Zormna sulked all the way to the mall, knowing full well that they were going to buy clothes that she didn’t even want. She glared at Mrs. McLenna. She glared at the road ahead. She even glared at the buildings and trees they passed. But she was silent, and that was all that Mrs. McLenna cared about. Zormna’s grumbling had minimized when she was forbidden to speak her own language.
As soon as they parked, Mrs. McLenna turned around in the front seat and said, “Are you going to behave and not pick a fight with the storekeepers?”
Glowering, Zormna didn’t say anything at first. Eventually she nodded. “No.”
“Promise you’ll behave?” Mrs. McLenna asked again.
Zormna rolled her eyes and nodded again. “I promise.”
Jennifer’s mother opened her car door. She stepped out. Zormna struggled with the door handle again, but the seat belt wasn’t as awkward now that she knew it was a mere button she had to press. She climbed out the car into the chill spring air, immediately shivering with a look at the building in front of her with a sense of resignation.
Following Mrs. McLenna once more, Zormna dragged her feet like a child as they crossed the somewhat empty lot to the modern style two-story structure.
Like any town mall, the Pennington Heights Mall was the main thoroughfare for teenagers and big spenders. It was filled with every shop from music and movies, to sports and novelties. Of course the majority of the shops sold clothes. There was a play area for children near the large Cineplex that had twelve movie screens with usually about nine movies showing at the same time. They waked by all these and traveled straight down past all the trendier shops towards the end of the mall.
“Why are you passing all those stores? They have clothes?” Zormna asked as they went by a shop with several mannequins displaying the new fashion trends.
Mrs. McLenna gave that particular clothing shop a passing glance with a derisive laugh. “Yeah, they have clothes, but I want to get you normal clothes before you are tainted by the strange things some kids wear.”
Zormna cringed at the term ‘normal.’ She cringed every time she heard that word, which was often.
They walked past exercise outfits. Zormna stopped to look. Body suits and skintight leggings hung on the mannequin in the window with bright colors.
Zormna’s expression changed to pleasure. “How about here?”
Mrs. McLenna glanced over at the shop and frowned, “No, that isn’t a regular clothes store.”
“But it is perfect! And you said no one wore outfits like this,” Zormna said, walking towards the open doorway with delight.
Mrs. McLenna dragged Zormna away from the shop window by the wrist, back toward the direction they were originally heading. “Those clothes are for exercise only. If you wore those to school you would look like a misfit. There is a nice clothes shop over there,” Mrs. McLenna said as she pointed across to a shop with a pink and green neon sign that read Chloe’s Clothes. “We’ll go there after JC Penny.”
“Perfect,” Zormna moaned aloud, dragging her feet again.
It was Mrs. McLenna’s philosophy that if you wanted the basics, JC Penny was the only shop to go. She liked the prices, and the clothes sold there were not outrageous when it came to fashion. Zormna seemed to know nothing of shopping for clothes and really did not display the typical enjoyment an ordinary teenage girl tended to have when acquiring a new wardrobe. Mrs. McLenna and Zormna spent hours fitting and buying, mostly because Zormna debated every piece of clothing Mrs. McLenna claimed to be fashionable.
“I do not care for your so-called fashion,” Zormna snapped as they stood in yet another part of the store looking at the clothes racks.
Mrs. McLenna ignored it, shoving the tank top they had been bickering about in the crook of her own arm. “Too bad. I do. Now try this on.”
She handed over a long blue dress with a belt.
Zormna stared at it. “It’s a dress.”
“It is necessary for you to own one. I found three you will have. Just make sure it fits,” Mrs. McLenna said.
Dropping it as if it were diseased, Zormna shouted. “I have never worn a dress, and I will not wear one now!”
Mrs. McLenna covered her face with her hand. “Zormna, could you just tone it down? I’m not going to argue about this. You are getting the dresses.”
Had she been a bigger brat, Zormna would have screamed, but instead she gave a loud moan, stamping her foot before slouching against the dressing room door.
Mrs. McLenna’s tactics in increasing Zormna’s wardrobe changed after two more arguments—one over jeans and the other over the fancy heeled shoes that matched the dresses. Zormna just flung the shoe back into the box the saleslady had handed her and shoved them away. That was when Mrs. McLenna dragged her into a changing room and ordered her to stay there. Zormna took to orders better than requests, clearly recognizing authority when it was not relaxed. It seemed that she needed a stern hand to guide her.
“Ok. Now, I do care what you think. You are going to try on everything I hand you, and you tell me if it fits. We’ll figure out sizes from that,” Jennifer’s mother said.
Zormna huffed, staring at her reflection as she took off her clothes, leaving her undersuit on.
