The Secret of Zormna Clendar by Julie Steimle (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📕

breakfast window where Brian usually picked up cocoa and a doughnut with his sister Joy. Both friends greeted him with smiles. Joy Henderson, a bob-haired sophomore with Brian’s grin and a cute figure, smirked back.

“What’s up?” Brian said, as Todd glanced around the area with a frown.

“Where’s Jeff?” Todd asked.

Alex just shrugged.

“He was here a second ago.” Brian looked around. Then he nudged Todd with his elbow. “What’s up? Jennifer just glared at us when she walked by and said we shouldn’t be hanging around Zormna so much.”

Todd stared at the sky and moaned. “It’s nothing.”

“She called her an alien,” Brian said.

But Todd just shook his head. “Stupid….”

“Has she been hanging around Darren?” Alex asked. “Because he started following Jennifer after she said that.”

“What?” Todd looked around for Darren. “He isn’t…. Oh—that will be trouble.”

“So what’s going on?” Alex asked, his bemused blue eyes inspecting him as Todd didn’t know how to answer.

Finally Todd said, glancing to his watch, “I’ll explain it at PE. But to sum it up, Jennifer’s lost her mind.”

Both friends stared.

Joy said, “What do you mean?”

Todd shrugged. “She thinks she overheard proof that Zormna really is from Mars, and she’s gone ballistic about it.”

“She what?” Jeff appeared at Todd’s right.

“There you are!” Todd slapped him on the back. “Jeff, I need to ask you about our math homework.”

“Math can wait,” Jeff said, his dark eyes almost boring holes into Todd. “What about proof about Zormna and Mars?”

Todd hung his shoulders, the weight of this idiotic argument pressing him down. “It’s stupid. Zormna was watching Firefly, and Jennifer thought she was talking to the TV into outer space. Jennifer hit her head is all I know.”

Jeff nodded. “Hit her head.”

Brian scratched the side of his head, glancing at his sister who refused to make eye contact. They did that when they thought other people were cuckoo.

“Well,” Alex said, “If there were life on Mars then this would be awkward.” He looked to his brother. “We should get to class. The first hour bell is going to ring.”

Jeff nodded, an exasperated look in his eyes.

Yeah, Todd thought. It was ridiculous. Unfortunately he was the one who had to deal with it.

*

How to deal with this? How to deal with this? Jennifer felt the stares of others now. When she had tried to warn Brian and the Streigle brothers, they just stared at her like she was nuts. She had hoped the Streigle brothers would at least agree that Zormna was dangerous.

But nothing.

So she had to keep quiet about it. And give Zormna the cold shoulder.

But avoiding that blonde was harder than she realized. Despite not having the same classes, they did pass each other in the halls—all the time. Funny, though, Zormna was more than content to ignore her. 

Until lunch.

When Zormna came out of the school building with her lunch bag, she halted near the tree where Jennifer was silently waiting for Kevin. It had been habit, as the tree had given Zormna’s white skin ample shade.

However, Todd just waved Zormna over to his group’s picnic table on the redtop, and that ended that dilemma. Zormna sat down with those patsies and proceeded to open up her lunch bag. It was almost impossible for Jennifer not to watch. And harder not to scowl at her.

With that ever-present snide superiority, Zormna pried apart her tuna fish sandwich, examining the mayonnaise and fish glop with a curl of unhidden revulsion. Todd and his pals hardly noticed. They chatted and joked, carefree as always. Though, Jennifer noticed Brian ask Zormna something with a look Jennifer’s way. Todd groaned, placing his hand to his forehead. Zormna looked skyward, shaking her head. Then she produced the DVD copy of Firefly she had borrowed. Handing it back to Brian, she said something, and he nodded. Then Zormna went back to the sandwich, closing it up and eating it with resignation.

“You know she’s a Martian, don’t you?”

Jennifer jerked away from the hot, husky voice whispering in to her ear. Darren was not even a foot away, grinning with jalapeño breath.

“You know it,” he said again.

Martian. Ugh. Him saying it out loud, it did sound crazy.

“No such thing as Martians, Darren,” Jennifer said, and returned to brooding.

“Alien, then,” he replied.

Her heart tightened. She knew what she saw. But this guy was a super geek. She didn’t want to end up like him. Maybe she should just forget it.

Jennifer looked around for Kevin, wondering what was keeping him.

Darren smiled wider and leaned closer to her. “I saw what she did to you.”

Her breath caught. Jennifer turned. Her mouth opened, but what could she say?

“I saw her chase you outside, knock you to the ground, and carry you back to her house. She set you up,” Darren said.

He had seen. Jennifer’s heart jumped.

But as she realized again whom she was talking to, dismay swept over her. Why did he have to be the one to see it? All Darren’s Mars babble got him was a reputation as a first class weirdo. In fact, it was amazing no one had sent him to the Pennington Mental Institution for talking like that. And there was no way she wanted people to think the same about her.

“And you know it’s true, because she calls Mars ‘Arras’,” Darren said smiling more.

Shivers ran through Jennifer. Yes. She recalled she had heard them use that word—though the whole Mars being this Arras was debatable. Besides, it didn’t seem as important as the word Tarrn.

And the dork continued to talk. “The FBI started watching the house today. There was a car there this morning. Someone traced a high-energy flux or something coming from her transmitter—the same one her aunt used to call home.”

Jennifer peeked around at her classmates. A few had eyes on her. Kevin’s friends nudged one another in the side and gestured over to the spaced crazed loony boy again with poorly hidden smirks. Kevin was with them.

