The Secret of Zormna Clendar by Julie Steimle (great reads .TXT) 📖

and rushed out of the room with a smile to Zormna.

“Mom’s driving us, so we have just enough time.” Jennifer lifted up one of the things she had selected from her closet. “But we really should hurry. You really can’t sleep in every day, you know.”

“I am still jetlagged,” Zormna mumbled. It was as good excuse as any, and not entirely false.

Then Mrs. McLenna stepped in, looking Zormna up and down. “You’re not dressed yet.”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Zormna proceeded to undress. Reduced to her underwear, Zormna reached out for whatever Jennifer had to offer.

But Jennifer looked Zormna up and down and snorted. “What is that?”

Mrs. McLenna sighed, closing her eyes.

Glancing at her underclothes—a cream-colored, one piece snug suit that covered her from her calves to shoulders, Zormna then looked back up again at Mrs. McLenna and Jennifer, puzzled. “My underclothes.”

“Long johns?” Jennifer snickered.

“That’s enough,” her mother said. Then looking to Zormna, the woman explained, “I didn’t realize Jennifer didn’t give you any underwear—”

“I’m not sharing underwear,” Jennifer protested, hands up.

“I’ll just have to add that to our shopping list,” her mother said.

Zormna looked down at her under-suit again, frowning. “What is wrong with this one?”

Jennifer snickered.

Giving her daughter another sharp look, Mrs. McLenna apologetically sighed. A painful smile formed on her lips. “I’m afraid it is considered obsolete.”

“What?” Zormna looked down at her suit again. Her clothes? Obsolete? The mother had to be joking.

“I know. Unthinkable, but there it is,” Mrs. McLenna said. “It is just another thing you will have to get used to.”

Ugh. Another thing. And that really was the main point. It had nothing to do with functionality, Zormna was sure. Nothing at all. Just another cultural weirdness. Hopefully the underwear of these people wasn’t frilly stupid.

 Jennifer handed over the clothes she had selected without any more snide commentary. Zormna pulled it on and buttoned things up—with help, unfortunately. It had so many buttons—the shirt did at least. Afterward, Jennifer grudgingly led her to the mirror where Zormna could see her entire self.

“It’s not fair. You look cute in just about anything,” Jennifer grumbled.

Zormna stared at herself.

Overalls. That’s what Jennifer called the cut-off jeans with the jumper front pocket and straps. It barely hung on, a little too wide for her shoulders. And the white shirt had this useless wing-like collar, just like the one Mr. McLenna wore on Sunday.

“This is the most asinine thing I have ever seen,” Zormna said turning to look at it all. “People actually wear this?”

Jennifer laughed, though Zormna was not sure at what. “You look cute.”

“Cute?” Zormna echoed in protest. Pulling at the sides of the overalls, she shoved her hands inside the empty space next to her legs. “This is cute? You can fit two of me in this.”

Rolling her eyes and yanking Zormna’s arms out of her overalls, Jennifer said, “It is supposed to be baggy. Besides, it isn’t your size.”

Zormna shook her head and turned toward Mrs. McLenna who had taken a step back. She was now standing near the door for a better view.

“Do we really have to do this? I can help you around here, work off my stay.”

But Mrs. McLenna gazed wearily at her. “Yes, Zormna. You have to go to school. No more arguing. There is no way out of it. Now let’s go.”

Jennifer hopped to the door.

Mrs. McLenna lifted up a pair of shoes that looked like Andrew’s. She held them out by the laces to Zormna. “For today only. We’ll be buying shoes your size after school registration.”

Ducking sheepishly, Zormna asked, “Can I just wear my own? They worked fine yesterday.”

 But the mother dropped the shoes into Zormna’s hands, shaking her head. “Nice try. But you need to do everything to blend in. And that includes shoes.”

And that really was that.

In two minutes she was tromping down the stairs after Mrs. McLenna, kicking the carpet with the tennis shoes. They went out the door with a pair of toaster pastries each. From the carport, they took off towards school. Zormna sat in the back seat, breathing in and breathing out.   

 

Jennifer was in a cheerful mood when they arrived at the school by car. She prattled away in the front seat about how awesome their school really was. Apparently awesome was Jennifer’s favorite word. Mrs. McLenna merely smiled, enjoying the trip as if it were a treat for them all. Apparently she didn’t chauffer her children much. Todd had left early with friends, and the youngest two took a bus.

Zormna tried not to be restless as they drove through the neighborhood. She held her hands together to keep them from fidgeting. She did not want to admit it to Jennifer or Mrs. McLenna, but she was terrified. As soon as they arrived in the guest parking lot, Jennifer looked out at the school campus then quickly looked to her watch. The moment they parked, Jennifer immediately opened the car door and hopped out.

“Bye Zormna! Good luck!”

And she was off like a fugitive from the law.

“All right,” Mrs. McLenna said. She turned off the car’s engine and turned around in her seat. “We’re here. Behave yourself and things will be ok.”

Behave herself? Really? Zormna lifted her eyebrows.

With a sigh, she groping the release button on her seat belt. She had trouble with it on the day before when going to and from church. But she finally got it off. Then she had to face the door. Back then, Todd had opened it, yet she had failed to watch close enough.

“You pull here,” Mrs. McLenna said, pointing to the left side of the small lever.

Scowling, Zormna jerked on the handle, waiting for the door to pop open. It didn’t.

