The Millennial Box by Julie Steimle (snow like ashes .TXT) 📖

glanced at a few others sitting next to him who were sharing sly looks and then returned his gaze to Zormna. Zormna, of course, was used to the stares, but there was something new in this one - a quality she had not detected before.

"Where'd you go?" Joy asked from behind, sounding tetchy.

Zormna turned all the way around to look at her friend. Unfortunately, Joy was not smiling.

"Um, Florida. Orlando."

"Florida?" Joy peered at her sharply, the same sharp look she got when she was being jealous. "Why Florida?"

Zormna shrugged, trying to ignore it. "Why not? I've never been there."

Jeff came into the room about then and sat down in his usual seat next to her. He glanced at Zormna briefly when he sat down.

"Well, what did you do there in Florida?" Joy pressed, peering at Jeff out of the corner of her eye. Her cheeks were flushed.

Looking back at Jeff, Zormna tried to catch his eye. "We, uh, we went to NASA."

"You ditched school to go to NASA?" Joy sounded angry. Honestly, Zormna didn't like it when Joy got this way. It wasn't Joy at her best. Joy at her best was cheerful, open, and a genuine friend. But Joy also liked Jeff an awful lot, and she had become more irrational since he and Zormna had reconciled their differences.

"Shhh! Calm down!" Zormna said, peeking to the others. "It was only a week."

"A week..." a voice coming from the front of the room uttered in a deep adult baritone (Zormna closed her eyes and turned around, cringing), "...isn't just a week. It is a week's worth of schoolwork."

Zormna blanched, feeling a little nauseous.

"You and Mr. Streigle have missed a week of school. Do either of you have an explanation?" Mr. Humphries said, folding his arms tersely. His eyes leveled at them with severe disapproval.  

Swallowing, Zormna tried to think of something to say. "Uh...I..."

Jeff stood up, marched to the front of the room, and handed Mr. Humphries a note. The teacher took it and examined it. He then peered at Jeff. Then he looked at Zormna.

"Do you have a similar note?" he asked.

Zormna frowned as she shook her head.

"I see." Mr. Humphries waved Jeff back to his seat, handing him back his note. He then returned to his desk where he picked up his attendance folder. He glanced at Jeff and then at Zormna again.

"I'll see you," Mr. Humphries said, pointing to Zormna, "and you," pointing to Jeff, "after class."

Jeff's mouth dropped open. Zormna placed her head on the desk, closing her eyes.

"But what did I do? I gave you my excuse note," Jeff protested.

Mr. Humphries gazed over the attendance sheet at him with steely eyes. "Yes, you did give me quite an excuse - went to visit your father, it said. Only I have it on good authority that your father does not live in Florida. I also have it on good authority that both you and Zormna were seen coming to Pennington on the old highway, together, on Friday. Need I go on, Mr. Streigle?"

Jeff grimaced, but he shook his head and sat down.

"Good," their teacher said looking at the both of them. "Now we will open up to the next sonnet. Mr. Peterson, will you read it?"

The boy stood up and glanced down at the two students in disgrace and opened his book.

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

       Coral is far more red than her lips' red:

       If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

       If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head...."

 

"I don't see why he had to give us all that extra homework," Jeff griped for the first time Brian knew him. "I was going to do all the other assignments I missed last week."

"It was punishment, Jafarr. Don't tell me you never got punished for ditching class before." Zormna carried her lunch along with him and sat down at the picnic table on the red top. They had met in the hall by chance. Zormna had come out from Chemistry class with Darren who seemed put off most of the day. He hadn't really talked to her since he helped her hang the storm windows that weekend.

They passed several girls who started whispering to each other while shooing Zormna dirty looks as she walked by.

"I never ditched school before, Zormna," Jeff snapped, more peevish than any of his friends had seen him. "Though I suppose this is old stuff to you. You probably ditched all the time back home, didn't you?"

Zormna scowled at him briefly but shook her head with a shrug. "Well, maybe I did. I rarely got caught - though the last time I ditched I was punished harshly."

"And when was that? Last week?" Jeff replied sourly.

Rolling her eyes, she said, "No, I mean not counting that. Last week was nothing. The last time I ditched class and was caught, I had to scrub all the shower stalls for the cadets by hand."

Astonished, Jeff laughed. His mood lightened.  

And though his sour mood did not stay after that, he did not say much during lunch even when Zormna chatted with his friends, explaining the entire fiasco. She even told them about how the FBI would not let them in the Space Center even when they had tickets. Of course, she did not tell them about her military contacts there, or why they had gone exactly. She also did not tell them about the rest of the trip or why the FBI would not let them in.

"So what did you do then? Go to Disney World?" Adam asked, incredibly intrigued. He was munching on his lunch as if he were watching an exciting, almost addicting show.

Zormna laughed. "I wish we had thought of it. No. We just hung around Orlando until it got boring."

Jeff snorted into his sandwich. It really had been boring.

She looked at him. "I only wish he'd let me steer the motorcycle."

Shooting her a look, he snapped, "Then why don't you just get a motorcycle license, Zormna?"

"Maybe I'll do that," she shot back.

