Super Secret Series (Book 1): Super Model (6 page)

I’d never been an early riser but on Friday, I fell asleep after midnight and popped up around four in the morning. I just couldn’t sleep, knowing that my testing would start that day. Still I couldn’t actually go anywhere until it was time for school. I just lay in bed playing the card flipping game the way I had all Thursday night—first with Audrey and then alone in my bedroom. My percentage was still anywhere from twenty to thirty percent, depending on how long I played. But I kept going back to it, thinking that maybe I’d shake something loose in that crazy brain of mine.

I sat through another boring day of junior high school. The only difference from every other day of my life was that I had a deck of cards burning a hole in my pocket. Every time I had a spare minute, I used it to practice with the cards. By the time I caught the train to Midtown, I was at a solid twenty-four percent. Average. Nothing special. I walked into Council building with a heavy heart.

After checking in with the security guard on the ground floor, I took the elevator headed toward the eight floor ready to face the music. On the second floor, the elevator slowed to a stop, beeped, and opened its doors with a swoosh. All I saw was a blur rushing toward me before knocking me to the ground, spilling papers everywhere.

“Owwww!” I yelped as me and the person fell to the ground together.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” the person tangled up with me repeated.

I tried to untangle myself and stand up but I kept slipping on the papers she had dropped when she crashed into me. When we finally got on our feet, I saw that the kamikaze that ran into me was just a girl. She was maybe college aged in an office worker outfit, a pair of glasses, and a haircut that made her look like a poodle.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. This time I noticed a slight southern accent. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah,” I said, dusting myself off. “Here, let me help you.” I bent down to the help her pick up all of the papers she dropped. They looked like the little bubble answer sheets you get with a standardized test, except the answers were punched out instead of filled in. They were fresh in mind because I had a bunch of them in my book bag just in case I had to convince my mom I was really practicing for the SHSAT.

I always thought that it was interesting how those tests answers can look like pictures when they’re all filled in. I picked up one that kinda looked like the Pisces constellation. I only knew that because my birthday fell on March second and I’d been to the planetarium enough times to recognize all of the zodiac constellations. I could make out the double fish in the pattern, with a few marks that didn’t fit the pattern.

When we finally picked up the last of them, I handed her my stack and stepped out of the way of the elevator doors so they could close.

The elevator girl was looking down at the paperwork trying to arrange the stack in a neat pile. “I’m just always rushing. I had to go down and make the copies and then I forgot to get the keys. And then I couldn’t find the box I was looking for. And I’m supposed to be upstairs”—she looked at her watch—“I’m supposed to be upstairs right now. Can you push the eighth floor button for me? Good. You already pushed it.”

Upstairs we went our separate ways. I checked in at the admissions office and sat in the waiting room with a couple of other kids about my age. I tried to give them the once over without them noticing but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There were also a couple of parents there, too. But one or two of the kids were alone.
At least there’s that
, I thought.

I was only waiting for a few minutes before the elevator girl walked into the waiting room. “Everyone here for the clairvoyance assessment exam one, follow me.”

We all stood up and followed her down a hallway to another room. She stood by the door while we filed in. That’s when she noticed me. “Hey there. Fancy meeting you here. . . again.” I returned her smile and tried to look like I knew this was gonna happen because I actually had powers.

It was a classroom with rows of student desks and a large instructor’s desk in the front of the room near a whiteboard. I took a seat near the back. Once we’d all found seats, the elevator girl stood at the front and started talking.

“Hi guys, I’m Lindsey and I’m going to be your proctor for today. Basically, I’m just going to give you the test and standby for any questions you may have.”

She wrote her name on the whiteboard followed by a little heart. “I want you guys to know that it’s perfectly normal to be nervous but I promise this is going to be painless. Your test has been specially selected for you. Not for what you might know but for what you won’t know. Instead, we want you to use your instincts and let any special feelings guide you. It’s multiple choice and there can be multiple answers for each question.

“No one expects you get all of these right. We just want an idea about what you can pull off when you’re in a stressful situation.” She ended with a little head nod that I think was supposed to be reassuring.

