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"Anyone with even a little power can hear Master Phineus -- and ical occurrence before Souessed what they are, some already know for sure, and the rest are about to find out"

There was a shuffling as kids got to their feet,the metal stands shake

"So that’s the first test?" Call asked his father "Whether we hear Master Phineus?"

His dad barely see He looked distracted "I suppose But the other tests will be much worse Just reht Call’s wrist, startling him -- he knew his dad cared about hiripped Call’s hand hard and released it fast "Now go"

As Callcorralled into groups One of the feroup at the end All the other aspirants hispering to one another, see nervous but full of anticipation Call saw Kylie Myles two groups over He wondered if he should yell over to her that she wasn’t really here for ballet school tryouts, but she was grinning and chatting with some of the other aspirants, so he doubted she would have listened to hiriros," the fe as she herded her group expertly out of the big roo, blandly painted hallway "For this first test, you will all be together Please follow behind me in an orderly fashion"

Call, almost at the back, hurried a little bit to catch up He knew that being late was probably an advantage if he wanted them to think that he didn’t care about the tests or didn’t knohat he was doing, but he hated the stares he got when he lagged behind In fact, he hurried ahead so quickly that he accidentally banged into the shoulder of a pretty girl with large, dark eyes She shot him an annoyed look from underneath the even darker curtain of her hair

"Sorry," Call said autoirl said, which was funny, because she didn’t look nervous She looked completely composed Her eyebroere perfectly arched There wasn’t a speck of dust on her cara jeans She wore a delicate filigree hand pendant around her throat that Call recognized fros in her ears looked like they had once belonged to a princess, if not a queen Call immediately felt self-conscious, as if he were covered in dirt

"Hey, Tamara!" a tall Asian boy with floppy razor-cut black hair said, and the girl turned away fro else that Call couldn’t hear, sneering as he said it, and Call worried it was about how Call was a cripple who couldn’t help lurching into people Like he was Frankenstein’s monster Resentment bubbled in his brain -- especially since Ta at all She’d been annoyed with hiular kid He reminded himself that as soon as he failed the exaain

Also, they were going to die underground

That thought kept hi white room where rows of desks were laid out in lines It looked like every other room Call had ever taken a standardized test in The desks were plain and wooden, attached to rickety chairs Each desk had a blue book labeled with a kid’s name and a pen laid on top There was a hubbub as everyone went fro for his or her place card Call found his in the third row and slid into the seat, behind a kid with pale wavy hair and a soccer teae school The boy senuinely happy to be seated near hi back He opened his blue book, glancing at the pages with questions and e the tests to be scary, but the only apparent danger was the danger of being bored to death

"Please keep your books closed until the test has started," Master Milagros said fro-looking Master who reminded Call a little of his homeroom teacher She had the same sense of aard nervousness, as if she wasn’t used to spending a lot of time around kids Her hair was black and short, with a streak of pink in it