Chapter 36~Anna

Emma and I sat by ourselves in a classroom. We had been given 45 minutes to complete the test. Which was not anything cool or imaginative; it was just a plain, boring intelligence test. My sprained arm felt numb, and my ankle didn't have much feeling either, but it was better than feeling like I was burning in agony. The first few questions were simple and I got them straight away, but as I moved through the test I found that I had to re-read the questions more than once to even understand them. I may be a straight A student, but nobody's perfect.

I answered almost all of the questions, but I'm not entirely sure if I got any of them right.

Emma looked worried too, so I guessed she hadn't exactly breezed through it either. We were shown the cafeteria and we went to grab something to eat.

The food was delicious, and I ate all of mine as well as half of Emma's, since she seemed to have lost her appetite.

"I wonder what we've got to do next," She told me.

I shrugged, "Well… the first test had some excitement, so points to that, but the second one was somewhat lacking in the imaginative, exciting and cool department… hmm… that means that the next one will not be an every day test, since we've had one already,"

Emma stared at me, as if to say; Oh my God, you weirdo, Anna.

And I stared right back in a way that said; Takes one to know one, so get over it, Emma.

She grinned.

Emma went into Mac's office first. We were told we'd have to go in one at a time to complete the test. While I waited I looked for signs to tell me whereabouts CHERUB was, but nothing really helped. It kept me amused for long enough either way, and by the time I was called into Mac's office, I had found that the receptionist kept a packet of breath mints in the third draw down from her desk, she was very good at being busy doing nothing, and her middle name was Mazy. Ok, I made up the last fact, but still!

I walked into the room and saw Mac sitting behind his desk with a chicken in a cage on top of it.

I sat down on the opposite side of the desk.

"Anna," Mac said, "I want you to kill the chicken,"

I raised my eyebrows. "No way, why should I?" I wasn't going to kill a chicken for no reason. It was wrong.

Mac shrugged, "Because you'll pass the test if you do,"

I frowned, "Dude, just because I want to join CHERUB, does not mean I am going to give up all my morals and kill an innocent animal,"

"So, you're a vegetarian then?" Mac asked.

"No," I replied curtly.

"Then you are killing innocent animals Anna," Mac pointed out.

"But the meat I eat is already dead, and there's nothing I can do to help a dead animal, is there, but this chicken is alive, and I can do something to keep it that way, so that's what I'm doing,"

"Even if it means you won't get to join CHERUB?" Mac asked.

"Mac," I said patronizingly, "Two things; like I said before, I am not dropping all my morals to join CHERUB, and, you said yourself that if I pass the majority of the test then I would get in, not if I failed this specific test, so there,"

Mac smiled, "Ok then Anna, you don't have to kill the chicken. Let's move on to the next test,"

The next test, as it turned out, was an obstacle course. I know what you're thinking; wow, an obstacle course, big deal, that's going to be pipsqueak. Yeah, well, this obstacle course was about 50 feet off the ground. Emma was waiting for us there, and she looked nervous. I remembered how scared she was when we were 8 and we'd gone to one of those tree-climbing places a few years ago, and she'd ended up getting stuck, 30 metres in the air, on the zip wire. It had taken almost half an hour to get her down, and she'd not gone on any of the courses again.

I smiled at her sympathetically.

There were two beefy sixteen-year-old guys next to her.

"This is Paul and Arif, they're here to help you across the course," Mac introduced them.

We set off up the ladder of doom. We got half way there before Emma's fear got the better of her.

"Oh God!" She muttered, "I can't! I can't do it Anna!" She looked really scared and was glancing nervously at the ground.

I groaned, "Don't look at the ground doofus! Have all those corny movies taught you nothing!"

Emma smiled faintly and stopped looking at the ground, but still refused to carry on. Paul and Arif seemed to understand that I wanted to at least try to convince her to carry on.

"Look, Emma, we're halfway across now, if we turn back, we'll have to go the same distance to get down again, and it'll be harder because this was designed to go only one way. We can't get off here, so we gotta get to the end, c'mon man!"

Eventually, Emma got moving again, and I took her space at the front so that I could help her with the harder parts.

When they got to the part where the planks were spaced further and further apart, I was wearing out fast; my arm and ankle were really hurting now, and having to help Emma through it all was not exactly easy either.

