“Sorry,” Gabi said halfheartedly.
“That’s okay,” Noel said, his voice high-pitched with pain. “I wasn’t expecting it to be you. I thought you hated me.”
“I don’t hate anybody, Noel, but I think you understand why I wouldn’t want to hang out with you, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said, finally abandoning the pretense of cleaning his shirt and looking Gabi in the eye. “I get it. I was a jerk.”
“I need a favor, Noel,” she whispered, grabbing his non-tea-holding arm and ushering him to a less exposed spot in an alcove off the sanctuary.
“What is it?” Noel asked, plainly relieved at Gabi’s thaw. “Need me to break someone’s kneecaps for you? I’d do Bradley’s for free. Two kneecaps for the price of one!”
Gabi wasn’t ready to trade jokes with her former tormentor, if she ever would be. “I need a ride to the testing center, Noel. Do you have any room in your car?”
“Wait, you’re taking the test?” Noel asked, as though she’d just told him she was planning on doing a naked fan dance for the assembled fellows.
“Of course I am,” she hissed. “Why would I pass up that chance? Everyone got papers at camp, Noel, even me.”
Noel flushed, shaking his head. “No, I mean, I just assumed you wouldn’t. You’ve been sick ever since I’ve known you, which is, like, forever, and Mom told me you were admitted to the Care Center again last month. The test is really hard, Gabi, and I’m not saying that to be mean. How could your dad be okay with it? Isn’t he super protective of you?”
This was the moment when all Gabi’s carefully laid plans could implode. If she trusted Noel and he betrayed her confidence, that would be the end of it. “That’s exactly why I haven’t told him,” Gabi said. “Ruth promised that no one outside of camp would know we’d all been given passes on the recruitment thing, remember? It would diminish what we all went through to be able to take the test.”
“But why do you even want to take it?” Noel persisted. “You’re so set up here. It doesn’t matter what you do, because of who your dad, er, um, Brother Sam—” His eyes widened. “Wait, is that why you’re doing this? Because of what I told you? Are you trying to punish him or something?”
Gabi did her best imitation of Marnie’s withering look. “No offense, Noel, but I don’t exactly feel like trusting you with that kind of information. I’m willing to consider the possibility that you’re not totally evil, but that’s about as far as I can go right now. If you really meant what you said about being friends, then you’ll do this for me and not tell anybody.”
“I totally would, Gabi, but the car’s packed. You could probably squeeze in, but what about the other people coming with me? I can’t keep them from finding out when you’re sitting right beside them, and I won’t go back on my promise to give them a ride. They’re my friends, and I’m still getting them to trust me after acting like an ass for so long.”
“Who are they?” Gabi asked, her mind racing for a fix to this new wrinkle.
“Mike, Raj, and Yael, plus Iris and a friend of hers I don’t know that well. She’s a new transfer, I think. Why don’t you get a ride with Marnie and the other kids from the home? Aren’t you guys best friends now or something?”
“Best friends?” She could practically hear Marnie gagging on the sappy term. “Because Warren’s wife—that’s Warren Paulson, the guardian of the home who will be driving the car—works with my dad on the council. I did put some thought into this, you know.” She wasn’t doing a very good job of making nice, but Noel just kept saying things she didn’t want to hear.
“Sorry,” Noel mumbled. “I really do want to help you, I swear. There’s just no way you could be in my car without everyone making a big deal out of you taking the Witness exam.” But there was a way, and Noel’s last words had just shown it to her.
“Then tell them exactly what I asked you to do today,” Gabi said, grabbing his arm for emphasis. “Practically everyone in Alder is here, so they would have seen us talking. Tell them I asked you for a ride to the exam, and said that if you told anyone, I would tell my father all about what you and Bradley put me through over the years. Your mother would probably lose her job, and that’s the least of it.”
Noel blanched. “Hey, whoa, Gabi, I said I’m sorry, and I meant it. I will help you, whatever it takes, but please don’t do anything to hurt my mom. She’s been through enough already with losing my dad, and the hours she—”
“Just listen!” Gabi interrupted, impatient now that the crowd in the fellowship hall was thinning out. Sam and Mathew would be looking for her. “I would never do something like that to Nurse Sutton.” When Noel stopped looking like he might cry, she deemed it safe to continue. “I just need you to tell your friends that I would so they won’t say anything. Tell them that when you talked to me it was obvious I had some serious resentment built up toward my brother for being my dad’s favorite. Tell them that when the bulletin came out and Mathew was featured in it, it put me over the edge and I decided to take the exam in order to get my father’s attention. Tell them that I gave you no choice but to take me
