Section 4/A/A

Once she had deposited the sticky child and washed her own hands, Kestrel raced to the secretary's office. Her test started in twelve minutes, but she could make it. She had to know that Boron was all right, or she would never be able to pass her exam.

"Kestrel," Mrs. Killdeer said, "What are you doing in here?"
"I've been hearing a lot of weird things, Mrs. Killdeer," Kestrel told her, "and I thought I'd check with you. You know everything that goes on around her, and so you would know if what I heard is true or not."
"Well, it is true that even the authorities came to check with me," Mrs. Killdeer said, puffing slightly larger than her already round shape. Then she seemed to come to herself. "But do you have a pass?" she asked, peering at Kestrel. "You know that you're not allowed an office visit without a signed pass by your teacher or another authority. If your teacher had sent you, then that would be different, but you need to be in class. And now that I think about it, aren't you a finishing student?" She looked at the clock on the wall. "Exams start in 8 minutes."
"Yes, Mrs. Killdeer, but I just heard something. I had to come--"
The Head Teacher's office opened and Barry came out followed by Mr. Ospray and two officials. Barry had his hands free, Kestrel noticed, but he also had one guard on each side of him.
"Barry!" Kestrel half shoute. "It's true? Who was with you? Did you..." She coudln't bring herself to say it, and realized later that it was probably a very good thing that she hadn't.
Barry looked like he was about to cry, and his resigned posture completely changed when he heard Kestrel's voice. His head snapped up. "Kestrel! You have to tell my parents. They took Granite away, if they take me too, then tell my Mom that I didn't hurt anyone."
Mrs. Killdeer put a firm hand on Kestrel's shoulder. "You, young lady, have an exam to take. Now get out of this office right this minute." She steered Kestrel toward the door.
"But I have to know how many people were killed. Was the Family killed? Is Boron okay?"
Mrs. Killdeer sighed. "I thought you had more sense. Boron is fine, the whole family is fine. No one died. There was some theft, but nothing serious. No go--and I would appreciate it if you would tell any other swooning young women that the Domini Son is perfectly well."
Kestrel stood in the hall blinking. Boron was safe? What a relief. Without him, life without him--she couldn't imagine it. No matter what Mrs. Killdeer said, Kestrel wasn't just a swooning girl who had a crush on the Domini Son. Mrs. Killdeer didn't know, no one knew, just how close Boron and Kestrel were. But it wouldn't be long now before everyone would know the truth about Kestrel.
Once the first rush of relief was over, Kestrel thought back to the scene in the office. Barry and Granite were Outliers? She couldn't believe it. Outliers were...criminals. They were rough men that lived in the wild and fought against the government. They stole chickens. They occasionally burned something down. But they weren't people you knew.
"There you are." Daisy grabbed her friend's sleeve and pulled. "If you're late, we're both dead. Come on." Kestrel didn't know how she could think about exams or anything else, but she had to for Boron. He couldn't have a wife who had bad marks on her exam. Thank goodness he was alright. Kestrel tried to shove all thoughts of Barry away for later. She took a deep breath and followed Daisy.
The two girls ran through the hall, hoping that no monitors would catch them, or that at least it was someone who would give them a break because they knew it was exam day.
Mr. Fissure stood outside the door to the gym, arms folded, face stern. "We're so glad that you ladies decided to join us today. It's nice to know that you place so high a value on your future. Maybe it was more important to gossip while you fixed your hair in the bathroom, but since photos were last week, I doubt it."
With such an outrageous charge, Kestrel was ready to stop and argue the point, but Daisy pulled at her and both girls entered the room that for one day a year was filled with desks and silence instead of sports. All of the other students were seated. The only two desks left were in the same row, but not at all near each other. Daisy looked panicked.  "But, I have to sit by you," she said. "Can't we switch with someone?"
"No, Miss Harris," you will not switch seats. "I know it's hard to believe that you could do something on your own, but today's the day to try." Mr. Fissure handed each girl two sharpened pencils and watched while they took their seats. Then he proceeded to the front of the room where he read a sheet of printed instructions. The librarian and the coach were there to help hand out exams and copy books. All of the students listened through the instructions, wrote their full names on the cover of their notebooks, and then used pencils to slit open the exam booklets.
