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

freezing blush onto her cheeks. It also blew away every umbrella and outdoor tent stand—and that made Oktoberfest an extra difficult event to keep on the ground. Most of the recruits Miss Bianchi took from her classes were to spend the time at the festival holding down tents and retrieving blown-away display items. The rest of the event would be taken care of by the people selling and displaying in the parking lot.

And since Zormna could not complete her writing assignment, Miss Bianchi gave her a special assignment at the festival to work with the food servers. In addition, she had to write about what cultural things she learned at the festival and what she liked. She also had to wear another dress.

“It’s cute,” Jennifer said as Zormna glowered at her reflection in the three-way mirror of the specialty costume shop.

“It is what all the other caterers are wearing,” Miss Bianchi added with a very happy grin, especially since Zormna’s fiery blond hair made her look stereotypically German, at least in her mind. “Because they need to keep within the Oktoberfest image, so do you.”

Zormna glared up at her teacher. “Do the other volunteers have to wear these outfits?”

Miss Bianchi nodded. “The boys have to wear lederhosen. And the girls are wearing provided costume pieces. Yours has to be fitted because this one is specifically for the caterers, and you are smaller than what we had on hand. You can keep it if you want.”

Frowning, Zormna stepped off the stool. She fluffed the short ruffled skirt and flipped the tiny apron buttoned to it. “I feel like I’m wearing one of those stupid French maid uniforms Maria had.”

Jennifer flushed and agreed. Their Irish green dresses had been much more modest than the German-like serving outfit Zormna was now wearing. This dress had a white short-sleeved peasant blouse, and the lower half was an extremely short, embroidered skirt with lederhosen straps and a buttoned-on apron. The underside frills to the skirt barely covered her biker shorts—a pair Zormna refused to go without no matter how much Miss Bianchi said it made the outfit inauthentic. With the dress, she also wore a pair of thigh high striped stockings and small laced up boots with medium heels. Zormna looked like a barmaid.

“I am not wearing this,” Zormna said, shuddering.

Miss Bianchi didn’t seem to hear. “Here, the sleeves go off the shoulder.” She reached over to move the sleeves to Zormna’s blouse so that the tops of her shoulders would be exposed.

But Zormna slapped back her teacher’s hands off. “My shoulders stay covered!”

Her teacher pulled back, startled, yet not as surprised at Zormna’s behavior as she had been previously. Though it had long spread among the teachers at Pennington High that Zormna was a difficult student with much emotional baggage, Miss Bianchi asked Mr. Humphries and Mrs. Ryant about Zormna’s background and quirks. Both teachers impressed on her that Zormna was one student that had to be logically reasoned with before she’d agree to anything—but once reasoned with, she was an amazing student. They said she only had to get on Zormna’s good side and remain logical in her arguments.

“All right.” Miss Bianchi stepped back. “You just take that home and come on the seventeenth ready to work.”

Zormna nodded with a typical roll of her eyes.

*

“Hark! More knocking. Get on your nightgown, lest occasions call us, and show us to be watchers. Be not lost so poorly in your thought,” the one reading Lady Macbeth said.

“To know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself.” Brian read Macbeth’s part. “Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!”

Mr. Humphries nodded and stood up. They knew their writing assignment was coming up.

“Thank you. That’s good reading.” He walked to the front of his desk and sat on the edge, folding his arms. “It makes you think. This entire story is about deceit and murder. Macbeth feels it is his fate to be ruler, and he has taken the incentive to fulfill it. However, now he regrets his choices. If anything, he feels guilt for what he has just done. Your assignment is to write about a time when you did something that you regret. Just recall it. Why did you regret it? What would you do if you could relive the situation?”

Everyone sat and stared, trying hard to think of what to write. Zormna twirled her pen in her fingers, her eyes fixed on her blank paper for several minutes before she nodded to herself and began to write. Most in her class went right to it in the same way, though Joy peeked at her with a frown. Jeff scratched his head, running his fingers through his long bangs for a similar length of time before setting his pen to the paper. Others around them did likewise, though Sam seemed to be going through his with relative ease. Apparently something had come to mind.  

*

“Do you think Zormna would let me use her house for a party?” Adam asked the group while lacing up his shoes in PE.

Jeff shrugged after pulling on his shirt. “I dunno. She’s kind of particular when it comes to her house. It is her private space.”

He closed his locker and started to head outside. Most of the other boys were ready, though a few had stared at Jeff’s scars and had to rush to finish changing. The wind gust outside the door nearly blew Jeff back into Brian. Staggering, Jeff laughed then continued on.

Brian followed him out, glancing to Adam as he said, “She might. She does owe us a favor for fixing up her house last year. And we did make her promise that we would have a party there.”

Sam started to laugh, trailing behind them. “She actually agreed to that?”

Brian nodded, bemused that she had agreed, considering what he knew about her now. Zormna did not seem like the type who partied, ever.

