A Parthan Summer, Julie Steimle [best ereader for pdf TXT] 📗

Zormna peered up at her. “Who else would?”

That girl shrugged. “I dunno. Marissa from Monroe?”

“But why just target me? Michelle was closer to the door.  And you have to weave through all you girls to get to my cot.”

“Good point.” Jennifer started to untangle her hair with her comb. “Is anybody else missing stuff?”

Immediately the other girls hopped out to search through their things. One by one they looked back up and admitted that all of their belongings were accounted for.

 “I see.” Zormna grumbled, working furiously to figure out who would and could accomplish the act. “Well, are any of you in on the joke? Because I need my clothes now.”

Several of the girls shrugged. None looked guilty either.

Glancing from face to face, Zormna knew that whoever pulled it off, did it without most people in the cabin knowing. And that took skill.

“Fine. I will take care of this myself!” She tramped to the door and yanked it open, storming out. The door slammed against the outside wall, rattling the cabin.

Zormna tromped barefoot down the rocky hill.

From the perspective of everyone else, this little pale girl in her nightgown tromping barefoot in broad daylight down the path, her gown nearly as white as her skin—several people took her for a ghost. However, this ghost grumbled and cursed and swore words from a bizarre dialect, mincing over sharp stones and sticks on the path, storming straight past the showers, directly to the gravel parking lot where she had spotted Michelle Clay from afar.

The head cheerleader stood in the crowd gathering around the flag pole. That was where they were supposed to be for morning flag raising. Yet, almost everyone gathering around the pole was staring skyward as if someone had raised the flag a little early. Most were laughing.

Zormna stomped to the edge of them. Her feet were abruptly pinched and poked by the sharp gravel. But she ignored the pain and pushed through the crowd while keeping her eye on Michelle. Michelle Clay turned around almost the instant Zormna stood behind her. Zormna’s ferocious, tiny form was enough to make anyone with sense run.

Michelle raised her hands quickly. “I didn’t do it.”

“Yeah, right,” Zormna growled back, clenching her fists. She shoved up one sleeve to prepare to beat Michelle up, or at least frighten her into admitting she was the culprit.

“I swear I didn’t! I can’t climb that high,” Michelle tried to explain, pointing up at the pole.

Climb?

Zormna followed Michelle’s finger to the top of the flag pole.  

Above, dangling from the top, and all the way down the pole, were her clothes—from her bras and undergarments to her shoes and all things in between. Her clothes were not attached to the rope, but actually taped to the pole itself with industrial type duct tape. Though, some were tied on by the sleeves, and others were buttoned around the pole as if someone had dressed a tall scarecrow. At the top, one of her Pennington cheer shirts hung like a sideways jolly roger with her shoes tied to the top hook, dangling by their laces.

More people started laughing and pointing upwards.

“Well, if you didn’t do it, then who did?” Zormna propped her hands onto her hips.

Michelle shrugged her shoulders peering up at the fluttering Pennington cheer tee-shirt. Joy stood next to her with Stacey, shrugging also—though she was trying hard not to laugh.

After an irritated exhale, Zormna took a breath and shoved her way through the crowd so she could get to the flagpole.

Heads turned as she went through. Someone busted up into a loud laugh. Someone else pointed, whispering and then broke up into more laughter. As she moved closer and closer to the pole, more and more heads turned until the crowd itself was exploding with raucous guffaws while parting for the tiny girl in the nightgown.

On the left, Zormna noticed Damon standing with his friends. His eyes widened as he watched her elbow past a Billsburg boy in tiny track shorts. Closer to the pole on her right, she spotted the most of the Pennington wrestling team with whom she had at least a friendly understanding.

They busted up right away.

Mark whistled her, though Jonathan peered up at her undergarments while his jaw dropped. Brian suddenly flushed bright red and ducked his eyes, mortified on her behalf. But Jeff did a double take, then looked up at the clothes. Though he also eventually averted his eyes, he broke into the loudest laughter.

She squeezed past the last section of the people that surrounded the base of the pole. There she saw Holly Joyce snickering with her fellow Harvest friends, pointing upward. By this time almost the entire crowd was laughing, wiping their eyes, and holding their sides. Only a few looked embarrassed on her behalf. One of them was Amy Fields. She ducked her eyes with a guilty blush on her face. 

Zormna froze. She looked from Amy back to Holly, who grinned with her chin lifted as if to say ‘so there’.

‘So there’, huh? Zormna thought. So there? I’ll show you ‘so there’.

Turning from the crowd as she looked up the pole, Zormna clenched her teeth. She stepped up to it, grasped the pole with her hands, and heaved herself off the ground, using her feet to brace herself. Climbing up just a few feet, Zormna untied each one of her things and pulled them off. Then she climbed higher.

“Make way for the ladder!” Someone called out.

Zormna pulled herself up higher, untying a knot with one hand as she held on with the other. Some of the knots were double and triple-tied.

Someone wolf-whistled from below as others cackled.

