The Mars Project, Julie Steimle [read aloud txt] 📗

Hales, please read your paper on your first love.”

Becky blushed, but stood up to take her paper.

“My First Love, by Becky Hales, a junior. I thought I knew what love was, but I was wrong….”

*

It was lunch before Jeff could get time to talk to Zormna, and he knew he couldn’t do it in their usual spot where they ate. Too many listeners. Jeff slipped out of his Civics class once the bell rang then hurried to meet Zormna outside her Chemistry class. That class was nearly empty when he pressed through the crowds of kids in the hall. Peering over the heads of the taller students, he searched for her. She would have been swallowed up in the crowd because she was so tiny. However, Darren’s head stuck out with a pocket next to him where he was looking and talking.

Jeff smirked. There would be Zormna.

Walking through the flow of students, Jeff squeezed to where Darren and Zormna were.

“Hey!”

Several heads turned, but Zormna looked up. She nodded to Darren then veered to her left and said goodbye to Sam who also had their Chemistry class—which Jeff found strangely annoying. Sam let out a hormonal sigh as Zormna left him to go to Jeff. It made Jeff smirk, but that vaporized when he saw her expression. Zormna looked prepared for a lecture, her gaze tense.

“We need to talk in private,” Jeff said, pointing down the hall.

Nodding reluctantly, Zormna followed him. They stepped away from the cafeteria down the now nearly empty hallway.

Sam watched them go then shook his head, turning to Darren. “Tell me, are they a couple?”

Darren laughed as he pulled Sam away so Jeff could get Zormna alone. He knew it from Jeff’s looks that conversation was probably ‘top secret’. “Sure looks it, doesn’t it?”

Sam nodded, going with Darren to join Adam.

Jeff led Zormna to an empty stairway that he had already swept of bugs. Once he was sure no one would be coming that way, peeking around the corners to make sure no one was following, he let out a sigh then turned to face her.

“Zormna,” he started.

But she shook her head. “Listen, I know what you are going to say. You’re mad at me for writing that paper. I shouldn’t have told more than we agreed on. And I’m sorry. I just was tired of making things up for that teacher, and that was one thing that I could at least answer honestly.”

She then waited for his reproach anyway.

Exhaling, he let his eyes drop.

“That wasn’t what I was going to talk to you about. Your paper was fine. I mean, everybody knows you are an orphan. And if they didn’t, they would have found out anyway.” Jeff looked up. “I have something more…um…important to talk to you about.”

She peered up at him, this time with real concern. His tone was without any indication of sneer or bite, which he reserved when he was cranky with her. It was one she knew to be sincere therefore more dangerous.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Jeff closed his eyes to gather himself. When he opened them, he said, “I have been struggling with this for the last week. We didn’t know for sure until Monday, and I couldn’t tell you because you still seemed mad at me and—”

“Jafarr, quit stalling. What is it?” Peering at his unusually morose expression, especially how his deep eyes seemed darker, like she was falling into space itself, Zormna had begun to worry.

He cringed. “I have bad news I think you should be aware of. I think you have that right.”

“That right?” Her eyes then widened. “What’s going on? Did the P.M.s find out where I am?”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry. You’re fine. As far as I know, the P.M.s don’t even suspect you anymore. It’s not that.” He hesitated. “But it is related.”

She stepped back from him and leaned against the opposite wall for space. “It is the others, isn’t it?”

Jeff closed his eyes with a nod.

Tears formed in her eyes as she completely understood him. “Who?”

Taking a breath with some difficulty, he whispered, “Lazdel.”

Her jaw clenched. She shook her head. The tears came down in a hush. “It’s not fair,” she muttered quietly. “I can’t even stop them.”

Jeff stared at the floor, unable to think of something to say. “There’s only—”

“I want to go Home. I don’t want to be the last,” she hissed low, feeling wretched. “I have to stop this.”

Quickly looking up, Jeff took a step toward her, knowing exactly what was crossing her mind. “You can’t stop it. You can’t fight the future, and you can’t fight prophecy.”

“I can’t let them die!” Zormna snapped back at him, glaring while wiping away her embarrassing tears. “You might sit around and just watch, but I can’t. They are fellow Arrassians—my only family, no matter how distant. I don’t know your prophecies. And I don’t know what you think you’re doing. All I know is that I can’t stand by and let my own people get murdered.”

Jeff shook his head and he closed the distance between them, taking her by the arms to make her look at him straight. “Zormna, you are the only Tarrn we have found right now. I can’t just let you run off and get yourself killed.” Seeing her glower at him, he said, “Look, we’re trying the best to find the other Tarrns so we can stop this, or at least delay it. But you have to face the fact that in the end there will be only one Tarrn left. It will be you or somebody else.”

She shook him off, the tears coming. “I wish it was someone else.”

Jeff closed his eyes. He reached over again, this time pulling her close as if to ward off anyone who would dare harm her. Normally, she would have punched him, or thrown him. But instead she let him hold her as she trembled, sobbing into his chest.