A couple of girls passed her and snickered as they walked over to the main doors of the school. Disturbed by the tone of their tittering, Zormna glanced at them. They snuck little peeks at her as they walked by. That had been happening all day. Bizarre looks from people in almost every class. Only Jessica from her second period History class did not act like that. She was busy trying to convince Zormna to model for her figure drawings to put in her art class portfolio. The request had made Zormna uncomfortable, as she really didn't like people staring at her and a drawing of her just might increase that. But in the same class, Michelle Clay and her friend Stacey were shooting her those looks.

Zormna shook her head and continued to eat her lunch, stirring the soggy fruit cup on her tray. She glanced over at Jennifer and Kevin, thinking. But they also snuck peeks at her, talking in whispers. She shook her head.

"Hi, Brian!" Michelle Clay, the head cheerleader, called from her little clique of friends as they walked by. Brian and Jonathan rose up to talk to her. Michelle was a fashion conscious senior with rich brown hair. She always dressed like someone aspiring to be the next teen rock star, usually wearing miniskirts, tank tops, and short shorts.

Joy stood with Michelle and Stacey in the group. Jennifer McCabe, Joy's close friend, was standing behind them, peering through the gaggle of girls at Zormna and Jeff. Stacey whispered something to Joy. Joy rolled her eyes and shook her head huffily. Zormna really hoped Joy wasn't going through yet another bout of jealousy. The last one had been bad enough, and she really wanted to have her friend back.  

Zormna leaned near Jeff, whispering, "Am I missing something, or am I just going crazy?"

Jeff lifted his head and shrugged between bites of spam and lettuce sandwich, still dejected about his extra homework.

Mark stifled a surprised laugh, his eyes widening at her.

Zormna peered back at him. He, however, busied himself with his soda, keeping his eyes to the sky.

"I'm going crazy," she murmured leaning back against the tree.  

Zormna then looked over at Darren. He was sitting at the far side of the tree, staring intensely at his own fruit cup, picking in it severely with his plastic fork. She got up to talk to him, but he instantly jumped up and took his tray to dump the contents off into the trash. He had had a difficult time looking at her when they were working together in Chemistry, and he had hardly said a word at all except for instructions from the book. She watched him walk away to the trashcan. Sitting back down on the bench, Zormna shook her head.

The rest of the day was likewise unsettling. Jennifer said nothing to her as they walked home. Something was heavy on Jennifer's mind, but she seemed afraid to voice it. Zormna wondered if it had to do with her ultimately agreeing to pose for Jessica's pictures, as Jessica used to be Jennifer's best friend in junior high and they were currently fierce ex-friends. It was not until after dinner that Jennifer finally came to her room to talk. It was in the middle of Zormna's study hour where she was finishing off much of the work from the week of school she had missed. .

"Can we talk?" Jennifer asked as she stepped in the room. She looked sheepish.

Zormna shrugged. "Sure. What is it?"

Coming in, Jennifer sat down on the bed next to the extra sheets of homework Mr. Humphries had given Zormna and the assignments Miss Bianchi had handed her for Wednesday's mock Thanksgiving feast. The rest was all caught up and tucked into her folder.

"I...uh...you said you just stayed in that motel two nights, right?" Jennifer said. Zormna could hear caution in Jennifer's voice. "And you two camped out on the trip to and from?"

Zormna nodded. "Yeah. So?"

"And nothing happened, right?" Jennifer gazed uncertainly at her.

"What do you mean by 'nothing happened'?" Zormna frowned. "Nobody got hurt. The FBI didn't let us into NASA, if that's what you mean."

Shaking her head, Jennifer swallowed, averting her eyes to the bedspread. "No. That's not what I'm asking."

"Then what is it?" Zormna asked.

"It's just that..." Jennifer swallowed. "...there's this rumor going around school that you and Jeff...um...that you, well...had...um....did uh, 'the beast with two backs'."

"The beast with...?" But as Zormna said that, comprehension of what that meant came to her. Her face went immediately red. Her mouth dropped. "They're saying that Jafarr and I...?" Zormna closed her mouth, recoiling from Jennifer.

Jennifer cringed, yet she also looked relieved. Zormna was, after all, a famous prude. She never dressed in a way to show off her womanly figure, no matter how perfect her curves were or how much the boys at school wanted to see them. Fact was, Zormna hated her short cheer skirts and only liked the winter uniform that had her in tights and tall boots. She never showed her shoulders, she even changed clothes in the toilet stall for PE. In general, she was a utilitarian dresser.

Zormna's face went pale, paler than she usually looked. "Those dirty minded..." Staring straight at Jennifer, Zormna demanded, "Who? Who is spreading a rumor that I, that I...that I would even...." Zormna couldn't even say it. She just sat on her bed as if the wind had been knocked out of her.

Jennifer peered back through hunched shoulders. "I might have accidentally said something that had started it."

In a fierce stare at her, red to the roots of her hair, Zormna gaped.

"I didn't mean it. Honestly!" Jennifer protested, holding up her hands in defense. "Only everyone asked me all last week where you were, and I said that you and Jeff took off somewhere (Brian told me) - and they started to ask where, but I couldn't say. And when you and Jeff came