Mathew was modest like his father and had been embarrassed by all of the attention. Gabi wasn’t wild about it either, or its impact on her secret plans. If there was any justice in the world, it would be Bradley Fiske rather than Gabi who had so many obstacles to overcome to get to the exam, though her nemesis hadn’t exactly gotten off easy. Bradley’s father, a senior manager at Unitas’s central distribution warehouse, had used his influence to hire Burton Ames himself as Bradley’s tutor. For an Apostle to serve in such a lowly capacity was unprecedented, but not strictly against guidelines. Garth Fiske had made Apostle Ames an offer he couldn’t refuse, which included the late-model Land Rover Ames had taken to tooling around in, and the wealth of fuel rations it took to keep the behemoth running. Ames was a legendary taskmaster among the Witness teams, and he wasn’t holding back with Bradley. Gabi could only imagine what transpired during his tutorials to cause the boy to show up at school each day limping, nor did she care. Ames could roast Bradley over hot coals if it kept him out of her hair.
Then there was the Noel Sutton option. As a special treat for having been recruited, Noel’s mother decided to allow him to drive himself to the testing center on the day of the exam. As one of the nurses in charge of newly admitted Returned at the Care Center, she had a shift she couldn’t miss the morning of the test and wouldn’t be able to drive him herself. When Noel shared the exciting news at school, he’d been mobbed with requests for a ride. Transportation assignments were drawn up early so that fuel rations could be pooled and those with working vehicles could provide a lift to those recruits still in need. Gabi, though in need, had not been one of those begging Noel for a ride. She’d been hoping another workable alternative would present itself, but on Saturday morning, with less than forty-eight hours before the test proctors sealed the doors of the facility to latecomers, she was desperate.
FINDING NOEL in the crowd milling around the temple after services was no easy thing. Even those who preferred the more intimate feel of the Sunday service had come to add their prayers for the success of the new recruits that Saturday. Because she would miss out on driving Noel on Monday, Nurse Sutton got permission to pick up a later shift in order to be with her son for his final service before the exam. The starched sail of his mother’s peaked nurse’s cap helped Gabi finally track Noel down. He stood with his mother in the long line for the complimentary tea made from roasted dandelion roots that fellows drank in place of coffee. The hardy dandelion, though smaller and less robust with every passing year, was one of the only life-forms that could survive in Alder’s exhausted soil.
Gabi waited until someone engaged Nurse Sutton in conversation before tapping Noel on the shoulder to get his attention. When he turned in the act of blowing across his steaming cup and saw her, his arm jerked in surprise, sloshing scorching liquid down his shirt. “Ah!” he cried as the tea seeped through the fabric and burned his skin.
“Sorry,” Gabi said halfheartedly.
“That’s okay,” Noel said, his voice high-pitched with pain. “I wasn’t expecting it to be you. I thought you hated me.”
“I don’t hate anybody, Noel, but I think you understand why I wouldn’t want to hang out with you, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said, finally abandoning the pretense of cleaning his shirt and looking Gabi in the eye. “I get it. I was a jerk.”
“I need a favor, Noel,” she whispered, grabbing his non-tea-holding arm and ushering him to a less exposed spot in an alcove off the sanctuary.
“What is it?” Noel asked, plainly relieved at Gabi’s thaw. “Need me to break someone’s kneecaps for you? I’d do Bradley’s for free. Two kneecaps for the price of one!”
Gabi wasn’t ready to trade jokes with her former tormentor, if she ever would be. “I need a ride to the testing center, Noel. Do you have any room in your car?”
“Wait, you’re taking the test?” Noel asked, as though she’d just told him she was planning on doing a naked fan dance for the assembled fellows.
“Of course I am,” she hissed. “Why would I pass up that chance? Everyone got papers at camp, Noel, even me.”
