The Grimm Legacy

Main Examination Room. I felt almost dizzy watching her slide briskly on her stool, popping pneums into pipes. It looked very busy up there; no wonder she couldn’t get away.

“Wow! Can you show me anything I ask for? Like, I don’t know, my friend Nicole?” I said.

No response; still Anjali.

Rhyme, maybe? “Picture, picture, on the wall, please can you show me my friend Nicole?” I tried.

My reflection in the Snow White stepmother mirror rolled her eyes with bored scorn.

“Okay, sorry, that didn’t really rhyme, did it?” I said. I thought about it for a while.

“Picture, help me reach my goal

Of communing with Nicole.”

That worked. The picture did its dizzying thing again, dissolving Anjali into random geometric forms that shuffled themselves darkly, then brightened into a new scene: Nicole shopping with her new friends in California, trying on clothes and laughing silently—at least, I couldn’t hear them. I could imagine the squeals and peals, though. It was like watching some horrible reality show with the sound off. It made me feel more lonely and helpless than ever.

“Thanks, that’s quite enough of them!

Show me Anjali again,” I said.

Nothing happened. Bad rhyme, I guess.

“Please, just show me Anjali.

She’s the one I need to see.”

More swirling, then Anjali at the pneum station again. Then I heard a click and a creak: the door was finally opening. But it couldn’t be Anjali coming to free me if she was upstairs in the MER.

“Enough! Turn off,” I muttered to the painting. Fortunately, it accepted the almost rhyme and quieted to murk as I hid behind the picture wall. 

Chapter 8: A multiple-choice test and a binder clip

“Elizabeth? You in there?” It was Marc’s voice. I crept out from behind the picture wall. He was standing at the end of the room, holding the door open with one long leg. “Hurry up, we can’t stay here,” he urged.

I felt a shiver of relief as I heard the door click shut behind us.

Marc took the stairs two or three steps at a time while I ran panting behind. I used to be in better shape when I still took ballet.

Marc waited for me at the third landing. “Come on, you’ll never make the team at that rate!”

“What team?”

He looked me over. “I don’t know, Girls’ JV Dawdling?”

“Where are we going?”

“Preservation.”

“Where’s that?”

“Top floor.”

“Can’t we take the elevator?”

“You can—Coach’d kill me if I do.” He took off again.

At last we reached the top of the staircase, with the corridor that led to the MER on the right and parts unknown—at least to me—on the left. There we ran into Ms. Callender. There was a frown on her friendly face.

“Elizabeth! Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you; aren’t you supposed to be on Stack 2?” she asked.

I didn’t know what to say—and even if I had known, I was panting too hard to say it. Fortunately, Marc stepped in. “Didn’t Ms. Minnian tell you? I’m supposed to take her to Preservation and get to work on the backlog of repairs,” he said.

“Oh. No, she didn’t mention that, but I’m afraid it’ll have to wait. Dr. Rust wants to see Elizabeth. I’ll send her up to help you when they’re done.” She made a note on her clipboard and said to me, “Go on down, honey, Dr. Rust is waiting.”

I guess she must have seen my dismay. She smiled and added, “Why the long face?”

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.

“No, no. Just the opposite. There’s nothing to worry about. We thought you were ready for the next step, that’s all. Or at least, the next step toward the next step—or . . . well, I’ll let Dr. Rust explain. Go on downstairs, honey.”

“Okay.” I hurried away, still feeling uneasy.

Dr. Rust looked up when I tapped on the open door. “Ah, Elizabeth. Come on in. Sit down, sit down. Let’s see, you’ve been with us since January, right?”

I nodded.

“Martha Callender tells me you’re a good, hard worker, and Stan Mauskopf speaks highly of your character. I’ve heard good reports from one or two of the patrons as well. We think it may be time to give you a little more responsibility. Do you feel ready?”

Hardly. What I felt was guilty. Had Dr. Rust and Ms. Callender been discussing my noble character at the very moment I was sneaking around the Grimm Collection?

I cleared my throat. “That’s so nice of Mr. Mauskopf and Ms. Callender. What kind of responsibility?”

“Let’s discuss that after you take the test. That will give me the information I need to make a decision about what work would be right for you here.”

“Okay. What kind of a test? Sorting buttons again?”

Doc smiled. “No, this is a standardized test—multiple choice. Let’s find you a quiet place to work.”

We walked down the hall to a small office with a desk by the window. “Here you go,” said Dr. Rust, handing me a sheaf of papers held together with a binder clip. “You have forty-five minutes to complete the exam. Make sure you fill in each circle completely on the answer sheet. Do you have a number 2 pencil?”

“I think so.” I fished around in my backpack and brought out the pencil the homeless woman had given me, the one I’d used to outline my social studies paper. I’d come to think of it as my lucky pencil.

“Excellent. I’ll be back in exactly forty-five minutes.”

The questions on the test were bizarre:

7. A carpenter has three sons. The eldest builds a palace from alabaster and porphyry. The second builds a courthouse from granite and sandstone. The youngest builds a cottage from a walnut shell and a corn husk. How many nails do the three sons use?

❍ A. π

❍ B. Infinity minus one

❍ C. One too many

❍ D. One too few

8. A child offers you a choice of two caskets, one gold and the other lead. Which do you take?

❍ A. The gold one

❍ B. The one in the child’s left hand

❍ C. The one the moth lands on

❍ D. A river underground