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

His expression went blank. “No kidding.”

They continued to walk together towards the main lodge where everyone else ahead of them was going in. Jeff maintained his distance, though his friends were also walking slowly as if they were not in a rush to go inside. Brian noticed where his eyes were watching. Grabbing his elbow, nodding Damon’s way, Brian hissed, “Should we be—?”

“No,” Jeff said, shaking his head. “Zormna would not appreciate us interfering. And you know she can handle herself.”

“Super-ninja,” Mark and Jonathan murmured, nodding.

Brian frowned, yet he also nodded. Besides, so far, Damon had not set a finger on her.

“Perhaps you have heard of a crazy lady living in Pennington, on Hayes Street,” Zormna mentioned with a snicker, wondering if this might scare Damon off. She had to do this the conventional way, after all. She had learned the hard way that beating up boys for hitting on her was not acceptable in her new situation.

 A light of understanding came into Damon’s eyes. He stepped from her sideways, giving Zormna a more objective stare as he looked over her again. “She’s your aunt?”

Zormna grinned with a nod. Sometimes it was handy to have a relative that everyone thought was crazy.

He shook his head. “Man, that lady’s famous for causing the three-city blackouts. Well, it was blamed on her anyway. Actually some worker at the power plant messed things up—got him fired. But wow! You’re really related to that lunatic Martian woman in Pennington?”

“Well…she’s my great aunt. My mother’s aunt,” Zormna said with an embarrassed smile, hoping he’d give up now. It was then that she caught a glance of Jeff and friends who were following at a safe distance. She rolled her eyes and continued on towards the lodge. The lines in front of them were taking forever.

But Damon took another step closer, not the result she was seeking. “So, where are you staying?”

She blinked and looked up. He was even smiling flirtatiously. Incorrigible. That was what he was. Already she started to think of another way to discourage him. 

“Did your parents buy a place in Pennington, or did they inherit your aunt’s house? You said she died,” Damon asked.

Zormna frowned then shrugged. “My parents are also dead. I was orphaned when I was five, and I have been going to a military school since.” 

Damon stopped and stared at Zormna. For a moment Zormna believed she had discouraged him. Damon had glanced back at where he expected Jeff to be. Spotting him, he seemed to be recalling the warning Jeff had given him earlier. Their eyes met. Yet Damon snickered to himself when he realized that not just Jeff was watching him. Almost every Pennington boy stared viciously at him for the audacity of talking to Zormna Clendar. Though Jeff really did seem the most bothered by it.

Turning back around and getting closer to Zormna to see what Jeff would do, Damon said, “So where are you staying?”

Zormna finally reached the lodge doors. Glancing at him with disappointment that she had failed to deter him, she replied, “I’m living with Jennifer and Todd McLenna. I doubt you know them.” 

“With McLenna?” He looked disgusted. “Man. That must suck.”

So he knew Todd. She lifted up an eyebrow. It was unlikely that he knew about the McLenna parents being high blood people from Home, though. What ‘sucked’ was more about his own jealousy than an understanding that it was difficult living under the eye of those parents.

“No. It’s fine.” She then passed through the door into the lodge. “Todd is especially nice.”

“I’ll bet,” remarked Damon sourly, following her.

Inside the lodge, Zormna spotted the signs for each of the teams and schools. Thankfully, Pennington’s registration table was on one end of the lodge and Monroe’s was on the other.

“I’m that way.” She pointed to her section of the lodge. “And you’re that way, so good-bye.”

“Wait!” He took hold of her wrist.

Jeff stiffened, though neither Zormna nor Damon saw it.

Zormna glared at Damon’s hand. “Generally, I don’t let people grab me.”

Damon didn’t let go yet, though. “I just want to know one thing. Why did you call Streigle that name? Isn’t his name Jeff?”

Zormna closed her eyes a moment then glanced back to where Jeff was coming into the lodge with Brian who was also shooting Damon a terse look. 

“Jafarr?” Zormna said, realizing it was too late. “Oh, that’s his real name.”

Damon laughed with surprise.

“I only know it because we go way back,” Zormna said with a contemptuous huff. “I guess he prefers to be called Jeff now. But it really doesn’t matter.”

And she jerked out of Damon’s hold before he could ask another question. She plunged into the thick of the Pennington crowd before he could make a step after her. Others pushed past him. He stood open-mouthed for a minute, watching her entrench herself with the other Pennington cheerleaders. But then he sighed. Damon turned around to go when Jeff with his friends walked past.

Damon leaned toward Jeff with a smirk, mimicking Zormna’s accent. “So, Jafarr…mystery boy from Chicago. You two go way back, she said. But I get the feeling that she can’t stand you. What poetic justice.”

He chuckled in his throat, noticing Brian and Jonathan’s deadly glares as Mark moved to pull them along to avoid a fight.

“Such a hot piece of meat… I bet that just kills you,” Damon added, enjoying it.

