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

lady from next door, was nice. Grandmotherly. And definitely eccentric. She had talked about her family like they were a fairy tale—a ‘one day my family will come’ kind of thing. She did not quite believe it herself, yet she hoped none-the-less. It had given him a hope to meet more Martians. He had hoped to learn more about their people, about the amazing technology that was just barely out of reach, and discover so many other possibilities. He stared at the sky even now, wondering if someone else would come…someone more accommodating than Zormna Clendar.

He took his eyes from the telescope, rubbing them. Of course, he felt in the skeptical parts of his psyche that maybe the old woman had been a lunatic after all. Yet back then, her proof had made so much sense. And she had plenty of it.

But Zormna seemed to prove the opposite. She was a boring Irish girl, she said. Uninterested in being friends at all.

That was disappointing.

Also, Zormna perpetually insisted that she had merely transferred from an Irish military school. Nothing more. Not a pilot in the Martian border patrol, but a….

In a causal glance to the street below, his eyes set on a figure emerging from the trash can alley across the street—evaporating his thoughts. It was Zormna.

In the middle of the night?

Silently, he watched her cross the asphalt to the old woman’s house—which technically was Zormna’s house, except the girl did not live there yet. Zormna went up the uncut lawn to the front door, where Darren could not see her anymore. But he listened.

Zormna was quiet inside. But then she always moved with hardly a noise.

That was another annoying thing Darren noticed about her. Unlike her great aunt who was this bubbly, cheerful sort of woman who loved to talk, Zormna often said nothing. And though the girl was inclined to show-off at PE, she didn’t even argue back when the girls made snarky remarks about her. It was Zormna’s manner, really. As if she was too above the crowd to lower herself to the petty squabbles of children.

Yeah, she was a snot-head.

The light in the room just opposite his switched on.

Darren ducked behind his windowsill. Watching, the room illuminated to the point that he could see all inside it.

Zormna walked around the lit space, not really looking beyond the room, but at all the junk within. It was the old lady’s clutter-bug stash, as Darren called it. The room was full of old toasters, broken fans she had wanted repaired rather than replaced, a few bits of cast-off, yet not totally ruined furniture, and two TV’s. There were other things in that room, but Darren had always been interested in the junked satellite dish. The old lady had replaced it with a larger, newer one just a week before her death. He had always intended to ask her for the old one. Currently, Zormna picked up and examined each piece as if they were interesting parts to a juvenile science project.

Darren crouched behind his wall near the window, getting comfortable. His room was dark, so she would not be able to see him. His eyes remained focused on Zormna.

The blonde was, as always, breathtaking. Especially when she believed herself to be alone. More beautiful than Michelle Pfeiffer, her face grew more relaxed. Her probing eyes filled with life. And when she smiled—which happened more when no one was looking—she was like an angel. It was hard to get beyond her looks, to be honest.

But once Darren was comfortable with the image of this faerie flitting about the junk room, he began to notice what she was doing. The girl knew a thing or two about machines. That was the first thing he observed. She examined wires, pulled apart and attached the electronics like a pro. But Zormna didn’t know a thing about window latches. She had fiddled with one for a moment then abandoned. It was weird seeing her like that. Smart at one thing, stupid at another. It reminded him of an episode of that one-season-TV-wonder Starman where the alien was trying to help a pilot with the design of his aircraft, but didn’t know the actual aviation design terms to explain himself. Brilliant, yet stupid.

She had to be alien.

Buoyed up by that thought, Darren hunkered down more. He listened as well as watched this time.

But Zormna did not say much. And eventually she left those electrical pieces and went to the window again. Darren made sure she could not see him. Not yet anyway.

She wiped the grime off the window sill first, sneezing two or three times. For a moment she stared at her hands, grimacing at the layer of dust on them. Then she reached up then stood on the loveseat to finally unlock the high latches that held the window closed. She pushed them slowly open.

The hinges creaked, begging to be oiled. One stuck partway, yet Zormna continued to shove the window fully ajar. She peered out at the side of the house. Her eyes lifted to the sky.

She sat on the sill with a meditative grin.

Darren let out a sigh before he could stop himself. Thankfully, she had not heard him.

Her amazing green eyes tracked from the side of her window then out to the roof above it. Already calculation flickered in her gaze as she peered from the rain gutters up to the cob-webby satellite dish. It was cankered from weather and matted with leaves. She scooted farther out. Weighing the strength of the window frame against the distance to the rain gutter along the roof, she took an adventurous hop onto the sill. Of course, that girl would be crazy enough to go onto the roof. He had to stop it.

“So, you miss it,” Darren said sitting up into open window so he could be well seen.  

