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

been on her way to lunch at the time. But the teacher’s overjoyed shouts had drawn her attention to the door. She peered into the window.

Waving the stapled research paper like a flag, Mr. Keller, pointed to the perfectly cited sources and methodical college level writing—all about the life cycle of a monarch butterfly. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. I checked to make sure she hadn’t plagiarized. Every source, every fact, perfect—and all the writing hers.”

All hers indeed. Jennifer remembered helping with that paper. That is, she had loaned her MLA format pamphlet and explained the basic idea of source citation. But Zormna had written the paper herself entirely. Zormna had chosen the topic, something she was interested in, and researched it in the library with Kevin’s help. Jennifer remembered that assignment in particular because they had to dodge Darren who had followed them in and tried to prod them with questions about how Martians generate the air underground, blah, blah, blah, to survive. Kevin finally reported him to the librarian, and Darren got tossed out. But with how Mr. Keller was gushing over the research paper, it was like Zormna had found the cure for cancer and not written a ten-page paper about bugs.

“She doesn’t need my class. She just needed an interpreter,” Mr. Keller declared to all. “I’m approving her for honors classes next year.”

Jennifer cringed. Zormna in honors classes next year? A fourteen-year- old little Miss Perfect surpassing her? Jennifer continued on to lunch, kicking the linoleum since the blonde wasn’t there to abuse.

Zormna would be sitting under the tree, reading as usual.

The blonde had not joined Todd’s friends back on the redtop after she finally decoded the mystery of reading. She spent her time with Kevin and Jennifer mostly due to her need with homework—something which Mark could not handle. And he had started to frequent their tree in an attempt to drag Zormna back. Jennifer could see in the distance that Jonathan, Todd, and Brian were with him. Todd was relating something to his friends while Zormna’s nose was between the pages of The Mockingjay.

“…said, ‘What do you mean you finished it all? That’s a four-hundred page textbook.’ Then she said, ‘It was elementary math. Not hard at all.’ And he’s like, you know, mouth open, face going all white…”

His friends were laughing hysterically. At what, Jennifer did not know. But Brian gaped at Zormna with bemused outbursts, especially at Zormna’s bored response. Todd’s telling was apparently really, really funny.

“…Then she says, ‘Do you have a more advanced book I can study?’ And he’s like, ‘Don’t be impertinent! This is Basic Algebra! Not a pick your own buffet!’ I about peed my pants.” Todd glanced once at Jennifer as she approached. But he continued on with his tale as if she had not arrived. “After that Mr. Parker tried to give her detention for being…what was it?”

Sighing heavily, Zormna lowered her book, “A smart-aleck, I believe. This would be the second time.”

The boys laughed more. Jonathan wiped his eyes.

Jennifer shook her head, setting her hands on to her hips. “What did you do now?”

Blinking, finally seeing her, Zormna set her book down almost with a relieved thank-heaven-you’ve-arrived look in her eyes. But it was checked, like Zormna did not want to reveal she was happy to see Jennifer. Then again, Jennifer noticed, Zormna really didn’t like attention. And being surrounded by boys did make her uncomfortable. Even if they were only some of Todd’s friends.

“Nothing important,” Zormna said.

“Nothing important?” Todd about collapsed hearing that. “You are without a doubt the craziest nerd I…” Todd shook his head then said to Jennifer. “She one-upped Mr. Parker is what. She finished all the homework in her entire textbook.”

That freaky feeling washed through Jennifer again. She stared at the impossible blonde. Zormna averted her eyes and picked up her book to ignore the boys.

“Don’t you know you are supposed to spread the work out?” Jennifer said.

Zormna’s weary gaze responded that she had not known, but she was too tired to argue.

Around then Kevin arrived. Todd’s obnoxious wrestling pals immediately abandoned the tree, going to the redtop to finish lunch, as they considered Kevin ‘yuppie spawn’. But Zormna, when she saw him, closed her copy of The Mockingjay and opened her World History textbook. Her History class came directly after lunch so she often prepped for class then, usually with their help. Currently she had a number of questions about her newest chapter on the emergence of Marxism. Mostly Zormna was stumbling over words like ‘status quo’, ‘proletariat’, and ‘bourgeoisie’. The French-ness of some words clearly gave her trouble.

“Just memorize them,” Kevin finally said after she had grilled him on why the words were spelled so ‘peculiarly’, heaving a sigh with a look to Jennifer. “Some words just have to be memorized.”

“That’s pretty much all we do in English class these days,” Jennifer muttered, thinking about her vocabulary list from that morning. It had words like ennui, usurp, and hegemony.

“Soon you won’t need our help,” Kevin added.

Jennifer hated his admittance of that scary yet obvious fact.

The blonde sighed and nodded, wearily murmuring, “Memorize, memorize, memorize.”

Honestly, though, Jennifer knew Kevin was tired of helping Zormna. He wanted to be alone with Jennifer. He began to talk about his concert recital that weekend, specifically about the solo he was still working on. And though Jennifer was glad for that, her gaze drifted back to the blonde, as she intently studied those French-based words. For fraction of a second, Jennifer got the overwhelming impression that Zormna was not just studying for some class she only had a mild interest in, but studying as if it meant her very survival.

A shiver ran up the back of Jennifer’s neck.

“What is it?” Kevin asked.

Zormna had not noticed. She was sounding out the phrase Communist Manifesto with the intent to completely understand it.

Shaking the sensation off, Jennifer said, “It’s nothing.”

 

But hours later those shivers returned. Not unheralded, of course. Jennifer had been walking out of her final class, ready to meet Kevin and Zormna on the red top to walk home together, when one of her classmates grabbed her arm and said, “Have you heard? That girl living with you—Zelda—she’s in trouble.”

