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3. First Round
When we arrive to somewhere – they do not tell me where the 'somewhere' is – they let me unpack my things and take me and I-Chaya to another room.
It's big and white and empty. Only three chairs and a desk are there. They say I'm to be tested first and I can't help but feel sad. Every time someone puts tests on me, they start to act strange, mother cries, father's eyebrows are lower and the servants whisper between themselves, stopping only when I come near.
Doctor Corrigan gives me some pictures, asking me what I see in them. I'm scared that if I don't tell him right, he and Healer Sorel will think me failure and I will never get the chance to be smart. I want to be smart. I want mother smiling and father saying something.
But all I can see in the pictures are the ink splotches.
I try to look at them from different angles – but they still look like splotches. "It looks like ink splotch," I say.
Doctor Corrigan and Healer Sorel look at each other before the Doctor shows me another picture. "Ink splotch," I say again. Again. And again.
Then they present me pictures of people. Two Vulcans looking at each other. Three Terrans laughing – mother laughed sometimes, but not too often. Animals. Vulcan woman playing lyre. Terran woman in a golden robe, one of her hands on her chest, the other one raised in front of her.
"Tell me about the people in the pictures, Spock," said Doctor. I gulped audibly. Whenever the Teacher tried to create poems with rest of the class, I never came up with anything – much to my classmates' a-mu-se-ment. And we had more than few pictures to create with.
"I do not know anything about these people, Doctor," I say. "I would be lying, if I said anything about them. Vulcans do not lie."
They continue with testing some more days. I do not know how long. Splotches, stories, writing exercises (which I'm afraid of because I always get them wrong). Every time they say it's enough tests for one day, I curl next to I-Chaya, trying not to cry, when I return to our room.
I wish mother was here. She would know what to say.