The Millennial Box by Julie Steimle (rainbow fish read aloud TXT) 📕

Jeff shrugged. "Who's to say what it might do? I was thinking about turning that pizza one in."

Joy gaped at him. "But aren't you supposed to write it about something you feel deeply about?"

Jeff laughed with a wink at her. "I feel very strongly about Italian food."

Zormna snorted in her milk, spitting it back in the box through her straw.

"What about you?" Joy asked Zormna.

Zormna looked up and shrugged like Jeff, wiping her chin. "I haven't gotten around to it either."

Joy laughed. "You? Don't you always get everything done ahead of time?"

Sighing, Zormna opened the granola bar Jeff had handed to her. "I suppose, only I got busy with other things."

A rude laugh erupted in the table behind her. Zormna turned around in her folding chair and glared at the general direction. Many heads ducked over their lunches. The term 'super ninja' rang in their heads as they saw her green eyes peer over the crowd. Not able to make out who had laughed, she turned back and concentrated on her lunch.

Jennifer let out a loud sigh. Kevin was not there. He was hanging out with his other friends, a group of people Zormna and Brian's circle did not really associate with, but she didn't want to be with his friends either. They had said some snide things about Zormna and were being incredible pricks whenever she showed up. Fact was, they were pressuring Kevin to 'man up' and go further with Jennifer. After watching what Zormna was going through without even actually committing the act, Jennifer had decided it was a bad idea to even venture in that territory. And when she had told Kevin, he seemed offish and put out. In fact, he had hinted that if they relationship was going nowhere, they might just break up. And that got Jennifer mad.

Trying to keep her mind off of that, she looked up from her finished sandwich wrapper and murmured, "I hope Miss Bianchi doesn't grade hard on the 'Christmas Around the World' celebration. I haven't even finished my paper yet. How am I supposed to come up with five Irish recipes that my family uses at Christmas when they don't cook Irish dishes?"

The group stared at her and laughed.

Jennifer glanced up at them. "What?"

Brian patted Jennifer on the shoulder. "Nice to see you resurface once in a while."

She shook her head and looked back down at her lunch.

Zormna frowned. That was another problem. Christmas Around the World was only a week away, she still had her sonnet to write, and she had detention after school to the end of that year, plus ridiculous counseling sessions twice a week to top it all off. That was besides weeding through the garbage of her ruined reputation, which there was no way she would ever salvage.

 She glanced at Jeff and noticed that he was looking at her with an amused smirk. He raised his eyebrows as if to say: 'Be happy for these silly distractions. They will last for only a short time'. Zormna nearly laughed.

Indeed. They were silly distractions. Things to occupy her time while she waited for her return home. It amazed her how well she was settling in and living like a Parthan, so well that she nearly forgot that her life lie beyond this world. She had a duty to her people. They had a world they both swore to protect. And whether she was one the prophecy spoke about, or if that was someone else - she, Zormna Clendar, had promised herself that she would do her utmost to make sure freedom would come again to her people.

Detention would come and go. School assigned sonnets would not be the end of the world. She would even survive sitting and listening to counselors and school nurses telling her that she was in danger of becoming the next unwed mother, or at risk of cervical cancer if she didn't get her immunization fast. She would survive this Christmas, even if Miss Bianchi would make her wear a ridiculous little elf costume and parade around in front of the school just to satisfy the crazy urges her teacher had. And she would eventually go home. Back to Mars. Back to Arras. Back to speaking her own language and following her own ways.

Zormna smiled at Jeff and was glad, for once, that he was helping her through it. Then she finished off her sandwich.

Publication Date: 09-02-2017

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