I made the last jump easily enough, keeping my head straight forward at all times so I didn't look down; it would just suck to wimp out right before the end, and if I wimped out, so would Emma.

Emma took a little more encouraging to get across and she had to screw up her eyes and make the jump blind so she wouldn't chicken out.

I looked over the edge of the final platform.

"We gotta jump down?" I asked curiously.

Paul nodded and Arif demonstrated by chucking himself off. Emma went white and backed away from the edge.

"Ok, I'll go first then," I muttered.

I took a deep breath and stepped off the platform.


Chapter 37~Emma

She hung in the air for just a moment, like those cartoon characters that chase each other off cliffs; they just stand in the air for about a minute, and then fall. Anna looked perfectly relaxed and she hit the mat underneath with a dull thud.

"Emma, get your butt down here now, or I'm gonna climb over the whole course again to come push you off!" She shouted at me.

I looked at the edge and felt the blood drain from my face again. I remembered being stuck on the zip wire, clinging on to the harness for dear life, the ground looking much further than 30 metres. Even at the age of 8, I'd known that if I fell 30 metres I would have more than a bruise for a souvenir.

I bit my lip and forced myself out of the memory. You are not afraid of heights, Emma, I thought, do not be a wimp, your younger sister can jump off this, so you can too.

I jumped forward and felt the wind flying through my hair, tugging at my loose shorts and t-shirt. The small branches ripped at my arms and left tiny cuts, but it wasn't so bad. I bent my knees and braced myself to fall onto the mat.

The impact made my whole body shake and it took several seconds before I could move without trembling. I hopped of the mat and shouted up, "Clear!"

"Ok you two, the final test," Mac called from the end of the pool. "I want you to jump in, rescue the brick and swim to this end of the pool,"

I looked down at the clear water and bit my lip. We had gone swimming at school, so both of us could swim some form of front crawl, but it would be harder if we had to collect a brick and swim with it.

"Ok, I'll try it," Anna declared.

Before we could say anything else, she jumped in. No fancy dive or anything, just straight in and under. I followed her from the side of the pool. She collected the brick without too much hassle, and managed her breathing ok, but when she got about three quarters of the way there, she started struggling. She accidentally breathed in some water, and had to tread water for a minute to cough it up. When she could breathe properly, she set off again, but a lot slower than before.

When she got to the other end, she hauled herself up and sat at the other end.

"Well, I can't exactly say that was a great experience, but at least I know I can swim the length of a pool!"

I rolled my eyes; Anna would be willing to try anything as long as it was different.

"I think I'll leave this one, I was never as good as Anna," I told Mac.

Anna snorted and made her way over to my side of the pool.

"Dude, you were way better, you just don't like taking unnecessary risks," She told me.

"Well," Mac began once we- or at least Anna- were nice and dry again, "both of you did extremely well on the first test. You did tell us that you had been to karate lessons a few years ago, but I expected that you would have grown unused to the techniques you used,"

Anna raised an eyebrow mockingly, but didn't say anything.

"The second test was above an average teenager's, so, again, you passed. Now, the third test. Both of you refused to kill the chicken, so you passed,"

"What would have happened if we did kill the chicken?" I asked, out of curiosity.

"If you killed the chicken straight away, you would have passed, but if you'd got upset over it, then you would have failed. Anna past the fourth test with ease, but, unfortunately, Emma, you scored a low pass. If your sister hadn't been there, I think you probably would have given up. Fortunately, you did eventually finish the course, so you have still passed,"

I let out a sigh of relief. I was worried that I'd blown our chances of getting into CHERUB by chickening out on the assault course.

"Emma, you passed the final test because you knew when to back down from something. You didn't think you could swim the length of the pool, so you didn't try. Anna on the other hand…"

"Jumped in and almost drowned!" My sister broke in, grinning, "Well, you gotta take some risks in life, because what's the point having one if you spend it doing nothing?"

"Yes well, we're giving you a low pass, because although you succeeded in getting the brick, you, as you just said, 'almost drowned',"

My sister shrugged, and I wondered whether she got her luck and sheer craziness from Mum or Dad. Or from watching people in movies doing idiotic, impossible stunts and actually pulling them off.

"So, I'm happy to offer you a place at CHERUB. You will be driven back to Harrison Care Home for Kids and you can give me your answer within two days," Mac said.