Noel looked stunned, and still reluctant. “You want me to lie to them?”
Gabi felt a twinge of guilt, but she knew that Noel was no stranger to nefarious deeds. “It’s a lie that won’t hurt anyone but me, Noel, and I really don’t care. I promise that your friends will never find out. I can’t force you to do it. Or rather, I can, but I won’t. You do have a choice.” Doubt still clouded the boy’s face. “You have to trust me, Noel. It’s important.” Then she said the one word she’d hoped to avoid in this conversation. Noel was almost convinced, but he wasn’t there yet. “Please.”
THE RIDE to the testing center on the day of the exam was largely uneventful, though marked by some initial awkwardness. There was a heart-stopping moment when Gabi saw the familiar burgundy outline of her father’s hatchback cresting the hill toward them, and she was sure he’d caught a glimpse of her before she flung herself across the laps of Yael, Raj, Iris, and Sarah. When the car was out of sight, having sped by without slowing down, the others assured her the coast was clear and her cover wasn’t blown.
“Not always a picnic being a Lowell, I bet,” Raj ventured, looking out the window at the low concrete bunkers that signaled their approach to the training center. “At least with my brother being such a screwup, everything I do looks pretty good. But you’ve got, like, twice the pressure. Harsh.”
“What did you tell them, Noel?” Gabi asked under her breath after they’d parked in the visitors’ lot and made sure Mathew was nowhere in sight.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Gabi said as the troop of teens made their way to the front entrance, “that you obviously didn’t tell your friends the story I gave you. They were way too nice to me.”
Noel drew up short and allowed the others to pass them. “That’s because they’re nice people, Gabi. Do you know that when I told them you were coming along, they all thought it was really great? They admire you for pushing yourself and not throwing it in everyone’s faces that you’re Sam Lowell’s daughter all the time.”
“Didn’t they want an explanation for why I didn’t go with Sam and Mathew this morning?”
“I told them the truth, that you didn’t want your family to know about it because they’re overprotective and might try to stop you. They think you have real guts, Gabi, and they’re not going to tell anybody, I promise. You can trust them.” Noel put his hand on the curved door handle at the entrance, but Gabi stopped him.
“But why didn’t you just tell them the story I gave you?”
“Because I didn’t want to lie to them, and I didn’t want them thinking you were a bad person. You don’t deserve that.” Noel yanked the door open, leaving an astonished Gabi to slip in behind him just before the pressurized metal sealed shut.
The dreaded moment of Mathew noticing her among the crowd came quickly, and Gabi was grateful. Better to get it over with. As soon as she walked into the testing hall where the written portion of the exam would be given—and where Marnie was supposed to be waiting for her to act as lookout and human shield—there was Mathew. Seating assignments had been given at registration, a feature Gabi and Marnie failed to anticipate, and naturally Mathew was one of the recruits helping the other test takers find their seats. Marnie had already been escorted to her combination desk/chair in the middle of the massive hall and was waving a frantic, useless hand at Gabi.
As soon as he spotted his sister, Mathew fastened a hand around her arm and hauled her over to the refreshment table. “What are you doing here, Gab? Is everything okay? Is Dad with you? How did you get here?” He looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel. She hadn’t even bothered to consider how her presence might impact her brother’s performance on the exam. She just assumed she’d be able to keep out of his line of vision until the physical testing started, when they would be divided by age group for the rest of the day.
“Mathew, calm down. Dad’s fine, I’m fine, everybody’s fine.”
Mathew released her arm with a relieved smile. “But you still haven’t told me why you’re here. Did you come to sneak me some food? Those snacks are not gonna cut it. Is that what’s in your bag?”
Don’t ask, Gabi reminded herself. Tell. “I’m here for the same reason you are. To take the test.”
“Yeah, right.” Mathew chuckled. “Really, Gab, why are you here?”
Gabi hoisted her bag, which had been thoroughly inspected for cheat sheets, higher onto her bony shoulder. “I’m taking the test. Now are you going to help me find my seat or do I have to ask someone else?”
Mathew went gray. “But why?”
“Because I want to get out of Alder for a while,” Gabi said, trying to hew as close to the truth as she could. “My life is so small and predictable here, and I only just realized that since I started feeling better. I want to go somewhere where not everybody knows who I am.”
“Gabi, this isn’t a joke. So, okay, you could probably get through the first half because we’ve been studying together. Wait, is that why you’ve been so keen on helping me? So you could study? Forget it. I don’t care. But the second part? You think I was pushing you? You don’t even know. See those folks over there?” Mathew gestured toward a section of the hall where men and women in their late forties and fifties were grouped together at their desks. “The council allows older fellows to retest for the team if they failed before but still want to serve. They have to pass a whole battery
