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

of different varieties. He was putting them up to his face like a monocle. Holly stood with Amy and their Harvest gymnastics pals just five people after them, but several places before Zormna’s position in line.

“It’s a bagel, not an eye piece,” Jonathan said, plucking it from his friend’s fingers.

Zormna hopped out of her place in line and took the bagel from Jonathan’s hands.

He turned then blinked at her with a laugh. “Hey! That was mine! No cuts!”

Shrugging, she slipped past him and Mark anyway, giving a wink and grin to the boys she had usually hung out with at lunch at school. “I consider it payback for your lascivious behavior this morning. I saw you two looking.”

She then squeezed by Brian and Jeff without a word. Both watched her break in front of them to where someone from the Pennington tennis team was ladling out cocoa at the end of the line.

Climbing past the splash guards, Zormna slipped next to the girl serving the cocoa, whispering in her ear. The girl’s eyes widened as Zormna spoke, though she did not quit ladling out cocoa. The girl from the tennis team nodded more and smiled wider with each word Zormna was saying. Only a handful noticed Zormna pass something from her palm to the girl’s palm. With a wink, Zormna then took a cup of cocoa and then an orange juice and hopped from the line entirely. 

“What is she up to?” Brian murmured to Jeff.

“Knowing Zormna?” Thinking, Jeff shrugged, though he peered at the cocoa. “I hope that is safe to drink.”

The tennis player nodded with a grin. “For you, it is.”

He reached for a cup.

As soon as Zormna joined the cheer team, she saw that Michelle had the other girls grouped together, bending over their eggs and waffles. Sighing, Zormna found a spot next to Joy on the end and set her cocoa and orange juice down. She broke apart her bagel with her fingers.

“Zormna, I have a great way we can get back at Holly and those Harvest girls,” Michelle said as soon as she saw her. Excitement glowed in her eyes.

Zormna emitted a snort. “Yeah, right. Just like the way we got back at Monroe? I got covered in water and dirt. No thanks.”

She ate each piece of her bagel slowly.

Michelle stared at her, her smile evaporating. “Don’t you want to get even?”

The other girls at their table nodded at her.

Taking another bite of bagel and chewing it off to the side, Zormna replied with a glance at the cocoa server, “Oh, I will get even, all right. My way.”

Michelle ducked down with the Pennington cheerleaders. All of them lowered their heads around her. “You can’t do it without us.”

Zormna suppressed a laugh. “Too late.”

Joy popped up her head. “Too late?”

“What did you do?” Jennifer grew immediately excited.

Michelle glanced toward the Harvest table where Holly had sat down with her breakfast. The girl was eating contently and talking with her friends without any suspicion that Zormna had already retaliated. Holly even peered back at the Pennington table, still smirking to herself at her perfect prank. Shaking her head, Michelle peeked at Zormna who was finishing her bagel and was now sipping the cocoa to test the temperature. Zormna then drank the orange juice she had also snagged from the food line. Zormna stared into the cup of juice, examining the particles of pulp left in the drink for a while, then nodded to herself. She smacked her lips with pleasure, enjoying the tartness.

“What did you do?” Michelle hissed over her plate of waffles.

Zormna winked without even a glance at Holly. “You will see. Give it time.”

Michelle peered again at Holly.

Holly was dipping her toast in her cocoa, gabbing with her gymnast buddies. So far there was nothing going on. Not a thing. Her conversation was animate and unsuspecting. It did not seem possible that Zormna had done anything at all except make Michelle feel like she was being led on in a prank. Michelle turned again to Zormna as she watched the tiny blonde gulp down the entire cup of juice. Then Zormna swallowed, in large gulps, her cocoa. Zormna seemed especially delighted to have the cocoa and was about to get more, glancing back at the nearly empty line.

“Come on, Zormna. What did you do?” Michelle insisted to know. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“No. I am not saying.” Zormna licked her lips, savoring the cocoa then smiling wider.

Michelle turned to Joy. Joy just shook her head with a shrug of her shoulders.

And the day began.

As soon as the groups divided, KP was done, everyone split off according to their schedule to their various activities. Cheerleaders went together and exercised on the grassy knoll while the tennis team marched over the hill to the courts. The football players were sent to jog around the three fields, while the soccer teams went into warm-ups. Jeff hardly had time to keep an eye on Zormna. But after that morning’s fiasco, he didn’t really think he had to. She couldn’t possibly get into worse trouble than the whole clothes-on-the-flagpole incident. Beside, he was occupied with weight training with the other wrestlers in one of the huts. Their coach, of course, made sure that this time he and Damon worked far apart.

Zormna was also kept busy, almost forgetting that she had woken up to trouble that morning. In fact, her mind seemed to be right on task as she exercised with the others that morning—that is, up until an hour before lunch.

An hour before lunch, Zormna started to watch the karate groups down the hill again. As her eyes took in the scenery below, she bit her lower lip with a wicked glint in her eye, pausing every so often between the squats they had to do. That devious look grew into a devilish grin when she watched the tall brunette suddenly run from her spot in the practice formation straight into the camp bathrooms.

