This one is an exam. This one I can do.
There's a massive hall, set up with desks neatly in rows.
"You have two hours. They are roughly 30% verbal reasoning, 40% mathematics and 30% general."
We take our places nervously. "Your hundred and twenty minutes starts now."
I open the test paper and flick through. I decide to start with maths.
It's hard. Most of this we don't cover till A-levels. Luckily, I have quite a good idea of the terms because last year Charley and I were given a GCSE textbook because our teacher felt sorry for us finishing before all the other kids.
The verbal reasoning is harder and the general harder still. But I love logic and riddles and puzzles- when mum was alive, dad used to play endless logic games with me.
One logic question reads, "6-3, 7-5, 8-5, 9-4. What is 5's counterpart?"
After I'm down the basic questions (well, most of them) I stare at the paper. It can't be halved, it's not doubled and it's not tripled. Can I make an nth term from it? No, it's a non linear sequence.
So it's not the numbers. Maybe it's the words?
I write them out, and bingo.
Six has three letters, seven and eight five and nine four. So five has four letters.
I pencil in my answer neatly, just in time for Ewart to collect our papers.
The next test is weird. He lets us into an office and two hens are squawking in a cage.
"Charley, Cassie. I want you to kill these hens."
"Okay. With what?" Charley says at the same time I say, "No way."
"You can use a ballpoint pen." Ewart says.
I shake my head. This is just cruelty. What does this test?
I bite my lip and glare at my brother as he strokes the hen's back before stabbing it's windpipe with the pen. Thankfully, it dies quickly and Charley looks up, pleased with himself.
"Cassie? You not going to do it?" Ewart prompts.
"No. I'll eat chicken but they don't deserve to suffer like this, for the sake of an entrance exam."
Nodding seriously, Ewart leads us to the penultimate test.
A rope course. Like Go-ape but higher, without harnesses and it looks funner.
We scramble up a rope ladder, to where two boys are waiting. Old teenagers, I'd say.
"I'm Kevin, this is Roman." The shorter one says kindly.
We smile at them and start at the first obstacle. A thick rope stretched between two trees, tight.
"Crawl across it." Roman orders.
I walk over to it. I've down tightrope walking before- my friend Georgie has one in her garden.
Why crawl when you can walk?
I step onto it gingerly. It sways slightly but my feet quickly find balance.
I stretch my arms out and focus on a point ahead, walking easily across.
Charley is slightly less show-offy but still gets across. The next obstacle is a series of jumps, increasing in length from about a metre to nearly double that.
Our long legs do come in handy after all.
The next one is a rope swing. The end of the rope disappears down below, and I realise how high up we are.
Forcing myself to look ahead, I grab the rope in my hands and push off from the platform. Just in time, I realise that it isn't long enough to get across.
