Free Qualify by Vera Nazarian Page B

tokens are not lit up yet. So, they waited for me. GMTA. “Gee” minds think alike.
    “You waited.” I look at Gracie’s pained face.
    “Yeah,” Gordie says, pulling out his earbuds. “We’re gonna do it together. Right, Gee One?”
    “Larks gotta stick together,” George says.
    “All right.” I look at each one of them, and feel my breath stilling. “Let’s do it.”
    “Ready?” George looks at Gracie. She nods.
    We all put our fingers on the tokens. And we speak pretty much in unison. “Display Test Score.”
    As we speak, Gracie squeezes her eyes shut. I am watching her token, not mine, and I am the first to see Gracie’s token turn a blessed green .
    At the same time, I see my own light up, and it is green also. . . .
    George’s is green.
    Gordie’s is green.
    Wow.
    Holy amazing wow!
    Gordie looks down at his chest and says, “Whoa . . .” He’s somewhat stunned. He really honestly didn’t think he was going to pass even the first stage of Qualification.
    “Open your eyes, Gracie!” I exclaim. “You’re green! You made it! We all did!”
    George makes a stifled sound that resembles a woot, but he’s just too cool to exclaim. Instead, grinning for the first time in days, he pounds Gordie on the back.
    Gracie opens her eyes and squeals, and then she’s hanging around my neck.
    “We need to call Mom!” I say, smiling, while we’re all still basking in waves of unbelievable relief. Other people in the hall are staring at us, some with open hostility.
    “All right, but let’s first get out of here.” George shoulders the strap of his backpack and duffel. “We need to hurry and get outside.”
    “Yeah, we don’t want to miss the bus! ” Gracie whispers loudly, while I shove her in the arm.
    “Hush! Let’s not be rude to other people, okay, let’s just go, Gracie.” I push strands of her hair behind her ears, and she jokingly wiggles away. Then I rearrange my backpack and duffel straps.
    “Oh, and keep your jackets over the tokens, at least for now.” George is ever the careful one. He knows that some people are not going to react well to seeing anyone be green right now.
    “Gotta stop by the bathroom first,” Gordie says. And we do.
    Then we start walking and finally exit the building.
    Outside the air is cold, the wind biting, and it’s early twilight. Have we been cooped up in school all day long? This is just nuts. No lunch, and now no dinner—we haven’t eaten.
    As if reading my mind, Gordie says, “I’m starving.”
    “We all are. Doesn’t matter. Let’s go!”
    In the parking lot several school buses wait for us, and they are filling up with students. They—we—are the lucky ones.
    Several teachers and security guards stand in clusters, directing us to form another line, this one much shorter, as we board the buses.
    “Your tokens, please! Make sure that we can see them,” a teacher says. She glances at each person, verifying the green color of their ID token.
    In the gathering twilight, it occurs to me that, as we stand there in this new snaking line, that we all wink with green dots of light, as our tokens illuminate the evening.
    Like weird green fireflies. . . .
    The parking lot lights come on, flaring bright and fluorescent. Then the football field lights up. It has to be past 7:00 PM.
    Finally we get on the third bus, just as it’s getting cold and true dark, and we stow away our bags under seats and under our feet. Gracie takes the window seat, and I end up in the aisle one next to her, while George and Gordie get the next bench in front of us, with George at the window. The bus seats are narrow and not particularly comfortable, so good thing we are all slim and don’t take up much room, though the guys’ longer legs are sticking out into the aisles. I notice a few of the larger kids are much less happy to be squeezed in the hard seats. As I look around I see hardly anyone from my class or even from our school on this bus.
    Our driver is a big