A Parthan Summer by Julie Steimle (best books for 8th graders TXT) 📖

mothers to pass back the information for the rest of their activities. The Pennington girls lingered, though. After all, Miss Betiford was their counselor.

She sighed then turned to the other girls. “Our next activity is at the craft cabin. I believe we are going to make dream catchers—and we need to prepare a skit for this evening’s fireside activity.”

The Pennington girls nodded. They looked around to find the craft cabin, though most glanced back at Miss Betiford.

As they went along, Miss Betiford pulled Joy aside, who appeared worried. “Tell me, you know her best. What is really going on?”

Joy shook her head as the other Pennington girls listened in. “Zormna is a good person, but she is a collection of secrets. Last night she stayed at my house. And when she was getting dressed for bed, I saw a wound in her leg like she had been shot. So yeah…I believe her story about being kidnapped.”  

“What about that boy she calls Jafarr?” Miss Betiford asked.

Closing her eyes, Joy groaned, “What does Jeff have to do with this? He didn’t hurt her, did he?”

Miss Betiford shook her head. “No. But she called for him when she got her migraine. She had PTSD, he said.”

Joy stared.

Sighing heavily, Joy finally replied, “He’s my brother’s friend. But Zormna and Jeff only ever shout at each other. We were just teasing about them being a couple because they only fight whenever they are together. Last year, he teased her like crazy.”

“So you know him also.”

Joy nodded. “Yeah. He was at my house yesterday too. And all they did was argue.”

“Then can you tell me about his scars?”

Frowning, Joy sighed. “His dad beat him when he lived at home. He lives with an uncle now. It was really, really bad.”

“How bad?” Miss Betiford’s voice had gone quiet as she stared.

Joy shrugged. “I don’t like talking about it. But, Brian says his dad took a hot fire iron and beat him with it. All over his back are burns.”

“And his face?”

Joy chuckled, shaking her head. “That? This morning, didn’t you hear Zormna say that she was the one who broke his nose?”

Staring, Miss Betiford shook her head.

“I have to ask Brian about it,” Joy said. “But Zormna said all her guy friends know.”

“Guy friends?” Miss Betiford stared.

Nodding, Joy sighed again. “Yeah. Zormna is a little too pretty, if you haven’t noticed. Almost every girl at Pennington High is jealous of her. So she mostly hangs around with my brother and his friends because they are Todd McLenna’s friends, basically. Zormna is not a girly kind of gal.”

*

The gymnastics instructor had already started introductions and warm-ups when the stray cheerleaders finally entered the lodge. Amy Fields had buddied up to Zormna right before they went thought the doors, then joined her friends from Harvest High, parting with a friendly goodbye to Zormna. It was strange, really. Amy was another kind of impervious character that Zormna could not wrap her brain around. She had initially given off the aura of ditzyness. But now, Zormna was not sure she was a ditz. A gut feeling, maybe.

Zormna watched her sit right next to that karate girl she had been watching from the grassy hill (who apparently was also in gymnastics) and bubble about the strange events with a small gesture towards Zormna while Zormna took her own seat near the Pennington team. The karate girl hardly even glanced at Zormna when Amy pointed at her. That girl’s personality seemed to go the extreme opposite of Amy’s happy-go-lucky hug-the-world attitude. Zormna took that as a sign that the karate girl was a disciplined individual.

“Who is she?” Zormna whispered to her teammate, discretely gesturing to the karate girl.

“Holly Joyce,” her teammate whispered back. “Why are you late?”

“I got a bad headache,” Zormna replied.

“Shh!” someone hissed at them.

Despite the quiet in the room, it was almost impossible for Zormna to concentrate on the lecture their camp gymnastics coach was giving them. Besides her head still throbbing a little, her mind trickled back to the Harvest karate girl who intrigued her. Holly seemed to be engrossed in the lecture. She followed the instructions as they stretched out with the rest of the girls as directed, point-by-point. Holly was limber, tall and controlled. Someone like that was surely not a mere dabbler in martial arts. In fact, just looking at her flexibility alone, her gymnastic skills appeared to be equally as good. Zormna glanced over at the karate girl a number of times during the course of the activity, gauging her ability.

Once, Zormna’s eyes met Holly’s eyes. Their mutual gaze could have started a fire. The karate girl’s stare was clear and intense. But as of yet, Zormna read no regard or malice in it. Their feelings of competition, apparently, were mutual.

“…And since this group is exceptionally large this year I have brought an assistant. I’d like you to meet my friend Sarah Kentzer,” Coach Dayes said as they finished some basic stretches.

 Zormna pulled in her legs as she turned with glance at the assistant. A young redhead walked out from her corner of the room to the front center. She wore a light blue-and-white sleeveless workout suit with old 80’s style leg warmers. She politely bowed to the group as if with a nervous twitch, her eye flickering over the faces in front of her. Freckles dotted her cheerful face, and the creamy white skin of her bare arms were also dotted with reddish freckles, extending over onto her shoulders. Righting herself, the assistant spoke with a smile. Her pale blue eyes scanned over the crowd, catching the eyes of each girl much like an overeager student teacher. At first Zormna hardly paid attention to what Sarah said, still peeking back at Holly as the Harvest girl rested next to Amy, whispering to her teammate before giving her full attention to the gymnastics’ assistant.