Noel flushed, shaking his head. “No, I mean, I just assumed you wouldn’t. You’ve been sick ever since I’ve known you, which is, like, forever, and Mom told me you were admitted to the Care Center again last month. The test is really hard, Gabi, and I’m not saying that to be mean. How could your dad be okay with it? Isn’t he super protective of you?”
This was the moment when all Gabi’s carefully laid plans could implode. If she trusted Noel and he betrayed her confidence, that would be the end of it. “That’s exactly why I haven’t told him,” Gabi said. “Ruth promised that no one outside of camp would know we’d all been given passes on the recruitment thing, remember? It would diminish what we all went through to be able to take the test.”
“But why do you even want to take it?” Noel persisted. “You’re so set up here. It doesn’t matter what you do, because of who your dad, er, um, Brother Sam—” His eyes widened. “Wait, is that why you’re doing this? Because of what I told you? Are you trying to punish him or something?”
Gabi did her best imitation of Marnie’s withering look. “No offense, Noel, but I don’t exactly feel like trusting you with that kind of information. I’m willing to consider the possibility that you’re not totally evil, but that’s about as far as I can go right now. If you really meant what you said about being friends, then you’ll do this for me and not tell anybody.”
“I totally would, Gabi, but the car’s packed. You could probably squeeze in, but what about the other people coming with me? I can’t keep them from finding out when you’re sitting right beside them, and I won’t go back on my promise to give them a ride. They’re my friends, and I’m still getting them to trust me after acting like an ass for so long.”
“Who are they?” Gabi asked, her mind racing for a fix to this new wrinkle.
“Mike, Raj, and Yael, plus Iris and a friend of hers I don’t know that well. She’s a new transfer, I think. Why don’t you get a ride with Marnie and the other kids from the home? Aren’t you guys best friends now or something?”
“Best friends?” She could practically hear Marnie gagging on the sappy term. “Because Warren’s wife—that’s Warren Paulson, the guardian of the home who will be driving the car—works with my dad on the council. I did put some thought into this, you know.” She wasn’t doing a very good job of making nice, but Noel just kept saying things she didn’t want to hear.
“Sorry,” Noel mumbled. “I really do want to help you, I swear. There’s just no way you could be in my car without everyone making a big deal out of you taking the Witness exam.” But there was a way, and Noel’s last words had just shown it to her.
“Then tell them exactly what I asked you to do today,” Gabi said, grabbing his arm for emphasis. “Practically everyone in Alder is here, so they would have seen us talking. Tell them I asked you for a ride to the exam, and said that if you told anyone, I would tell my father all about what you and Bradley put me through over the years. Your mother would probably lose her job, and that’s the least of it.”
Noel blanched. “Hey, whoa, Gabi, I said I’m sorry, and I meant it. I will help you, whatever it takes, but please don’t do anything to hurt my mom. She’s been through enough already with losing my dad, and the hours she—”
“Just listen!” Gabi interrupted, impatient now that the crowd in the fellowship hall was thinning out. Sam and Mathew would be looking for her. “I would never do something like that to Nurse Sutton.” When Noel stopped looking like he might cry, she deemed it safe to continue. “I just need you to tell your friends that I would so they won’t say anything. Tell them that when you talked to me it was obvious I had some serious resentment built up toward my brother for being my dad’s favorite. Tell them that when the bulletin came out and Mathew was featured in it, it put me over the edge and I decided to take the exam in order to get my father’s attention. Tell them th
at I gave you no choice but to take me and if any of them made an issue of it, both you and they would suffer.”
Noel looked stunned, and still reluctant. “You want me to lie to them?”
Gabi felt a twinge of guilt, but she knew that Noel was no stranger to nefarious deeds. “It’s a lie that won’t hurt anyone but me, Noel, and I really don’t care. I promise that your friends will never find out. I can’t force you to do it. Or rather, I can, but I won’t. You do have a choice.” Doubt still clouded the boy’s face. “You have to trust me, Noel. It’s important.” Then she said the one word she’d hoped to avoid in this conversation. Noel was almost convinced, but he wasn’t there yet. “Please.”
