Qualify (4 page)

“Love you, Dad, I will. . . .”

I let go, and stand back, and smear my face with the back of my hand, and that’s it.

I watch Dad take Gordie in a quick tight hug, and pat his back, and then George, who evades the hug and instead gets a grownup handshake.

“Well, this is it,” Dad says. He takes a symbolic step back and nods at us, and says, “God speed, go on, all of you! I promise you, the Lark family will Qualify, hands down, all four of you!” I see Dad’s eyes are sort of red too, as he just stands there, looking at us through his spectacles.

George nods briefly, and just for a moment he is suspended, motionless, like a post. He turns and gives the rest of us a serious look. “Okay! Let’s do this. See you on the flip side.” And George heads up the stairs.

Gordie follows, trudging silently.

Gracie and I take a moment longer, to give Dad another last look.

“Go on!” he says. “Don’t be late now, hurry! Your Mom and I are rooting for you one hundred percent. Go!”

And so I take my sister by the arm, and pull her along, and we start up the steps.

We enter the school building without looking around again at Dad.

It’s easier this way.

Chapter 2

I
n the hallway, the crowds are insane, with many unfamiliar faces from other neighboring schools. The Qualification instructions say we are supposed to report to our own homerooms. Meanwhile the strangers are assigned as extras to our own classrooms and herded around campus by teachers, to begin the Qualification process.

In moments the Lark siblings are all separated. Gracie gives me a deer-in-the-headlights last look as she is made to go to an adjacent building with other middle schooler seventh graders. George’s a senior, so he heads upstairs to his own homeroom. Gordon’s freshman class homeroom is far down the hall to the right on the ground floor.

I’m a junior and my homeroom is downstairs in the basement floor past the rows of lockers. Just as the bell rings, I move quickly down the stairwell, jostling past classmates and trying to keep my head down, out of years of habit. Nerds and smart “achiever” kids like me have learned it’s best to minimize eye contact, because we get punished for it by the usual suspects.

I enter the classroom, grab my seat in the second row near the front, stuff my bags under my feet, and watch others start filling their seats. My homeroom teacher, Mrs. Grayland, is already at her desk, looking anxious and exhausted, and it’s not even 8:00 AM yet. Next to her, some unfamiliar woman administrator is standing at the board, dressed in a suit jacket and skirt. She has a red-green-blue-yellow striped armband wrapped around her sleeve, which is the familiar color swatch of Atlantis. She is in no way Atlantean herself—no, she looks too bland and homegrown-stocky to be anything but local Earth material. I’m guessing she is simply a designated representative. However her expression is stone-blank and authoritative.

“Hey, Gwen. . . .” Ann Finnbar takes the seat next to me. I glance at Ann’s freckled nose and stressed expression. I am glad my closest friend shares homeroom with me this semester, because I really don’t want to be alone right now.

“Hey. . . . So—ready for this thing?” I try to speak lightly. “It’s not like you can prepare or study for it.”

Ann shakes her head and grimaces painfully, then bends down and starts messing with her bags on the floor. I notice her hands are shaking.

A boy I don’t recognize sits down on the other side of me. The classroom is filling up quickly. There are additional chairs that have been brought in, and I see many completely unfamiliar faces of students from other schools. There are more desk rows than usual, so everyone is packed closer together, and for once every seat is taken. At some point they run out of desks and chairs and, a few latecomer students end up in the back of the classroom and at the sides, sitting on the floor against the walls. Voices are high-strung, angry, and there are a few nervous giggles.

“Good morning, everyone, for those of you not from Mapleroad Jackson High School, I am Mrs. Grayland.” Our homeroom teacher clears her throat to silence the noise and talk. “All right, I am going to take roll call, so please everyone find your seats and keep your desks clear. The faster you settle down, the faster we can begin. When I say your name, listen closely, because I will read your next designated classroom number. That’s where you will be going to take the next portion of the Qualification test. Write it down. Now, let’s begin. Abbott, Gary—”

“Here!”