“You have to push on the door,” Mrs. McLenna added, waving to it.

Zormna pushed, but the door remained closed since she forgot to pull on the handle the same time.

Mrs. McLenna cleared her throat to say something, but Zormna realized then the mother had meant to say to do both at the same time. Hot-in-the-face, she opened the door and climbed out without a word.

On her feet again, Zormna drew in a breath to compose herself. The air was sweet, flavorful, with odors of cut grass and some kind of pollen. On the far side of a wide sloping lawn, stood the four-story redbrick structure that was main school building. Its name was fastened above a two pair of glass double doors in rounded, steel letters. The letters were stained by the weather, dripping rust down the brick wall. Broad, handmade paper banners stretched across the top of the school’s entryway just below the letters, covering the brick and stucco edging. Paper fliers, mostly photocopies of student’s faces and slogans, also plastered the walls outside. They were everywhere, actually. It looked like the school was in the throes of an election. The announcement board was covered with these pictures, as well as the lawn as if they had been tossed by a too-eager campaign manager. At the other end of the lawn, an irate groundskeeper picked them up, grumbling under his breath.

Most of the buildings were blockish in shape. Zormna only had a moment to take them in before Mrs. McLenna urged her onward to the brick building in front of her.

That second, a shrill metallic clanging sounded over the entire campus.

Zormna jumped, slapping her hands over her ears.

Looking up for the source of the noise, she saw a handful of stragglers running to the smaller side-doors of the building. They were gone in seconds. Soon only she, Mrs. McLenna, and the groundskeeper remained outside.

Zormna leaned heavily against the car, staring skyward. She breathed in and out, trying to regain her jangled nerves.

Towering overhead, the trees on the lawn loomed like sentinels, all of them sprouting fresh spring leaves. She stared at them, dazed, breathing in and out, listening to Mrs. McLenna as she locked her car.

The mother waved once more for them to continue. “Come on.” Mrs. McLenna headed to the main doors of the building.

Hanging her shoulders, Zormna got off the car. She stalked up the broad concrete steps after the woman, reaching the entrance where clean glass doors hung in metallic frames. Wire threads laced inside the two panes of bumpy glass, like little fences. Zormna peered closer at it.

Clearing her throat, Mrs. McLenna pulled the door open then waited for Zormna to go inside. Trudging in with resignation, Zormna stepped onto checkerboard tile. She held a long dread-filled stare at the dimly lit hallway. She noticed a few of the fluorescent lights were out. Some of the tiles were peeling up. But then, she had seen worse.

Mrs. McLenna went onward.

Squaring her shoulders, Zormna marched after the woman, who, just like Jennifer, had gone ahead without even looking back. It was a presumptuous habit, Zormna thought.

They walked past the butcher-paper-covered bulletin boards and important looking offices to a wide open door that was shining bright fluorescent light into the dim hallway. It was hard to miss. Mrs. McLenna had been reading the signs overhead, besides. She went in first, beckoning Zormna to follow with a wave of her hand. Zormna frowned, dragging her feet into the room.

A middle-aged woman with a round face, wearing wide plastic glasses, sat at the small office desk. Her neatly manicured fingers gripped a mug of bitter smelling coffee. She looked up the moment they entered. Her pale eyes icily took in Zormna.

Zormna stiffened.

“Please, sit down.” The woman smiled at Mrs. McLenna mostly. She adjusted her glasses.

Mrs. McLenna took a chair in front of the desk. She waved for Zormna to sit in the one beside her. Glancing around the room once, Zormna tried to think positively. Breathe in. Breathe out. Shift attitude. This can be done.

Right away Mrs. McLenna handed the lady the documents her husband had collected that morning from their ‘reliable source’. Zormna did not ask who that source was, even though it used to be her business to ferret out and eliminate that sort of thing. That was Salvar’s job now. It was his problem. Not hers. It was just ironic that she now needed the services she had been busy closing down.

The woman took the documents with the tips of her fingers as if she did not like handling things from others too much. Possible germaphobe. The woman peered over the information while lifting her nose at a superior tilt. As the woman scanned the papers, her eyes flickered to Zormna from time to time then returned to the pages in front of her.

Finally setting the documents down, the woman sorted through the files that sat on her desk. Lifting one folder out of the stack, she drew out an empty form then started to put in the information from the documents Mrs. McLenna had handed her. In a second, she pulled over her keyboard and accessed the computer.

Oh…the computer. Zormna bit her lip, knowing that woman would not find anything about her school on the internet. This would be a problem.

“This school does not seem to have a website,” the woman said, predictably on cue.

Uncomfortably sneaking a look at Zormna, Mrs. McLenna sighed. “That’s right.”

“That will make it difficult to verify this information.”

She continued to type, inputting the written details into the computer. The clicking of keys paused only once or twice as the woman reread the documents with a narrower, more critical gaze. She ticked unconsciously over the words and shook her head softly. With a sigh, she laid down the school registration sheet.

“And you brought no transcripts with you from your previous school?” The woman peered over her glasses at Zormna.

Zormna had been staring up at the ceiling tiles in boredom, her mind entirely elsewhere. She had been wondering what was within the ceiling beyond the tiling. Venting, possibly. Not much space if the building was concrete and brick. Just enough space above for wiring and plumbing, she guessed.  

Emitting an apologetic sigh, Mrs. McLenna answered for her. “Yes, that is correct.”

The office woman still peered