“Sneak out? But why?”
“I’ve learned from experience. Any moment now, some of these children’s parents will come storming in to demand explanations. Unfortunately, I have none to give them. Therefore, off I go. I’ll see you this afternoon. Don’t be late!”
And with that, away she went.
It had been a strange business indeed, and Reynie had a suspicion it was to grow stranger still. When the distant church bell struck the quarter hour, Reynie finished his sandwich and rose from the park bench. If the doors to the Monk Building weren’t open by now, he would try to find another way in. At this point, it would hardly surprise him to discover he must enter the building through a basement window.
As he mounted the steps to the Monk Building’s broad front plaza, Reynie saw two girls well ahead of him, walking together toward the front doors. Other test-takers, he guessed. One girl, who seemed to have green hair — though perhaps this was a trick of the light; the sun shone blindingly bright today — was carelessly flinging her pencil up into the air and catching it again. Not the best idea, Reynie thought. And sure enough, even as he thought it, the girl missed the pencil and watched it fall through a grate at her feet.
For a moment the other girl hesitated, as if she might try to help. Then she checked her watch. In only a few minutes it would be one o’clock. “Sorry about your pencil — it’s a shame,” she said, but already her sympathetic expression was fading. Clearly it had occurred to her that with the green-haired girl unable to take the test, there would be less competition. With a spreading smile, she hurried across the plaza and through the front doors of the Monk Building, which had finally been unlocked.
The metal grate covered a storm drain that ran beneath the plaza, and the unfortunate girl was staring through it, down into darkness, when Reynie reached her. Her appearance was striking — indeed, even startling. She had coal-black skin; hair so long she could have tied it around her waist (and yes, it truly was green); and an extraordinarily puffy white dress that gave you the impression she was standing in a cloud.
“That’s rotten luck,” Reynie said. “To drop your pencil here, of all places.”
The girl looked up at him with hopeful eyes. “You don’t happen to have an extra one, do you?”
“I’m sorry. I was told to bring —”
“I know, I know,” she interrupted. “Only one pencil. Well, that was my only pencil, and a fat lot of good it will do me down in that drain.” She stared wistfully through the grate a moment, then looked up at Reynie as if surprised to see him still standing there. “What are you waiting for? The test starts any minute.”
“I’m not going to leave you here without a pencil,” Reynie said. “I was surprised your friend did.”
“Friend? Oh, that other girl. She’s not my friend — we just met at the bottom of the steps. I didn’t even know her name. For that matter, I don’t know yours, either.”
“Reynard Muldoon. You can call me Reynie.”
“Okay, Reynie, nice to meet you. I’m Rhonda Kazembe. So now that we’re friends and all that, how do you intend to get my pencil back? We’d better hurry, you know. One minute late and we’re disqualified.”
Reynie took out his own pencil, a new yellow #2 that he’d sharpened to a fine point that morning. “Actually,” he said, “we’ll just share this one.” He snapped the pencil in two and handed her the sharpened end. “I’ll sharpen my half and we’ll both be set. Do you have your eraser?”
Rhonda Kazembe was staring at her half of the pencil with a mixture of gratitude and surprise. “That would never have occurred to me,” she said, “breaking it like that. Now, what did you say? Oh, yes, I have my eraser.”
“Then let’s get going, we only have a minute,” Reynie urged.
Rhonda held back. “Hold on, Reynie. I haven’t properly thanked you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said impatiently. “Now let’s go!”
Still she resisted. “No, I really want to thank you. If it weren’t for you, I couldn’t have taken this test, and do you want to know something?” Glancing around to be sure they were alone, Rhonda whispered, “I have the answers. I’m going to make a perfect score!”
“What? How?”
“No time to explain. But if you sit right behind me, you can look over my shoulder. I’ll hold up my test a bit to make it easier.”
Reynie was stunned. How in the world could this girl have gotten her hands on the answers? And now she was offering to help him cheat! He was briefly tempted — he wanted desperately to learn about those special opportunities. But when he imagined returning to tell Miss Perumal of his success, hiding the fact that he’d cheated, he knew he could never do it.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I’d rather not.”
Rhonda Kazembe looked amazed, and Reynie once again felt the weight of loneliness upon him. If it was unpleasant to feel so different from the other children at Stonetown Orphanage, how much worse was it to be seen as an oddball by a green-haired girl wearing her own personal fog bank?
“Okay, suit yourself,” Rhonda said as the two of them started for the front doors. “I hope you know what you’re in for.”
Reynie was in too much of a hurry to respond. He had no idea what he was in for, of course, but he certainly wanted to find out.
Inside the Monk Building, conspicuously posted signs led them down a series of corridors, past a room where a handful of parents waited anxiously, and at last into a room crowded with children in desks. Except for the unusual silence, the room was just like any schoolroom, with a chalkboard at the front and a teacher’s desk upon which rested a pencil sharpener, a ruler, and a sign that said: NO TALKING. IF YOU ARE CAUGHT TALKING IT WILL BE ASSUMED YOU ARE CHEATING. Only two seats remained empty, one behind the other. To guarantee he wouldn’t be tempted to cheat, Reynie chose the one in front. A clock on the wall struck one just as Rhonda Kazembe dropped into the desk behind him.
“That was close,” she said.
“There will be no talking!” boomed the pencil woman, who entered just then, slamming the door behind her. She strode briskly to the front of the room, carrying a tall stack of papers and a jar of pickles. “If any child is caught cheating, then he or she will be executed —”
The children gasped.
“I’m sorry, did I say executed? I meant to say escorted. Any child caught cheating will be escorted from the building at once. Now then, are you all relaxed? It’s important to be relaxed when taking such an extremely difficult test as this, especially considering how long it is and how very little time you’ll have to complete it.”
In the back of the room someone groaned in distress.
“You there!” shouted the pencil woman, pointing her finger. Every head in the room swiveled to see who had groaned. It was the same girl who had abandoned Rhonda Kazembe on the plaza. Under the savage stare of the pencil woman, the girl’s face went pasty pale, like the underbelly of a dead fish. “I said no talking,” the woman barked. “Do you wish to leave now?”
“But I only groaned!” the girl protested.
The pencil woman frowned. “Do you mean to suggest that saying, ‘But I only groaned!’ doesn’t count as talking?”
The girl, frightened and perplexed, could hardly muster a shake of the head.
“Very well, let this be a warning to you. To all of you. From this moment on there will be no talking, period. Now then, are there any questions?”
Reynie raised his hand.
“Reynard Muldoon, you have a question?”
Reynie held up his broken pencil and made a pencil-sharpening motion with the other hand.