“You’ll be going to room 115-B. Andrew, Nancy—room 25-C.”

My eyes switch back and forth from Mrs. Grayland as she reads names, and the other woman, who is standing motionless, holding her hands together behind her back. The white board behind them has the words “Qualification Day” written in large letters. I stare at the letters and almost start to space out.

“ . . . Lark, Gwenevere. Room 217-C.”

“Here!” My normally low voice sounds abrupt, breathless and squeaky. For a moment even I don’t recognize it. As I turn slightly, I see Mark Gardner give me a hard and obnoxious smirk from a seat in the back. Big and burly, good looking and popular a-hole Mark’s one of my regular tormentors. You’d think that today of all days he’d have other, more pressing things on his mind, but I guess bullying does not take vacations, not even for end-of-the-world stuff.

Next to Mark, there’s Jenny Hawls, his most recent girlfriend, equally bitchy and popular. She stares at me with her model-perfect pretty face, then flips her long honey-blond hair. She and Mark and another guy, Chris Jasper, exchange mocking looks and then cover their mouths. They’d started in on me early, at the end of the first semester of our freshman year, when they first “noticed” how I always raised my hand in class and spoke up, and seemed to know all the correct answers.

I try not to think of them as I repeat in my mind, “Room 217-C,” over and over, even though I’d just jotted it down in my notebook.

Mrs. Grayland is done with roll call. She turns to the woman in the suit and introduces her as Ms. Wayne, from Qualification, who is going to administer this first portion of the test.

Ms. Wayne steps forward and begins with a canned introduction about Atlantis, our long-lost earth colony, the asteroid situation, and how “the best and brightest” of us have been given this lucky chance to save our lives in the face of this global misfortune, and how we are the hope of humanity. “Qualification is for your own benefit,” she says with a stone face. “It is the most fair method of choosing the next generation, and instead of a chance lottery you have the opportunity to prove yourself and showcase your talents.”

The students around me stare, and again furious whispers are heard.

“Settle down,” Mrs. Grayland says, then nods to Ms. Wayne to continue.

“This is the most important day of your life.” Ms. Wayne looks around the room. “You will be tested in more ways than you or I can imagine, and some of these tests may not seem to make sense. Please understand that we are only administering them as instructed by the Atlantis Central Agency, in cooperation with the federal government. All interpretation of the final results for each stage of Qualification will be made according to Atlantean criteria. We have no control whatsoever over test results or the final outcome. Nor have we set any of these criteria ourselves.”

“What’s that mean? What criteria?” a boy interrupts from the back.

“It means, we don’t know what kind of test answers are ‘correct’ and we don’t know what they are looking for.”

“So how are we supposed to do the test?” says another student, and her voice cracks with a hint of tears.

“Do your best. That’s all anyone can expect of you. Do the best you can, take your time with your answers, and good luck to all of you! And now, I am sorry, but I cannot answer any more questions. We need to begin.” Ms. Wayne sighs, checks the clock, and suddenly she is no longer just an automaton in a suit but a tired ordinary woman.

She turns to Mrs. Grayland, and they both begin passing out test booklets, answer sheets, and number two pencils.

“Clear your desks of everything, and please put away all phones and electronic devices—that includes smart jewelry—keep it turned
off
. And—” Ms. Wayne pauses meaningfully—“Please don’t bother cheating. Truth be told, this is one test on which you cannot cheat.”

There are more whispers throughout the classroom.

“Now,” Ms. Wayne continues, coming around the room. “This is the general knowledge portion of Qualification. It includes math and science and history and spelling and analytical sections. And yes, it is long. We do not know how much weight it carries in the overall examination. Format is standardized multiple choice, intentionally low-tech paper and pencil, because no computer use was designated for this portion. However you should all be sufficiently familiar with this. Be sure to use your pencils to fill in the bubbles in their entirety.”