Casting a dirty glare downward, Zormna climbed up yet even higher, tucking her clothes into her nightgown to cradle them. As she continued climbing skyward, untying knots and peeling tape, she cursed under her breath in her native tongue several times. It was all she could do to resist her swelling inclination to rip Holly’s hair out of her head. Detaching a pair of shorts then unbuttoning one of her nicer shirts, Zormna paused for breath and shifted her feet below her, glancing downward to see how far she had gone. From her view, she saw all the upturned faces, many gawking with amused interest as if they were watching some circus act—though several of the boys were grinning a bit too widely. Most of the girls were hissing behind their hands, pointing up at her. She could also see the camp counselors struggling through the crowd with an extension ladder, already attempting to get it upright.

“Move out of the way!” one of the counselors called out. Zormna wasn’t sure if it was for her or the crowd. But she refused to move while the crowd obliged him.

The ladder rattled as it hit the pole not more than a foot above her head. Zormna grasped onto the top rung then whipped herself around to heave higher so she could claim the rest of her things with less trouble.

“Zormna, get down from there!” Miss Betiford called up from the crowd below. 

Making a face, Zormna snapped back, “I’m getting my stuff!”

Several laughs erupted at that.

The pole then jostled. Zormna looked down. Mr. Harr, the head football counselor climbed the ladder, His weight made each step shake. Luckily he was a lean man. From Zormna’s view, she could see two bald patches on the top of his head.

Zormna clung tighter to the pole as it quivering with each step.

“Scrapes!” she cursed aloud, clinging for her life. “What are you doing?”

He reached her level and stuck out his hand to her. “Come on down.”

“These are my clothes! I’m—”

“Giving the people below a full moon view,” he said, reaching for the clothes in her lap.

Zormna glanced down to see what he was talking about. She saw her own bare thigh. It took only two seconds for it to register what he meant by a ‘full moon view’.

“Scrapes!” She yelped, then pulled on her nightgown hem to cover her bottom.

The crowd roared with laughter.

“Nice undies!” A Billsburg boy called out.

Dropping her head against the pole she was clinging to, Zormna turned bright red.

“Hey look! She’s blushing!” Someone else yelled out.

“And you said you were always pale!” A Monroe cheerleader shouted up.

She moved her head with a glare in that direction. She contemplated leaping down that second and giving that girl what for. However, Coach Harr pulled the remaining articles of clothing off her lap and pole then stuffed them into the large black garbage bag he had carried up with him. He also held her with his other hand as if he were afraid she would fall. 

“Climb down on the ladder,” he said, tugging on her arm.

It would have been easier to just slide down the way she had come, but Zormna was already conscious of the possibility that that would just make her nightgown fluff out so that she would be flashing everyone. She swung her leg over the ladder, tucked her nightgown around her legs again, and followed Coach Harr straight to the gravel.

Almost everyone cheered when the two made it down safely—though Zormna sulked when her bare feet touched the rocks. The weight of the football counselor’s arm rested around her shoulder as he handed her the large trash bag. It reminded her of the protective weight of her former military leader’s touch. Her cheeks felt hot as tears burned in the cracks of her eyes. The whole thing made her want to run off and find a way back to Arras. She would build a ship if she had to. Steal one from the military maybe. But first, Zormna lifted her eyes in a glare across the gravel. She wanted pound Holly into the rocks.

Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately depending upon the view-point—the weight of Coach Harr’s arm around her shoulder also stopped her from acting on vindictive impulse.

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves.” Coach Harr glared at each and every person within his line of sight. His voice boomed over the gravel parking lot as the laughter died down. “Pranks can go too far.”

Zormna blinked, wondering if he knew about the prank war the night before. She glanced up at him, tugging on the bag in the coach’s hand, which he had not entirely let go of. She looked for an exit.

Luckily he was a man of brevity.

That, and someone was bringing out the American flag with the state flag, and they had to move aside to let them raise it.

“Can I go dress now?” Zormna tugged harder on the bag.

Coach Harr let her take it.

She opened it up to take out her shoes, untying the laces so she could get them on her feet. Putting them on without a word, Zormna then slung the bag over her shoulder. She delivered a thankful nod to the coach before she tromped back up the hill toward the girls’ cabins.

Several heads turned. Some were disappointed that Zormna had not burst into humiliated tears as they had hoped. A few sighed as the flag rose, while someone else led them in the pledge of allegiance.

Zormna did not join her fellow cheerleaders for breakfast until after a quick and paranoid shower. She hid her peach duffle bag with all her clothes somewhere inside the cabin. But even then she doubted someone would be stupid enough to try the same prank twice.

But as it had been the final straw, the gears in her mind went over and over all things she could do to Holly for publicly embarrassing her. She settled on one that made her grin with a breath of satisfaction. On her way to the breakfast line, she took a detour through the medical cabin to pick up something. Her teammates were already at their table when she arrived at the lodge, yet the serving lines were still long for most part.

The Monroe cheerleaders were further down the line, not far from where Mark was picking up a bagel from a large basket full