We walked into a room completely made of white. White tiles, white seats, white desks, and a white clock. Standing right inside the door was Jeanine, dressed in a white dress with a blue scarf. She was looking at us in a searching way, as if looking for telltale signs of idiocy.
"Everyone take a seat." She said in her calm, clear voice. It gave me shivers as I sat down. "Good. Now we know you can at least follow directions. Write your name on this paper." She gestures towards the pencils and papers on our desks. As we all do so, Jeanine explained what our task was.
"Welcome to the Erudite, the faction of knowledge. I will be giving you a taste of what the Initiation is about. Every other week for a year, I will administer a quiz to check your progress. If at any time your intellectual growth pauses or reverses, it will result in immediate ejection from the premises. This shall be a practice run, as I previously stated, to give you a taste of what I'm looking for." She pauses and turns to the clock. I swivel in my seat to look at Kendal, who was standing near the door. He smiled and mouthed out, "It is easy! You will do fine.". I nodded in fear.
"Now," barked Jeanine. "number your paper one through ten." We all did so. "Now I start with the questions." I took a deep breath and sat there, pencil in hand. "Number one: 72+28-10*3." I looked down at the equation written on my paper. Start with multiplication, then add and subtract from left to right...
I wrote my answer of 70 down on the paper. The questions continued to be fired at us, one by one. On the tenth question, Jeanine started announcing for us all to pass our papers forward. I handed mine to the boy in front of me, confident in my answers. Once the flutter of moving papers had ceased, Jeanine turned to face us once again.
"Congratulations. You are all one step closer to becoming a member of the Erudite." She paused and gestured for Kendal to join her in front of us. "This is Kendal, a recent transfer just like yourselves. He will be your...tutor...so to speak. Kendal will be here to assist you in your journey toward enlightenment. He knows this compound inside out and was the initiate with the highest I.Q. in his class. I would highly suggest you use his help. After all, not all of you know how to learn." Her eyes landed on mine with her final words. "Now...go."
And we all got up and left.