But Jeff pulled from Mark and said real low, “You’d better watch it, Damon. Zormna is not like you think she is. Don’t mess with her.”

“And what are you going to do?” Damon asked.

“Nothing,” Jeff replied. “I’ll leave it to her. I’m just warning you—you can’t mess with Zormna Clendar. And though it would be more fun to watch you discover it on your own, I will spare you the bother—”

“Warn me? About that tiny chick?” Damon tossed his head back and laughed. “Yeah, right. There isn’t anything you can say—”

“Probably not,” Jeff interrupted, “But she might have mentioned that she went to a military school. We call her super-ninja behind her back.”

“And to her face,” Jonathan said, a grin returning.

Jeff shrugged.

Damon laughed. “What? Did the widdle girl beat the pulp out of you?”

Jeff’s smile was dark as he continued to look at Damon. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

And then with a side step, Jeff suddenly was beyond Damon’s reach.

Brian and Jonathan continued to glare at Damon in a way that told him to go jump in the lake.

Lifting his chin, Damon sauntered off—maintaining the image that he left a fight on his own accord.

[1] “I am here.”

The better part of one's life consists of one's friendships—Abraham Lincoln—

Free from Damon, though her heart was still pounding from the irritating prospect that the teen jock would be stalking her for a month, Zormna went to the table to check in and find the cabin with her fellow Pennington cheerleaders. She had already filled out papers before camp, but here she had to collect all the booklets and packets specific to her two sports—which included gymnastics.

As she collected her last form and handed the nurse her health information sheet, Zormna noticed another group of girls standing in line not far away at her left. They all wore mostly-matching uniforms that looked to her like plain white, cotton pajamas—though they each had different colored sashes. She found it so peculiar that she reached out and tugged on Jennifer McCabe’s sleeve, pointing them out.

“Who are they?” Zormna asked. “What sport is that?”

Jennifer squinted at the line of boys and girls in the dim lodge light, then wrinkled her nose with a huff. “Oh, they are from Harvest High. Rich kids. They have their own dojo and everything. That’s their karate club.”

“Karate?” The word wasn’t English. It hadn’t been in her study set, though Zormna was sure she had heard it once or twice before.

“Oh, come on,” Jennifer said with an almost impatient look. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of karate—ninja girl.” 

Zormna sighed, wishing once more that she knew more cultural references. The word ninja had also eluded her until she finally learned it was some kind of Japanese assassin.

“Refresh my memory,” Zormna said, trying not to annoy her teammate.

Jennifer groaned with a flippant gesture towards the Harvest karate team. “Why don’t you ask them?”

Zormna scowled. If this girl had been Jennifer McLenna or Joy Henderson, she would have gotten a straight answer. Despite being an open kind of girl, Jennifer McCabe was rarely helpful. Though, she was not as bad as Michelle Clay. But since it was the only way to find out the truth, Joy not easily accessible at the moment, Zormna decided to follow Jennifer’s suggestion.

But as she attempted to squeeze through the crowds to the nearest Harvest karate team member in the line, the Harvest girls left the room together, almost like a troop of soldiers. They followed their camp counselor out of the lodge toward their cabin before Zormna could even speak a word.

Zormna stumbled through the doorway, peering after them. Honestly, watching that sort of unity and discipline made her homesick again.

“Zormna!” Michelle Clay shouted at her from the other lodge doorway—the one that led out the north end.

Zormna turned around. All of her teammates were standing at the north doors. Their camp counselor, a generally chipper-looking blonde dressed in khaki shorts, also appeared impatient.

“Hurry it up, camper! We haven’t got all day,” she said, propping her clipboard upon her hip. 

Jennifer and Joy rolled their eyes in unison, and Michelle tapped her foot impatiently, though for different reasons. The other cheerleaders just stared as if to say ‘Why did we let her on the team?’ But of course they all envied her to some degree, mostly because of the way she looked. Very few of the Pennington girls quite forgave Zormna for moving in their town and drawing away the attention of so many boys—as if she had moved there for that sole purpose.

Zormna hastily joined them.

“Sorry…” though it came out sarcastic.

The camp counselor promptly led the Pennington cheer team back to their luggage still sitting on the gravel near their bus. Each girl claimed her own bag. Zormna picked up her peach duffel bag from Home, cradling it in her arms with a sense of relief that it had not been lost. There were only a few pieces of Home she had left, and losing any one of them tore at her.

Miss Betiford, their camp counselor (or cabin mother as she called herself), chatted like a busybody as she led them on. Zormna only half-listened to the chatter, watching the other campers separate into their cabins up the hills. All of the cabins were rough wooden buildings with concrete foundations, secured window screens and no real privacy. Zormna’s eyes grazed over the scenery as they hiked up the gravel path, taking in her area like she would have inspected a crime scene. She mentally catalogued everything: paths, locations of structures, water spigots, and landmarks. She also noted possible escape routes. Old habit.

The camp’s main lodge rested in the center of a wide valley