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Rhonda walked into the building with no small amount of apprehension. After all, Michael had forbidden her coming to the test. He thought her far too stupid and simple-minded to find the building within the bus routes, never mind pass the test, and deemed it a waste of time and gas money.
Rhonda rather thought that Michael was the simple one, he didn’t like her speaking anything other than English, and hated when she’d swipe the newspaper off the table and read it when he was done. He was an idiot, she was eleven, and plenty old enough to know how to read. School bored her and that was why her grades were “atrocious.” If she had actually tried, she’d ace the class and no one would want to be friends with her—her friends, she found, rather disliked eggheads so she insisted she wasn’t as smart as the teachers knew she was.
Even her friends were tiring, though, and Rhonda only made friends with them because they were from the local orphanage—they were where she wanted to go, but Michael liked her check from the government too much to get rid of her.
She walked into the testing room to find a rather bored-looking man in a washed out gray suit arguing with a slightly older girl with bright red hair. “—He said I was an intern, and he gave me permission to read the rules!” she snapped at him.
The man sighed. “You are only an intern, you’re not qualified—“
“Tell that to your boss, then!” she snapped.
Every kid in the room was watching this exchange. The seats were all full, Rhonda had snagged the last one, dead center in front of the bored man’s desk.
He blustered a, “Fine!” muttering about “Kids these days” as he walked out to find a payphone.
The older girl closed the door, locking it with a key, and turning to the kids with a smile. “I’ll be your test proctor today,” she said, with far too much glee in her voice. Rhonda estimated she couldn’t be more than fourteen. She had caked on makeup to make her look older, and was wearing a slight heel in her shoes to make her look taller, but she was not a woman, yet.
Rhonda scoffed quietly. “Are you even old enough to be disqualified from this test?” she muttered under her breath.
The girl must have heard her, because her scathing stare bore straight through Rhonda. “For your information,” she said slowly, carefully, “I aced this test four years ago and no one has matched my score. I know every last inch of this test and if you’re so sure I couldn’t walk in circles around you, then you are free to try to perfect it, too. I doubt you’d get more than a seventy.”
Rhonda flushed as the room erupted in laughter and muffled squawks. “Just read the instructions,” Rhonda muttered sullenly, glaring back.
The man from before tried the knob, found it locked, and banged on the door. “Hey, let me in!” he cried.
“You will have one hour to take this test!” the older girl’s shrill, nasal voice called out. “Put your name on the test, answer the questions correctly, filling in the bubbles completely, and if you’re lucky, you won’t be like this girl here,” at that, she pointed at Rhonda, causing a growl to build deep in Rhonda’s throat, “And you’ll pass the test.”
Rhonda said nothing as the room rippled with laughter again.
“You may…begin!” the girl said, starting a stop watch and unlocking the door afterward.
The man was blustering and glaring at her much like Rhonda had been, but he said nothing outright. After all, the students needed to focus.
Rhonda herself was finding the questions a breeze. Language and grammar, despite being a mess in English, was something she had perfected long ago. The math was challenging, but not impossible, and the logic could be followed to its logical conclusion. She found quite a few of the riddles odd. The moral questions, elephants or llamas, confused her to no end. What even was this test?
She finished with five minutes to spare, leaning back in her seat as the man said, “Five minutes left!”
Rhonda stared down the older girl with a smirk, a Take that! obvious to anyone who would have seen her.
In response, the older girl swiped the packet off her desk and began to grade. With every check mark made on the test, she grew more and more peeved. Rhonda grew smugger.
“Time!” the man said. “Please pass your tests forward!”
The tests were passed and all the children waited with bated breath as they walked through the tests. When the tests were at last graded, the man said, “Those names which I read off the list will be allowed to enter the second portion of the testing. This next test is far more academically challenging, and you can consider yourselves blessed should you not be allowed to continue.”
Figures. Most of these questions, while strange, would allow far too many children in to earn a scholarship of some kind.
“Those who passed will get instructions from my intern here,” the man glared at the girl. “And will proceed to the Monk Building at one o’clock, sharp. They are to bring only one eraser and only one pencil. More and you will be disqualified, less and you will not be taking the test, as no pencils are provided.” He cleared his throat, sounding woefully self-important. “Those who will continue are: Titus Gaines. Rhonda Kazembe.” Rhonda grinned.
The man left.
Titus, her competitor, and Rhonda, stayed as the rest of the children clamored and complained. They followed the proctor or went to their parents, and Rhonda stared expectantly at the older girl. Titus leaned against the desk next to Rhonda’s. He looked to be a year older than her.
“Congratulations, both of you,” the girl said flatly. She glanced at the exit the proctor used, before whispering, “Look. I have the answers to the next test. It’ll cost, but I’ll get them to you.”
Titus smirked. “I like your style,” he said. “What’s it cost?”
“Five bucks,” the girl said, holding her hand out.
“Five?!” Titus asked incredulously.
“You want the scholarship, or what?” she snapped back. She turned to look at Rhonda.
Rhonda scoffed. “Even if I had five dollars to give, I wouldn’t cheat. I’m getting through this fair-and-square.”
Titus was rifling through his pockets, and gave the girl five dollars. She smirked, passing a small slip of paper to him. “Pleasure doing business with you. See you at one,” she said.
