Gifted and Talented

Chapter 2, Examinations

That weekend, Cara's mother and brother said goodbye to Cara as she boarded a plane for the first time. After being directed to her seat in first class by a flight attendant, Cara put in her headphones and started the one thousand song playlist she had compiled the previous night. As the plane took off, Cara closed her eyes and tried to not think about how high up she was.
Five hours later the plane landed, at 4 pm Los Angeles time. A blue van was supposed to be waiting for Cara and the other tenth grade applicants outside of terminal B, Cara headed in that direction.
"Excuse me?"
Cara stopped walking and turned around, "How can I help you?"
A boy with sandy blond hair and freckles walked over to Cara.
"Do you know how to get to terminal B?" He asked.
"I'm going there myself, just stick with me," Cara responded.
After reaching the exit of terminal B, they both approached the green van waiting on the curb.
The boy turned and looked at Cara. "Wait, you got invited to Reed too?"
Cara nodded.
The boy stuck out his hand, "I'm Zach."
Cara shook it, "I'm Cara."
They climbed into the van and conversed with the eleven other applicants on their way to the exam. Teenagers in ninth and tenth grade had come from all over the country for this test. One girl, Piper lived on a farm in Kansas. A boy named Brian lived in Alaska with his twelve younger siblings. Another girl, Francesca, lived in a mansion in South Carolina. All of them had either gotten calls, texts, emails, or letters inviting them to take the test.
Suddenly, the van came to an abrupt halt at a dead end.

Piper called to the driver, "Do you want directions? I can use the GPS on my phone."

The driver shook his head and put the car into reverse. But instead of going backward, they started sinking down, into the ground. The pavement seemed to move aside and they shot downwards. Francesca screamed and fainted. Piper whipped out her phone and started taking pictures. Cara curiously looked out the window. The ground was opening and then closing again behind them. After about five minutes of this, they came to a pre-carved tunnel and started driving normally again. The walls of this tunnel were lit by torches, up to a certain point, and then they were driving in absolute darkness. Suddenly there was a blinding flash, and the car stopped. The driver's door opened, and then he came around and opened everyone else's doors.

When Cara stepped out of the car she wasn't in Las Angeles or the tunnel. She was on a large grassy lawn somewhere in the country. Leafless trees were scattered about the lawn, and it was snowing. On Cara's right, there were several big old looking stone buildings. A tall woman with black hair pulled into an uncomfortable looking bun walked up to them.

"Welcome to Reed, the national school for the gifted and talented-"

Piper interrupted her, "There are lots of gifted and talented schools, this is not the only one."

The woman continued, ignoring Piper's comment. "You are here to take a very difficult examination, only about twenty people are accepted every year. This group is one of six groups taking the examination today. Please follow me!" With that, woman started walking briskly toward one of the stone buildings, giving Cara and the others no choice but to follow her.

Pretty soon they arrived at one of the stone buildings, marked as "Polowera Hall"

Francesca mumbled something about the language Nyanja, and about the school thinking they were clever.

Inside, there were around seventy desks, most of which were already occupied by anxious teenagers. Cara was directed to one, on which a pencil and ruler had been placed. Once everyone was seated, a relatively thin test was plopped down on Cara's desk. She opened to page one, section one, math. Cara could deal with that, math was not her best subject, but it also wasn't her worst. The questions started out pretty easy, but as the went on, they got increasingly difficult. Eventually the problems consisted of symbols she had never seen before. 

What in the world did  "𝟚包 - 𝟡 = 𝟚(-𝟡 + 𝟞包)" mean? She recognized the minus sign, equal sign, parentheses, numbers, and plus sign, but the other symbols were completely unfamiliar. Cara thought for a bit, what if they were variables? With this in mind she solved several equations, finding that now it was fairly simple.