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

and then for the rest of the day.

At lunch, both Jeff and Zormna ate in their usual spots, but both were uncomfortably silent. Their friends, who in past situations would have tried to break their silence, decided to leave it alone and pretend it wasn't happening.  - Until Jeff got up and walked over to where Zormna was sitting.

"Hey, do you want to come over to my house for Thanksgiving?"

Zormna lifted her eyes from her burrito, blinking at him, almost surprised. "Your place? But I think the McLennas are having a big dinner, and I am positive they want me there for that."

Jeff nodded awkwardly. "Well, we're not exactly having a traditional Thanksgiving feast. I just thought that you'd might prefer...."

An honest smile broke out across her face, taking away the melancholy. "I'd love to. Only," she paused, "Well, Mr. McLenna warned me to stay away from you last Friday. And I don't know what he'll say if I tell him I'm going to your place for dinner."

Brian swallowed audibly. He didn't mean to.

Jeff turned to look at him. Brian averted his eyes.

Mark, Jonathan, and Adam were also staring at Jeff, but they immediately busied themselves with their food.

Heaving out a breath, Jeff turned back to Zormna. "Just tell him the truth. He can't stop you, you know."

She nodded while smirking. "That's true."

As she said this, Darren stood up from his seat next to the tree and walked over to the trashcan to dump his food. Zormna watched him, puzzled at his behavior as he had been distant since she and Jeff had returned from Florida. He carried his backpack as he walked back towards their group, stopping right in front of her. Darren handed her a folded piece of notebook paper, not even looking her in the eye, and then he glumly walked away.

"That kid gets weirder and weirder," Brian muttered to himself.

His friends nodded.

Jeff peered over Zormna's shoulder as she opened it to read. It had only one sentence in the middle of the paper.

 

What are you really up to?

 

Jeff and Zormna exchanged looks. He let out a breath and went back to the picnic table to finish his lunch. Zormna folded up the paper and folded it again, stuffing it into her bag.

Wednesday ended much like Tuesday, only Zormna and Jeff were less irritable. Both of them took Jeff's bike to the house Zormna inherited instead of the McLennas' home. Zormna had not used the house she had inherited from her great aunt in a good while, not really since Homecoming. It was starting to gather dust again. An FBI car had followed them. Of course Zormna had to go through her debugging routine, which took a while. There were less than usual, which Zormna had decided was because they knew she would eventually find them and destroy them. Bugging her house was a waste of money and tech.

Zormna turned on the heater right away. The house was chillier than the outside. She had not run the heater before then. Jeff waited in the kitchen, searching through the fridge for something edible. Her refrigerator had always been notoriously empty. But then Zormna always ate at the McLennas', so there really had not been a need to keep it stocked.

They heard a knock on the back door.

Zormna looked up at Jeff. The knock came again. She walked to the back where an unused washer and dryer sat in a side room. Opening the wooden door, she found Darren staring back at her through the screen door.

"Can I come in?" he asked, shivering. He was not wearing his jacket.

She opened the other door and waved him in.

Darren lived next door and had obviously climbed the fence into her yard so the watching FBI would not see him. He stepped into the slowly warming hall and closed the screen. Zormna followed, watching him as he walked straight into the living room and through to the kitchen. He was familiar with the house as he had spent a lot of time with her great aunt before she had been killed. Jeff was pulling out a carton of old milk and dumping it into the trashcan when he saw Darren.

"There's nothing to eat," Jeff said, wrinkling his nose from the smell of acrid curdles.

Darren stopped and folded his arms. He waited.

Zormna stared up at him and then looked to Jeff who remained busy in the kitchen.

"So, are you going to tell me?" Darren at last said.

Zormna stepped into the room. "Tell you what?"

Darren shook his head. "What happened?"

"What ha - " Zormna started.

Jeff rolled his eyes and shook his head. He stuck his head back into the refrigerator. He pulled out a rotten banana and dumped it into the trashcan.

"You don't mean...?" Zormna started again but flushed halfway through. "Like I told everyone else - nothing happened. Jafarr and I didn't - "

This time Darren was the one to shake his head. "Not that. I know you're not that kind of girl. What I want to know is why you two went down to NASA, and you didn't even tell me."

Jeff laughed.

A surge of relief and amusement at Darren's understanding and attitude washed through Zormna. Blushing now, she said, "Well, Darren, it was an internal matter. We really didn't want to involve anyone it really didn't concern."

Darren's mouth dropped. He turned a tacky shade of orange. "I...well, why wouldn't it concern me? I'm interested. I want to help."

This time Zormna rolled her eyes. "Just because this is interesting to you, doesn't mean it concerns you."

He frowned at her.

