containing homemade chocolate chip cookies. “I wrote that I don’t believe in fate but sometimes I do believe in a little luck.”

Glancing at him, Jeff snickered, then reached for a cookie. “That’s right. You still carry that bottle cap in your pocket, don’t you?”

Not embarrassed at all, Brian explained as he let Jeff take a cookie but blocked Mark and Jonathan from snagging one, “I found it in our attic. My grandma said my grandfather kept it for luck. I dunno, but ever since I had it I have never lost a bet.” He then offered a cookie to Zormna who received it with a genuine smile. She had developed a fondness for chocolate and had a fair sampling of the Hendersons’ cookie baking skills, which were heavenly.

With another laugh, Jeff shook his head, eating his cookie in two bites before Jonathan could get to it.

“Yeah, but you never bet anything higher than a dollar,” snorting, Mark retorted, reaching in to sneak a cookie from the bag.

Brian shrugged, holding the bag away. “That’s another thing that makes it lucky. Grandma said that it only works on bets lower than a dollar.”

The group snickered even more at him. Mark jabbed him in the side then snatched a cookie. They knew Brian was joking. He was the one who always quoted his father, saying things like: ‘The harder I work, the luckier I am.’ And all that.

“What about you, Jeff? Do you believe in fate?” Sam asked, trying to wipe away his smirk as he exchanged glances with Adam. Adam peered yearningly at the cookies now. Those eating them were thoroughly enjoying them.

Looking at his chocolatey fingers while thinking, Jeff took a breath and said, “I wouldn’t say fate, per se. Not like the Greeks. I think I believe more in missions.”

“In what?” Mark asked, looking at him. Brian was trying to get the cookie back, but Mark had already taken a large bite out of it.

“Well, some might call it destiny, but that is too restricting. I mean, we all have our free will,” Jeff said. He licked his fingers. “But I do believe that there are certain paths that we specifically have to take that are meant just for us.”

“I heard that free will was a myth made up by religions.” Sam chuckled with an amused snort. “Aren’t we just the product of our DNA and our environment?”

“That’s genetic determinism,” Jeff replied with irritation. He licked off the chocolate from the corner of his mouth, peeking over at Brian’s remaining cookie. “And a total lie. Everybody has a choice.”

“Totally,” Jonathan chimed in. “Because if you are just a product of your genes and your environment then all those racist pricks that want to justify getting rid of oh, say, Jews…can justify murder like Hitler did.”

“Or justify taking Native American kids from their families and putting them in government schools to wipe out their old traditions,” Brian chimed in. He grasped his remaining cookie in one hand, gesturing with it.

“That really happened?” Zormna whispered in surprise to Jennifer who nodded gravely. Kevin averted his eyes, trying to stay out of the conversation. He was sitting on the edge of the group, looking inclined to sneak off to where his buddies were hanging out. He just didn’t want to leave Jennifer with only Zormna.

“Old, dirty American history,” Jennifer whispered back. “The kind of thing we’re embarrassed about and don’t want to admit.”

“Or why some people think Blacks are naturally violent,” Jeff added, ignoring Zormna’s and Jennifer’s whispers.

“People think that?” Zormna asked, louder.

Jeff nodded to her. Though, the others cringed. Theirs was a predominantly white neighborhood after all.

Sam backed from Jeff and his friends, going pale. “Ok… so I heard wrong. Jeeze!”

But Jeff shook his head at Sam as he said, “Sam, in case you don’t know, Brian, I, and Jonathan are fairly religious.”

“What about me?” Mark protested, though he was smirking with chocolate on his face. The chips in those cookies had been large and plentiful.

Jeff glanced at him. “You never say anything.”

Mark laughed dryly. “Because Brian and Jonathan are so opinionated. Between a Mormon and Jewish guy…I’d lose.”

Sam stared more. He looked to Brian and then Jonathan who honestly had not talked religion much when he was around. But then Sam never hung out with them in the mornings when Brian, Joy and their twin brothers had just come from their early morning seminary class. That was usually when religious discussions took place, when it was fresh on their minds.

“Lose?” Zormna looked confused as she repeated Mark’s words.

Nodding earnestly, Mark said, “Yes. Have you ever gotten into a religious debate with them? I don’t recommend it. Both of them are like ninjas with Bible verse—”

“Torah,” Jonathan cut in.

“—and I just kinda know the stories.” Mark shook his head. He then snapped back to Jeff. “But you don’t ever talk about it. In fact, since camp, I have not heard a peep from you about God or religion.”

Jeff blinked at him then shrugged. “Too frequent mention about deity gets sacrilegious. I’m more private about stuff like that.”

Brian and Jonathan shared a look.

“So, what do you believe?” Sam asked. “Besides free will…”

Shaking his head, Jeff chuckled. Zormna avoided his gaze. Yet, after some contemplation, Jeff said, “Lots of things. That God is real. That life is important. That kindness is what defines a man of God. That selfishness only brings about pain