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

with an obvious sneer to Zormna. “So you can educate yourself, you little flea.”

Zormna popped to her feet to fight. “What did you say?”

“He said he’d lend you a CD,” Alex piped up, yet there was no teasing in his tone. He sighed, shaking his head at his brother. “Jeff. Enough. Alright?”

Jeff rolled his eyes and strolled back to the picnic table on the red top.

Todd had hoped the teasing would stop then. But Jeff turned back just before he reached the table and said, “But you really should listen to U2.”

“What?” Zormna recoiled, hatred sharp in her gaze.

“U2,” Jeff said, still smirking at her. He really was enjoying this.

“Me too what?” Zormna retorted.

Snickers erupted from the boys and girls around the redtop. Some cackled.

Zormna’s face was now red as raspberries. She peeked at only those nearest to her. 

“It is the name of a band,” Jeff said slowly so she would understand.

Brian shook his head. He pushed Jeff aside. “The letter U and the number 2. It’s a play on words. Jeff, don’t be so mean.”

“Oh,” Zormna said. Then gazing sharply at Jeff, she added, “Like O2.”

Jeff flinched as if she had stuck him with a needle. He returned the glare. “Similar play on words. Different kind of band.”

For a moment everyone wondered what had happened. A private snap back? How much did Zormna know about Jeff? It worried Todd.

“O2 was a rival gang,” Jeff murmured to Todd.

Which Zormna knew about?

Chills went up Todd’s arms. He exchanged a quick look with Jennifer. But she hastily averted her eyes.

Later, after school, Todd saw Alex gesture to Zormna when Jeff wasn’t looking. He handed her a CD case. She stared up at Alex suspiciously, but she took it. Todd later saw her listening to it in her room.

Popular U2 songs, Enya, Van Morrison, and others burned to a disk.

She was also reading a book from the library about the history of Ireland.

And he wondered.

 

Chapter Fifteen: In Deep Water

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We show our true character by what we laugh at.”

—R.B. Carpenter—

 

 

 

The drama between Zormna Clendar and Jeff Streigle was something the students of Pennington High relished—which bugged Todd. Everyone knew Jeff was a tease and a troublemaker. But up until then he had never been a bully.

But then Zormna really brought out the worst in him.

“Hey, Zormna, how do you blind an Irish woman?”

Zormna ignored Jeff as she passed him in the hallway, looking at the ceiling.

“You put a bottle of scotch in front of her,” he quipped. He stood smirking next to Jonathan who was shaking his head at him. Jonathan hated ethnic jokes.

Halting, Zormna glanced back with confusion. But she just shook her head.

And Jeff smirked at her. “Come on… Don’t you know all Irish are drunks? It’s what makes them all crazy, like your aunt.”

That was it! Todd slapped the side of Jeff’s head.

“OW!” Jeff stepped away too late. “Come on. You’re an American.”

But Todd only scowled at him. The Irish jokes were the last straw.

Alex shook his head at the ceiling.

Ducking away, Jeff went around the other side yet continued pestering Zormna. “Why can’t you borrow money from a leprechaun?”

But that only got another perplexed look from the girl. It was kind of cute, actually.

“Because they’re always a little short,” Jeff said.

Everyone around him groaned, though some of the girls snickered, twittering like a cluster of birds. Zormna was rather small after all. Some of them started to whisper ‘leprechaun’ underneath their breaths.

Irritated beyond all hope, Todd stepped in between, facing Jeff. “What is black and blue and floating upside down in the Irish Sea?”

Jeff blinked, lurching back.

“Someone who tells stupid Irish jokes,” Todd ground out.

“Oooh!” The kids around them backed away. A fight between friends needed room.

But Jeff also backed off, raising his hands. Despite that, he looked over Todd’s shoulder at Zormna and called out, “What do smart blondes and UFO’s have in common?”

Zormna stared wide-eyed at him. Already people around them were giggling.

“You always hear about them, but you never see them.” And Jeff stalked off before Todd could raise a fist.

But Zormna gazed dryly after him.

Everyone else around them snorted. Despite what Jeff had said, Zormna was a ‘smart blonde’. Then again, Darren Asher also thought she was an alien.

However, because a popular guy like Jeff Streigle had started to go out of his way to pick on Zormna Clendar, very many of their gal classmates joined in from there on. And they were going to savor it. Some of the girls followed Zormna to class that day, adding, “Maybe you are a Martian.”

Upon hearing that, Zormna halted at her classroom door and gave them the driest look of all.

Jonathan followed Jeff to class. “Are you insane?”

“Yeah,” another of their classmates cut in. Lyle or Kyle, Todd thought his name was. “She’s like super ninja and smart. Hotness incarnate.”

“Hotness? Really?” Jeff hung his shoulders, turning to look at what’s-his-name, Lyle. “Don’t be so shallow. She’s just a pretty face.”

The boy stepped back. All-consuming disbelief swelled over him—and everyone else for that matter.

Todd frowned. He knew that Zormna was not just a pretty face. Besides gaining the reputation for being freakishly smart in math (and now English and Science), she was complicated in all the ways intriguing women were. “A lady has her secrets,” his mother often said. Besides, she was mesmerizing to watch, and not just in Physical Education…though the girl had been mastering sports that were foreign to her in just days, if not within the one hour.

“Stop being a jerk,” Todd growled.

