A Parthan Summer by Julie Steimle (intellectual books to read TXT) 📕

She shot him a look, chuckling. “And you think you can find your way in the dark through this forest?”

Jeff shrugged again. “At least I kept an eye out for where we have gone.”

Zormna nodded glad it was dark as she flushed a little. “I should have.”

The hike back took them through the girls’ section of the camp. The girls wished Jeff a fond good night as he walked them down the hill. He made sure Zormna was at her cabin and up the concrete steps before he went off to his part of camp. He flicked his wrist at her in a wave then proceeded down the hill.

Zormna returned the gesture.

A few girls were already in their cots when she went inside. And as Zormna meandered through them to her bed, she thought over the event, especially feeling glad that Jeff had come on the hunt. She had learned a great deal about the kind of person Jeff was. And she flushed from shame, realizing that she had let her anger at him blind her from seeing what a good person he really was. Their old fight felt so petty now. He knew what he was getting into that night, just like when he had stuck around after the FBI discovered he was not an ordinary local of…well, the planet. He had put himself at risk for the sake of helping others. Most people weren’t like that.

Her mind went back to that day when the FBI had questioned him. The things he said, the things he had revealed…. She clenched her arms to herself wondering how he could stick to such a dangerous promise to protect her. The idea that she was chosen to be a savior for her people still did not settle well with her either. It made her uncomfortable in her own skin. She still had many questions and many doubts. But Jeff had not said a word about it since then, perhaps expecting the FBI to listen in on their conversations.

 Heaving a sigh, Zormna undressed, slipping off her shirt and pulling on her nightgown. Snickers echoed from outside the cabin from girls still involved in pranks. Ignoring them, feeling tired at her first day back from confinement, Zormna unclipped her bra then detached her medallion from the clips on the straps that held it secure. She climbed onto her cot, slipping into her sleeping bag. Her medallion hung loosely on her neck. She gently tucked it downward so that it wouldn’t strangle her in the night as it occasionally did. She tossed her hair from her face then laid her head gently on the pillow. A week left to camp. She was sure she could make it.

A genius is someone screwed up in a useful way—anon—

People looked at Zormna and Jeff differently after the snipe hunting trip. But they also acted differently. Jeff openly spoke with Zormna with hardly any of their prior friction. It seemed to their friends that they had bonded over their incarceration, and more after being sent on a wild goose chase. And not everyone was happy about that either. Also, they seemed more introspective. Subdued on occasions.

One big difference was that Zormna now entirely avoided Maya. Some girls said she was being racist, but those that believed that Maya was FBI skirted away from her also. In general though, Zormna spent her time dutifully practicing routines for both cheerleading and gymnastics without a thought to the watching FBI. She also skipped the craft cabin to spend more time on the balance beam and the floor for her routine each day, making up for lost time.

Another difference was that Zormna had stopped watching Holly and the karate team. And though it had made everyone happy, a few of the girls on her teams were curious over why. So Amanda decided to ask her.

Blinking at her while in the middle of morning stretches, Zormna pondered the question for a second then shrugged. “I suppose I just realized their fighting method is mostly just for show.”

“Just for show?” Amanda and the girls with her stared, mouths hanging open. “Karate?”

“It isn’t?” Zormna blinked at her again, openly puzzled.

Almost choking on her disbelief, Amanda exclaimed, “Haven’t you ever seen a karate movie?”

Rolling her eyes, Zormna moaned. “Movies are fake! The action is choreographed. I am talking about real martial arts.”

“What about karate matches?” one of Amanda’s friends protested. “Those are real.”

Looking to her with raised eyebrows, Zormna then sighed. “Ok, look…maybe what I have seen here isn’t really an example of a real professional. So, maybe I am judging wrong. But I am pretty sure if it came to a fight, I’d have no trouble dealing with that lot.”

The girls could not stop staring. Eyes wider, mouths also, they were too dumbstruck to buy such a blatant brag.

“You can’t be serious.”

“What about Holly?”

“Oh my gosh, your ego!”

Zormna only chuckled, shaking her head. “Sorry… It’s just, I was the top student in my martial arts class back home, and I had even bested my teachers. I don’t think it is bragging if I am telling the truth.”

But the girls were still overpoweringly stunned, and they walked away in a faint daze to share the information with the others.

Michelle, of course, was appalled that Zormna was so vocally brazen about her confidence in fighting the karate team. Stacey said Zormna needed to get a boyfriend, receiving a few nods from only a handful of girls with her. Most were too worried which boyfriend she’d steal. Though, Jennifer McCabe muttered that maybe Zormna was telling the complete truth, and they ought to be concerned. A few chimed in on that one, having already seen Zormna in action before. But Joy, she just stared into space and shook her head. And someone had heard her murmur, “Maybe that’s why the FBI are following her? Maybe they think she is a spy.”

