AN~ I went to my camp reunion today, and it was AMAZING! EDIT: Has been spellchecked.
The next morning passed by in a flurry of hugs, kisses, and stories of what had happened in the two weeks Sabrina had been in New York City. There was an excess of odd food, a few pieces of normal, more edible consumables, and a general air of all-around cheer. It passed too quickly,as good things often do, and after lunch the leaders of all the everafter groups not on the side of the Scarlet Hand piled into the Grimm's living room.
Charming greeted them and made speeches, Snow explained about the school and the need for all the child-age everafters to enroll, named the placement testing date (August fifteenth), and requested that the information be relayed to all other everafters, and then they got down to planning out the mechanics of fitting a thousand or so more people into Ferryport Landing.
Sabrina left around then, along with the rest of the household children, bored by the new topic of conversation. They'd make them fit, somehow, and she was done being a leader for now. Besides, the testing date had made her panic. August fifteenth wasn't even four weeks away.
"You look stressed." Daphne noted.
Sabrina gave her a Look. "I have four weeks to figure out how to prove I'm educated beyond the fifth grade. And how to get Puck up to the same level. Yeah, I'm a little stressed."
"I'd concentrate on Puck." Daphne said. "Get him up to your level, then work on getting past that together. Then at least you'll have your protection in school. I assume that's why you want him around?"
"Yeah." Sabrina quirked a half smile. "That's a good idea, Daph. You need help with anything?"
"Nah." Daphne shook her head. "I'll be going into second grade. What do you learn in first grade? Adding and how to read? I can do both of those, easy."
"What about subtracting?"
"I'll be fine." Daphne said. "Worry about yourself."
"Thanks." Sabrina smiled gratefully. "I've got enough on my plate as it is."
"I figured." Daphne smiled back. "With school and being an everafter now and friends and all that."
"Yeah." Sabrina said. "Now, I'm going to go fine Puck and try to get him to sit down to learn this stuff. Does Red need help?"
"Acutally," Daphne said thoughtfully, "I think she does. Let's teach them together! It'll be like playing school!"
"...Right." Sabrina said, and trotted off to find Puck, wondering if she should warn him about what he was in for.
Nah. She decided. She wanted to see his face.
It was pretty funny, Puck's expression when he discovered that Daphne wanted him to play school in the girl's room.
"No." He said, fighting Daphne's pull on his arm easily. "I don't play school. Why anyone would want to reenact torture for fun?"
"Dunno." Sabrina said, getting up to help Daphne, "But you have to learn this stuff sometime, and it might as well be now. I seriously don't want you too far below me."
"But I'm stupid!" Puck fought for a last excuse, grabbing the doorframe. "I can't learn it, so there's no use trying!"
Sabrina stopped. "You seriously think you're stupid?"
"Everyone said so." Puck said. "Even my mom, and she was the nicest to me."
"Mustardseed called you stupid?" Sabrina raised an eyebrow.
"Not in so many words." Puck said. "But he said something about not applying myself and... yeah."
"You're not stupid." Sabrina said. "You're lazy, and annoying, and undereducated, and unfocused, but nobody stupid could design pranks like yours. You just need to, like Mustardseed said, apply yourself."
"Come on, Puck!" Daphne whined. "It'll be fun!"
Puck gave in with a sigh, letting go of the doorframe and practically landing on top of Daphne, who had still been tugging on his other arm.
The children began three weeks of intensive studying then, teaching each other and themselves, sometimes being taught by a free adult, or anyone else who knew something more than they did about math, or science, or english, or history.
It quickly became apparent that Puck wasn't stupid, and was exceptionally good at all things relating to mathematics. He caught up to Sabrina in half the time they had, and spent the rest of the time forging ahead on his own, teaching Sabrina what he'd learned on his own so that they were still on the same level, and helping Red, who struggled horribly with math, catch up to Daphne. He wasn't a patient teacher.
Red didn't seem to be much good at any schoolwork, but she was up to Daphne's level by the time the tests came around, even if she did have to struggle to get there, especially in math.
Sabrina and Daphne were both very good at English, and Daphne had a head for other languages. Sabrina ended up trying to be the patient teacher she saw in Snow for the other kids, showing them the finer points of passing English, and attempting not to be too sharp with Red when she got adverbs and adjectives confused, or when Puck misspelled something, or Daphne asked for another definition.
And then the testing date was upon of them.
They were all piled into Henry's car, heading for the school, when it sunk into Sabrina's head that they were actually going to take the placement test in less than an hour.
