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

decided to make you her pet project. However, if you can finish these books and still make it in your school work—let alone your other extracurricular activities—I might agree with her.” His eyes fixed more determinedly on her as his voice went grave. “But don’t sleep in my class if you exhaust yourself. I saw you this morning. That boy was keeping you up. He kept you from breaking rule number ten: no sleeping in my class. I really hate that.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Zormna replied while still struggling with her book stack.

The teacher nodded to her.

Zormna took that as a ‘you can go’, so she walked out the door.

She barely had time to run to her locker with her stack of books so she went straight to her next classroom instead. When she did arrive, the room was already full. There were only a few open seats left. One was next to Michelle Clay and Stacey Price two of her fellow cheerleaders. The other seat was next to Jennifer McLenna.

Michelle, the head cheerleader who always dressed like one of those girls who wanted to pop star someday, waved for Zormna to join her in her corner, while Jennifer waved her over to her side of the room. Apparently Jennifer had saved her the seat as she knew they would be together that year. Zormna clenched her teeth and joined Jennifer, knowing that she was offending the captain of the cheer team, but that was a great deal better than offending the girl whom she lived with. Michelle scowled when Zormna turned away. But it seemed as if Stacey was reminding Michelle that ‘Zormna and Jennifer were like sisters since she lived with her and all’—or that was how Zormna imagined she was saying it.

Stacey was a bleached blonde, petite pixie-cut devotee of Michelle’s who seemed mostly devoted to being on the up-and-up with all things ‘modern’, including attitude about boys, life and being in with the crowd. Zormna had mentally nicknamed her ‘the little follower’.

Dropping all her books onto the desk, Zormna then plopped into the chair. She looked about the room, to get her bearings. Like Mr. Humphries’s classroom, these desks were the cheap ones and they were set in rows. But unlike Mr. Humphries’s room, the door was at the back and the room itself was decorated up to the window panes with old, almost musty, displays of colorful (bleached out, mind you) ethnic something or other artifacts and imagery. The writing alongside these images had words like Apartheid and Multicultural, and Globalization. There were also a fair number of maps and flags. Small rectangular flags rimmed the entire top edge of the room like the wallpaper trim in the fancied up living room in Kevin Jacobson’s house. The entire room had a worn out, re-used look to it.

Their instructor, who was a woman of tall, almost willowy, stature sat at the front desk shuffling a heaping stack full of papers, counting them. She was either ignoring the murmur of the students and the buzzing of the late bell, or didn’t hear it. Everyone watched her once she stood up. She was old, nearly fifty anyway, and she wore old pea green polyester pants and a matching pea green and orange blouse—a throwback outfit from the seventies. Or maybe she just shopped at thrift stores. That’s what the girls behind Zormna whispered. The teacher had a pleasant face. Her manner was rather hushing as she walked to the front of each of the rows of seats and handed the first person in the rows a stack of stapled papers.

“Take one and pass the rest back. The ends of the rows bring the extras forward to me.” The teacher strode back to the center front of the room and sat back in her chair, her movements akin to a swami seeking a Zen state, or something like that. She appeared to be a mishmash of different ideologies. Zormna could not tell if she did it for show, or if she really thought that way.

Jennifer peeked over her shoulder at Zormna, raising her eyebrows as if to make a comment. Zormna didn’t read her expression though as she peered back at the teacher who, to her, just seemed odd.

“I wonder if she has a list of rules she’d going to read off. That stack looked very thick,” Zormna murmured to herself.

Jennifer smirked with another peek back and shrugged. The girl ahead of her handed back the stack. She took it, removing one for herself, and passed it to Zormna. Zormna took one and passed it back without even looking at who was behind her. Soon the ends of each line walked up to the front of the room and returned the extras to the teacher.

“Everyone turn to the second page. We will go over class rules,” their instructor said. “But before we begin, we are in American History. If you were not planning on taking American History or if you are lost, I suggest you leave now and hand back the syllabus.”

A low murmur ran through the room.

One student stood up and walked to the front of the class, handing the teacher a transfer slip. Their teacher signed it without as much as a word. When done, the girl that wanted to get out of the class quickly gathered her things and rushed from the room.

“Anyone else?” the teacher asked.

Everyone looked around at one another, but no one else made a move.

“Good.” Their teacher walked to the open class door and closed it. She then silently strode back to the front of the room.

Everyone felt like the room had immediately become smaller and they were ensnared in some sort of evil trap, or at least that was how Zormna was starting to feel. Closed doors these days bothered her. Like Brian, she saw the benefits of sitting near a window. Besides giving her view, having an escape route near was comforting. Besides, the woman’s silence made her nervous. False stoicism, it felt like. Staged, like the woman was waiting for something.

“Ok. Now we’ll read page two,” the teacher said.