Mrs. McLenna peeked over the door and sighed at her. “Jennifer didn’t give you a bra?”
“A what?” Zormna blinked up at her.
Mrs. McLenna closed her eyes and pinched the ridge between her eyes as if fighting a coming headache. “She didn’t give you something else to wear besides that suit?”
Zormna opened her eyes wide. “What else is there to wear? I always wear this.”
Sighing again and more loudly, Mrs. McLenna said, “And how many did you bring?”
Zormna shrugged, guessing. “Two?”
Mrs. McLenna seemed to expect this answer as she responded with shake of her head. “Well, from now on you can’t wear them. I’ll buy you five bras and a pair of panties for each day of the week. I wash clothes every day so you should always have a clean pair.”
Watching her for a second with an intense amount of confusion, Zormna clasped her arms across her chest and grabbed her shoulders as if to cover them. Again Zormna looked utterly innocent, sweet, and pure—and had she not spoken she would have been able to convince the world of her sweetness. But when Zormna spoke, her voice alone brought Mrs. McLenna’s thoughts into reality.
“But what are bras and panties?”
Smirking somewhat, Mrs. McLenna left the door. When she returned she tossed over a bra of the smallest size. Zormna caught it and held it up.
“That’s a bra. A brassiere,” she heard Mrs. McLenna’s voice say through the door.
Zormna held it up to her chest, looking down. “Where is the rest of it?”
“That is all of it,” Ms. McLenna replied.
Zormna nearly fainted away. She dropped the bra on the floor and pressed against the cubicle walls, glancing up for some way to get out. Shaking her head, she heaved breathily, her eyes darting.
“Zormna?”
Zormna did not respond. She was too busy climbing over the top of the cubical to the stall next door. She slipped down into the next room, but accidentally fell on top of a woman trying on a girdle. The woman shrieked as Zormna tumbled out of her stall, scooting back on her bottom feverishly to get away. She was only wearing her undersuit now, and despite how much it covered, Zormna was changing colors from white to red, mostly from the stares of the men and women in the shop.
“Zormna!” Mrs. McLenna yelled after her.
Zormna blanched and crawled farther under clothing racks that held up bikini underwear and thongs with leopard prints on them. The storekeepers converged on her. Mrs. McLenna found her staring up through the underwear, shaking her head at the ceiling in a helpless stupor.
“Ein, ein.”
Mrs. McLenna sighed and parted the panties so she could look at Zormna’s face. “Really, Zormna, it’s not that big of a deal. You wear clothes over them.”
Zormna kept shaking her head with a whimper.
“If you want,” Jennifer’s mother added with a sigh, “You can wear a white tee shirt over them also as extra protection.”
Zormna looked up and sniffed. She had been shaking. Her eyes were looking especially green with how red and wet they were also getting. “Can’t I keep my undersuits?”
Rolling her eyes tiredly, Mrs. McLenna shook her head. “No. It will stand out and it will look,” she paused, choosing her words carefully, “unusual. Fishy.”
Zormna stood up, parting the panties in the rack out of the way with a brusque shove. Her glare had returned. She stomped back to the changing stall in her bare feet and sourly slammed the door shut. She did not emerge nor did she speak after that.
Taking that as a sign to continue, that Zormna had made up her mind, Mrs. McLenna handed over more items of clothing including three more bras of different styles. Zormna punched the wall from inside at the sight of the second bra, making the structure shake and the other women inside to cry out in explosive complaints. The shopkeepers were glad when they left JC Penny.
Once their major shopping was finished, Mrs. McLenna let Zormna peruse the trendier shops to pick some clothes that suited her tastes. That was harder task than she had thought because Zormna really was a picky shopper. In the end Mrs. McLenna bought Zormna items Jennifer owned and wore often.
When they were entirely done shopping, Zormna lugged several pairs of shoes (including a pair of black heels which Mrs. McLenna insisted upon), two-pair of spandex pants (to Zormna’s joy), enough underwear for a week’s change, several pairs of socks, seven white tee shirts, three baby tees, three shirts with collars, and five pairs of jeans (which Mrs. McLenna also insisted upon). Though the jeans they bought fit better than Jennifer’s pair, Zormna still disliked the stiffness. Mrs. McLenna had told her to get used to them since every teenager wore them, and once again Zormna scowled, absolutely sick of hearing the phrase ‘get used to them’, which she undoubtedly had heard over five hundred times that day.
