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

rubbing her head with her hand. She flinched then looked at her right hand where a bandage was neatly wrapped around it. She glanced at her arms where there were bruises in the crooks of her elbows and the top of one hand.

“Where have you been? You have been missing for three days!” Jennifer tried to lift the girl up. Her heart thumped heavily in relief.

“Three days?” Zormna murmured, still attempting to focus. She grabbed her skull. “O, al’s shrazh bezh’or llgor.”

Struggling for a better grip, Jennifer’s thoughts sped with questions. But right now she tried to help Zormna onto her feet. She had to get her somewhere safe.

Kevin reached down to help.

Zormna’s legs barely supported her, wobbling. Without any amount of energy to keep her up, Zormna slipped on a plastic bag then stumbled. She caught herself, banging one knee against a metal can, and grabbed onto Jennifer. Her weight almost pulled Jennifer to the ground with her. Zormna was surprisingly heavy.

Next to them, Kevin bent over and picked up the almost empty bottle of hard liquor that had been at Zormna’s feet. He sniffed it.

“It looks like you’ve been drinking,” he said, pouring out the rest.

If Zormna had ever given a scathing look before, this one topped it, though she clutched her scalp. “Don’t be stupid. I don’t drink those toxins!”

“I said ‘it looks like’.” Kevin pulled back, grimacing. “I didn’t say you actually did.”

But Jennifer knew he was implying it. In a way, he never got over the insult Zormna had made about him being a boy. He had been looking for faults in the blonde ever since. He had a list.

“Whatever.” Zormna groaned. She gazed up at her surroundings, peering at the leafy canopy above then down at the garbage. “How did I get here anyway? I was on the road coming this way….” She muttered, trying to piece it together. But then she clutched her head and staggered back to the ground, crying out. Her eyes squeezed tight.

Both Jennifer and Kevin grabbed her again, helping her stand as best as they could. Zormna’s lips had turned white. She was panting to keep her breath and her consciousness. In bad shape, she looked almost green.

“Here, we’ll get you someplace where you can lie down,” Jennifer said, leading back towards the crazy lady’s house.

But Zormna blinked as they walked back in the direction of Kennedy Street. Panic swelled over her as they progressed. She quickly dug her heels into the ground, stopping their progress. “No! No! No! Let’s go to your house. It is much safer.”

Safer? Jennifer stared at her, knowing that was not true. She peeked at Kevin, who looked confused yet willing to take them the other way as directed. Jennifer whispered to Zormna, “Have you forgotten what happened? My parents may still be…you know, upset with you. Are you sure you want to do that?” 

A shudder ran through the blonde. She dropped heavily, in danger of fainting. But then she gripped Jennifer tighter and shook her head. “No. No…I know they will be furious…but, I don’t know what happened to me. And for three days? I would rather face your parents than an unknown that I can’t guard against. Besides, right now you are my only friend.”

Jennifer did not want to move. Not at first. She could not get the terrified look that had been on Zormna’s face from that Friday out of her mind. And that bitter hate on her parents’ faces also was not something Jennifer wanted to see again. If she brought Zormna back home, she was certain to see it. “Are you sure?”

Zormna nodded, though with resignation. “I am sure. I will be ok if you are there.”

A warm, yet trembling sensation rippled through Jennifer. It strengthened her back and stiffened her resolve. Zormna was depending on her. And that gave her something she did not have before. She could not name it. It was so unfamiliar. Exhaling hard, Jennifer helped steer Zormna the other direction.

While Kevin heaved up Zormna’s other side, he whispered to Jennifer over Zormna’s head. “What’s going on exactly? You said they just had an argument.”

“It’s complicated,” Jennifer replied, keeping her eyes from his. She was afraid she might crack if he looked at her. And then what would she say? ‘Oh, my parents are aliens, and by the way, Darren was right—Zormna is a Martian.’  Yeah, right.

“Explain it to me,” he said, his voice growing terse. “Why are you so scared to bring her home? Did your parents throw her out of the house?”

Jennifer shook her head. “No.”

“I left,” Zormna murmured. “They did not throw me out.”

He peered down at her. “Then what happened?”

Zormna said nothing.

Jennifer shrugged, avoiding his gaze. “Does it matter? It was bad fight. That’s all.”

But Kevin groaned. “It matters. You are making it some big secret. I know you, Jen. You are not telling me something important. You get all twitchy when you hold stuff back.”

Got twitchy? Jennifer cringed. How was she to keep what she had learned from him if he could tell she was lying? How did Zormna manage to hold so many secrets? Suddenly Jennifer envied Zormna’s military façade. It gave her so much excuse to answer tersely, avoid topics, and just be unsociable. It really was none of his business, but she couldn’t be that rude to him. He was her boyfriend. Where did plausible lies come from? Maybe she had to ask Jeff where he got all his from. But the thought of asking him of all people almost made Jennifer laugh.

“You and I aren’t supposed to be keeping secrets from each other,” Kevin said.

“It isn’t her secret,” Zormna whispered.

Kevin halted. They were crossing the street to the McLenna house by then. They had reached the concrete walk, and despite his feelings of exclusion, Kevin was doing more than his fair share of heaving Zormna’s weight up the curb. “It’s not polite to leave people in the dark, Zormna. I can help you, you know.”