The chill shot down Jennifer’s back like a rod of ice.

“Trouble?” thinking of the murders in Zormna’s family.

“Yeah.” But her classmate giggled like she was savoring the news. “She’s been suspended.”

Suspended. Automatically Jennifer’s worry vanished. Not murdered in cold blood. Just suspended. Unfortunately other images of what probably happened rolled through Jennifer’s mind like a stack of dominoes.

Dryly, Jennifer asked, “What did she do?”

Her classmate giggled again until she saw the dark look on Jennifer’s face. Pulling back, the girl shrugged one shoulder. “I dunno. Something about a fight with Lead-weight Hamilton.”

And she walked off before Jennifer could find out more.

Ted Lead-weight Hamilton? That jerk on the junior varsity wrestling team? Jennifer went a little faster, hurrying to the administration hall. Theodore Franklin ‘Lead weight’ Hamilton was this thickset thug who was barely lucky to advance to the sophomore year. He was currently under academic probation and needed to raise his grades to keep him on the wrestling team. Todd often talked about Ted like he would a wart, or a stupid punk that needed to be slapped upside the head to straighten him out. The only thing Jennifer knew about the jerk was that he liked to pick on people smaller than him…especially people who were smarter than him that were smaller than him. That was Zormna entirely.

She hurried faster.

When she got to the administration hall, she found a large gathering outside the vice-principal office. Most were sophomores. All of them strained to listen in on what was going on inside. Their whispers hushed enough that even Jennifer could hear Mr. Vicklser shout as she advanced.

“…thinking!? You do not resolve disagreements in that way!”

“He kept attacking me,” Zormna’s Irish trill replied as matter-of-factly as always. “It was self-defense.”

Jennifer just about laughed. Zormna sounded so calm. But then any ninja would after defeating an ox-headed thug.

Others in the crowd peeked back when they saw Jennifer. Some gave her room.

“What’s going on?” Todd walked up with Brian and Jeff. “I heard rumors that Zormna got in trouble?”

Jennifer nodded, pointing to the door. “You know as much as I do. Listen.”

Mr. Vicksler had shot back an irate retort at Zormna. “…you certainly finished it! What were you doing sitting on him in the middle of the classroom?”

Jeff choked on a laugh. He covered it, glancing once to Todd.

Brian rolled his eyes. “Ted got bested by a five-foot blonde?”

Even Todd stared in shock. Though, Jennifer knew he had seen what Zormna was capable of on that first day she had come to them.

“It was to keep him from coming at me,” Zormna’s voice answered, emotionless. “The boy did not know when to stop.”

Brian and Jeff erupted into cackles.

“Wait a moment,” Mr. Vicksler replied.

Uncomfortable silence lasted just a second before Vice Principal Vicksler burst out the door, shouting. “Everyone! Go home! School is out! Don’t you have homework to do?”

The crowd jumped back.

Jeff saluted him and said, “Yes, captain!”

He immediately marched away.

The crowd laughed, parting for him. Of course Jeff Streigle would never want to be near the VP’s office for very long. He had spent enough time in it already.

But Todd and Jennifer came closer to the door.

“What’s happened?” Jennifer asked, coming up to the vice principal.

The man eyed them tersely, shaking his head. “Go home and send your parents. I’ve left enough messages for them on voicemail. But I am not going to wait. She will be here until they fetch her.”

“But what happened?” Todd asked.

Mr. Vicksler shook his head. “This is serious, McLenna. This kind of behavior is unacceptable in our school.

“As for the rest of you,” he turned to everyone else. “Go home!”

He slammed the door.

Staring at the rattling glass, Jennifer shared one look with Todd, then Brian.

“What did she do?”

“Oh, I can tell you.” Tristy Ashton, a girl from Brian’s church said. She was this plain kind of girl who always wore short-sleeved shirts under her tank tops. She often hung around with Brian’s sister Joy in the mornings and at lunch. Jennifer hardly noticed her most of the time.

Tristy said, “Mrs. Carr had given us silent reading time. But since Zormna started with Mrs. Ryant’s literacy program, she got special permission to read out loud as long as she kept it to whispers. Right? Well, Ted was getting really irritated with it. And being the total jerk that he always is, Ted started to make fun of the way she was reading. Calling her retard and stuff. Well, Mrs. Carr gave him several warnings to quit talking like that, explaining the agreement Mrs. Ryant and Zormna had with her. But Ted kept at it. And because Mrs. Carr is really a softie—because she totally is…one time when Ted when was flicking paper wads at Skyler Pratt she only—”

“Focus,” Todd said snapping his fingers in front of her face. “Keep on topic. What happened with Zormna?”

Sighing, Tristy nodded. “Well, anyway, Zormna was totally ignoring him at first. But then he started saying stuff like, ‘That retarded pipsqueak is ruining my concentration.’ And Stephen Jones is like, ‘Yeah right, and I’m Mahatma Gandhi.’ And Ted is like—”

“About Zormna, remember?” Brian said.

Tristy looked Brian in the eye and replied, “I’m getting there. The thing is, Zormna did pretty good holding her temper, even after he called her these really rude names like Zitzo and retard and fart-face, and a few things I can’t repeat.”

Brian raised his eyebrows.

“But then Ted made some kind of racial slur, and she snapped.”

Jennifer and Todd blinked. “Racial slur?”

Tristy nodded. “Yeah, he said, and I quote, ‘Why don’t you shut your Irish bug face up!’ And he’s all, you know, puffing his chest up like King Kong, as if he said something cool. But Zormna just jumped out of her seat like she was going to kill him.”

Jennifer blinked again