THE RIDE to the testing center on the day of the exam was largely uneventful, though marked by some initial awkwardness. There was a heart-stopping moment when Gabi saw the familiar burgundy outline of her father’s hatchback cresting the hill toward them, and she was sure he’d caught a glimpse of her before she flung herself across the laps of Yael, Raj, Iris, and Sarah. When the car was out of sight, having sped by without slowing down, the others assured her the coast was clear and her cover wasn’t blown.
“Not always a picnic being a Lowell, I bet,” Raj ventured, looking out the window at the low concrete bunkers that signaled their approach to the training center. “At least with my brother being such a screwup, everything I do looks pretty good. But you’ve got, like, twice the pressure. Harsh.”
“What did you tell them, Noel?” Gabi asked under her breath after they’d parked in the visitors’ lot and made sure Mathew was nowhere in sight.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Gabi said as the troop of teens made their way to the front entrance, “that you obviously didn’t tell your friends the story I gave you. They were way too nice to me.”
Noel drew up short and allowed the others to pass them. “That’s because they’re nice people, Gabi. Do you know that when I told them you were coming along, they all thought it was really great? They admire you for pushing yourself and not throwing it in everyone’s faces that you’re Sam Lowell’s daughter all the time.”
“Didn’t they want an explanation for why I didn’t go with Sam and Mathew this morning?”
“I told them the truth, that you didn’t want your family to know about it because they’re overprotective and might try to stop you. They think you have real guts, Gabi, and they’re not going to tell anybody, I promise. You can trust them.” Noel put his hand on the curved door handle at the entrance, but Gabi stopped him.
“But why didn’t you just tell them the story I gave you?”
“Because I didn’t want to lie to them, and I didn’t want them thinking you were a bad person. You don’t deserve that.” Noel yanked the door open, leaving an astonished Gabi to slip in behind him just before the pressurized metal sealed shut.
The dreaded moment of Mathew noticing her among the crowd came quickly, and Gabi was grateful. Better to get it over with. As soon as she walked into the testing hall where the written portion of the exam would be given—and where Marnie was supposed to be waiting for her to act as lookout and human shield—there was Mathew. Seating assignments had been given at registration, a feature Gabi and Marnie failed to anticipate, and naturally Mathew was one of the recruits helping the other test takers find their seats. Marnie had already been escorted to her combination desk/chair in the middle of the massive hall and was waving a frantic, useless hand at Gabi.
As soon as he spotted his sister, Mathew fastened a hand around her arm and hauled her over to the refreshment table. “What are you doing here, Gab? Is everything okay? Is Dad with you? How did you get here?” He looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel. She hadn’t even bothered to consider how her presence might impact her brother’s performance on the exam. She just assumed she’d be able to keep out of his line of vision until the physical testing started, when they would be divided by age group for the rest of the day.
“Mathew, calm down. Dad’s fine, I’m fine, everybody’s fine.”
Mathew released her arm with a relieved smile. “But you still haven’t told me why you’re here. Did you come to sneak me some food? Those snacks are not gonna cut it. Is that what’s in your bag?”
Don’t ask, Gabi reminded herself. Tell. “I’m here for the same reason you are. To take the test.”
“Yeah, right.” Mathew chuckled. “Really, Gab, why are you here?”
Gabi hoisted her bag, which had been thoroughly inspected for cheat sheets, higher onto her bony shoulder. “I’m taking the test. Now are you going to help me find my seat or do I have to ask someone else?”
Mathew went gray. “But why?”
“Because I want to get out of Alder for a while,” Gabi said, trying to hew as close to the truth as she could. “My life is so small and predictable here, and I only just realized that since I started feeling better. I want to go somewhere where not everybody knows who I am.”
