Bones in the Sand, Julie Steimle [best books to read for students .TXT] 📗

cultural icon. He was from a famous lineage. The fact that they were also rebels was no never mind. He pulled his shoes off, leaving them on the floor. He didn't even bother to change into his pajamas, but flopped on top of the covers to sleep.

Christmas vacation lasted another long week. It snowed just about every day. Zormna shoveled the walk every morning, learning to hate the snow. It didn't snow where she came from, after all. She had let Jeff rig up the security system. He was so stubborn that she knew arguing with him about how she could have done it without his help would have been useless, and it really was better to save her breath.

Zormna spent her days either with Jeff or at the Hendersons' house where the parents said she was "always welcome, anytime." They repeated that a lot when they found out that Zormna would be living alone in that big house as an emancipated minor. They even sent her home with loads of food, and offered to help her with the house chores if needed. They even hooked her up with a list of people to call for help in case of emergency.

Brian and Joy invited them to the New Year's youth dance at their church, which after sharing shrugs, both Jeff and Zormna accepted. However, Jeff whispered to Zormna, "You have to wear a dress.... It is their church standard."

Groaning, Zormna look to Joy in hopes that Jeff was joking. But Joy shook her head with a snicker to let her know Jeff was telling the truth.

Zormna hated dresses.

However, the New Year dance at Brian and Joy's church was actually a non-fancy affair, and a lot of fun. Jonathan Baker also showed up, and so did Adam Arbor, looking around uncomfortably as they didn't usually attend 'Mormon' activities if they could help it. Not quite like a school dance, the big room where it was held, or the 'cultural hall' of the large church building, was decorated in streamers and silver and black flashy things with the new year written on them. There were balloons in a net above their heads to be let down from the ceiling at the countdown. The music was a popular fare, each song vetted to be pure fun without any 'offensive' language or innuendo. And the refreshments were outstanding - most of it home-cooked brownies and cookies, of which the Hendersons' contributed a few paper-platefuls.

Jeff called to her as Joy dragged him onto the dancefloor and a boy asked Zormna if she wanted to dance, "Relax! I've been to several of these things. It's just plain fun. Enjoy yourself."

Thing was, people were staring at Zormna as usual, as she was unusually pretty and drew in the stares wherever she went. And she was always embarrassed by the unwanted come-ons of boys.

But the boy asking her to dance was polite, and hopeful. So she said yes and stepped onto the dancefloor.

They went there well beyond midnight.

And though Zormna was a little annoyed that she was required to wear a dress - the music was great, the dancing free of twerking and any other embarrassing gesticulations that happened at the high school dances, and the company was a lot of fun. And when she dropped into her bed, alone in her large house, secure with excellent monitoring of all the entrances and grounds, she made a wish for that New Year.

On the first day back in school sitting in her first hour English class, Zormna stared blankly ahead of her, waiting for Mr. Humphries to come and give them their new assignment. In the left corner of the room, Jeff sat with Brian, joking around, while Joy kept sighing and watching him from the seat behind Zormna.

Mr. Humphries entered the room carrying a box of little books and paperbacks. His usual briefcase and stacks of manila folders were tucked under his arm. The middle-aged man who often gave the impression that he ought to be smoking a pipe, with his sweater vests, suits and ties, appeared quite relieved when he put the whole pile on his desk and rested.  

Their teacher looked out at his class and smiled. "Another year, and I see you all are still here."

An annoyed moan echoed from the back of the room, but he ignored it.

"No doubt you are all waiting for your next section of study." He bent over his load and fished through the box of books. "Since you all should have read Great Expectations in your freshmen English class, I have decided to start us on another of Dickens's great works."

He pulled out a beat-up copy of a book with an old painting of a boy in breeches and a hat on the cover.

Raising it up for all to see, he asked, "How many of you have read Oliver Twist?"

A few hands went up. Zormna blinked at the book, not recognizing the title from any of the readings Mrs. Ryant had given her.

"Good," Mr. Humphries said, putting the book on the desk. "Then this will be a new experience for most of you."

He then pulled out another beat-up book out of the box, lifting it to show and then placing it on the table.

"Then we will read a Victorian science fiction novel for all those interested students, and after that we will read some Mark Twain." He placed the last book on the desk and smiled.

A boy raised his hand.

"Yes?" Mr. Humphries asked, seeing it.

The boy stood up. "That book by Mark Twain isn't The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is it?"

Mr. Humphries saw his expression and frowned a mite. "It is."

The boy's countenance grew more distressed. "My mother won't let me read it. She says it used the 'N' word. She says Twain was a racist."

Their teacher nodded. "Well, if she truly objects then we'll just have to have a conference with your mother and decide on a suitable, yet equal classic to replace it. The rest of the class will still read Huck Finn, however."

