The Dance by Pike Christopher

Author:Pike, Christopher [Pike, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Crime, Young Adult, Final Friends
ISBN: 9780671019280
Google: JxWw6LPRoesC
Amazon: 0671019287
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 1998-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

She was supposed to select the lettered pair that expressed a relationship closest to that expressed in the original pair. She quickly eliminated A, but then she had to think, which was never easy even when she was wide awake and relaxed. Words were used by writers. Mortar was used by bricklayers. Teachers used chalk, bakers used batter, policemen used—No, policemen didn’t exactly use laws. She eliminated E. Now what? Mortar and batter were crucial to bricklayers and bakers, but a teacher could teach without chalk. There went C.

Jessica swung back and forth between B and D before finally deciding on the latter. But she had no sooner blacked out D when she erased it in favor of B. Then she remembered a point in the practice books. If you were undecided over two choices, the authors had said, take your first hunch. She erased B and darkened D again.

She glanced at her watch. She had to answer forty-five questions in thirty minutes. That gave her less than a minute a question, and she had already used up two minutes! She was behind!

I’m not going to make it. Stanford will never accept me.

Paradoxically, her panic brought her a mild sense of relief. She had been worried about freaking, and now that she had done it, she figured she didn’t have to worry about it anymore. She plunged forward. The next question was easy, as was the third. Then the fourth had to start off with the word parsimonious. She skipped it altogether. Not even Michael could know what that word meant. Their proctor had probably made it up and typed it in out of spite.

In time, Jessica began to settle into a groove. She forgot about the rest of the room, even blocking out the fact that Michael was sitting close. But she could not say this tunnel vision was the result of a high state of concentration. On the contrary, she had settled too much. She couldn’t stop yawning. Finishing the analogies and starting on the antonyms, she found she was fighting to stay awake. She couldn’t wait for the break to take another caffeine pill.

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