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Chapter 2 Part 1

I awake to the sound of light music playing over the speakers. I look at the clock on the wall and it reads exactly 08:00. I crawl out of bed and try to wipe the sleep out of my eyes. I make my bed quietly and notice Caroline still snoring. I gently shake her awake, and she jumps out of bed and thanks me for getting her up. We all change into our identical uniforms and grab our clean clothes and replace them with our night clothes.

Caroline and I walk down the hall and out to the dinning hall. The line has already wrapped halfway around the large room. " So what do we have first today?" Caroline asks. I reach into my small drawstring bag and pull out my schedule and take a look. "We have the personality test after breakfast and then we have Etiquette testing after lunch. So we need to find building 3 first, and then building 6" I reply to her as we get to the trays. For breakfast we have scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, fruit, oats, and juice. We grab our trays and Caroline follows me outside to the table under the same maple tree which I sat last night. We both eat quickly and then sit and talk waiting for the warning bell. I look up towards the dining hall as Caroline is talking about her friends at school who missed the cut off for testing this year. Walking toward us is Ryan.

Caroline notices me looking and looks in the same direction. "Who is that gorgeous man?" Caroline says, looking at me. All of a sudden I feel my cheeks start to get warm and I know they are bright red. "Ohhh you know him don't you? Is he from your hometown? Did you meet him here? Tell me all the details!" Caroline says quietly as he approaches, I nudge her with my elbow and hastily whisper later as he walks up.

"Hello mystery girl, mystery girls friend. How are you both this morning" He asks as he sits across from me. I can feel myself blushing again. I smile and reply "We are doing pretty great."

"Can I finally learn your name, mystery girl?" he says while giving me a sideways grin.

"I guess you can know, I told you that if you found me I would tell you. My name is Miara. This is Caroline, she is my bunkmate. What group are you in Ryan? We are in group C." I ask, trying not to seem hopeful. He puts on a puppy dog face and says he's group B.The Announcement comes across saying that we need to return our trays and head to our first assessment. We stand up and Ryan walks along with us, Caroline smiles and says she has to run to the restroom but will meet me at building 3, she turns and I see her wink at me. "So maybe since I can't see you during assessments maybe I can see you at lunch?" He asks me as we put our trays in the return.

"I would like that. I'll meet you at the table after assessments." I told him. He smiles and turns and heads to his assessment. I feel the excitement building up in me as I follow the signs to building 3. I walk up to the huge three story building and see Caroline waiting outside. We walk in and up to the table inside the doors. They take our names and tell us to go to the auditorium on floor 1. We follow the flow of other participants to the auditorium. Once everyone settles a small round man with circular glasses steps up to the podium and begins to speak.

"Hello everyone, and welcome to your personality testing. Today you will be going to several different rooms, some will be situational and will show us how you would react in a certain situation. The other will be a written test, just to assess your personality. Please listen carefully, I am going to be telling you where to go. Each group will be going to a different area of the building and we will have proctors who will be running the same scenario or test in multiple rooms. Anyone with the last name starting with A-D please proceed behind Mrs. Allerton who is waiving the red flag. Last name E-H please proceed behind Mr. Jackson who is waiving the green flag." As he continues speaking I see Caroline stand and follow Mr. Jackson, she looks at me and smiles and tells me good luck. I turn back to the front as the man keeps speaking. "Last name M-P, please proceed behind Mrs. Callican who is waving the yellow flag. Last name is Q-T, Please proceed behind Mrs. Evans who is waving the blue flag." I stand and walk to the back of the auditorium and into the hall. Mrs. Evans leads us upstairs and to the third floor and we are all told to take a seat in one of 8 different class rooms and wait till we are called upon.

A few minutes go by and then slowly people start being called out to other rooms. I sit and fidget with my bracelet about 20 minutes later the people who had been called out return and more take their places. I watch the clock and finally thirty minutes later another group comes back in and I hear "Saviant, Miara room 306 please." I quickly stood up and walked out the door and headed to the room I was directed to.

I take a deep breath as I meet a woman at the door. She nods at me and I stop in front of the door. "Hello Ms. Saviant, this will be your first scenario, first I just want to tell you how this works. What is going to happen is you will walk inside and you will be faced with a set of choices and situations. Please make your choices. And once the scenario is complete you will be instructed to go to the next room. Please take a few minutes to prepare yourself and proceed into the room." I nod and take a deep breath and pull the door open.

Stepping inside the room I see a table with a piece of paper that says read allowed and make your choice. So I read "You are working overtime during your selected profession and you are walking home after work. You find a card on the ground and you see it is an allotment card for 3 extra weeks of food that could feed your whole family. You suddenly realize that you are hungry and you have to decide what to do. You take the card to the police station and they tell you it can not be identified who it belonged to so it is yours to keep. You can choose to take the allotments and use them for your family or you can leave them with the police. What is your choice?" I think for a second and think about what my mother would want me to do in that situation.

" I would leave the card with the police but I would also survey the area in where I found it to see if anyone would be searching for it and let them know I turned it into the authorities." I said with confidence. "Thank you Ms. Saviant. Please go across the hall to room 7." I nod and head out of the room and across the hall. It is set up to look like a sidewalk outside of a food market. A proctor walks up and reads the following directions. "Hello Ms. Saviant, you have just finished your food shopping and are walking home to make dinner for your family. Please show what you would do in the coming situation." I nod and take the food bags from the proctor and walk over in front of the 'food market', a little girl walks out from beside the food market with a small bag of groceries. All of the sudden a grown man runs up, and yanks the bag of food and knocks her to the ground and runs away.

I run up and help the crying little girl off the ground. She is screaming and crying. I yell back to the market, "Call the police, a young girl was mugged!" I take my jacket off and wrap it around her small frame and hug her to my body. "You are okay sweetie." I say to her as I smooth her hair.

"Those were all of our allotments for this week. My sissy is so hungry, I am so hungry." she says between sobs. I look down at my food bag. I take my bags and hand them to the little girl and tell her "You will not be hungry anymore sweetie. It will all be okay, we are going to wait for the police to tell them what happened and then you are going to take this food bag and go home and fix you and your sister something to eat."

"Thank you Ms. Saviant you are finished." the proctor says loudly. I look up just then remembering this is a simulation not real life. I wipe my tears from my face and walk back out to the hall and down to the sitting room.

I sit down and wait. An hour later Mrs. Evans returns and takes us down to a very large room on the second floor that everyone fits in. We all take a seat at a small desk that has a stapled set of papers and two pencils. The proctor walks in and starts speaking "Hello everyone, this is the written part of your personality test. Please answer all the questions honestly. When you are finished quietly bring your papers to the front and you may leave and go ahead to lunch. Now please begin." I flip the pages over and answer the questions honestly and quickly in order to go to lunch. Once I finish I walk my test up to the front and head back out of the building.

Walking into the auditorium I see people walking in all talking about their assessments. The clock above the doorway reads 11:26, and I realized I finished my rotation early. I put my head down and head through the line and get my tray. I read the menu for lunch and it reads "Roasted Turkey with mashed potatoes, corn, turkey gravy, rolls and fizzy soda." I head to my normal table under the maple tree and eat. I finish eating and wait for a few minutes to see if Caroline and Ryan show up, but their testing must have taken longer to complete.

I get up and return my tray and realize I have a little over an hour until my second rotation. I take my time and walk to the dormitory. I get into my room and no one is there. I decide to use my hour to go ahead and take a quick nap.