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

“What about breakfast?” her mother protested.

Rolling her eyes, Jennifer grabbed a toaster pastry out from the box, tore open the package and stuffed them both into the toaster.

“That is not real food,” her mother muttered.

“Then why do we stock it in our cupboards?” Jennifer asked.

Her mother tossed up her hands and walked away.

Zormna was now sweaty and smeared with oven-grease. Her curly hair stuck out at angles, parts of it stringy with sweat. And she still looked gorgeous. She could pose for action movies. On most occasions, this would make Jennifer jealous, but she didn’t have time for that today. Instead, Jennifer grabbed Zormna’s bag and waved for them to go.

“Come on!”

Wiping off her grimy hands, Zormna nodded with a hop after her. She barely gave Jennifer’s mother a look before she smiled with a wave to the younger McLenna kids.

“See you in about three weeks!” Zormna said to them.

Mindy hugged her around the middle.

“That is not necessary,” their mother snapped, mostly shooting Zormna venomous looks rather than any look at her youngest daughter.

But Andrew also came up to her and said, “Please come back. We don’t want you to run away.”

Their mother moaned, staring at the ceiling.

“I’m not running away,” Zormna said, suppressing a chuckle. “It’s just camp.”

But Andrew and Mindy both stared up at her, their eyes begging. “We mean after camp.”

With a peek to their mother, Zormna gently dislodged herself from them and hurried to the front door where Jennifer was waiting with two piping hot toaster pastries in hand. “See you later.”

They waved, Mindy sniffling back tears.

Once out the door and onto the street, Jennifer sighed with relief. “Now that’s over.”

“Do they really think I’ll run away?” Zormna asked, looking back to the house. She took one toaster pastry, nibbling on it.

“You did once before,” Jennifer said, barely shrugging. She then bit into hers.

Sighing, Zormna did not argue over that. She had, once, after a huge argument with Jennifer’s parents over a month ago. But she had come back. Or rather, she had been dumped back into her neighborhood by the FBI who had kidnapped her for three days. It was a long story which she only remembered parts of, and had headaches when she attempted to recall it.

Jennifer did not talk much on their way to the Hendersons’ home. The plan was for Zormna to stay over at the Hendersons’ one night then leave early with Brian and Joy Henderson to the school so she would not miss the bus for camp. The only reason she wasn’t just leaving from the McLennas’ was because Jennifer’s parents refused to have anyone up at five a.m. ‘escorting her like she was royalty’—their words. Zormna tried to ignore them. 

Unfortunately, their walk through the streets of Pennington to the Henderson home would not be unaccompanied. It was a disturbingly annoying fact that an FBI sedan, or agent, would follow them. In this case, the sedan that usually sat in front of the McLenna’s house followed them at a distance. It wasn’t like the FBI didn’t know where she was going. They listened to and watched her daily. But their presence creeped her out.

But why? Was it really as they claimed? Were they waiting for the killer of Zormna’s great aunt to pounce? Or were they doing the whole tinfoil-hat spying on her thing, thinking she was an alien like her great aunt had claimed to be? Jennifer had long decided that it was none of her business. She wanted to remain out of it.

The sedan parked down the block while Jennifer and Zormna approached the Hendersons’ split-level home that housed the family of seven children. Zormna had been there only once before when their parents weren’t home, but she liked them. The Hendersons were honest, earnest sort of people. They wore their hearts on their sleeves and their faith like a suit of armor. And though Zormna had never been particularly religious, she admired them for theirs.

Mr. Henderson was out front with his twin sons, Ammon and Moroni, weeding the front flower bed. The twins would be freshmen the next year at Pennington High, and they were all-American Boy Scout types like their older brother Brian. They spotted her and Jennifer on the sidewalk and immediately groaned.

“Agh! You’re the one who is coming over?” one of the twins exclaimed in dramatic protest. “Martian girl?”

“You’re way too early!” the other called out. “Go back home!”

Zormna halted on the curb. She looked to Jennifer. Truth was, she had originally hoped to sneak off to her great aunt’s old home and hang out there by herself until lunch time. She had lots of cleaning to do, especially after the yard sale they had held the week prior—getting rid of all the useless knickknacks her great aunt had accumulated in that old house over the years. She intended to donate the leftovers to the Salvation Army.

“Martian girl?” Their father looked back, barely recognizing Zormna. She had met him briefly, and only once. A clean-cut fatherly kind of guy, he had been at her great aunt’s house a couple months ago with the twins and Brian, helping remove this huge wood carving to take to the dump. “Why are you calling her…?”

“Because,” one of the brothers, Ammon probably, snorted as he said, “This guy Darren Asher thinks she’s an alien from Mars.”

His brother immediately burst into song, falling on his knees at Zormna’s feet like he was begging. “Martian Girl from planet V, will you marry me, wo, wo, wo, wo, wo…” The Hendersons did that occasionally—treated their life like a musical.

Their father rolled his eyes.

His brother, Moroni, chimed in, though. “She came from outer space, she came to see, if Earth was good, wo, wo, wo, wo, wo…”

“Hey! Don’t be mean.” Their father then turned with a smile to Zormna and extended a hand. “Come on in. I’m Mr. Henderson. You can take a load off in the house.”