“…I hope we can all get to know each other better and become good friends. I have been a gymnast for over sixteen years, and I hope to become a full-time instructor in the near future.”

Sarah’s smile was a little too eager, Zormna thought. But when she caught Zormna’s eye, her smile faltered—which was odd. It was like a flinch, actually. Immediately Holly lost Zormna’s attention and Sarah gained it.

Was this the FBI spy she was searching for? If Sarah was, she wasn’t very professional.

Smiling in return to give the intern encouragement, Zormna continued to listen to Sarah’s speech. Yet Zormna could see a chill run down the gymnastics aide’s skin. A nervous twitch appeared within Sarah’s fingers. Sarah fiddled with the edge of her leotard’s left sleeve, tugging on it as if to cover her left shoulder. It only took a few seconds for the details to add up in the trained Arrassian soldier’s mind. Red hair. Freckles. Fair skin…and a faint accent in her English in her spoken R’s, which sometimes rolled and sometimes were too hard for American style speech. Also her SH’s were much thicker than normal American English. And each time Sarah’s eyes reached Zormna’s, her nervousness increased. Also, she could see the edge of a tattoo on her left shoulder.

Not FBI. Not at all. But not good either.

Zormna lifted her chin, wondering, as she glanced at the others in the room, if anyone else could see that Sarah had gotten increasingly skittish in just those past few minutes. So far, only Coach Dayes seemed to notice. The woman wrinkled her brow while pressing her lips together and thinking.  

But Sarah plowed on as if she only had a case of stage fright.

“…Don’t forget, stretching is essential. No sore muscles. It prevents tearing of ligaments and tightness of joints.” Pausing, Sarah looked out into the crowd of girls. “I need an example.” 

She had been trying to avoid looking at Zormna, but in the end she exhaled as if preparing to take a leap. “You, um, the one with the curly blond hair in the red cheer tee-shirt.” 

Zormna peered around herself before she realized she was the only Pennington cheerleader in the room. So she got to her feet, wondering what Sarah was going to try.

Sarah beckoned her forward. She looked a little faint, though. “I’d like you to bend over and touch the floor.”

With a brief shrug, Zormna then promptly bent over and touched her palms flat on the floor. 

“Very flexible,” Sarah said, her voice trembling stiffly as if she might break from moving. “Now, I saw her following along with the…with the stretches earlier. And as you can see these muscles here and here, would have been damaged if…uh…she did not stretch.”

Sarah continued to nervously tug at her sleeve, watching Zormna straighten up and turn to wait for more instructions. It felt like a silly waste of time. Zormna wondered if Sarah was forgetting something she had planned on saying. She seemed more like she was trying to prove to Zormna that she was not scared of her, which was weird.

Licking her lips to ease the dryness, Sarah took one breath before instructing Zormna once more. “Ok, uh, I’d like you to, uh, bend over backward and do a few back flips.”

With a side-glance, shrugged her shoulders, Zormna went into the first backbend.

Amy raised her hand. Zormna halted and so did Sarah.

“Miss Kentzer, Zormna has a bad headache. I don’t think she should be doing backflips right now.”

Sarah swallowed, her eyes quickly shooting to Zormna at the sound of her name. She was still tugged at her sleeve, coving her tattoo more.

“I’m fine,” Zormna said, her strong accent having the effect of making Sarah stand even more rigid.

Others stared at Sarah now, wondering what was going on—including Holly who narrowed her eyes.

“I told you I was fine when we were with Miss Betiford,” Zormna said.

Then Zormna promptly bent over backward, laid her hands upon the ground and flipped over slowly, standing on her hands for a moment. She did it again, only faster. She flipped two other times before performing a complete aerial flip, landing with a light step.

“See?” Zormna said with a smug grin. “I told you I was fine.” 

And with that, she promptly stepped back to her spot on the floor and sat down. She nodded to Amy and then to the gymnastics aide.

Several of the girls stared at her, their eyes wide with shock, though others hissed “Show off.” Only Holly’s cool gaze said she was unimpressed.

Which was okay. Zormna merely wanted to prove a point.

Unfortunately, Sarah almost lost her composure. She stood breathless upon the mat, still tugging at her sleeve. Barely remembering what else she wanted to say, the gymnastics aide had begun to ramble, tripping over her the things she most wanted to get across. Eventually, she just summed up. Sweat beaded on the back of her neck and forehead, her hands going clammy.  “Tomorrow we will start with our usual warm ups. From there we will go into some simple but interesting floor routines. So, don’t forget to stretch. And, as I like to say, Snal’kai ee za’kai jethka!” But then she put a hand over her mouth. “I mean, rest and have health.”

She shot Zormna a desperate, begging look before quickly going back to her corner of the room.

Everyone else murmured, slowly rising to their feet, taking Sarah’s hasty end as the complete end for the day. And that was it…

Except Zormna lingered while all the other girls exited the lodge. A few of the girls shared encouraging words with Sarah, telling her not to be nervous. But Sarah kept peeking back at Zormna who silently walked at the tail end of the group.

She paused next to Sarah rather than going out the door. And she whispered, “You know…is against the law to speak that language here.”

Sarah took a step back with a glance to Coach Dayes. Coach Dayes was already cleaning up the mats with glances at Sarah while shaking her head in bewilderment.

Firmly leading the woman from the door to the far end of