Lindsey pulled out the test booklets and started to call out names. “Bailey? Here you go. Don’t forget to take an answer sheet and a number two pencil. Tamara? Here you go. Penny?” I raised my hand and she winked at me. “I know who you are. Here is your booklet and your answer sheet.”

After she had passed out all of the booklets to their rightful owners, Lindsey went back to the front of the room and held up a digital timer. “I’m going to set the timer for an hour. Just answer the questions as best you can. And if you have any questions for me or you feel overwhelmed or it gets hot in here or whatever, just let me know.” She paused to give us a chance to ask those burning questions. But the room was quiet. “Let’s get started.”

There was crackle of paper as we all opened our test booklets. I quickly scanned the first page for what type of test it might be. My eyes zoomed to the first question:

What, if anything, can empirical psychology tell us about the epistemic standing of our moral judgments?

I must have read it four or five times before I finally understood what I was looking at.
I’m screwed.

“You guys have twenty minutes left. Twenty minutes,” Lindsey repeated.

I didn’t even know where to start. I tried to calm my mind like Lindsey had just told us but there was nothing giving me any direction. I put down my pencil and looked up. Lindsey met my eyes and gave me an encouraging smile.

I looked down at my answer sheet. At some point, I’d forced myself to answer some questions but they were all wild guesses. There was nothing guiding me. I still had more than thirty-five questions to go. And now I only had twenty minutes left.

I wanted to put my head down on the desk and die.

I looked at my answer sheet again and noticed something I hadn’t before—the answers were making a shape. It was vague but it was there. If I played connect-the-dots with the answers I’d written, it looked a lot like the Pisces constellation. I flashed back to the incident in the elevator. Was it possible that I had seen the answer key to my test?

I took inventory of my options. I could turn the test in without finishing. I could continue to guess the answers. Or I could take a chance.

My pencil started moving before I had even really made my decision. Within minutes, I had recreated the Pisces constellation answer sheet I remembered from my run-in with Lindsey in the elevator. Then I realized that if I was actually right and that was my answer sheet I saw, I would get a perfect score. Everything everyone had told me that they
didn’t
expect me to get a perfect score. I went back and changed a bunch of the answers so that they didn’t fit the pattern.

“Time!” Lindsey started collecting the test materials. “Good job, everyone. You all worked hard and deserve a treat. Make sure you guys go do something fun or spend time with someone special today. You earned it. Have a great day.”

We all started to file out of the room, with me bringing up the rear. Just as I was approaching the doorway, Miss Fine appeared. I visibly recoiled from both the surprise appearance and the person delivering it. “Did I startle you?” she deadpanned.

“Um, no.”
Yeah, I always look like I’ve seen a ghost.

“I just wanted to see how you did on your assessment.” She walked past me and approached Lindsey, who seemed just as tense as I was. Miss Fine ignored her, though, too. She thumbed through the answer sheets until she found mine. It was only then that she spoke to Lindsey. “Where is the key for this one?”

“Oh, I was just gonna—”

“Just give it to me.” Lindsey did as she was told.

I started to feel awkward standing near the door. And I actually didn’t want to watch her grade my test right there. If it was good news, I could wait for it. If it was bad news, I could wait even longer for it. “Um, can I—”

Miss Fine didn’t even let me finish or turn around to address me. “No.” She placed the answer key over my answers and pulled a red pen out of nowhere. Both Lindsey and I watched as she made some swift marks on the page.

It felt like forever before she looked up from the sheet. She turned back to me slowly. “Eighty-one percent.”

“Oh.”
Oh no! I made too many of them wrong!
“What does that mean? Did I fail? Did I pass?”

Miss Fine didn’t say anything but Lindsey piped in. “That’s more than passing. That’s in the top percentile of scores, Penny. Congrats!”

“What?”
Oh no, I didn’t make
enough
of them wrong.

“I told you that the you weren’t meant to ace the test but you practically did.” She couldn’t contain herself any longer. She burst from her seat and ran over to give me a hug. “You’re a superstar!”