But Jeff shook his head as he led the way through the heavy wind to their meeting spot. “She might keep her promise to you, Brian—but I don’t think she’ll let you guys have the kind of party you’re thinking of.”

Adam and Brian both glanced at him then said together, “Why not?”

They walked and sat down on the asphalt with the other students in their hour. The area was marked with numbers on the ground not far from the handball courts.

Before Jeff sat down his row, which was farther than theirs since they sat in alphabetical order, he said, “I just know her, and I know you. Most of you are probably going to want to have a loud party—the best of the year—with music and other things. And she’s going to expect a small private party because she doesn’t understand how people party here. If the party gets out of hand, she is going to be ticked. And just so you know, that house she got from her great aunt is packed with antiques. She got rid of the stuff she doesn’t care about. So if anything breaks, she might kill you or at least break your neck. You’d be better off having the party at your place.”

All three boys looked at him as if Jeff had suddenly changed into another person.

Then the coach called for calisthenics.

All of them had been occupied with flag football within the hour, divided by their rows as teams. After the hour, the three of them approached Jeff again, bringing the conversation back to the party.

“Jeff, I gotta have this party.” Adam begged him. “I’m turning eighteen, and my parents won’t let me have it at our place. You have a way with her. Is there any way you can convince Zormna to have it at her place?”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Don’t look at me. Brian is the one you should be begging. She doesn’t owe me anything. I’m just warning you that if things get out of hand, Zormna is going to go ballistic. And I really don’t want to get on her bad side.”

Adam stared at Jeff for a minute, realizing that though Jeff and Zormna did have a close relationship which he found equally puzzling as it was amazing, Jeff already seemed decided. So, with a shrug and a heavy sigh, he turned to Brian who looked nonplussed that Jeff had deferred to him. “Will you help?”

Brian grinned, peeking at Jeff who remained offish over the entire matter. “No problem. I think a party is a cool idea. And Zormna will go for it. We just have to promise her that we won’t trash her house.”

Jeff rolled his eyes.

Sam stepped near and leaned close with a whisper to Jeff. “She doesn’t owe you anything? What do you mean by that?”

Jeff averted his eyes and went straight to his locker to change clothes.

Brian replied, “Oh, Jeff wasn’t with us when we fixed up Zormna’s house back then. He was avoiding her at the time. She didn’t even know he went to Pennington. So Zormna doesn’t owe him anything for that.”

Parting from Sam, Brian got dressed as quickly as Jeff and joined him out to the next class.

 

Brian kept to his word. At lunch, both Adam and Brian set off to Jennifer’s tree to convince Zormna to have a party at her place. And just as Jeff had predicted, she was automatically skeptical of the idea. Yet, just as Brian expected, Zormna gave in—extracting a promise from them that the party would have no alcohol of any kind, or any other illegal or smoky substance as she had seen in movies that Todd and Jennifer liked. She made it plain she had no desire for her house to stink simply because someone wanted a ‘high.’

That part, for them, was an easy deal. Brian never drank or did anything of the like—something he was well known for. As for Adam, he was planning on joining a school sport. And though he had no qualms about underage drinking, he knew that if he was ever caught with alcohol or drugs it would be bad for his chances as Pennington High had a strict no-substance abuse clause…which was (mostly) enforced. Both boys also promised that they would not let the party get out of hand nor would they let people bring in alcohol or anything else that could get her arrested. Brian understood that last part very well, as the FBI were still watching her.

So they planned to have the party that Friday, just after the football game and school dance.

“We’ll provide the food and entertainment. Do you have an MP3 player or one of those old CD players?” Adam asked.

Zormna shrugged, thinking it over. “I think so…. In the living room I think. I have never used it, but I think there is some kind of music player next to the piano.”

“She has one,” Jennifer cut in. She had been listening intently with Kevin, hoping to get invited. She just had to keep the location of the party secret from her parents.  

“The party is fine,” Zormna said with a scanning look at the boys again. “Just as long as we can end early. I have to go to the Oktoberfest on Saturday and help set up.”

Brian glanced at Adam. Adam glanced at him. Mark smirked. And even Jonathan let a grin cross his face that read, I’d-like-to-look-innocent-but-I-can’t.

Jeff shook his head. “Zormna, parties like these go late. Fact of life. Unless you want to go to bed early and leave the cleanup to us, you are just going to have to go to Oktoberfest groggy.”

Fixing her eyes on him, Zormna gaped. “You’re kidding.”

Jeff shook his head again, meeting her gaze. His eyes said she would not be happy on Friday. Not in the slightest. In fact, he seemed to be attempting to warn her to simply say ‘no’ to the party. However, the other boys kept their innocent impish grins. But Jennifer also shook her head, knowing the party was going to be interesting.

“I’ll help,” Jennifer said, also gesturing