Zormna flipped her syllabus open and looked at the page. In the center was one word, printed in bold type yet rather plainly. It said:

 

Respect

 

Zormna glanced over at Jennifer’s paper to see if perhaps she had gotten an incomplete packet, but Jennifer was also staring blankly at the small word in the middle of the very blank paper.

“This is what I expect of you. You are old enough to know what that is. If you need it clarified into itty bitty details so you can stretch the rules to their maximum then perhaps you are not as mature as you all claim to be.” Their teacher stood up and wrote the words I have rights on the chalkboard. “This is a claim most people use flippantly today. Instead of respecting others and their own privileges they assume they can ram their way through life and say, ‘I have my rights.’ Well, in this class you cannot do that. We will learn about our responsibility as Americans. We will learn about our privileges as Americans. We will learn our duty as Americans. And we will learn respect.”

Their teacher seemed rather remarkable in spite of her polyester outfit. Zormna felt a strange, yes, respect for her. Though, she withheld any judgment except for a hope that she was going to like this woman.

A hand raised in the back of the class.

“Yes?” their teacher said, seeing it and pointing to the one.

“But what if you aren’t an American? Wouldn’t this be completely pointless then?”

Zormna recognized Michelle Clay’s voice. Part of her wanted to sink into her chair as she knew Michelle was razzing her. The other part of her wanted to declare she was happy not to be an American, especially considering the political garbage on the news recently. Of course, it was best to simply ignore the girl entirely.

Their teacher held a pained expression. “This class is relevant for everyone, Miss…?”

“Clay, Michelle Clay,” Michelle said, though she glanced at Zormna with a smirk.

Zormna rolled her eyes and tried to ignore it.

“Has it in for you?” a voice whispered to her right.

Zormna looked to the source. A rather handsome boy with dark hair sat next to her, leaning in to listen. But it was not him who had spoken. It was a girl in the seat behind him who seemed familiar, though Zormna could not place who she was. Yet the watchful gaze of boy’s bright inspecting eyes caused Zormna to blush.

Zormna shrugged to her.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” The girl at her right was silently laughing, peeking up at the teacher who was continuing on with her overview of their plans for the school year.

Shaking her head, Zormna whispered, “No. But you’re familiar.”

Jennifer looked back also, then stared at the girl as if she had been slapped.

“I sat next to you in Science class last year,” the girl said, still not telling her name while continuing to look incredibly amused. “I used to wear lots of black eyeliner.”

Zormna gasped, pulling back. “Jessica? Jessica Clark?”

The girl had been severely Goth the last time Zormna had seen her, including white face, black lipstick and tons of black eye makeup. She still wore a Megadeath tee shirt and torn jeans, but her hair was a more natural shade rather than her previous ink black, and she wore no makeup at all. Jessica was also an old ex-best friend of Jennifer’s which was why both girls were bristling.

Their teacher continued talking as Zormna stared at Jessica’s clean face.

“The rest of the packet is for the projects you will be doing for the rest of this year. The first project will be contributing to the Culture Fair. Our class will be providing the booths, and you need to research a cultural background—either one of your own or one you are interested in—and present it at the fair….”

“I’ve changed a lot, huh?” Jessica said, though eyeing Jennifer as if waiting for a snide remark to come from her ex-friend’s mouth.

But the teacher’s words instantly distracted Zormna. And what was being said sent a shudder through her, as it did not sound like regular book work.

“…The next project will be Oktoberfest. You must write a paper about one tradition your family participates in and why it is significant. Honesty is valued more than B.S. It must be five pages long and clear. I’m grading on content, not grammar. Though, I will mark you down for excessive errors.”

Zormna swallowed. She started to think of all the things she could write about or do. Her claims about being Irish weren’t disputed, yet if they knew how little she did know about Ireland it might be. The only ones who knew the truth were Jeff (of course), Jennifer and two others whom she had really hoped to have kept out of the secret. However, these projects would reveal the truth to all if she was not careful. Maybe she could research Korea instead. 

“At Christmas, when the semester ends, we’ll contribute to the Christmas Around the World celebration by providing food for the festivities and doing other useful things,” the teacher said with a broad, almost giddy sort of grin. Zormna realized then that she had been mistaken. Her teacher was actually one of those people she would have avoided back Home: the ‘excitable party planner’.

Zormna groaned.

Jessica chimed in with a similar huff.

“Isn’t this an American History class?” Jennifer murmured out loud, flipping through the papers. “What’s with all the World History stuff?”

Zormna looked up. It did seem odd that they were doing so many multicultural projects.

Her teacher perked her long neck, overhearing that.

“America is made up of the many different people of the world. That is what makes us unique as a nation,” their teacher said in a strong defensive tone. “I think this is exceedingly appropriate, Miss…?”

Jennifer blushed, realizing that she had been overheard. “McLenna, Jennifer McLenna.”

Jessica snickered.