The first cold sweat of panic subsided as Kestrel looked through the questions. There were some impossible questions, but most were only difficult, and more were easy than she had anticipated. She felt her brain switch modes, and while she knew that she would be exhausted when all of this was over, a part of her actually liked a chance to be able to show that she could do this, to show that she was smart. She wrote as quickly as she could while keeping her handwriting neat. If she had one fault, it was to try to write too quickly and then her handwriting got sloppy. Not today. There was no way that she would risk bad scores just because she was careless. She had been practicing here and there for a while now, trying to get her script to look more like Daisy's. Kestrel's penmanship looked like a long, flowing script that somehow had two left feet and tripped all over itself. Daisy had beautiful, round letters. Her handwriting was easy to read and always looked as if she had charming things to say. Well, today Kestrel's writing would be charming too.
Everything dropped away as Kestrel thought about the test. There were sections on every subject and answers that ranged from one word to essays. She thought and bit her lip; she wrote and erased and wrote again. There were definitely some spelling words that she wasn't sure about, but the magic application question had been manageable, that was what was the most important thing. She had been asked to describe the rate of transfer needed for a 30 lumen output with a fixed magical source. She even thought she got the duration of the source right.
Between questions, she looked up at Daisy once or twice. Poor girl, she wasn't likely to get magical equations right. But then, with her looks, she didn't need to. When their papers were processed, she was sure to have more solicitations than anyone. Kestrel certainly wasn't expecting many. She smiled. It didn't bother her, because she only needed one.
No one was allowed to get up and leave, so Kestrel checked and rechecked her work. She always worried about having enough time, but she had been one of the first ones done. But then she worried that it mean she had hurried too fast and had wrong answers.
Kestrel looked up with surprise to see Daisy standing next to her. "You're too involved in that," Daisy said. "We can turn in our tests now. I thought that maybe since we have the last hour free, we can walk around that copse of trees to talk." She gestured in front of her and knocked Kestrel's book off of the desk. "Sorry," she said, picking it up. She handed the book to Kestrel. "You go turn it in. I just remembered something I want to check on my last page."
Kestrel picked up the book Daisy had handed to her, walked it to Mr. Fissure, and then went outside the gym to wait. Daisy set the book in her hand down on the desk. As quickly as she could, she erased Kestrel's name from the front cover. Then she wrote her own name on the line. She paused for a moment, then turned her pencil eraser down again and touched it to the notebook.
"Daisy Harris, the rest of the school will have their results back before you've finished getting your name on the front just the way you want it," Mr. Fissure barked. "Your time is up. Hand in your booklet."
"Yes, Mr. Fissure," she said. She placed the book on top of the stack and left the gym. "So," she said to Kestrel as the two girls started walking, "how did your test go?"

* * *

"Did you want to want to pack this?" Kestrel asked as she held up a dress.

"No, not that one. It's too small.  I'll leave it for Katydid," Daisy told her as she rolled up thick stockings and arranged them in a little case. "I know I need warm things, but they certainly take a lot of room."

"You could always stay," Kestrel said. Then she shook her head. "Of course I don't mean it. I'm just going to miss you."

Daisy spent a moment too long looking at the floor. Then she smiled at her friend, "something will turn up, you know," she said.

Kestrel shrugged. "Maybe. It's been two weeks." She started carefully folding the dress. "At least you found a good place," she said. "Although I was sure that you'd be engaged by now."

Now it was Daisy's turn to shrug. "I guess that's your job now," she said. "Maybe they shouldn't have included a photo with the application or I would be."

Kestrel snorted and didn't bother to answer. With her blonde hair and figure, Daisy was obvious marriage material.


1)

Daisy tells her about the apprenticeship.

http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/03/chapter-2aaa.html