Jennifer opened the front door, hoping her boyfriend would drop the subject. Propping the screen with her back, they helped Zormna inside the house, taking her straight into the family room. Zormna walked as if every step was painful.

Jennifer’s mom peered out of the kitchen when she saw her daughter. Mrs. McLenna’s hands were covered in what looked like cookie dough. There were chocolate chips sticking to her fingers among the goo, and she was wearing her chicken-and-cow apron. She stared with general motherly curiosity when she first noticed Kevin. But then she halted when Zormna came into view.

Mrs. McLenna’s face went white, half with anger, the other half with shock. Her eye took in Zormna’s pallid skin and filthy, wild-as-an-animal hair, as well as her bruises while Jennifer and Kevin helped her to the couch. It took a second for Jennifer’s mother to collect herself and react.

“Where have you been?” Jennifer’s mom tromped from the kitchen like she would bite out Zormna’s throat.

Jennifer squared up her shoulders, preparing for a tirade. Kevin blinked back, astonished.

Cued into his astonishment, immediately Jennifer’s mom attempted to look more worried than angry.

But Zormna wordlessly sat on the couch, shrinking into herself. Her gaze fixed entirely on her lap. Jennifer stood next to her, still waiting for the diatribe to come. This time, though, she would not let her parents take Zormna into another room. There was no way Zormna could protect herself anyway. Not in the state she was in now—super-ninja or not.

“David!” Jennifer’s mother called out. Her voice echoed against the ceiling, shifting sharply into dog-like decibels.

Andrew and Mindy peeked over the banister, scrambling from Andrew’s room. As soon as they saw Zormna, they excitedly whispered “She’s back!”

“David!” Mrs. McLenna called again, not moving.

Jennifer’s father came inside from the carport, rubbing his hands on an oily rag. “What is it?”

Her mother gestured to the family room, pointing directly at Zormna.

His face changed colors. Yet his eyes took in Jennifer and Kevin, who stood protectively over the disheveled blonde. He regarded the look in Jennifer’s eye a second before gathering himself up into his composed master-of-the-house stance.

“Where have you been?” he asked in a dreadful low voice that could have taken the strength out of any child. He stomped to the living room couch.

Zormna closed her eyes, whispering her answer. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” he bellowed. His face was fuming red. “You smell like vomit and liquor! Are you on drugs?”

Flinching, Zormna’s eyes popped open. She looked back with perhaps the last bit of defiant energy left within her. “You should know I would never get involved with such things!”

He seemed taken aback for just a second. Yet, with deafening authority, he replied, “What are you doing here?”

“I brought her here!” Jennifer declared. She was not going to let her father cow Zormna. Not again.

But he ignored Jennifer as he said to Zormna. “And you expect us to take you in after the way you left Friday?”

Zormna clenched her teeth and closed her eyes. Her body trembled, almost violently.

Forcing herself between her father and Zormna again, Jennifer growled, “Don’t you have any compassion? Zormna never asked to stay here. You made her stay here. She’s been asking to be an emancipated minor since the beginning, and you wouldn’t let her! So why are you making her beg? What kind of people are you?”

Her father switched his gaze to Jennifer and pulled back.

“This doesn’t concern you,” her mother said, wiping off the cookie dough hands onto a rag. “This is an old world matter.”

Ugh, with the euphemisms. Jennifer gave her mother a particularly scathing look, though Zormna did not say a word, just staring at her knees, unable to lift her eyes.

“I don’t care about what goes on in the old world. In this world people try to be kind! Innocent until proven guilty! This is America!” Jennifer shook her head. “You two have got to be the most uncaring, insensitive people in the world! And I am ashamed that you are my parents!”

Kevin retreated, inching back. His eyes widened. Rocking on his heels while the argument broiled before him, Kevin looked to the door.

“This has nothing to do with—” Mr. McLenna shouted.

“Bringing this kind of hate back from the ‘old country’ isn’t the best for our family,” Jennifer snapped. “Can’t you have some human sympathy?”

Jennifer’s parents clamped their mouths shut.

Zormna looked up at Jennifer, her own eyes going wide. She quickly snuck a look to parents as if to say ‘I did not tell her anything! Please don’t get mad at me!’

But Jennifer’s parents did not look at Zormna at all. They frowned only at their daughter with the understanding that Jennifer had not entirely bought what they had said to her about the entire mess with Zormna.  When they deigned to look upon Zormna again, the girl shrank under their gazes.

Finally, Jennifer’s father disdainfully waved his hand as if shooing them off. “Fine. Go. Take her up to her room. We’ll talk about this later.”

Kevin took that as a signal to move. He immediately hurried to help Zormna stand.

Zormna peered at Jennifer’s parents, watching them as she would a spider within leaping distance. Her legs wobbled as she struggled to support herself, and each step she took was like she was walking barefoot on glass. She leaned on Kevin more than she ever would have under normal circumstances, grabbing his arm as they went up the stairs. Jennifer quickly took her other arm. All the while, her parents coldly watched.

They passed Andrew and Mindy to the attic while her two younger siblings scurried back to Andrew’s room to avoid their still-angry parents. After the short steps into the attic and across the floor, Zormna dropped with all her weight onto the bare mattress. Her entire body relaxed the second she lay down. She closed her eyes, her breathing easing into a soft whisper.

Jennifer looked around that moment, realizing the attic looked like an attic again. The sheet walls were down and the bed