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

led her to an empty bed. “I don’t think they’d mind if you use this one. It has been kind of slow.”

Taking her gesture kindly, Zormna thanked her as she climbed on the metal frame bed. As she was lying down, she peered at the strange hospital gadgetry and sighed. It was so different from home. Closing her eyes, Zormna let her thoughts drift into sleep.

 

She saw a corridor. It was clean and white. The floor had a low pile carpet. She looked down and saw that she had bare feet. Up from there, she noticed that she was wearing a dress—no, a gown, a backless gown. She felt around her neck. Her medallion was gone. She looked up. She heard feet running down the hall and voices calling to look for her, yelling ‘where did she go?’ and ‘did you see her?’ She slipped in a sprint across the hall to a smaller tile-floor hall. The noise was closer. Frightened, she ducked in a doorway. Turning, she saw a man in a bed. He grinned at her harmlessly.

“Who are you?” he asked in the echoing silence.

The noise of the feet was becoming fainter.

“I’m Zormna,” she said, hiding behind the door.

He smiled. “I’m Babe Ruth.”

“Babe Ruth?” she murmured.

 

“Wake up,” a girl in a frilly peasant jumper dress said, nudging Zormna. “We have been looking for you everywhere.”

Groggy, yet nodding, reality came back to Zormna. She looked at the beds that surrounded her. It was darker in the gym, and the sun was setting now in the sky. Zormna climbed off the bed with a thought vaguely going through her head. She knew these beds were a link to her missing past. It made her head ache to recall it, but it satisfied her to know that those missing three days were coming back to memory her bit by bit.

“Hurry up!” the girl urged.

Zormna nodded again and followed.

Then the sun set. The lights went on. The dancing and selling persisted until seven o’clock. They closed at eight. It was all shut down by eight-thirty, and Zormna was in her bed in the McLennas’ attic room at nine. Oktoberfest was over.

*

Monday.

Sam sat blearily at his desk while Jeff and Zormna listened to three girls reading the witches’ lines. Anne Mary glowered the entire period, and even Zormna noticed how ridiculously sulky that girl was when they finished.

Mr. Humphries gazed over the class as usual, thinking for a moment before speaking.

Everyone looked up, gazing at him in wonder at what their next assignment would be. He cleared his throat with a glance at each of them. Anne Mary was still scowling. Sam was attempting to look up from his desk, clearly finding it difficult to focus. Zormna vaguely guessed that he had been up late Sunday night. Zormna and Jeff’s eyes remained fixed on their teacher with their notebooks and pencils ready.

“I think everyone needs a break for a minute,” Mr. Humphries said, sitting back down. “I want you to think for a second about this question, and instead of writing, I want you to answer.”

Everyone tensed up at his words. It was much worse to be picked on in the instant about the subjects he assigned. And though most feared that he would make them read their papers in front of the class, they feared this even more.

“Actually, I want to try an experiment. I’m going to pick you randomly, and you must respond with the first thing that comes from your head. There are no wrong answers in this game,” their teacher said.

Everyone listened with more interest now. There was only the risk of embarrassing themselves and that was already a factor they had come to accept in that class from the first day.

Picking on Brian, he asked, “When you think of Macbeth, what is the first word that comes into your head?”

Brian shrugged and said, “Old.”

Everyone laughed. Mr. Humphries chuckled.

“Why?” their teacher asked him.

Brian shrugged again. “I dunno. I guess I imagine and old tired man when I think of Macbeth. I see someone who is ready to die.”

Mr. Humphries nodded. “Good.”

Turning to Anne Mary, he asked, “If I say ‘witches’, you say—”

“Evil.” Anne Mary sat up straight with her glare.

He nodded. Neil rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“If I say ‘pumpkin’, you say—” their teacher said, pointing to Michael Peterson, and not Neil.

“Pie,” Michael replied.

Everyone laughed.

Mr. Humphries nodded. Then he asked a general question, “If I had asked Anne Mary to respond to ‘pumpkin’, what would she say?”

Michael smirked and said while peeking at Neil, “Evil.”

With a glare at them, she spoke indignantly, “No I wouldn’t. I would have said, ‘scarecrow’.”

The teacher nodded. “And if I said witch to Michael?”

“He would have said ‘good,’” Anne Mary sneered.

Shaking his head, Michael snapped back, “No I wouldn’t. I would have said craft.”

The teacher nodded.

“Perspective,” Mr. Humphries said.

Everyone looked at him.

He grinned. “It is interesting how we interpret our world through our own perspective. One thing is evil to one person and one thing is fun to another.” Pausing, he glanced at Jeff’s corner of the room and said, “Let’s take another course.”

Pointing to Jeff, Mr. Humphries said, “Father.”

“Dead,” popped out of his lips before he realized what he had said. Jeff flushed immediately.

Mr. Humphries was taken aback by this unexpected response. “Why did you say that?”

Zormna glanced at Jeff, covering her mouth and praying for help.

Jeff shrugged and lied. “I don’t know.”

His teacher glanced sideways at him, and even Sam sleepily looked up from his desk.

Mr. Humphries turned to Zormna. “Murder.”

Her mind blanked. The word that came to her was life, but that didn’t make any sense.

“Go ahead, say it,” her teacher coaxed.

“Life,” she barely uttered.

Her teacher nodded. “Your life, perhaps?”

Thinking a moment, she nodded. It surrounded her.

Instead of turning away, the teacher continued with a look on her. “Let’s try this word. Fate.”

