“Yes, she’s much better, much better,” said Mr. Rutger, through a mouthful of cheesecake. He was a thin man with a thin face, and his cheeks positively bulged as he chewed. “Miss Perumal just telephoned with the news. She asked for you, but as you were not to be found in the dining hall, and I was in the middle of dinner, I took the message for you.”
“Thank you,” said Reynie with a mixture of relief and disappointment. Cheesecake was his favorite dessert. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Indeed, nothing like health. Absolutely nothing like it. Best thing for anyone,” said Mr. Rutger, but here he paused in his chewing, with an unpleasant worried expression upon his face, as if he thought perhaps there had been an insect in his food. Finally he swallowed, brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat, and said, “But see here, Reynie, Miss Perumal mentioned a test of some sort. ‘Special opportunities,’ she said. What is this all about? This isn’t about attending an advanced school, is it?”
They had been through this before. Reynie had repeatedly asked permission to apply elsewhere, but Mr. Rutger had insisted Reynie would fare better here, with a tutor, than at an advanced school. “Here you are comfortable,” Mr. Rutger had told him more than once. And more than once Reynie had thought, Here I’m alone. But in the end Mr. Rutger had his way, and Miss Perumal was hired. It had proved a blessing — Reynie would never complain about Miss Perumal. Still, he had often wondered what life might have been like at a school where the other students didn’t find him so odd.
“I don’t know, sir,” Reynie said, his hopefulness slipping into dejection. He wished Miss Perumal hadn’t mentioned the test, though of course she must have felt obliged to. “We just wanted to see what it was about.”
Mr. Rutger considered this. “Well, no harm in seeing what things are about, I suppose. I should like to know what it’s about myself. In fact, why don’t you prepare a report for me when you return? Say, ten pages? No hurry, you can turn it in tomorrow evening.”
“Tomorrow evening?” said Reynie. “Does that mean I’m taking the test?”
“I thought I told you,” said Mr. Rutger with a frown. “Miss Perumal will come for you first thing in the morning.” He took out an embroidered handkerchief and blew his nose with great ferocity. “And now, Reynie, I believe I’ll leave you to your reading. This dusty room is a hardship on my sinuses. Be a good man and run a feather duster over the shelves before you leave, will you?”
After hearing this news, Reynie could hardly return to his reading. He flailed about with the feather duster and went straight to bed, as if doing so would hasten the morning’s arrival. Instead it lengthened his night, for he was far too eager and anxious to sleep. Special opportunities, he kept thinking, over and over again. He would have been thrilled to get a crack at plain old regular opportunities, much less special ones.
Just before dawn he rose quietly, got ready with the lights off so as not to disturb his roommates (they often snarled at him for reading in bed at night, even when he used a tiny pen light under the covers), and hurried down to the kitchen. Miss Perumal was already waiting for him — she had been too excited to sleep, as well, and had arrived early. The kettle was just beginning to whistle on the stove, and Miss Perumal, with her back to him, was setting out cups and saucers.
“Good morning, Miss Perumal,” he said froggily. He cleared his throat. “I was glad to hear your mother’s doing better.”
“Thank you, Reynie. Would you —” Miss Perumal turned then, took one look at him, and said, “You’ll not make a good impression dressed like that, I’m afraid. One mustn’t wear striped pants with a checkered shirt, Reynie. In fact, I believe those must belong to a roommate — they’re at least a size too big. Also, it appears that one of your socks is blue and the other purple.”
Reynie looked down at his outfit in surprise. Usually he was the least noticeable of boys: He was of average size, of an average pale complexion, his brown hair was of average length, and he wore average clothes. This morning, though, he would stand out in a crowd — unless it happened to be a crowd of clowns. He grinned at Miss Perumal and said, “I dressed this way for luck.”
“Luckily you won’t need luck,” said Miss Perumal, taking the kettle from the stove. “Now please go change, and this time turn on your light — never mind how your roommates grumble — so that you may have better luck choosing your clothes.”
When Reynie returned Miss Perumal told him that she had a long errand to run. Her mother had been prescribed new medicine and a special diet, and Miss Perumal must go shopping for her. So it was agreed that she would take him to the test and pick him up when it was over. After a light breakfast (neither of them wanted more than toast), yet well before anyone else in the orphanage had risen, Miss Perumal drove him across the sleepy city to an office building near Stonetown Bay. A line of children already stood at the door, all of them accompanied by their parents, all fidgeting nervously.
When Miss Perumal moved to get out of the car, Reynie said, “I thought you were dropping me off.”
“You don’t think I would just leave you here without investigating first, do you?” replied Miss Perumal. “The notice didn’t even list a telephone number for questions. It’s a bit out of the ordinary, don’t you think?”
So Reynie took his place at the end of the line while Miss Perumal went inside the building to speak with someone. It was a long line, and Reynie wondered how many special opportunities were available. Perhaps only a very few — perhaps they would all be given out before he even reached the door. He was growing anxious at this idea when a friendly man ahead of him turned and said, “Don’t worry, son, you haven’t long to wait. All the children are to go inside together in a few minutes. They made the announcement just before you arrived.”
Reynie thanked him gratefully, noticing as he did so that a number of parents were casting grumpy looks at the man, apparently disliking the notion of being friendly to competitors. The man, embarrassed, turned away from Reynie and said nothing else.
“Very well,” said Miss Perumal when she returned, “everything is set. You may call me on their telephone when you’ve finished the test. Here is the number. If I’m not back by then, simply call a taxi and Mr. Rutger will pay the fare. You can tell me all about it this afternoon.”
“Thanks so much for everything, Miss Perumal,” said Reynie, earnestly taking her hand.
“Oh, Reynie, you silly child, don’t look so grateful,” said Miss Perumal. To Reynie’s surprise, there were tears on her cheeks. “It’s nothing at all. Now give your poor tutor a hug. I imagine my services won’t be needed after this.”
“I haven’t passed it yet, Miss Perumal!”
“Oh, stop being silly,” she said, and after squeezing him tightly, Miss Perumal dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, walked determinedly to her car, and drove away just as the children were ushered into the building.
It was a curious test. The first section was rather what Reynie would have expected — one or two questions regarding octagons and hexagons, another devoted to bushels of this and kilograms of that, and another that required calculating how much time must pass before two speeding trains collided. (This last question Reynie answered with a thoughtful frown, noting in the margin that since the two trains were approaching each other on an empty stretch of track, it was likely the engineers would recognize the impending disaster and apply their brakes, thus avoiding the collision altogether.) Reynie raced through these questions and many like them, then came to the second section, whose first question was: “Do you like to watch television?”