Zormna jerked her head down with a start, falling back against the window frame. Recognizing him with a scowl, Zormna flinched. He could see her frustration as her eyes drifted to the roof then the stars above it. A moan escaped from her lips. Even that sounded musical.

“You miss it, don’t you?” He repeated himself, pointing upward. Then he added, “Don’t deny it. Your aunt told me everything.”

“Oh, did she?” Zormna rolled her eyes. “Well, everyone says my great aunt was crazy.”

Darren cocked his head to consider the idea for a second, then shrugged it off. “Maybe so, but that never stopped her from telling me the truth.” Then he said it again, hoping for a genuine reaction, “Admit it. You miss it.”

Zormna looked back into the sky. A painful yearning swept over her nimble contours. She said under her breath, “I do.”

At last! Exultant, Darren grinned. She had finally admitted to being from Mars! It was great besting a girl like that.

But Zormna whipped a scowl at him. And she blushed. “Do not be a fool and think for a minute—”

Darren laughed. “What? That I’m right?”

She glared.

“You know I am,” he said, enjoying this. “So why don’t you quit playing this game.”

Growling practically, Zormna hopped back into the room. “I am from Ireland, and you are crazy.”

Throwing her shoulder into the frame to shut the window.

But it was stuck fast. Darren knew it. The house was old. Most of the layers of paint made the hinges impossible to budge. Especially that one. He had been in that room a billion times already, so he ought to know.

He tried one thing more.

“Wait! Don’t you want to look through my telescope? It will give you a better view.”

Darren lifted up the shiny, white tubular instrument.

Zormna paused, glaring at it and him. “If I want to look at the stars I will do it on my own.”

“But not this particular star,” he urged, waiting for it.

Huffing against the strain, Zormna grumbled, “If I wanted to look at Arras, I can certainly do it without you.”

And with that, the window jerked out of its place. It slammed shut.

The blonde stomped out of the room, slapping the light off. He heard her storm through of the house to the front door and tromp down the lawn back the way she had come. Undoubtedly there would be no more night visits from Zormna Clendar. The girl learned too quickly. But this moment was worth it.

She had said it.

Only a Martian would call Mars Arras.

 

Chapter Ten: A Lunatic’s Inheritance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious.”—Albert Einstein—

 

 

 

“Jennifer, I have been thinking.”

Jennifer looked up, surprised that Zormna had just spoken since the girl had been silently introspective since her release from in-school suspension that Friday, almost as if she had been contemplating a career as a mime. They were sitting in their usual spot under the tree at lunch, Kevin preoccupied with homework. And Zormna had been munching on one of her granola bars (The girl seemed obsessed with them. She included one at almost every meal, including sneaking one after dinner).

“You have, huh?” Jennifer replied, trying as always to keep it light.

“I have let that house of mine sit for too long,” Zormna murmured, her half-eaten granola bar in hand. “It is a mess. And if I am to eventually move there—”

“Not happening,” Jennifer reminded. Her parents had already made it clear there was no way Zormna could become an emancipated minor after her fight with Ted.

Zormna ignored it. “—I will need to get my house fixed. But that is much work for one person. I am going to need help.”

Cringing, Jennifer did not like where this conversation was leading.

“So,” Zormna said, looking hopefully to her, her cherubic dimples deepening, “Can I count on you to help me with this?”

“Uh…” Jennifer’s heart went faster. That big house? The dirty, cluttered, murdered crazy woman’s house? “Well…you see…my Saturdays are all booked up and…” Jennifer averted her eyes, searching for something convincing to say.

“I’ll help,” Todd walked up. He was carrying his trigonometry textbook. Jennifer knew that secretly Zormna had been helping Todd with his homework since Jeff was now spending all his time in the auto shop with his brother. Jeff had been their go-to guy when it came to math. It was maddening that this fourteen-year-old blonde was Todd’s new go-to-gal.

“I bet the guys wouldn’t mind helping too if you asked them,” Todd said.

Zormna turned around with one of her breathtaking smiles. “Thank you Todd!”

She immediately dumped the rest of her lunch into her bag and sprang off the ground in a jog to Jennifer’s brother.

Rather overcome, Todd swayed there until she arrived. Zormna hooked her arm in his then looked to the red top to find his friends. Jennifer noticed the deliberate turn of the girl’s head as Zormna led Todd back to the red top. Jennifer had to get closer to watch this. Zormna, she knew, acted with calculation.

*

Todd’s friends had been watching from across the yard the second Zormna had joined Jennifer under the tree. She was their topic of conversation.

“…Are you saying that’s why Alex and Jeff have been ditching us at lunch?” Brian looked shocked, staring at Jonathan who had recounted what Alex had told him in PE that day.

Jonathan nodded. “Yeah. Alex said that Zormna reminded Jeff of someone in his past. It freaked him out. And