The words of Zormna’s brag had also reached others outside the Pennington group. The Monroe girls had a few choice words to say about Zormna, none which were complimentary. The Billsburg girls muttered in terms more like Jennifer McCabe’s thinking. But the girls of Harvest High (whom her remarks were mostly about) bristled over them—especially at how Zormna had claimed that she could take on the entire karate team. Half of them wanted challenge Zormna, test that brag. The other half whispered that Zormna had already beaten Damon Pikes along with three of his friends—and had famously broken the nose of the state champ wrestler, which was proof enough that she really could deliver on her claim. After all, this last group added, the FBI was watching her—something more people believed as time went on.

The day after Zormna had made that boast, the Harvest karate team eyed her meanly. And followed her at a distance. She was at that moment busy on the lawn with the Pennington cheer team fine-tuning their routine. They were at the tail end of the practice, intending to head next to the craft cabin to finish making a team scrapbook as soon as they were done. The Harvest girls watched Zormna as she wiped off her sweat, sighing with reluctance that she would not have the rest of her team to practice with, and that the gym was currently being used for a coaching seminar. Their coaches had come early to camp to check up on their progress and were now getting training on being more ‘sensitive’ to special needs. Zormna personally thought it was ridiculous, which made a few girls hate her more.  

As she walked down the lawn to the gravel, pondering if it was really worth it to go in with her team to do scrapbooking, as she really didn’t have any creative inclinations whatsoever, a few girls from the Harvest karate team followed her at a respectable distance.

Zormna halted when she spotted Brian and a couple other boys doing something on the gravel near a row of wooden posts that rimmed the parking lot. They were playing with a small, handheld device she could not see very well. But it shot short sticks when he flicked up a string with his thumb. Brian was showing it to this guy on their baseball team.

“What is that?” Zormna asked, approaching them.

Brian looked back. A broad grin cracked across his face and he held out the little wooden thing for her to see. “A mini crossbow. I made it in crafts.”

“In crafts?” She came closer, eyes widening.

“You’d better not let Coach Murphy see that,” one of the boys said, smirking with envy.

“Scratch Coach Murphy,” the other boys chimed in, peering at it jealously. “What about Coach Brown? I hear he’s FBI.”

“Can I see that?” Zormna reached out for it. She had a similar hunger as the boys to hold the thing. Brian cheerfully released it to her—which he hadn’t really done for the boys. But he was always like that for Zormna.

Those following from Harvest kept their distance.

Turning it, tilting the crossbow in her hand, Zormna examined the parts. It was simple really—made out of popsicle-sticks, hot glue, some dental floss and two metal hair clips. Zormna examined it then pulled back the string so it was cocked into a notch cut out of the wood. She gently nudged the string and it popped out of place. If it had been loaded, it would have shot one of the boys in the ear.

“How did you put this together?” Zormna peered at each part more closely. “This is ingenious.”

Brian grinned, puffing up his chest. But then he shrugged and said, “We made these in scouts once. Our scoutmaster saw it on YouTube and showed us how to make it. All I really needed was the glue gun, and I snagged two hair clips from Joy. They were making these flower hair clip thingies earlier.”

Zormna nodded, remembering how she had skipped out on that craft also. Flowers in her hair was cute, but not her thing. But this crossbow, she would not mind making. “What do you use for ammunition?”

Laughing, Brian shook his head. “Normally, matchsticks. But I cut up a few popsicle-sticks to the same size.”

“Can I try?” Zormna asked, reaching out for the mini-crossbow bolts he had made.

Shaking his head and sighing, Brian dug his hand into his jeans pocket. “Alight. Just don’t shoot them at anybody.”

Zormna nodded.

He handed them to her. They were bright red, which Zormna assumed was to make them easy to find when they went astray.

Grinning, she nodded then loaded the mini-weapon with only a little fumbling. Then, gauging a target, which in this case was the same paper cup set on a nearby post stump they had been aiming at earlier, she took aim and fired.

Zormna knocked the cup right off.

“Cool.” She tilted it, and examined the toy crossbow again. “But I don’t think it has a whole lot of strength.”

“What did you expect from hair clips and popsicle-sticks?” Brian laughed. He hesitated to reach for it though. The boys with him were staring at Zormna as if she had just done the impossible. She hadn’t known it, but Brian had been aiming at that