Fledged

Chapter Seven: Tests

Maxwell bounced his knee a little as he and Emmet sat in their chairs, waiting for the results of their tests.

            Since they’d taken them at the same time, they should have the results within a few minutes of each other.

            Max knew he would be put in the mechanical section somewhere, but he wanted to see if he might have undiscovered finesse in some other area of airmanship.

            They were waiting in the room where they’d taken the tests, sitting in the same seats with the same people. Wouldn’t want the officers to get confused, with all the men that came here to enlist. Assigning a number to a dozen people was so much easier than remembering faces.

            Emmet shivered beside him, closing his stormy eyes briefly.

            “Cold?” asked Max. It was strange to talk to only one person after joking and laughing with all those airmen during lunch. But Emmet seemed like a good guy, and Max was glad to have him at his side.

            Emmet shook his head. “Nah. Just…undecided, I suppose. I’ve absolutely no idea what I scored—or even if I scored well on that test.”

            Max nodded.

            “And I…” the boy sighed, looking torn. “I don’t even know what I want to be.”

            “Ah, the choices,” he lamented solemnly. “You’re good at so many things, that you’ve no clue what to choose! What a hard life!”

            Emmet shoved him a little in the shoulder, but there was a smile on his face again.

            Max smiled back, and then shrugged. “Hey, all I’m good at is things with gears. At least you know a little of this, a little of that. In situations like waiting for tests…” He raised his hands in surrender. “…I’m hopelessly useless.”

            Emmet rolled his eyes. “Don’t say that. You’ll wear down your sense of self-assuredness. Wouldn’t want that. You’re so bloody self-conscious already.”

            Max hunched his shoulders and ducked his head, feigning timidity. “Obviously.”

            Just then, the man who’d overseen their tests came out from behind a door. He held a stack of dozens of papers, four or five clipped together with some sort of nickel fastener.

            Each had a name and number scrawled across the top, and the man moved through the aisles of chairs and desks, handing them out.

            Fellows started comparing test scores and suggestions, saying things like, “How could you not know that one?” or “What’d you get in the cooking section? Because I got a two out of ten.”

            Maxwell watched Emmet out of the corner of his eye. He was in the aisle on his right, and would get the test after Max did. He looked a little pale, and was wringing his hands silently underneath his desk.

            Max leaned over, across the space between the chairs, and said, “Good luck, Mr. Pyne.”

            He held out his hand for a shake, and Emmet took it, a determined look shining in his ocean-colored eyes. “And to you, Mr. Bouvier.”

            When Max got his paper, he found it covered in red writing. At first, he thought that this meant he’d done terribly, and every single answer on his test was wrong.