Before she'd even taken her coat off on Monday morning she was ready to throttle Luis, if she ever saw him again. Three separate people had tried to encourage her to apply for the job, and by the time Carl had told her what a good idea it would be, she was close to tears. She shut the door of bay three behind her with a sigh of relief.
"So, I hear you're thinking of applying for the apprenticeship," Jason said cheerfully from under the car.
"Oh, go laugh at someone else!" This fresh assault was too much. "Kick some small children or something. I'm not applying, and I can't. Leave me alone."
She'd intended it to make her sound tough and independent. Instead, it came out as a wail of despair. Sam bit her lip hard and forced her voice back to its normal pitch. "What do you want me to do this morning?"
"I've got nothing for you. Go ask Ed." The voice was utterly disinterested.
Sam stared at the dusty race car. "I could clean -"
"I thought your problem was reading, not hearing."
She swallowed hard. No way was she going to show him how much that had hurt. "Okay." One word was all she could manage without choking audibly. Resisting the temptation to slam the door, she took a moment to lean against the wall and calm down. What had she expected? The guy was a race driver, on the way to superstardom if rumour was to be believed. He had more important things to worry about than an illiterate girl who'd discovered far too late that she liked cars.
Ed looked faintly surprised to see her, but at least he didn't comment on her job prospects. He was probably glad she was only here for another four days. The last thing he'd want was some clueless girl applying to work here. Sam sniffled wretchedly under cover of Ed's blaring radio, and settled to cleaning every scrap of grime from car one.
By three o'clock her mind was made up. She wanted this, and as things were, she couldn't have it. The only person here who might have helped her had made it perfectly clear he wasn't interested, and her family would think she'd gone mad. There was only one other person who might have some ideas. Sam pretended a splitting headache - not too far from the truth, after hours of holding back tears - snagged another flyer on the way out, and by four o'clock was standing at the door of the school careers office, still with no real idea what she was going to say, knowing only that she was in desperate need of some of that advice they were forever advertising.
Dr Allen frowned at her over the top of his glasses. "I take it there's a problem with your placement? I was a little surprised at your choice, I must admit."
Sam gulped, folding and unfolding the paper in her hands. She'd thought it would be easier once she was actually here. Instead, she wanted the floor to open up.
"There's no problem. The opposite. I like it there. I want to stay, and there's this job, and..." Her throat closed, and she wordlessly handed over the crumpled leaflet.
She'd have given anything at all for the ability to scan through it in thirty seconds the way he did.
"And you've finally realised what your teachers have been trying to tell you all along. That this boring academic stuff actually has a purpose." He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Without them, he almost looked human, and there was sympathetic understanding in his face. "There's no way to bring your GPA up to their requirement before you graduate. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. I won't lie on your assessments, and I doubt very much that your other teachers will, either."
Sam bit her lip again, only then realising how sore it already was. It didn't help. A hot tear trickled down either side of her nose, and she fumbled miserably for a tissue even as she got up to go. All she could hope for now was that this didn't get out.
"But there is a possibility, in this last paragraph." He frowned again at her blank look. "See here."
Sam leaned obediently across. "I'm not sure I quite understand it. The language is a bit technical." That was always a safe thing to say, especially when the words were that long.
Dr Allen cleared his throat. "Sam, I'm going to say something off the record. I'd like you to sit and listen until I finish. Will you do that?"
Sam nodded, mind numb.
The man laid his glasses on the table. He was, Sam realised with surprise, nervous about what he was going to say. And not nearly as old as she'd always assumed. Certainly he was younger than Ed.
"I don't think you're stupid. I do think that you're illiterate, or nearly so. I'm presuming that you have an undiagnosed condition. Dyslexia, or something like it. If that's so, a big organisation like ISO is required to take it into consideration. If you promise me you'll admit it and get help, I'll help you to fill in the forms with all the right exemption references."
Sam couldn't have moved if she'd tried. "If I ask for help now, they won't let me graduate."
"Which is why, still off the record, I'm going to suggest that you wait three months and sign up for adult classes. I would like to know how it's got this far without being picked up, though."
Sam swallowed. She hated to blame anyone else - it was, after all, her problem, and she could have admitted to it any time she wanted - but why hadn't her parents done something? Her mom knew exactly how bad it was. Why hadn't they had her tested, or in a special program, or something?
Well, maybe they thought she was stupid too. It wasn't like her school reports had given them reason to think anything else.
"I don't know. I guess everyone thought I was too stupid to learn. Me too."
"If you can hide being illiterate for this long, you're certainly not stupid."
That made two people who had told her that. Was it possible they had a point?
He smiled at her - something Sam found really rather disconcerting. "Get the application forms tomorrow, and bring them here when you finish work. I'm presuming you weren't supposed to finish at three?"
Sam flushed. "No. Five."
"Then I'll see you as soon after that as you can make it."
She made it by five-thirty, thanks to some sprinting between buses, her best blonde smile to get one of the drivers to let her on after he'd started to pull away, and a good slice of luck. Jason had been missing all day, which had saved her an unpleasant encounter, and she'd picked up a set of application forms from the board by the entrance ('Please give one to anyone suitable you know') without being noticed. The world seemed an altogether better place.
Dr Allen had been true to his word. There was a whole pile of exemption forms to fill in, most of which Sam didn't think she would have understood even had she been able to read them. He didn't comment, simply started with the top one, explained everything to her, wrote in her answers, and gave it to her to sign. Then the next, and the next.
The last one, the application form itself, he gave to her. "This one you do need to write yourself."
Sam nodded cheerfully, dying inside. Fill this one in herself? What possible hope would she have?
Dr Allen continued. "All these other forms ask for dispensation from academic requirements. But - to put it bluntly - you need to show them, honestly, what level you're at. And do everything you can to impress them for the rest of the week. I can't promise you a brilliant reference, but it will be fair. Just tell me one thing - how long have you been interested in motor racing?"
"Oh - I'm not sure," she evaded.
"Not sure whether it's five days, or six?"
Sam choked in defeat. "About that."
"Then - how sure are you? Sam, I've taught you for years. I've spoken with your parents many times. You've wanted to go into beauty for, what, five years?"
She looked at the floor.
"They'll ask you this, Sam. You need a good answer. The truth would be far and away the best one. I don't think it's that you've decided being around the hunky guys is cool, but a lot of people will and it may include some of the people involved in shortlisting."
"I..." She stopped, gulped, and started again. "Did you ever have one of those moments of total clarity? That you were going down the wrong path, and this was your last chance to put it right? I realised I love doing what I'm doing at ISO Racing, and I want...I want to do it better. Much better. I want to learn to read properly, so I can be useful."
Dr Allen smiled, and prodded the paper she clutched. "That's what you need to put on there. No dissimulation. No pretending you've wanted to do this since you were three. Be honest about it."
Honest. Fill in a form saying exactly what she could and couldn't do, and how she felt about it.
Well, if it didn't work, it didn't work. She couldn't pretend her way out of this one. Just this once, she'd try it.