"Oh my gosh." She muttered, her breath coming quicker. "I'm going to fail. They'll put me in all the stupid people classes and I'll have to learn everything all over again and I won't graduate until I'm thirty and I won't learn any of the stuff I need to and then the war will come and I'll die."
"Chill, Sabrina." Daphne said. "You'll be fine."
"Grimm, you're getting hysterical." Puck said, scooting away from her on the backseat.
Red, in the far back of the minivan with Daphne, looked on worriedly, then stuck a hand on Sabrina's shoulder comfortingly. They shared a look of understanding, both of them terrified of failing.
The only voice to break through the rapidly rising panic in Sabrina's throat was her father's.
"Sabrina." He said. "You've been studying for weeks. You've made every possible preparation. Panicking won't help at all. In fact, it will probably make things much worse. Now calm down and do your best, and it will work out."
Sabrina took a deep breath, nodded, and stepped out of the car. "Right." She said. "Here goes."
"Good luck!" Henry called, driving off to bide the time until the test was over elsewhere.
The five children piled into the school, which looked no different from the other buildings except that it had a sign that said 'White's School for the Gifted."
"Impressive." Sabrina said. "Am I gifted?"
"You can catch people on fire." Daphne said. "I think it's a way of showing there are everafters here without ordinary people making a fuss."
"Probably." Bella said, sitting down.
Sabrina took a moment to look around the room. There were maybe two hundred everafters between the physical ages of six and seventeen in the large room that took up most of the first floor and was apparently a combination gym, cafeteria, and auditorium. There were doors on the right wall that led to the administrative offices, the kitchen, the bathrooms, and the stairs, and the left wall was lined with windows and heavy drapes.
Snow, Miss Muffet, the Beast, Rumplestiltskin, Ms. Smirt, and Mr. Hamelin were all standing on the stage on toe far side of the room. Snow held a microphone, Ms. Smirt pencils, Mr. Hamelin and Miss Muffet each held part of one stack of booklets, and the Beast and Rumpelstiltskin parts of another stack.
"What's that?" Puck asked, nodding to the stuff as a few more kids entered the room.
"Standardized testing materials." Sabrina said. "We each get one of each booklet and two pencils, then we do what Snow says."
They waited for a while longer as more students filed in. Sabrina stared. She hadn't realized just how many child everafters and children of everafters there were, and the crowd in the room surprised her. Finally, Snow had apparently decided everyone was there, because she spoke into the microphone.
"Hello everyone!"
Surprisingly, they all quieted down almost immediately.
Snow blinked, then smiled. "Right. I'd like to start off by asking you to move yourselves so that you have an empty seat to either side of you."
There was a brief scuffle as the students to be did so, then they settled down again. The teachers left the stage and began passing out materials.
"Thank you." Snow said. "Now, the teachers are passing out the stuff you need to take the tests Normally, I'd tell you to wait and fill it out as per the directions, but we're not comparing to any other school, so fill out the front once you get the materials, but don't open the test until I say to."
The kids did so, and after an excessively long time, Snow continued.
"Answer whatever questions you can, skip the ones you don't know, come back to them if there's time. Don't worry if you can't answer one, your score won't change drastically because of it. Check your work, get a teacher if you need your pencil sharpened. We'll break for lunch at twelve. Open your test booklets. And... Begin!"
With a scrabble of pencils, they did. The test wasn't as hard as Sabrina thought it would be, separated by grade level, beginning with things a kindergartener would know, and working up to things higher grade levels might have trouble with. She spent almost no time on any of the sections up until third grade, finishing them all in less than half an hour. Third and fourth grades made her think a little, but were still easy, and she had them finished in less than an hour each. She was part of the way through the fifth grade work when Snow spoke again.
"Pencils down." She waited until everyone had complied before continuing, "Place your answer booklets inside your test folders at the page you are on, then close your test folders and place them under your chair. We will have a half an hour break for lunch before starting again. I won't stop you from talking, but please don't cheat."
Sabrina switched her test booklet for her lunch under her chair, dumping the contents of her brown bag onto the table. She ate most of the food quickly, ignoring the others around her, surprised at how hungry she was. After all, she'd just been sitting there the whole time. Once she finished, she looked around her, noticing for the first time who else was sitting at the large round table with her. Daphne, Bella, and Wendell were also at the table, Bella and Wendell looking at each other as if they weren't sure whether or not to say anything, Daphne leaning across to the table behind her to whisper quietly in Red's ear. Red, sitting at a table with Puck, Mustardseed, and Renee, just nodded, looking exhausted. Mustardseed and Renee were talking, and Puck was also leaning towards another table, muttering with Jonas and Art, who sat behind him at a table with two everafters Sabrina didn't know. She found it a little strange that all but two of the kids in the room that she knew were sitting together, but then she remembered a series of events where she and her friends maneuvered their way into sitting near each other against all odds in elementary school, and decided it wasn't that odd after all.