Jennifer waved, backing off to the road. She knew Zormna was safe there. Truth was, no one wanted Zormna walking alone anywhere after the whole FBI incident. Of course, it was all for different reasons.

“But Dad,” Moroni whined. “We won’t be done for a least an hour. So Joy and Brian can’t keep her away from the video games.”

Zormna raised her eyebrows at him, smirking, while she ended up shaking their father’s hand. It felt weird. “I didn’t come to play your video games.”

“No—you came to dominate them,” Ammon snapped back. He then looked at his dad. “She completely blew away the top score. My ranking was totally cool before she touched the machine.” But the brothers were snickering without malice. That was the other thing about the Hendersons —they liked to joke around.  

“Joy and Brian are out back,” Mr. Henderson said. “Maybe you’d be more comfortable on the back porch.”

Shrugging, feeling self-conscious, Zormna went to the gate where he pointed. Zormna let herself into the side yard.

The Hendersons’ backyard was almost twice the size of the McLennas’, and two-thirds the size of her great aunt’s. It was also mixed with all sorts of plants. The fence was lined in a trellis covered in vine plants—all of which Zormna was unfamiliar with as plants alone were foreign and new to her. Hers had been a city life up until she had moved to Pennington. And the amount of green she saw around her in the Pennington neighborhood often overwhelmed her.

Going further along, she passed the house and entered the larger yard. Most of the yard was wide lawn with a home-built fort made from wood, old tires and random parts. The other part was portioned off in a grid of six raised plots where the remaining children were pulling weeds from the plant beds. They had some vegetables just starting, while others were already producing what Zormna guessed was fruit. And though Zormna technically understood the reasons why the weeding was done, part of her brain was screaming that it was crazy to pull any living thing out of the earth. But gardening itself was fascinatingly new.

She walked over to where Joy and her little sisters were humming while weeding plants that were in a set of wire frames. The song Zormna recognized. But she did not know the words to it. It was light and cheerful—and from a movie, she believed. They looked inclined to burst out singing any second.

Joy looked up and saw her. She yelped with a jump, grabbing her chest. “Zormna! Don’t sneak up like that!”

Her sisters, Ruth and Makayla had also jumped but immediately started laughing, pointing at their sister. They only got louder as Joy blushed and slapped their pointing fingers away, saying, “You jumped too!”

Brian stopped at the sound and stared from across the yard where he was pulling a machine from the shed. He was wearing jeans and a grubby tee shirt. He waved, shaking his head. His younger brother Daniel looked up from his garden plot then rolled his eyes when he recognized Zormna.

“You weren’t supposed to be here until later,” Joy murmured, getting onto her feet. She slapped the mud off her hands.

Ducking her head with a shrug, Zormna said, “I know. But…”

Joy just shook it off. “Never mind. Only we won’t be done for a while, and I’d hate it if you had to sit and wait.”

“I can help,” Zormna offered, looking keenly to the plants.

“Oh, no!” Joy protested as if scandalized. “You can’t be made to do yardwork! You’re our guest!”

But Zormna shrugged again. “I’m okay. I don’t mind. I think it is interesting.”

Ruth and Makayla stared as if she were crazy.

“Interesting?” Joy also stared, flabbergasted.

Their mother walked by, carrying out some gardening claws. “Now that’s a good attitude.”

Ruth and Makayla groaned. So did Joy, but not so dramatically.

Their mother stuck out a hand to Zormna. “I’m Joy’s mom. Are you…?”

“She’s the girl staying over tonight,” Joy said quickly. “Zormna Clendar. She’s riding with us to school for camp. Remember?”

Her mother slowly nodded. But Zormna could see in her looks that Joy had told her mother a lot more about her than just the facts she had just mentioned. Zormna recognized pity in the woman’s eyes. And a degree of motherly concern. She had not seen that look in many months—the last time being when Mrs. McLenna did not know who she really was. Zormna wondered vaguely if Mrs. Henderson would also get angry violent if she found out Zormna’s true heritage.

“You’re early,” is all Mrs. Henderson said.

Zormna blushed. “I know. I just…”

“Needed to get out of the house?” A knowing look was in Mrs. Henderson’s eyes.

Zormna peeked to Brian who pretended not to be paying any attention to the conversation. “Yeah…”

Opening her arms, Mrs. Henderson said, “Well, we’re happy to have you here. Come over anytime you need to get away.”

And Zormna knew she meant it.

They let her pull on some gloves, and they pointed to the small shoots they were uprooting from the garden.

“Grab them at the base, by the roots,” Joy said. “It makes it easier and less work to do later.”

Zormna nodded, following her example as best as she could see.

The little sisters talked as they scooted along from plot to plot. Makayla spoke rapidly about how they were going to play princesses later, while Ruth argued about which princess is the best princess. Though Zormna was still not well-versed in the fairy tale stories these girls were so familiar with, she had finally seen a few Disney films with Mindy McLenna and could identify a handful of them. Snow White was her least favorite—though her reason why was not what they suspected.  

“I think Rapunzel was the best,” Ruth said finally “With that frying pan.”

Zormna shook her head. “Hair like that would be impossible to maintain.”

Joy, who had chin length brown hair, snickered. “Yeah…”

“Well, she brushes it a lot,” Ruth said, her face a little hot.

“A waste of time, if you ask me,” Zormna muttered. “That shorter cut was so much better.”

“Because it is just like yours?”