The class groaned. The boy nodded and sat down.

Zormna glanced over at Jeff for an explanation, who shrugged and looked back at Mr. Humphries to see what else he would come up with. Neither one had heard of the book or the apparent debate surrounding it.

That was it. Their teacher settled onto his desk and gazed out into the class and smiled.

"I hope you are all rested to study our next section of English Literature. But first, I think I would like you to start things up by writing a paper in class about your vacation."

The entire class groaned.

~~

The empty desert filled with only a few cactus, roadrunners, and tumbleweeds stood stark and cold that January morning. Their archaeology professor had said that they were to start early after the break, but the handful of college students hadn't expected the second day of the year to be so cold in Arizona. It was cold enough that they could see their breath. The plants on the flat land actually had frost on them.

"Alright, here is the site for our dig. As you can see, we already marked where we should begin, so I don't want you placing your tents in those spots." Their overeager professor surveyed the land. His mustache went up and down in an excited tremble at what they were about to do.

They had found evidence of a village, possibly a burial site. Much of the area had been eroded by the wind and flash floods, so their work would be easy. They had already found several Clovis point spearheads and one femur sticking out of the ground. That was their starting point. It would only take time and back-bending work, and soon they would have a great piece of documented history unearthed for their eager, ambitious, and scholarly minds. They would publish papers on the experience, of course.

"Where do you want the tents then?" a young college junior asked, picking his mummy sleeping bag and tent back up off the ground.

The professor motioned to area near the hills just beyond the site. "Over there somewhere."

The young man nodded and lugged his bags. Others followed him. Of course, the professor had brought his camper enabled with solar panels and a generator. They would be eating outdoors that night, but he wouldn't say no to a hamburger or even a microwave pizza.

It was all perfect.

"Perfect, just perfect," Zormna grumbled over the new assignment Miss Bianchi had given them. They had to host the Valentine's Day dance on the fourteenth, and Miss Bianchi had already selected the cupid outfit she wanted Zormna to wear. This was why she hated school dances.

"That lady just keeps thinking I'm her dress-up doll," she complained while walking to her Biology class with Jennifer.

Jennifer only smirked. She didn't have to dress up. She was in charge of decorations, so glad Miss Bianchi didn't think she was cute.

"Don't whine, Zormna," Stacey Price said while passing by with Michelle Clay, the head cheerleader and a particularly large irritation to Zormna since the last semester. "Michelle and I are going to be doing it with you."

Sure, thought Zormna, Miss Bianchi picked the cheerleaders to do the dirty work. She scowled more with a turn away from them. If she didn't need to be part of the cheer team for safety-in-numbers, she'd ditch it all. Michelle Clay was the kind of girl who wanted to be a superstar and dressed that way. And as head cheerleader she loved to exert her control on others, the queen bee, so to speak. When Zormna noticed Michelle's triumphant face, it just made her angrier.

Jennifer dumped her books in her locker and waited for Zormna to get her Biology book so they could go to class. But Stacey and Michelle stuck around, waiting for Zormna to say something, anything. Zormna ignored them.

Getting tired of waiting, Michelle said, "Well, Zormna, if you are going to act like a baby and sulk all day, that's fine. Just don't forget we have mat maid practice after school."

With that, the two walked away.

Jennifer watched them go. "Mat maid practice?"

Zormna scowled after them. "Cheerleaders for wrestling. Mat maids. Not enough girls tried out for it last year so the cheer team is joining them. We get different uniforms for this. Pretty stupid if you ask me."

With a laugh, Jennifer linked arms with Zormna, steering her to their class. They took their seats in the usual places.

Their teacher, Mr. Zeigler, was already putting up an old National Geographic poster of a one-celled organism on the board when they arrived. He tacked it to the top and taped the curling edges of the bottom to the chalkboard. The classroom filled. After three more minutes the tardy bell rang. Their teacher, who rarely lectured, stood in front of the room with his yardstick and pointed at the poster.

"Evolution - a scientific fact," he said.

Zormna rolled her eyes and opened her text to the chapter. She skimmed the topics. It was on one-celled organisms and the state of the earth in its early stages of development. They had skipped over this chapter and gone right into dissecting and discussing mitosis and meiosis and the basic structures of animal life. He had been preaching evolution since the beginning of the class, but now he was ready to teach the theory.

"Today we will draw the evolutionary map that leads up to our inception," he said, grinning happily from ear to ear.

Zormna glanced at Jennifer, who was staring ahead at the chapter questions and the pretest they would have to do. Usually she liked Biology. It was an easy grade, and they were learning things in a different way than back Home. She liked the hands-on study they did, though she did not enjoy the dissection part. However, with her other-worldly education, there were things her people knew about Biology that these folk did not. And though she had kept mum on the subject, as it was against the