The Test

One

A few hours before the Test

"Aria! Aria! Get up! You'll be late for school." Mom hollers up the stairs from the hallway.

"No," I mumble, rolling over in bed, the weak morning sun doing nothing to keep me warm.

"ARIA! I'll have to drag you out of there myself if you don't come down for breakfast soon!"

"Ok, mom, I'm coming," I mumble, knowing full well she can't hear me.

I stumble out of bed, narrowly avoiding slamming into my dresser. I rub my shin and glance up at the wall beside the dresser,where my calendar is. My eyes lock on the date. June fourth. The last day of high school!

I throw on a pair of jeans and a purple tank top, a blue cable knit jumper and some knee-high boots. I dab on some mascara around my hazel eyes that everyone but me think are pretty because they change with the light; and lip gloss, not so much that the teachers will notice; just enough that the other kids will. Then I brush my thick chestnut-brown hair and coax it into a ponytail. My hair is unruly on its best days.

I grab my port-screen and favourite brown-leather shoulder bag, stuffing the screen into the bag as far as it will go. "Damn thing," I mutter when it won't go in far enough.

I decide to leave it, and run down the stairs just as mom's coming out into the hallway. "Honey!" she calls as I narrowly avoid slamming into her. "Watch where you're going!"

"Sorry, mom," I mumble, chagrined, as i walk slowly into the (as always) impeccably polished kitchen and grab a bowl of cereal.

You should be, a voice in my head says. She's getting too old for your escapades now. Especially the stunt you pulled with Darren and Nat last night. I groan as I remember the late-night trip to the docks with my four best friends. Luckily, mom hasn't found out about it yet, but everything here spreads like wildfire. It's only a matter of time.

The bus leaves at 7:05, a voice in my head reminds me just as I'm finihing my cereal. A chime goes off on the FamilyScreen in the hallway to remind me, too. Go. Run, or you'll miss it.

God, I sound like my mother.

*

The bus is full of kids chatting about the last day of high school. I grab a seat with my best friends Ellie and Lena, Nat and Darren's girlfriends, who I also went to the docks with. We plug into our faourite game, ShareScreen, where you can plug into a multi-people network to share photos and other cool stuff. We laugh about the shots we took on our ports at the dock, only stopping when we pull up outside an unfamiliar building. The exterior is old and red-brick, scanners set up at each stainless-steel door - the only indication that this squat, flat building was built after 2057, when all the internal ID hardware was finalised.

This isn't school, I think, suddenly nervous.

If we're not at school, then were are we?

I have no idea.

Maybe this is where they send all the kids on ther last day? I wonder, following Ellie's lead and stepping down from the bus.

I should have known we weren't at school from the fact that the journey took at least an hour rather than half an hour. I suddenly feel so stupid for not seeing this before.

"Where are we?" I ask Ellie, my brown hair whipping into my face and my hazel eyes mirroring her troubled green ones. She shrugs, no wiser than I am. "No idea. Where's Lena gone?"

This time it's my turn to shrug. "I don't-"

I start to say 'I don't know', but then I see her. She's being herded into line by a group of white-coated officials, and then I notice that everyone is being organised into lines alphabetically.