Before she had a chance to actually speak, though, Snow was calling for them to get their tests back out and begin.
The afternoon was harder. Fifth grade work, while underneath her level, took her until one o' clock to finish, and sixth grade took her over an hour. Once she was up to seventh grade work, she stopped trying to finish every problem and just skimmed, answering what she knew. She did that through the rest of the test, finishing most of the English problems, a very few of the math ones, and some of the history ones, but almost none of the science problems. When Snow told them to stop at three o'clock, Sabrina felt that she'd used her time well and her fears of beng placed in a lower-grade class were unfounded.
"That was hard!" Daphne whined on the way out to the car. "I could only answer any questions through the third grade level, and that took me most of the day!"
"I didn't even get that far." Red whispered. "I don't think I did very well."
"I think I did all right on history and math." Puck said. "I just looked through the test for stuff that I knew and answered those. Then it was time to go."
"I think I did well." Bella said. "I didn't know much past sixth grade. How do you think you did, Sabrina?"
"Fine." Sabrina said. "English was the easiest, but all the math stuff I knew past fifth I learned from Puck."
"He's really good at math, had anyone else noticed?" Daphne said.
"Marshmallow, I'm right here." Puck said, rolling his eyes and climbing into the car.
"How was the testing?" Henry asked.
"Hard!" Daphne said vehemently.
"Not too bad, for those of us over eight." Sabrina said. "How soon are we going to get the results, do you know?"
"Snow estimated two weeks." Henry replied. "It might be sooner if she can get help grading. A hundred test in a week is a lot for one person."
"More." Daphne said. "There were definitely more than two hundred people testing there."
"Two hundred and seventeen." Red whispered. "Twelve of them are the children of other everafters, and Sabrina and Daphne were the only humans. There are two hundred and three everafters that look younger than eighteen."
"So that means she has to grade about sixteen tests per day." Puck said. "I hope she gets help."
"That was fast." Bella said.
"I told you people, he's really good at math!" Daphne exclaimed.
"Right." Sabrina said. "And we know, but that was still pretty fast."
"Thank you." Puck grinned, mock bowing.
Sabrina rolled her eyes. "Do we get our schedules when we get our results?" She asked her dad.
"No, the schedules come two days before school starts."
"When does school start?" Daphne asked.
"The fifth." Sabrina said.
"That's three weeks from now!" Bella wailed. "And I haven't gone back to school shopping or anything!"
"Calm down." Henry said. "I'm sure mom will take you all shopping soon, and we have stuff at home you can use, too."
"But that's not new!" Bella said. "And I was kind of talking about clothes."
Sabrina rolled her eyes. "Not school supplies?"
"No." Bella said. "No offense Sabrina, but your clothes just don't fit me right. We're not built the same way."
"I've noticed." Sabrina said dryly, eyeing Bella's extraordinarily curvy (for a twelve-year-old) figure, and comparing it to her own slight form. "I guess I don't really blame you, then."
"I need new clothes, too." Daphne said. "All of mine are too small." She poked her leg forward so that Sabrina could see it, revealing a stretch of ankle between her jeans and her shoe.
"And so are Puck's." Red said quietly.
"Puck's clothes are a wreck." Sabrina said. "They've needed to be replaced ever since I met him."
"I like them this way!" Puck protested. "They're worn in!"
"They're half destroyed, and I can see three inches of leg between your socks and your pants." Sabrina said. "It's time for new clothes. We'll talk to Granny when we get home."
And that was the end of the discussion.
They returned home, ate dinner, and went to bed after talking to Granny about clothes shopping, which they decided to do the next day. All of them fell asleep almost immediately, worn out by the testing.
Sabrina didn't even take time to write in her journals or read anyone else's, dropping into bed like a stone and staying firmly there until morning, dreaming of flying clothes with wings made of standardized tests floating with giant jellyfish in clouds of pink cotton balls .
When she woke up the next morning and Daphne told her she'd talked in her sleep, they both had a long laugh. Then they went downstairs and ate breakfast before piling into the minivan again with Bella, Granny, Uncle Jake, Puck, and Red to go back-to-school shopping.