Miss Fine looked at me with renewed interest. She tapped her red pen on the desk. “Interesting. Very interesting, Penny.”

I didn’t say anything. I had to keep my mouth closed because I had a strong feeling I was about to throw up.

It was after five when Miss Fine finally stop staring at me and I was able to escape. My mom was blowing my phone up, texting to ask if I would be home for dinner, and calling when I didn’t answer. But I was so stunned about everything that had just happened I couldn’t deal with her right then. Instead, I went straight to Audrey’s apartment.

I didn’t even knock when I got there. I just threw opened her door and yelled, “I cheated! I cheated!”

It was only after I finished yelling that I realized that Audrey wasn’t in the room. Instead there was a woman with long dark hair and blue eyes sitting on her couch flipping through a magazine.

We looked each other for a moment and then yelled “Audrey?” at the exact same time, almost as if it were planned.

“What?” Audrey came barreling out of the bedroom wearing a bright yellow-orange dress with puffy sleeves and a shiny fabric. All of the layers swallowed her up. She looked like she was being attacked by a giant grapefruit. Even though I was all concerned about what had just happened, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.

“I’m glad you find this funny. Close the damn door.” Audrey hitched up the humongous yellow orange skirt and sank into the couch.

I shut the door but kept laughing. “You look ridiculous.”

Audrey turned to the lady on the couch. “See? I told you.”

The lady looked annoyed. “It’s nacho cheese. You chose nacho cheese and that was the only nacho cheese dress in the store.”

“I was hungry!” Audrey growled. “I don’t really care about the color of the dress!”

“Who is this, Audrey?” The lady acknowledged me for the first time. By this point, I’d gotten control over my laughter but the sight of Audrey in that big dress was still making me grin like an idiot.

“That’s Penny. She’s this little disadvantaged kid I’m temporarily mentoring. Penny, this is Mellie. She used to be my best friend. Until she made me put on this dress, that is. Now she’s dead to me.”

Mellie ignored the best friend comment. “Who thought that would be a good idea?”

“Hey, I have wisdom to offer the youth of the nation.”

“Like what?”

“Like. . .” she paused to think. “Like, never agree to be a bridesmaid. Ever. No matter how much you like the girl getting married,” she finished with a grin.

Mellie threw a pillow at Audrey. “Take it off. I’m taking it back and I’m going to find a nice dress in a nice shade of yellow and you’ll wear whatever I come up with.”

Audrey stomped back into the room. “See if they have some nice hoodie options.” When she came back with the dress in a garment bag, she handed it to Mellie, they said their goodbyes, and Mellie left. Now that Audrey was back in her usual jeans and t-shirt combo, she was a little less ridiculous. “So what’s up? How did it go today?”

“I cheated.”

“What? How?”

I went over exactly what happened. Audrey’s eyes got big when I told her about the run-in with Lindsey in the elevator and even bigger when I got to the part about seeing the Pisces constellation in my partial answers. By the time I got to the part where I scored in the top percentile, she was practically all eyes and completely speechless.

“I need a beer,” she said when she could finally speak again. When she got back from kitchen, she took a long gulp but still didn’t say anything. She just sat on the couch next to me and looked lost in thought.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Well? What do you think? I’m freaking out!”

“It’s a sign.”

“A sign of what? That I need to cheat?”

“No, that you need to do whatever it takes. That’s what you told me right? That you’ll do whatever it takes?
This
is what it takes.”

“But. . . I don’t know how I feel about all of this lying. My dad wasn’t a liar. I don’t think this is what he wanted.”

“But didn’t he tell you to lie to your mom?”

“No, he said that secrecy was part of the Oath. He didn’t say to lie.”

Audrey shrugged as if I was worried about nothing. “Secret. Omission. Lie. It’s all the same thing. And you need to get used to it if you’re actually ever going to be a Super.”

Over the last week or so, I’d heard a lot of people tell me that maybe Audrey wasn’t the best role model for me. It was finally starting to sink in that it might be true.