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

with you two in the first place? I mean, I can see what affiliation you have with Ireland." A tick had started to pulse near his eye in irritation.

Jeff just shrugged.

But that reaction - or lack thereof - tipped Steele over. Angrily, he demanded, "Come on! Why are you not forthcoming yourself? You used to brag about how much you knew. Fess up!"

A laugh escaped from Zormna again, but she was staring at Jeff. "Jafarr! And I thought you never bragged."

"I was a kid," Jeff murmured, tossing up his hand. "I was only nine or somethin', jeez."

Yet this their steady banter irritated Steele more. He watched without humor.

Recognizing this, Jeff rose from his seat and replied with a plain dryness, "What do you want from me? I can't tell you what you want to know. Not only I shouldn't, but it is irrelevant anyway. You are supposed to be doing what the FBI have commissioned you to do - or at least you should be acting like it. Leave Zormna out of your investigations. Because if the FBI hasn't let you in on all the details of their operation, then everything would feel inauthentic if I spilled the beans. But for the record," he said, pointing to Zormna, "everyone in the neighborhood knows that the FBI are not following me, but following Zormna."

Upon hearing that, the bounty hunter's mouth opened, his eyes drifting back to Zormna who waved playfully at him and smiled.

"The FBI stumbled on a case and met Zormna's great aunt, and subsequently Zormna's great aunt was murdered." Jeff then shook his head as he twisted the truth to keep things sanitized from politics from Home. "It is possible that the FBI murder case and Zormna's great aunt's case are related."

Steele continued to stare at Zormna, almost dumbfounded as he had heard almost no explanation about the murder of Zormna's great aunt either.

"They found about me through her," Jeff said, bringing the conversation full circle. Then shaking his head and throwing up his hands, he added, "If you want to know the rest, you are just going to have to get it from the FBI."

Steel said nothing for a while, thinking over Jeff's spotty explanation. After all, there was a watching FBI car nearby.

Wind blew cold and little flakes of snow fell though not sticking to grass or the bleachers, melting on contact. Jeff waited for the man to finally realize there was nothing more to get out of him, while Zormna was just waiting for her ride to be done.

Yet after all thinking it over, Steele mutterede "So, it's her fault."

"What?" Zormna's head popped up, her cheeks flushing. "What did you just say?"

"It's your fault. The stolen satellite. This boy getting investigated - all of this," Steele said.

"It is not!" Zormna bit out snappishly, popping onto her feet. "It is the FBI's own nosy fault. If they kept their nose out of our business - "

"It is the FBI's business to maintain national security." Steele gazed at her plainly, his eyes now judging her as a silly foolish girl who was clearly a lot of trouble. "Who are you that you have become a security risk?"

Zormna's mouth snapped shut. Her angry expression transformed into distaste. Clinging to the insides of her jacket for warmth, trying not to give away their secret, Zormna looked away.

Jeff straightened up and shrugged. "Obvious."

Zormna glared angrily at Jeff.

"She is? Or the answer is?" Steele asked, growing tired of Jeff's cryptic way of speaking. In way, the man felt Jeff was just showing off his presumed intelligence again, just like he had when he was a child.

Looking likely to spit, Zormna tromped down the stadium steps. "Shut up, you two! Ugh! I've had enough of this."

Rolling his eyes, Jeff started - "Well, honestly Zormna...."

But she did not respond. She reached the track then cut across it and the grass to the opposite fence, heading toward her neighborhood - forget her promise that she would not go anywhere alone. She turned around before she reached the gate, walking backward as she went. "I told you I didn't want to come here! Is it my fault I'm stuck on this ruddy - ?"

"Zormna!" Jeff chased after her before she could go out. His eyes were begging her to remember that she was not safe for her to travel the neighborhood alone.

"No! I've had it! With your implications that I - "

"But I'm not the one who blurts things out that are so obviously from Home. I mean, come on! At camp you totally and completely ruined my alibi while I was - "

She slapped him. "If I'm that much of a bother then leave me alone!" Zormna turned and ran the rest of the way out of the school grounds, escaping into the neighborhood.

Stunned, Jeff stood at the gate, staring after her. In the past, she would have punched him in the face, not slapped him. She would have knocked him off his feet, kicked him in the groin, and shoved her heel at his throat.

Steele stepped from the bleachers and walked to where Jeff stood. Getting nearer, he peered into Jeff's face, wondering what he might see as he still considered Jeff nothing more than an ill-behaved child. What he saw was dismay, shame, and a bright red mark in the shape of a small hand there.

Seeing Steele, Jeff turned away, muttering, "I have to get home."

"That's it?" Steele protested in pursuit. "That's all you'll tell me?"

Jeff nodded, continuing his path to his motorcycle.

"So you are going to keep hiding the truth from me?" Steel persisted. "Jafarr, I was a friend of your father's - "

Jeff halted, glaring at him. "So?"

