judith wood | seven ; cb

"Name?"

She popped a sucker out of her mouth and leaned down to face the administrator.

"Adaline Teroux," she said, which was a lie. It was second nature at this point; she'd been taking the aptitude test for other people going on three years now. How they hadn't figured it out yet was beyond her, but as long as stupid people were going to keep giving her money to make them seem less stupid, she was going to keep showing up. Hadn't bothered to take it for herself yet, though.

The test was meant to decide where a person ended up after graduation. The vast majority fell into some sort of lumberjack position, the more studious were offered places in Mill Administration, and then there were those like Judy, who easily could have been slated to run the district some day as if that was some major accomplishment. Most people couldn't afford the extra schooling at the end of it, anyway. Always wound up with an axe in their hands, resenting the system. She was just a step ahead, the way she saw it. Glanced her fate from an early age and accepted it.

She had a pretty good job lined up working for her uncle until JJ stole it out from under her. "So you can keep up with your education," he'd said, like he was doing her a favor. Everyone, her brother, her little sister and that damn beaver, her friends, all of them seemed to expect more from her than from anyone else. It was always her who was expected to excel, her who was supposed to make something of herself. None of them really bothered taking what she wanted into consideration.

The administrator didn't bother looking up at her, choosing instead to flip through a list of names.

"Here you are," she said at last, checking off her name, "You're in seat 27."

Judith slid the candy back into her mouth, snagged a calculator off the desk, and walked away without another word.