
The walls were the sickly beige color shared by so many public institutions, and the facilitator watching the students had sharp features that reminded her of a hawk. She picked up her pencil to begin sketching the hawk-man, but remembered that she could not draw on the test and dropped the writing utensil.
It made a thud as it hit the desk, unnaturally loud in the quiet testing center, and she saw a boy sneak a furtive glance at her before bending back over his work. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as though she planned to dive underwater for a long time, then opened them again and dove back into the test.