"So. So, don't you think you owe me something?"

Jeff managed an ironic laugh. "Owe you? You must be joking. Just because M brought you into this doesn't mean you have to know everything. Besides, I'd prefer you to have genuine shock when the FBI eventually does tell you about her, because eventually 'Steele' will find out. The only person I owe is Zormna." He cringed. "I owe her an apology. It isn't her fault."

He continued on to his motorcycle where he climbed on and gunned the engine. Hardly anyone remained in the parking lot when he rode off. And those who had heard the last part had no clue what any of it meant. There were no agents listening. Most had gone to follow Zormna when she took off. They all had been cued in on the possibility of Steele's visit to the neighborhood. They had been waiting for the man to lurk around, actually.

The bounty hunter sighed, trudging slowly across the schoolyard. After mounting his own motorcycle, he roared off into the street away from Pennington High.

"Zormna, I'm sorry," Jeff begged, standing on the McLenna's doorstep while pleading through the screen door.

Zormna stared at him stonily, and then looked at her shoes.

"I'm sorry too," she at last mumbled.

Jeff stared at his own shoes. Looking up, he could see Mr. McLenna standing a few feet behind her, glaring at him and waiting for Zormna to decide to go out or to close the front door and stay in. Zormna stepped out.

"I'm sorry I lost my temper and blew your alibi," she said, not at all smiling.

He nodded. "I think we both could have been more careful. I didn't help anything by bringing up old arguments."

"Close the door!" Mr. McLenna bellowed.

Zormna hastily pulled it shut and leaned on the outside screen. "So what do we do now?"

Jeff took a breath and said, "I think we need to hurry up and get this deal with the box over with."

Zormna nodded. "I agree."

"How about Friday?" he asked, peering at her.

She smiled. Her smile lifted every heavy feeling from him. But then, admittedly, it always had.

Making a week move quickly was an impossible feat. In fact, it is common knowledge that whenever someone wants to speed up time the reverse happens. The next week went by sluggishly for Zormna and Jeff. They had contacted the FBI and told them of their plan to leave on Friday to be in Florida on the Tuesday after, but that gave them four days of waiting. Zormna dealt with dissecting fish and worms in Biology. And she attempted to write her sonnet in English, just as Jeff had. Yet they had moved from love poems to other kinds by then. On Wednesday they had to read and interpret a poem by William Wordsworth.

 

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But He beholds the light, and when it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day."

 

The entire class listened to their teacher read - a first since he usually called upon them to read the text. Half of them were entranced by the picture it presented, but a few were not so pleased.

"I thought there was supposed to be a separation of church and state in this school," a boy named Trevor griped from across the room.

Another voice piped up in agreement.

The cluster Jeff and Zormna sat with peered that way, wondering what kind of controversy was going to rise from this.

Mr. Humphries frowned. "Is that your interpretation of this poem? That it is about religion?"

Trevor nodded. "Yes."

"Stand up when you say that," Mr. Humphries said, reminding him of the class rule.

Trevor stood up and said it again, looking down more uncomfortably at his staring classmates. "Yes, I think it endorses religion, and I shouldn't have to hear about it."

From his side of the room, Brian huffed and rolled his eyes.

"You have something to say, Mr. Henderson?" Mr. Humphries asked, looking to where the sound came from.

Brian stood up.

"Yes, I do." He stared squarely at Trevor. "People always complain about endorsing religion, but what about those that actually believe? What are we supposed to do? We have to put up with atheism daily - and we're not allowed to complain about it. People complain about using the name of God in the Pledge of Allegiance but we have to listen to people swear and take His name in vain - all protected by the Constitution. That's not fair."

Mr. Humphries smirked. Controversy found. And he loved them, because they caused discussion in class and topics to write on. Zormna and Jeff shared a look though. They knew how passionate Brian was about this subject. He was a religious boy, after all. And a Mormon.

"It was supposed to be freedom of religion, not freedom from religion," Brian said at last, sitting down when he finished.

An amused grin spread across Jeff's lips. He glanced over at Zormna again. But she was staring at the poem, writing notes in the margins so she could analyze it and write her paper fast. She really didn't care about religious debates herself.

Amelia Barns stood up sharply. "What about the crimes of religion? Huh? What about the Spanish Inquisition? Muslim jihadists? All suffering comes from a belief in God."

Zormna looked up this time, bemused, when she heard this. She shook her head and continued to write her notes.

Joy hopped to her feet. Her face was flushed. "That's ridiculous. If anything, all relief from suffering comes from a belief in God. The Spanish Inquisition was caused by power-hungry people - not God."

"There is no God, Mormon girl," Amelia snapped back.

Joy scowled at her along with Brian whose jaw had dropped at the remark. The entire class rumbled with a troubled murmur, and even Mr. Humphries was becoming unsettled. Usually he liked to let discussions take its own shape. He felt