After collecting the last of her new wardrobe, Zormna and Mrs. McLenna walked to the food court to pick up a late lunch, since it was nearly three o’clock. They had spent all day at the mall in what probably would have only taken then two hours had Zormna been more cooperative. Mrs. McLenna made Zormna sit at a table while she ordered two hamburgers and fries, and a couple of chocolate shakes. When she took it to the table, she feigned a smile and unwrapped her hamburger.
“What is that? Another sandwich?” Zormna asked, poking the other wrapped burger.
Sighing wearily, Mrs. McLenna nodded. “It’s called a hamburger.”
She took a bite and chewed silently.
Zormna watched her for a few seconds before deciding to pick up her own meal. She unwrapped the paper and placed the burger on the tray. Lifting the top bun, she made a face. When she tried to pick it up, several pickles toppled out onto the tray.
“Use two hands,” Mrs. McLenna said.
Zormna persisted with one hand, and her tomato fell out.
“Zormna you need to pay attention to what I say,” Mrs. McLenna advised wisely, lifting a finger. “Do you want to embarrass yourself when you eat lunch at school tomorrow?”
Zormna sighed and dropped her burger back onto the tray, annoyed. “Do they have to make eating so awkward? Why are there so many parts to this thing, and why do they make it so difficult to balance?”
The servers at the fast food place peered over at her and raised their eyebrows.
Mrs. McLenna chuckled.
“It’s not meant to be awkward.” She corrected Zormna’s hold and put the pickles and tomato back into the burger. “Hold it tight, and remember that you don’t want things slipping out.”
Nodding with just as much exhaustion as Mrs. McLenna, Zormna followed her demonstration more dutifully and bit into her burger. Her expression changed to that of intense curiosity, and she took another bite.
Nodding again, Zormna said, “Not bad.”

They walked out of the food court, sucking on the straws of their chocolate shakes, holding several bags in each arm and looking somewhat more contented. Zormna loved the chocolate shake, giving that rare smile. When they walked out the doors to the parking lot, a group of teenaged boys all wearing Pennington High paraphernalia marched in the same door to their usual after school hangout spot. The boys brushed past them, whistling and making catcalls. Zormna immediately flushed holding one of her bags over her face as she pressed quickly to get out of the building. Mrs. McLenna shook her head and followed her into the parking lot.
The boys watched them go enjoying the spectacle with loud laughs, all of them still checking out the small new blonde. One boy seemed especially interested though he wasn’t smiling. He watched Zormna, squinting his eyes. He moved in closer, trying to make out the girl’s face from the back of her head, but all he saw were blond curls and a shopping bag. However, both Zormna and Mrs. McLenna had long exited the mall, dragging their load into the parking lot to the car, and there was no way for him to follow without looking stupid.
“That was a hot one!” his friend, Jonathan Baker, a tall dark-haired boy with a prominent nose said, gawking at the vanishing female figure, waving his hands like it had been scorched on a hot plate.
“The girl or her mother?” another of his friends teased Jonathan, a boy called Brian Henderson. This boy stood more relaxed, leaning back on the railing with a laugh as he watched Mrs. McLenna go. Sandy brown haired, and somewhat tan, he had a playful grin that said life was a load of fun for him because he could see the joke in it.
“Oooh! Jon’s after older women! Ha, Ha, Ha! Hoomph!” Their third pal, Mark Wheley laughed while nearly choking on his gum. He was not as tall as the rest, but he had a broad chest and an inborn smirk that said enjoyed a good joke the same as Brian.
But Jeff Streigle came to Mark’s rescue, no longer squinting after Zormna. He pounded on Mark’s back until the gum game out.
“Careful there, Mark. It wasn’t that funny,” he said, peering over into Mark’s face to make sure he was still breathing. Then he added, “Besides, I don’t think that was her mother. That woman looked like Mrs. McLenna.”
Jeff kept looking at the exit where Zormna and Mrs. McLenna had left, still wondering what he had seen. Unlike the other three, he always wore an old, black imitation leather jacket over his Pennington wrestling clothes. Midnight black hair and paper pale skin, he also had a scar across his nose and one across his right cheek as if he had once gotten a fight with someone wearing a ring. There was even a little bent in his nose, showing that it had been broken once.
The other boys burst out laughing at Jonathan.
“Mrs. McLenna! Man, you must be desperate!” Brian said with a smirk that cracked across his face showing his slightly crooked teeth. “Too bad Todd’s not here to hear you say it. Woo, woo, woo!”
“Where is Todd anyway? He said he’d join us at three,” Mark asked.
Jeff nodded, wondering that himself. He looked once more back at the door wondering, thinking, hoping that his eyes had been fooling him.


To read the entire novel "The Secret of Zormna Clendar" go to lulu.com

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Publication Date: 02-28-2010

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