Read Online Qualify by Vera Nazarian - Free Book Online

girl is up first, and she looks just as terrified as Gracie. Her hands are shaking as she attaches the token button to her shirt. She then stands there and stares down at the hoverboard. She takes a deep breath and puts her foot up on the surface of the board. The board wobbles, and immediately the girl gives a small shriek.
    “Steady, honey, you’re doing fine,” a sympathetic woman teacher says. “Just put your other foot up there and relax, take a few breaths, and don’t look down.”
    The girl takes a few seconds, then puts her other foot on the board and balances with both hands. “Go!” she says in a thin raspy voice that carries all the way across the very silent auditorium.
    The hoverboard begins to float forward. The girl squeezes her eyes, utters another shriek, then a few stifled noises, and then fixes herself in the posture stiffly. She is floating eight feet over the floor mats, her hands balancing outward like airplane wings, but she manages to remain standing. “Descend!” Again, her tiny voice sounds. The board obeys and begins the incline.
    The girl suddenly wobbles and exclaims, “Stop!” The board freezes in the air, in the middle of its gradual descent. She is suspended halfway between the floor and the stage, flailing her hands wildly. And in the absolute silence she begins to cry.
    The auditorium is silent as the grave. I stare with transfixed sympathy, and see the equally emotional faces of those around me—students, teachers, security guards, everyone.
    A few seconds later the girl steadies herself somehow, stops the sniffles and with another determined breath says, “Go!” The board resumes moving, and this time she says “Descend!” in a more steady voice.
    When almost on the mats, she says, “Level!” and continues floating silently to the end of the line. “Stop!” She steps off and stands in one spot, dazed. She looks around. “Um, what do I say now?”
    “Reverse, Rise, Return . . .” someone whispers.
    “Reverse, Rise, Return!” the seventh grader repeats in a voice of relief. The hoverboard rises and floats away while the girl heads to the back desk toward Ligerat Faroi. The Atlantean nods at her and scans her token, as everyone watches.
    Oh, to be her at this point! I think with envy. To just be done with it!
    “See, that wasn’t so bad,” George whispers to Gracie. “Look at her, she’s a bigger wimp than you. . . . You can do it!”
    Meanwhile the next kid is already up in the front of the stage, his ID token scanned. The moment the board arrives, he hops on with a practiced snowboarder stance and with a grin makes a shaka hand sign, then says, “Go!” In moments he sails past the stage, descends smoothly, levels off, and then jumps off at the stop. As the board returns, the kid stares after it with admiration and says, “That was sick! I want that board.” He is then ID-scanned at the desk in the back.
    “Okay, this is looking more and more like it’s gonna take forever,” mumbles Gordie.
    Suddenly everyone is itching to advance, to get it over with. We move forward a few steps and wait, and watch teens of all ages and from all the schools get onto the board. Some are terrified, others absolutely loving it. Most are more or less in-between, cautious, but grimly determined, since after all, it’s Qualify or die .
    It gets sad however, a few times. A few of the younger kids, both girls and boys, and even a few of the older ones, balk completely as they stand next to the board. Two end up bawling, and just shake their heads negatively and refuse to get up on the hoverboard, even after a teacher comes to hug them and takes them off to the back of the stage to try to speak to them quietly. One girl is unable to put her second foot up. She just stands there, and then a teacher says, “why don’t you take a few minutes, try again later?”
    And the next name gets called.
    I watch the whole thing, as I slowly inch closer to my turn. Gracie is very quiet