“Likewise,” Titus laughed, throwing an eye-roll at Rhonda. “Self-righteous bitch.”
“Shove it up your ass,” Rhonda replied, eyes not leaving the other girl as Titus left.
“You have a test to get to,” the girl said flatly.
“I have a question first,” Rhonda said. “How many did I get right?”
The girl scoffed, turning away. Looked back at Rhonda distrustfully. “Ninety seven percent,” she muttered.
Rhonda grinned, victorious.
“You still won’t pass the next portion without help,” the girl said.
“Doubtful, but we’ll see,” Rhonda said smugly. “Doubtless you gave Titus a faulty answer key, huh?”
The girl looked briefly shocked. “You can’t know that for sure.”
“After the moral questions in the first test, yes, I can,” Rhonda said.
The girl crossed her arms and huffed. “I’ll put in a word for you with the proctor,” she said. “Even if you don’t get all the questions, I think you should meet with the director.”
“That proctor won’t listen to you, you locked him out!” Rhonda scoffed.
“Different proctor,” she said with a smirk, walking away. “Go get to the Monk Building, Rhonda. Show them all.”
Rhonda blinked, bewildered at how the girl suddenly seemed friendly to her. She shrugged to herself, and walked out of the building, resolving to get answers when she finished the next section.
True to what the older girl had said, there was a different proctor for the next test. He was older, graying hair, a nick on his neck and a few missed spots from shaving. He wore all green plaid, curiously enough. He went through the rules about no talking, one pencil, one eraser, and talked all about the academic brutality of the test, missing a third step in the instructions. You needed a perfect score to pass this portion, it would seem. Rhonda squinted, but said nothing. Titus sat next to her, relaxing in his chair without a care in the world. Everyone opened the tests, but Rhonda caught the girl pointing at her and Titus and muttering something inaudible to the proctor. He looked at her with respect, nodded, and as the girl observed the test-takers, he leaned back in his chair and started paging through a book.
Clever, Rhonda thought. If the faulty answer key was something the older girl got money for, then she wouldn’t care if she spied a corner of the cheat sheet. And the no talking rule forbade anyone else from speaking up about it.
The questions truly were impossible. Forty of them, Rhonda didn’t know any of the answers save for three. She read through all of them, for lack of better things to do. She was not going to quit and have to explain to Michael where she disappeared to without results to show him. And then. Then, she saw the answers in the questions. Flipping through the test quietly, but assuredly, Rhonda hurried to make the most of the last fifteen minutes, getting every. Single. Answer. She closed her book ten minutes after Titus, thirty seconds left, and she made eye contact with the girl, who was staring at her with a smirk.
When the tests were passed up, those who remained looked utterly miserable, save Rhonda and Titus. The man went through the tests quickly. “The following children will be escorted to the third portion of testing,” the man in the green plaid said, smiling. “Surprising us all, we do have one child who made it through.”
One. Not two, one! The cheat sheet was faulty!
Titus was smirking.
“Rhonda Kazembe, please follow the instructions given you by today’s intern.”
Titus’ smile dropped. The girl winked at him, waving as he turned red. But he didn’t protest, just stormed out of the room with everybody else as they filed out.
Eventually, it was just Rhonda and the intern left.
“What’s your name? I don’t believe I ever got it,” Rhonda said.
“You’ll be escorted down the hall shortly for further testing,” the girl said, ignoring Rhonda’s question. “Don’t worry. Two more and you’ll be done.”
“This is a four-stage process?” Rhonda asked doubtfully.
“Maybe. Maybe I’m lying,” the girl said, clearly having fun to mess with Rhonda. “Maybe there’s no more tests. Maybe there’s five! You don’t know. You’re not supposed to know. That’s the idea.”
“Great. Does everyone here speak in riddles? Is all of this a test?” Rhonda asked, exasperated.
“Don’t worry, Rhonda,” the girl said in thickly-accented Bembi. Rhonda jumped. “I have no doubt you’ll pass with flying colors.” Then, in English, “See you soon. If you tell the proctor what I said, though, I’ll have to kill you.”
And Rhonda thought she was joking, but she stayed quiet as she was escorted away by yet a third proctor regardless.
A room, a sewer, and a maze later, Rhonda met Mr. Benedict, the second proctor, again at long last. “Hello,” he said with a kind smile. “Lovely to see you again. Seeing as you’re the only child who made it through all the tests, I’m afraid what I needed you for might have to wait a while yet. But if you are willing to wait with me, then I have an offer to stay here, if you wish.”
Rhonda thought back throughout the course of the day’s events. They were weird, and exhausting, and frustrating to no end. But as the other girl (who she had learned was called “Number Two” as of late) watched her closely, Rhonda couldn’t help but think about how she couldn’t have known Rhonda knew Bembi without looking into her. But she had tried. Michael would kill her either way when he found her, but if she were to be in a house that tried, and tried for her, no less, she would love her last days to be pleasant.
“That sounds lovely,” Rhonda said with a smile.
And while she didn’t know it at the time, Milligan (the third proctor) had dissuaded Michael from following her after the third test when a rather pissed-off Titus squealed that he had seen her to Michael’s search of the Monk Building after the first irate proctor had been questioned on her whereabouts. She never saw that man again, but she was forever thankful. And her new family suited her just fine.