Jeff retorted, “She thinks she’s better than everyone else. And I can’t stand people like that.”

Cringing, Todd found that hard to deny. Zormna did have an ego. But he said, “That still doesn’t make it ok to be a jerk.”

*

‘Jeff’s’ teasing didn’t faze Zormna as much as her classmates thought. Initially, the boy’s presence was disturbing. At first she stumbled when seeing him everywhere, and the girls laughed. But girls did that. His Irish jokes were also stupid. As for his personal remarks, they no longer bothered her after a while. In fact, it had a familiar canter she could walk to. It almost felt like home. And Zormna had begun to pace herself with it—which annoyed most of her gal classmates more.

So when the week after ‘Jeff’s’ dramatic appearance ended, Zormna went back to plowing through The Grapes of Wrath and playing the part of a high school teenager, as required. Besides, their irritating interchanges also made it easier to ignore the FBI agents who followed her. She dropped the game of slip-off-and-hide as it really was a waste of time. In a way, ‘Jeff’ had helped her reprioritize.

Because of this, Zormna hardly noticed the change of tone in the school. Including when Mrs. Ryant cleared her throat at the front of the classroom for attention, something she rarely did when teaching. It had startled all the other students in the room as well.

“Today we need to plan for the Olympics. We’ve put it off long enough.”

All their eyes stared tiredly at their teacher. Most of the class members glanced sideways to their seatmates. Zormna lifted her gaze slightly from the page she was reading then lowered it down again as discordant murmurs surged up from around all the tables. They got like this whenever new gossip spread. And though it was draining, it was becoming familiar, like a song. Zormna attempted to tune it out.

“Mrs. Ryant, Why bother? People like us never win those things,” ‘Sparky’ Jones said.

Zormna lifted her eyes again. What things?

She peered at the lanky boy, Jones, who talked through his braces, and frowned. She didn’t really know her classmates well. Sparky was like the rest of them, a little undernourished (or overnourished in some cases), and unambitious. The quiet type.

Lowering her gaze back to the words on the page, she tried to get back into the book.

Several agreeing voices joined Sparky’s. The tone leaned towards a pathetic whine rather than serious protest.

“We’re losers,” one of them said.

“Why don’t we just sit this one out and watch from the stands?”

“It’s be better if we just took the day off.”

Zormna frowned tighter. It was distracting. And she had read the same line on the page, again. Taking her eyes off the words, Zormna glanced to the teacher. Mrs. Ryant stood limply at the front of the room, holding what looked like a list. So much defeat and exhaustion was in her posture that Zormna’s heart went out to the woman.

“Let’s just call in sick,” another kid suggested.

And the crowd chimed in, creating one big cacophonic chorus of agreement.

Unable to focus on her reading until this ridiculous discussion ended, Zormna raised her hand. “Mrs. Ryant, what are the Olympics?”

The entire class went silent. All of them turned around in their seats and stared at her. So much incredulity—again. Was this thing really so universal?

“What?” Zormna scowled.

Chuckling, Mrs. Ryant answered her. “Zormna, the school Olympics are just like the regular worldwide Olympics, only just with our school. Competition between homerooms.”

“That’s the abridged version,” Sparky cast out.

“Spartacus Jones!” Mrs. Ryant exasperatedly dropped a textbook on the desk. “If you please!”

“Oh come on,” Sparky Jones rose higher in his seat to look at Zormna. “You gotta tell her the complete truth. She’s got to know what she’s in for being with us.”

Everyone shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Their teacher folded her arms in a deeper frown.

Yet, Sparky turned to look Zormna more squarely. “It is where the rest of the school gets to laugh at all us nerdy kids because most of us aren’t athletically inclined.”

Obviously not athletically inclined, Zormna silently agreed.

A nearer seatmate added with a pimple-faced cringe, “It is a free-for-all nerd and geek torture-fest.”

“Total mortification extravaganza,” said Becky Hales, a usually quiet girl Zormna hardly knew (if it weren’t for one ill-hid remark the girl made about favoritism when Zormna had gotten permission to start college work). And the girl added, “Starring all of us because we never win at anything,”

Zormna cocked her head to the side, not sure she had heard right. She looked back to Mrs. Ryant. “Really? The world wide Olympics are like that too?”

Altogether, the class groaned. Some of the students pounded the table with their heads. Again, somehow…Zormna didn’t like this feeling that she was so clueless. She flushed hotly in embarrassment.

“You’re such a blonde, Zormna.”

Mrs. Ryant emitted a sigh with another motherly chuckle. “No, they are exaggerating.”

Upon hearing ‘exaggerating’, the class murmurs rose like a swelling orchestra, complaining and moaning over the torture they were going to undergo with all the students of Pennington High watching. It was the same whiny, complaining, defeatist drivel they had been verbally vomiting—and it was getting on Zormna’s nerves. Besides…her question still had not been answered.

So she lifted her hand again. “You still didn’t tell me what the Olympics are.”

All the murmurs stopped.

Everyone stared at her, some unblinking.

“You mean to tell us that you have never watched the Olympics on TV?” Mrs. Ryant asked. Her eyes were just as wide as theirs were.

Her classmates leaned in expectantly for her answer.

Blushing, especially taking in the stares of those around her, Zormna ducked her head into her shoulders. “No. Ok? We didn’t watch TV at school.”

Several hushed whispers erupted from her classmates.

“But you’ve heard of