Sam peeked into the stairwell, searching for them. When he saw Jeff holding Zormna, he stiffened. Standing quietly along with Zormna, Jeff rocked her, whispering something Sam could not hear, trying to comfort her from something Sam could not imagine.

Sam swallowed, sighed, then walked back to his friends down the hall. “I, um, don’t think Jeff and Zormna are coming to lunch for a while.”

His cheeks were red, and he averted his eyes. Jennifer noticed it as he turned away. Adam glanced at Darren, and Darren shrugged. They both headed back out to tell Brian and the rest that Jeff and Zormna were going to be a while.

“I’m telling you, something suspicious is going on between those two,” Mark said when he heard.

Brian nodded, sighing.

Joy had listened in not far off with her friends who were complaining about Joy’s younger twin brothers who were running amok among the freshmen and making a spectacle of themselves.

Jeff and Zormna didn’t go to lunch.

After lunch, Jeff sat in his Pre-Calculus class staring at the book without really seeing the numbers. He seemed listless, lost in his thoughts and sighing like he had just gone through an ordeal and he was only just recovering. Sam and Brian watched him while shaking their heads. When the class let out and Sam left to woodshop, he saw Jeff heave himself out of his chair then wearily head off to his next class like one who still had another ordeal to go through. Zormna remained red-eyed and subdued the rest of the day also.

*

“I am hurt. A plague o’ both your houses! I am sped. Is he gone, and hath nothing?” a boy in the back row read the following day in English.

“What! Art thou hurt?” their Benvolio replied.

“Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, ‘tis enough,” the boy read rather flatly, not pleasing Mr. Humphries with a good Mercutio. “Where is my page? Go villain, fetch a surgeon.”

Jeff looked onto his page and read. “Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.” He looked up at Zormna, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were half closed, and she was propping her head up with her book so it only looked like she was following.

“…Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm,” the Mercutio read.

Jeff glanced back at the page. “I thought all for the best.”

Zormna’s book fell onto her desk with a bang. She popped her head up from the sound. Their teacher glared across the room from his book, but all heads, groggy-eyed and not, were looking up at him.

The boy continued. “Help me into some house, Benvolio, or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses! They have made worms’ meat of me: I have it, and soundly too: — your houses!”

Jeff lifted his book, though he shook his head at Zormna, reading, “This gentleman, the prince’s near ally, my very friend, hath got his mortal hurt in my behalf; my reputation stain’d with Tybalt’s slander, Tybalt, that an hour hath been my kinsmen. O sweet Juliet!”

Zormna started nodding off again but popped her head up when she thought her part had been called. She looked at the text and blinked.

“…valour’s steel!” Jeff finished.

Zormna closed her eyes again and set the text back up so she could nap, blurring out the rest of the scene.

*

“Didn’t sleep?” Jeff asked as they got up when the bell rang.

Zormna nodded, groggy-eyed, as she replied, “I was up late last night finishing my homework. Mrs. McLenna had me clean out the attic when I got home, and I didn’t finish until dinner. Then I had to go to work.”

“Why did they—?”

“They’re having a yard sale Saturday, and they’re getting rid of nearly everything up there,” she replied, knowing the question.

Jeff almost laughed. “Are they letting you keep your bed?”

Shrugging, she tried to find it funny but it was too exhausting. “I think I still get the mattress.”

This time he shook his head. “You know, if Todd were here—” He began.

But this time Zormna did laugh.

“They’re not going to keep the promise, Jeff, even if he was here. Jennifer has been fighting with them since forever. I just see going on with their…whatever…as a better solution than death,” Zormna said.

 Sam nearly laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

They both lifted their heads, not realizing that someone else was listening. But they soon saw that Brian and Joy had also overheard, though they were pretending not to. And so were other classmates. Everyone seemed to be interested in the weird relationship between their most infamous classmates.

Zormna shrugged and said to Sam, “Maybe I’m exaggerating. Jennifer’s parents don’t like me much. I’ve sort of upset the house with my problems, and they are seeking every reason to punish me.”

Joy slipped off, almost primly.

Jeff let out a sigh and headed down his hall to his next class, calling back to Zormna. “Well, don’t forget, you still have a house, and they can’t take that from you. You also have a lawyer. Perhaps you should use him. If they won’t help you become an emancipated minor, maybe you’d better seek it yourself.”

When he was gone Adam and Sam turned to look at each other. Adam then grinned and walked quickly with Zormna who had not slowed her pace to History class. Sam rapidly joined them. Soon as they were in the doorway they stopped.

Miss Bianchi stood in the front of the class wearing a pilgrim hat along with a black outfit. It made her look rather funny.

She waited for all the students to enter. Zormna took her seat while Sam and Adam slid into theirs. Jessica poked Zormna on her shoulder and asked for some paper while she sat down. Jennifer was already in her seat, opening up her notebook to write up whatever the teacher was about to assign them. Once Miss Bianchi had all their attention, she started her lecture:

“My ancestors came to America on the Mayflower. They settled Plymouth, Massachusetts and participated in the first Thanksgiving. My ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War, the War