Groans are heard all around the room. “Excuse me, how do I use a pencil?” someone cracks.

“Easy! Just stick it in your—”

Snickers start in waves.

“Why on
Earth
do I need to take the SAT to get to Atlantis?” someone else whispers behind me. More snickers, quickly stifled.

Mrs. Grayland stops by my desk and hands me the test materials, then moves over to Ann’s, and then the next person.

I stare at the super-thick text booklet. It’s so thick it’s ridiculous. It’s got a pale blue cover and a printed Atlantis logo of some kind of cube. I’ve seen this stupid logo before on TV, together with the four-color swatch. Supposedly it represents the Great Square in the constellation of Pegasus—the general region in space where the star system with the planet Atlantis is located.

“Everyone, please open your booklets and turn to the first page of the test. You have exactly an hour and forty-five minutes. This is critical—be sure to fill out your name portion in the front of the answer sheet before you do anything else. And now, begin.”

A
n hour and a half later, I fill in the last answer bubble, put down my pencil and look up. Most everyone else is still marking their answer sheet.

The test was easy. At least I think it was. I feel confident about ninety percent of my answers, and if anything about this is an indicator of what’s to come, this bodes well for me totally acing Qualification.

Yeah, right.

Next to me Ann is still biting her pencil and has a few pages of the booklet to go. She gives me a dazed look then returns to her answer sheet.

Ms. Wayne, who is pacing quietly through the rows of desks, and watching us like a hawk, immediately notices I am done, and comes up to me. I silently hand her my finished test.

As I turn to watch Ms. Wayne’s retreating back, I see Jenny Hawls glare at me, before returning to her test. Jenny’s a dim bulb when it comes to schoolwork, so I am sure she is having a rotten time with the test material. If I weren’t so generally stressed, I’d feel a rare moment of satisfaction. But honestly, this is not the time for petty stuff—we’re all in this sorry mess together.

Soon, the bell rings. The teachers tell us to put down our pencils. We are reminded that our names should be clearly marked on the answer sheets in order to get proper credit, and that we’re supposed to go on to our next designated classroom.

“Crud, I couldn’t even finish. It was so long!” Ann is frowning as we grab our things and head outside into the hallway. “How did you do?”

“Okay, I guess, sort of. Some of the questions were super hard.” I feel bad for Ann, so I underplay it. Ann’s smart and a good student, but she doesn’t always do all that well when it comes to timed, standardized tests. And this one’s life-and-death,
literally
.

“Easy for you to say. You always ace these things. I panicked. My brains turned to mush and left the building, right in the middle of it.” She fiddles with her navy blue backpack and travel bag nervously, adjusting the shoulder strap. I wonder what she chose as her personal stuff to put in that duffel. What special items, to keep with her as mementoes of Earth, if she Qualifies and makes it to the stars? As though reading my mind, she glances meaningfully at her bag. “I took antique family photo albums and two of my Grandpa’s wood carvings. And Mom’s pearl necklace—with an added smart phone bead, since Mom insisted. And my skating trophy.”

“That’s great,” I say. “I’ll show you the stuff I’m taking, during lunch.”

“You think they’ll let us break for lunch?”

“I don’t see why not—”

“Hey, move it, Finnbar and dork.” Jeremy Carverson is shoving past us, and he snaps the strap of my maroon backpack. “Stop taking up the hallway!”

“Dork” doesn’t even rhyme properly with “Lark,” but I am used to it.

We break away and I mutter “good luck, see you soon” to Ann, then hurry upstairs to the second floor, to room 217-C. That’s three long flights of stairs from the basement, and by the time I get to the final landing, carrying both my heavy backpack and the book-stuffed duffel, I’m somewhat winded, to put it mildly. Okay, I am kind of dead. It occurs to me that if any part of Qualification involves going up many stairs while carrying luggage, I could be screwed.