“Gabi, this isn’t a joke. So, okay, you could probably get through the first half because we’ve been studying together. Wait, is that why you’ve been so keen on helping me? So you could study? Forget it. I don’t care. But the second part? You think I was pushing you? You don’t even know. See those folks over there?” Mathew gestured toward a section of the hall where men and women in their late forties and fifties were grouped together at their desks. “The council allows older fellows to retest for the team if they failed before but still want to serve. They have to pass a whole battery of tests before they can even get here today, and do you know why? So they don’t die during the exam, Gab, and I would put your fitness level way below theirs. You just started getting healthy in the last couple of months! When you came back from camp, you couldn’t even do a single push-up because of whatever happened to your shoulder while you were there.”
An angular woman stepped into the hall from the registration area and blew three sharp whistle blasts. “All right, everybody, please find your seats if you haven’t, and get your pencils ready. Anyone not at their desks with eyes to the front in the next five minutes will be asked to leave the hall.”
Mathew didn’t budge, but she sensed how he badly wanted to throw her over his shoulder and carry her out of there. He was also desperate to get to his seat.
“Mathew, don’t be ridiculous. I am not going to die during the exam. If the recruiters thought that was a possibility, I never would have been given the enrollment form.” Mathew, like everyone else who hadn’t been at camp, knew nothing about the campers’ secret pact with the counselors. “Now sit,” Gabi urged, but not before she grabbed the clipboard out of his grasp and found her assignment. Before he could offer further objection, she gave him a firm shove in the direction of the seats and wound her way toward Row F, Seat 32. She watched Mathew to make sure that he, too, made his way to his spot, which he did while keeping his eyes pinned on her until the stern lady’s roving gaze finally made him snap to attention. Once the exam had begun, recruits were not allowed to interact, even during breaks. Anyone who disregarded this rule would be immediately asked to leave.
Ignoring her brother now that he was safely in his seat, Gabi settled into her desk just a couple of rows from Jordan. It had only been ten days since they’d last seen each other, and maybe it was the lighting or the absence of his many layers in the stuffy hall, but Jordan’s body looked slightly less blurred around the edges. His face had darkened, and his nose was reddish and peeling as he gave Gabi a quick wink. Gabi nodded over to where Marnie sat in Row J, clicking her mechanical pencil. Not a word would be spoken among the three friends for the rest of the day, but knowing they were all in it together calmed Gabi’s nerves. She only hoped her brother would be able to stop worrying about her long enough to focus on the task at hand.
A half an hour in, Gabi’s sitting bones drilled painfully into the hard plastic of her chair. The mechanical pencils she’d borrowed out of a mug in her father’s study wore red patches into the pads of
her fingers, and the heat in the hall seemed to have been set to encourage maximum drowsiness. The questions held few surprises, though the test designers had reserved the most challenging portion for the very end. At the beginning of hour four, the test takers were asked to write a ten-page essay describing an action plan for how they would manage a mission scenario, incorporating as many relevant theories and passages from doctrine as possible to justify their approach. Gabi had no idea if all the scenarios were the same, but with more than three hundred people taking the exam, some duplication seemed likely. She was certain, however, that using an essay format for the final part of the test was a trick.
The idea was to make the recruits think that each action plan could be different but equal in merit as long as they displayed a command of best practices. The actual aim of the assignment was to classify which team an aspiring Witness would be best suited for. If the chosen approach was community development and education, that indicated the candidate was best suited for an assignment in a more settled region, where relations with the locals were stable. If the essay reflected a command of orienteering, military tactics, and frontline diplomacy, that candidate might be groomed for one of the more challenging Apostle-led missions on the frontier, provided the recruit tested well in the physical exam. Gabi only knew this because Mathew had been getting secret help from Kenny Ames, who’d taken to eavesdropping on the private tutorials his father conducted with Bradley Fiske in their basement. Gabi, as Mathew’s study coach, profited from the espionage as well and passed it all on to Marnie. She only regretted not being able to share it with Jordan.
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