Zormna responded. “Pain.”

Sam sat up.

Mr. Humphries glanced at Jeff. “Jeff—Love.”

Looking up, Jeff replied, “Life.”

The teacher smiled, though puzzled. Pointing to Zormna, he said, “Fear.”

“Dreams,” she blurted.

Jeff looked at her. Was she still having nightmares?

She avoided his gaze, flushing redder that it even spread to her ears.

“Hate.” His teacher pointed to Jeff.

“P.M.s,” Jeff said immediately. All of a sudden his face flushed again. He put his head on the desk and shook his head.

Sam gazed at him, and Zormna’s stare fixed back on Jeff. She was biting her lip hoping her teacher would quit soon.

Mr. Humphries slipped back into confusion, not understanding the response at all. Ignoring it, he turned and pointed to the girl again. “Zormna—Love.”

Her mind went blank again. She nearly uttered the word ‘space’ but she stopped herself.

“Home,” she said.

Mr. Humphries nodded.

“Hate,” he said still pointing at her.

Her mind blanked again. This time a word slipped in that she didn’t mind using.

“Fear,” she replied.

Nodding her teacher looked back at Jeff. “Death.”

Jeff didn’t bother to sit up. He murmured from his desk, “Killed.”

Mr. Humphries covered his mouth and at last spoke. “You witnessed somebody get killed once, didn’t you?”

Jeff looked up and eyed his teacher. What could he say? Taking a breath, Jeff nodded, admitting.

Everyone around them gasped, except Zormna who watched him with tense eyes. She feared that this exercise was going to get them into a lot of trouble. Why couldn’t he be a quicker liar? She snuck a glance at Sam, but the boy was staring at Jeff like the rest, shocked and interested at the same time. Brian seemed the most surprised about this.

“Was it someone close to you?” the teacher asked.

Jeff glanced at Zormna, wondering which story to tell. She gazed at him with hope that he wouldn’t blow it.

Jeff nodded. Zormna huffed and placed her head on her desk.

Mr. Humphries noticed her expression and noted it in the back of his head. “A friend?”

The boy shook his head slightly and said, “No. Old girlfriend’s father.”

His teacher grew more surprised by this news than he had hoped.

“Is it too personal to talk about?” Mr. Humphries asked, a little flustered but genuinely interested.

Jeff sighed as he shook his head. “I just don’t like to.”

The teacher took it as enough, but Jeff continued his explanation, knowing everyone was going to hound him if he did not satisfy their curiosity now. “Her dad was involved in something illegal, and one night he didn’t come home.” Jeff said then swallowed. It was difficult to phrase it right. Zormna could tell he was modifying some truth. “I went to look for him in a really dangerous area. And I found him, along with several others that were killed.”

Mr. Humphries had gone white, leaning back on his desk for support.

Jeff continued. “I also found her not much after. And she was also badly hurt. His death was why she broke up with me. And I have no clue how she is doing right now.”

The teacher nodded. Zormna gazed at him, aching for him. He had never told her this, but she could feel in her gut that it was almost pure truth. Jeff tried not to look at her.

The rest of the class stared at him. Jeff hardly ever talked about his ‘life in a gang’, though everyone had believe the rumor that he had once been in one and had left it. And though most marveled over Jeff’s dangerous past, Sam’s face showed only youthful confusion. Adam looked downright stunned. Joy and Brian sat uncomfortably in their seats, gazing at him with so much sorrow on his behalf—though Brian averted his gaze as he clearly did not know how to respond to the confirmation of rumor.

Mr. Humphries stood to his full height. “It seems again that I have been taught by my students. Thank you, Jeff and Zormna, for giving me a lesson on perspective.”

They both peered up at him with similar puzzlement, but the teacher then explained himself.

He said, “I have often wondered what makes a good student. I often believed that the most belligerent students were a product of hard lives, and they didn’t have chance in this world. Yet you two have proven to me that hard lives also create strong personalities, and determination.”

Zormna raised her hand then stood up. “Sir, no means to disrespect you, but one of my commanding officers used to say that it isn’t the circumstance that makes the person, it is the person who makes himself.”

Jeff smirked. That teaching philosophy was written over the doors of every school on their homeworld. It was one of the few truisms they had kept from ancient eras—a quote from their mutual ancestor, Zeldar Tarrn.

Mr. Humphries nodded, squeezing out a smile. “I stand corrected.”

Zormna blushed, nodded to him, and sat down.

“I think we need to remember this exercise. What we did is called word association. It forces us to recognize how we see things and what is on our mind. Next time we do a writing assignment, I want you to write about the first thing that comes to your mind. Not the second or third. I want an honest and true response in your papers.” Mr. Humphries paused to let it sink in. Then he said, “Such papers create the best writing.”

“That was weird,” a classmate said as she left the room.

Jeff walked silently out, looking downcast and disturbed. He didn’t like how easy it was for his teacher to extract such personal responses from him. Had Mr. Humphries worked for the FBI he could have gotten some crucial information. He had put him and Zormna in jeopardy. It frightened Jeff to lose control like that. Apparently, he had to stop letting his guard down in English class.

Zormna watched him walk away to class, gazing sadly at him.

Sam and Adam walked out and stopped at the stairs where Zormna stood. Adam glanced down at his shoes, and Sam kept his gaze on Zormna as she watched Jeff leave.

“Zormna, we’re going to be late,” Sam at last called to her.

She glanced back at him. Shaking her head, Zormna walked away from them. “You go ahead.”

Both boys watched