Chapter Text
When the test asks ‘ Are you brave? ’, she thinks for a very long moment, and writes: ‘I try to be. ’
A period of time prior to this, a lone girl was finding the task of getting to the test more arduous than the test itself. In all fairness she had no idea of what the test was to entail, but Stonetown was still unfamiliar and getting around on foot was an achey, frustrating affair. Her backpack, filled as it was with books and whatever snacks she could get her hands on, made the walk all the more disagreeable – but she had found the place. Eventually.
Sam was prepared. Not for the test, of course, but nevertheless she was prepared.
For one thing she had taken a few hours in advance to scout out the area where the test would be taken. The newspaper it had been advertised in had been mildly sketchy; information was at a minimum, and the way it was directed towards the children themselves, rather than their parents. . . It all seemed a little scammy, a little too convenient for people in situations like hers. The most likely outcome, she told herself comfortingly, was that she would be involved in some kind of con and would lose the last of her pocket money.
She couldn’t find much at all on the nondescript office building, no sign or plaque ready to tell her any kind of clue as to what its purpose was for when it wasn’t offering suspicious seeming tests to children, but at the very least she was able to find a place nearby where a man cost her a fourth of her savings for a sandwich. Her legs were not swinging from where she sat on the bench, eyeing the growing line with trepidation. It seemed like the ad’s peculiar phrasing had been a mere oddity; most of the children seemed to be with adults, and neither of the two age groups seemed particularly inclined to be shuffling about in the summer sun.
Sam finished her sandwich, dutifully deposited the paper of it into a nearby bin, and walked with great reluctance to stand with the crowd. No one payed her any mind, though she stood out a little wearing a soft hoodie in this weather. The off-black material was stifling, but the cold got to her easily and tended to make an unfortunate appearance in older buildings.
In short order the fidgeting crowd of children was ushered into the building and placed into desks with only the uncomfortable chairs as their support.
Sam didn’t enter into this with an idea of what exactly to expect, but the routine schoolchildren exam was somehow disappointing. She filled in the space for her name — and was this like an application? Did it have to be her legal name? She supposed they hadn’t asked for any other relevant details, so she might as well go with whatever she liked — and meandered through the monotony of equations. Her hands wanted badly to be doodling in the margins as she worked, and in some cases she was forced to spend some time erasing these, but all in all she felt as though she was making good time.
Was there a time limit? There ought to be, she thought, but they didn’t tell us what it is.
Then came something... odd.
‘Do you like to watch television?’ asked the exam.
Sam stuck the pencil’s end in her mouth to chew thoughtfully, realized what she was doing, and took it back out again. Well. She didn’t have a television to watch, but before… She watched a few movies quite often, though those were all on DVDs – she still had them in her backpack, even – but that wasn’t television. Did it mean all visual media? Were these opportunities media based?
Anxiety made itself known with a fluttering in her stomach. She hated questions like these, wholly without context. I guess I should take it literally, she thought, and nervously answered NO.
The question after was of a similar sort; ‘Do you like to listen to the radio? ’
Again she paused. She liked some music, definitely, and had come across a few podcasts back when she had access. . . But the radio?
She thought back. Then, again, she answered NO. The next question did not make a return to the usual school test style. ‘What is wrong with this statement?’
This one’s a classic, Sam thought with a growing smile. Her nerves settled – but what kind of opportunities needed to have silly riddles on their tests? Maybe the end was just to calm the test-takers after the more studious portion. That would be nice of them, she felt, especially after neglecting to even give them a set time limit. ‘It’s a question,’ she answered, and turned the page. This one showed a chessboard, and asked about the legitimacy of the pieces shown.
Um.
Sam did not know how to play chess.
Well. She always tried her best to look on the bright side of things, and anyways what were the odds that this was, in fact, a deeply important part of the exam? It was another silly question, surely, made for the type of children who fulfilled the necessary obligations of a chess board and someone to play with. She wrote YES. It was a 50/50 chance of being correct, if nothing else.
After that the test returned to the usual round of questions, striking another odd note in the structure of this exam, but she bustled through them, cognizant of the invisible timer ticking down. In very little time she had soon reached the final question: ‘Are you brave?’
All of her nerves returned immediately.
This struck her at once as highly suspicious, before the part of her brain not devoted to her anxiety reminded her that this was more likely just to gauge whether the kid involved actually wanted to be. Or something. Still, she wanted to answer it right... and didn’t she feel nervous just by the asking of it? Would a brave person respond like that? It wasn’t going to bite her. It was ink on paper.
Still, wasn’t she here on her own? Didn’t she navigate this whole city, even beyond that, all without help? Didn’t that count for something?
She didn’t know, she acknowledged. It wasn’t like she could go out now and find a brave person to ask.
She put her pencil back to the paper. I try to be.
When the names of those who passed were called, the oddly pencil-themed woman said: “Sam Sallow!”
And that was all.