"Really, Darren, it was just something we had to take care of, that's all."

"Besides," Jeff broke in from behind her, still fishing out old food and dumping it in the trash. "You wouldn't have liked the trip. We spent half our time staring at corpses and shot-up trucks."

"What?" Darren exclaimed, looking more yellow now.

Zormna glared at Jeff for telling more than necessary.

He shrugged, closing the fridge door. "It isn't like you can help anyway. This is between the FBI and us. And even you, the space-crazed boy, don't have anything to contribute on this one."

Darren gaped. "What happened?"

Zormna leaned against the counter and sighed.

"You remember when I got arrested?" Jeff asked him.

"Yeah," Darren said, watching Jeff walk across the kitchen with the garbage bag full of rotten food.

"Well, the FBI had me in there on murder charges," Jeff said. Darren gasped at this. "Which they dropped when they realized that I didn't have a clue what they were getting at. So, Zormna and I went to find out the rest of the details and clear my name," Jeff said, placing the twisted up bag near the front door.

"I keep the trash can in the back," Zormna said, pointing to the bag he had just put down on the carpet.

Jeff picked the bag up again while shooting her an impatient look.

"So why did you have to go to NASA?" Darren asked, following Jeff out to the back door. Zormna trailed behind, watching them.

"We went to NASA," Jeff heaved the bag into the can just outside the back door. "Because the people that I supposedly killed were shipping something from there - one of our things," motioning to Zormna and himself, "and the object was stolen. NASA was only a starting point."

He stepped back inside and wiped his hands on his jeans. Zormna made a face and walked back into the kitchen to see what was left in the fridge.

Darren nodded. Looking up at Jeff and Zormna, he asked, "What now?"

Jeff glanced at Zormna, who was coming out of the kitchen with a soda. "Well, we are still awaiting an email from our contact there. And when we get that we have to find out which organization our culprit belongs to." Then seeing Darren's expression, Jeff added, "You can't help us this time. You'll only get in the way."

Darren frowned. "But maybe I can help."

Zormna shook her head. "Not this time." Then seeing his downtrodden expression dip even lower, she added, "I think the only thing you can do is just keep things normal. Be normal." She then walked over to him. "The FBI already knows what we're up to. We told them straight out. They even have a bounty hunter on the job," she peeked back at Jeff, "to help them find the killers because they can't seem to."

"And," Jeff said, looking at Zormna as if to say there was no point keeping Darren out of it if he was going to continue being nosy, "we'll probably be working with the FBI to find the object as well, which means we'll probably be ditching school for another week to finish the job."

Darren coughed a laugh in surprise. "You're going to go off again? Alone?" He started to shake his head.

Zormna nodded. "I know. I know. Our reputations are already shot as it is. Still, we have to find the thing before the FBI does."

"Or, take it off their hands as soon as they get it, depending on which comes first," Jeff broke in.

Darren nodded now. "Ok."

This satisfied Zormna. She sat down and drank the rest of her soda. Jeff smirked with a look at her and then at his watch.

"Ooh, Zormna. It's four. I have to get back home. Uncle Orren's expecting me to put in a shift." Jeff stood up and headed for the door. He turned around and glanced at Zormna, who was taking last sips out of the can and walking over to the new clean kitchen trashcan to dump it.

"Are you going to be ok? You know, walking home?" Jeff asked, turning the doorknob.

"I'll walk her home," Darren offered.

Zormna scowled. "I'm not an invalid."

Jeff laughed with a nod to her neighbor. "Thanks, Darren."

And he opened the front door.

Zormna and Darren followed him out, passing by the lights and thermostat and turning them all off as they went. Zormna locked the door and gazed into the chilly afternoon sky, listening to the rumble of Jeff's motorcycle as he rode off. Darren stared after him. Then he turned to see if Zormna was ready. She sighed and consigned herself to being escorted.

Though she hated it, Zormna knew that Jeff did not want her alone while they were working on a vital project such as the one they were wrapped up in at the moment. It was too risky, considering the three days she had already lost to the FBI. Darren walked with her, not saying a word, but keeping pace so that her shorter legs could match his longer stride. Though honestly, he needn't have bothered. She was a quick walker when she wanted to be.

They kicked through the leaves. He shivered because he still did not have a jacket on. The wind blew peacefully; the air and the trees sounded like they were sighing. He shivered more the farther they went. It was lucky for Darren that the McLennas' house was not far.

Chapter Nine: Egg Salad Sandwiches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Progress is the mode of Man." - Dumas -

 

 

Thanksgiving weekend could not have come at a better time. Though Zormna had to sit through an agonizing dinner wearing a dress (of all things), besides being forced to sit between Mr. McLenna and Todd who had returned from college for the weekend,