Recoiling from Darren, Jennifer whispered just above a hiss, “Darren, you sound like a wacko. Stop it.”

Darren glanced around at those who might be watching. But he merely shrugged.

Exhaling loudly, Jennifer got up, dusting the grass off her pants. In a quick stride, she crossed the lawn to the other side of Kevin, grabbing his arm. Kevin wrapped that arm around her, smiling.

Darren had followed her.

“Is he bugging you?” Kevin asked, getting in Darren’s way.  

Jennifer nodded, though she peeked through his friends at Zormna again.

Sure enough, the alien blonde had been watching her. But so were her brother’s pals. They had been staring and whispering.

“He’s doing his weird alien thing again,” Jennifer said to Kevin.

Darren shoulders dropped with severe disappointment. But she had to do it. Hanging out with the school weirdo was social suicide.

Kevin rolled his eyes and steered Jennifer closer into the group.

“That’s not a denial!” Darren walked backward, yet called after her, his twitchy eyes taking in the taunting looks of Kevin’s friends.

Others on the lawn called out at him.

“Moron!”

“Geek!”

Even the geeks themselves turned away from him, ducking back into their own fantasy worlds of witches and wizards.

Darren staggered off for a few seconds, alone, down the lawn. Jennifer almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Because that boy turned, chin up, setting a triumphant gaze at the small foreign blonde. And while regaining his euphoric walk across the grass to no real destination, reveling in the fact that he was right, Darren veered in Zormna’s direction, winked, and shot her with finger gun.

“Detention!” one of the school monitors shouted, pointing at him. “That was an inappropriate, hostile hand gesture!”

The boy immediately raised both hands up in surrender. “Whoa! I meant nothing by it!”

“Yeah, right,” the monitor said. “Come with me.”

But Darren shook his head and ran off.

“Idiot.” Zormna muttered then turned to join Todd’s pal’s lively conversation at the lunch table.

Idiot indeed, Jennifer thought. Darren wasn’t a nobody. Out of all the geeks, he was the only one people remembered. He’d be caught soon enough.

*

Everyone was talking about Darren Asher in-school suspension, and laughing about it.

Todd overheard people ask Jennifer what Darren was saying to her, but she blew off each person who asked with a roll of her eyes and the remark, “Same old, same old. He thinks Zormna is a Martian.”

Todd had relaxed upon hearing that.

And he had thought his sister had finally realized her mistake from the day before. But when he got home, he realized that wasn’t what Jennifer really believed.

His sister stormed up to her room the moment they arrived, still calling Zormna an alien. Zormna stared after her for a moment, then sighed, sitting down on the living room couch.

Todd spent the rest of the afternoon helping his father and Brian’s Dad remove that huge wooden beam from Zormna’s house. They found a consignment shop that would take it and sell it.

“That should do it,” Mr. Henderson said, heaving the beam into the back of his truck with help from the others. It took five of them to do it. The thing was really heavy, and long.

Brian nodded, shoving it to the corner so that it would not slide out. They had volunteered to take it and most of the junk from the upstairs room to the junkyard. Two of Brian’s brothers (the twins, Ammon and Moroni) had come along to help and were carrying down the last of it.

Zormna stood off to the side, arms folded, frowning at each broken toaster, junked TV, and remote control being lifted into the back as if she was being stripped of something useful, like an iPhone. 

“It’s just junk,” Todd said.

She nodded, yet sighed heavily.

“And it would be best that you not spend time alone here anymore,” Todd’s dad added with a look.

Zormna gazed up at him, pained. “But—”

“For your safety,” he said.

But Zormna frowned as if what his father had said had been a threat.

Brian came up to her. “Hey, we can hang out here after school if you want.”

His father tapped his shoulder, shaking his head. “Not without adult supervision, Brian.”

Zormna rolled her eyes.

Brian moaned. “Dad…”

“You know what I am talking about,” Mr. Henderson said.

But Zormna sighed louder. “I get it. I understand.”

Todd looked the other way. They all got it. The parents always worried about hanky-panky when their teenagers were alone in a house with a member of the opposite sex, unsupervised. But what they didn’t get was that Zormna was more prudish than they were. The parents also didn’t understand that Zormna could kick the butt of anyone who tried to mess with her. Well—Todd thought while glancing at his father’s knowing look— Mr. Henderson didn’t understand. No one in the McLenna home forgot Zormna’s acrobatic show the first day. Nor the fight with Ted.

When they walked home and the Hendersons drove off with the junk, Todd’s dad said in a low murmur, “You are going to have to be more careful from now on, Zormna. No more walking about by yourself.”

“Oh, come on…” Zormna shot back. “I am more than capable—”

“Your actions reflect on my family,” his father continued as if Zormna had not interrupted. “And what you do affects us all. Especially how you handle Jennifer.”

Todd felt like he was spying in on a private conversation. He remained silent to pick up the whispers.

“From now on, you must work harder at being civil.”

“I’m trying,” Zormna moaned. “But she is making it so—”

“Remember that you are our guest,” his father plowed on in that lecturing tone. “And as a guest it is up to you to bend to your environment.”

“I would not have to be a guest if you would just—”

“We are not allowing you to become an emancipated minor,” he snapped with a tone of finality.

Zormna lowered her eyes to the asphalt. “Why? I would be out of your hair. Trouble averted.”

Todd’s father shook his head. “Because. You do not see how irregular a girl your age living alone would be. Or how dangerous. I do not know what you are running from, or why. But we can protect you.”

Zormna clenched