Zormna broke into a snicker, closing her eyes as she continued her exercise.

Miss Betiford noticed.

This happened also during Pilates. Miss Betiford heard Zormna snicker a several times, spying on the karate group down the hill, so she peered down too. This time she also saw Holly run once more for the bathrooms. This happened three more times. Each time, Holly looked more and more distressed. She was grabbing her stomach. After the fourth time, Zormna burst into fits of laughter, unexpectedly clutching onto Joy for support.

“Do you enjoy laughing at other’s distress?” Miss Betiford snapped at her. She propped her clipboard onto her hip, resisting the urge to swat Zormna with it.

Quickly, Zormna straightened up and cleared the mirth off her face, but her eyes sparkled with immense enjoyment. “I thought everybody here did. They certainly received pleasure from laughing at me this morning.”

Several of the girls blushed, ducking their heads.

At lunch, Zormna was unexpectedly particular about the food she ate. When she got into the line, she checked to see who was serving. It was the Billsburg tennis team this time. Then she picked up a prepackaged bottle of water instead of the served glasses of juice available. From there on, she watched how the food was served as if waiting for someone to slip something into it. Once she had a full tray, she practically hopped to the table where her teammates were sitting where she sat once again next to Joy. Miss Betiford watched her, suspicion rising. She could see and hear the wicked giggles coming from the Pennington cheer table when Holly once more ran to the bathroom.

“You are so bad!” Miss Betiford heard Joy say.

Zormna beamed, lifting her chin with a shrug as if to say, ‘I know’.

Miss Betiford frowned.

*

After-lunch activities started as soon as KP clean up was over. Some of the teams had gone hiking in the morning before lunch while their fields were being used by others, and now the rotation had it so the wrestling, baseball and cheer teams were to hike the Lake Dale Trail. Each team was supposed to complete this hike as part of camp initiation. The following day, basketball, water polo, gymnastics, and softball teams would hike. That, of course, gave Zormna the choice of hiking either with the obnoxious Monroe cheer team that afternoon, or the next day with Holly Joyce who no doubt would eventually figure out she had put a laxative in Holly’s morning cocoa and would want some sort of revenge. The former option sounded better than the latter. But the concept of the hike itself sounded rather silly to Zormna—at first.

In the beginning, it didn’t make sense to her why anyone would purposely walk around that mountainous area with no real goal except to walk around it. It just wasn’t something she had ever done before. One did not walk somewhere without a destination, after all. And hiking wasn’t the same as jogging a track.

Still, when the cheer team collected their water bottles, Zormna did also. When they made sure they were wearing comfortable socks and shoes, so did she. And when they sprayed on mosquito repellant, she coated herself with the stuff. And when they walked as a group to the mouth of the trail, she followed along wondering what the big deal was with the whole entire camping experience. Tired and irritated, what she wanted more than anything was to go back to her high tech military school—far away from mosquitoes and obnoxious people who would steal her clothes in the middle of the night.

The Pennington forest was, in fact, covered with many hiking trails, most of which circled the campground. This particular one started at the gravel lot and ended on the north grassy field where the soccer players were practicing. For most, the scenery alone made the hike worth it—but in the company of the Pennington high schoolers, it was like a party.

The Monroe cheer team started the hike first, walking right behind the twenty-three-year-old instructor that was working that summer to earn money for college. They bubbled flirtatiously as they talked with the young man, and he ate up every second, basking in their flattery. It really didn’t matter to him that they were at least four years younger than him. It was a summer thing rather than serious.

Most of the Pennington cheer team followed straight behind, with their baseball teams spread out between the cheer and wrestling teams from Harvest and Billsburg. Lots of people filled the trail in a long procession, so much that many of them waited behind just to get on the path without tripping over anybody. Zormna straggled at the tail end of the procession with Joy and Jennifer, though Stacey tagged along for a while, looking more like she wanted to run ahead and be with Michelle.

At first Zormna contemplated sneaking off from the group so she could slip into her cabin for a nap instead of going on the hike, but Joy dragged her along anyway.

But that was at first.

As soon as she started to walk up the trail, her eyes drew up to the trees, then at the fallen branches and at all the other wild pieces of terrain that would never been allowed to just lie about in Pennington, and most especially not in her home world. She stared into the trees, watching the leaves flutter in the wind. Each one, green with life, flourished as one of many hundreds of millions of leaves above her. It amazed her. And once again, like in front of the firelight the night before, she felt small, yet part of something so wondrous that she had to swim through it slowly to absorb it. 

And so she did. She walked slowly, letting the hikers pass her while gazing up at the leaf cover.

Her eyes fixed on the light that glowed through individual leaves, shining a green hue upon the forest floor. Absorbed over darker patches which hung where the leaves overlapped, creating a pleasant shade in the hot summer