Lunch came and went. I had had a good hour to eat and relax when I heard someone at my door.

It was Pali.

"Seems I am not rid of you yet, child," Despite this, he didn't look too unhappy. I guess he had fallen for me and didn't want to admit it.

"We better hurry, the one that will give you your assessment does not appreciate being made to wait," Pali looked uncomfortable when he mentioned this.

Since I wanted to get this over with I stepped out of my room and followed Pali and, in a few minutes, I found myself back inside the large round building next to the Earth-style building called the Temple of Knowledge. I guessed this might be the Temple of Magic.

On the way to the building and inside I had noticed that, while the morning had shown little activity, there were many children and adults now. Many of them we carrying belongings, bags and chests towards the dorms. Pretty much all of them stared at me whenever I walked past. I made it a point to ignore them.

I soon found myself inside a fairly large room. Inside the room, I saw it arranged in auditorium style seating with a raised platform near the front of the room to my right, and with a half-circle of benches placed on the left side of the room. In the corner I noticed a stack of polished square boards.

"That is Pae Candrar Im." Pali said, pointing out an older man sitting on a chair on the platform in the room's front. He was the only one in the room beside us. "He is an instructor of magic but is well versed in all the other subjects, making him one of the best instructors at guessing which teacher to put each child with."

The man had seen us and stood up, waiting for us to approach. Pali and I walked to him.

"Greetings Instructor Pali. I see you have returned from your annual search for children." The man looked at me. "And you found an unusual one this year."

"Yes, I found an unusual one this year. Unfortunately, she was the only child I found."

The man turned to me. "Your name, child."

"Salis," was all I said considering Terra was given to every Terran in Flaern I didn't have to say that.

Pali rolled his eyes.

"Well child, let us waste no time. We rarely have to evaluate our new students since most of our patrons have been tutored and we know where they stand, but with you we have no way of knowing how much you know."

Pali left the room.

For the next hour, I had to listen to this man's scratchy old man's voice as he asked me many questions. The strangest thing though, was that he had not once asked me anything related to Earth. He never even mentioned it or my appearance. My best guess was that he was just going through routine questions that he would have asked any prospective student.

When he had finished questioning me about my knowledge on everything from history to agriculture, he picked up one board, a piece of graphite, and a sheet of paper.

"Do you understand what this is?" He said, motioning to something written on the paper.

When I inspected the board I saw that he had written what were probably math questions. While I easily understood most of them, I saw that the harder ones used symbols I didn't recognize. When I told him I found out they were just the Flaern equivalent to the 'x' and 'y' used in math on Earth.

Seeing this, I took the graphite and easily filled out all the answers. The man, whom I had decided to call "Pie Can," looked over the paper, nodded, and then gave me another. This new one was filled with some harder math questions that had been on the previous paper. Sadly, they were so easy that eighth-graders could have done them. While I knew that I had forgotten a lot of the math, I learned it looked as if I still knew more than what was taught here.

The man looked over the last piece of paper, nodded, and said. "That will do for your evaluation. Since your knowledge of Flaern and Calorin seems to be lacking I will place you with Instructor Nila Candrar Fis on the first, third, and fifth days of the week. She is well versed in history and the Deity and is used to teaching the young ones, however; when she begins arithmetic, you will immediately go to Instructor Callic." He handed me a piece of paper with room numbers written next to the names of both instructors.

I would skip out on my assigned teacher's math lessons? I guess it made sense considering this teacher, whom I decided to call "Vanilla," wouldn't have anything math wise to teach me. I just wondered what I would do at… hmm, Cowlick was a good name. I just wondered what I would do with this Instructor Cowlick.

"Now that we have your knowledge instructor assigned, I will assign your magic instructor. Since you have had no prior experience with magic, I will place you with myself for the second, fourth, and sixth days of the week. I expect you to be on time for all of your lessons. Since you are here at the School's favor, we will not hesitate to expel you for poor performance or behavior."

It made sense that I would be watched closely; I wasn't paying my way after all. The only question was how much I could stretch the boundaries set for me. The being on time thing wouldn't be a problem though.

"Two things before you leave, child. The first is that you will meet with a Priest of Candrar every morning, an hour before breakfast. I believe you will give him Terran insights on medicine. He will stop by your room to wake you up so do not take too long to get ready. Second, you will go to the field on the far side of the complex where you will do your physical evaluation."

I soon found myself dismissed and immediately left the building for the field.

On the far side of the school grounds I found several children and two adults doing various things around what looked like a track on one side of a small round building and an archery range on the other. Since I was here for an evaluation, I walked to the nearest adult, a man. He was watching some children practicing with wooden swords.

Upon nearing him I saw that he probably was an instructor that dealt with exercising and such here. While he was short by Calorin standards, he was well built and had a dark tan that showed he spent a lot of time outside.

"Greetings child!" He said upon seeing me. "I believe you are the Terran called Salis. I am Benc Vellis Soli. Meric and I have been looking forward to seeing what a Terran is capable of, especially one that is whole."

He walked next to me and got down onto one knee and looked me over. "You really are more stocky than a normal girl your age should be," He looked at my arms, "Have you had any training?"

I shook my head.

"Well, normal children do not come with muscles that thick. Your build also looks to be more sturdy too," He stood back up. Thankfully the man, now known by me as Bench, hadn't tried to touch me.

By this time several other children had noticed me and had formed a small group. I could hear them whispering things amongst themselves but didn't try to hear any of it because it was most likely weird stories they had heard about Terrans.

"Benc, I see our unique one has arrived for her evaluation."

The woman that had appeared and spoken to Bench was the adult I had seen watching several children shooting bows and crossbows at the archery range.

"Indeed, she has. She looks like she will be a strong one too."

The woman looked me over.

"Yes, her arm muscles look a little soft but I can tell that they are bigger than usual. She should hold a bow just fine."

The woman, Medic I decided to call her, stepped back and turned to Bench.

"All the targets at the range are being used right now so I will let you have her first Benc."

The woman turned and left.

"I think I will have you do your running exercises first. I want to see how good your stamina is before you get tired from doing other things."

Bench turned towards the track and called out to a girl.

"Since a few rascals are practicing with wooden swords right now and will most likely hurt themselves if I leave, I am pairing you up with Ferra. You do not seem very talkative so I am hoping some of her spirit will pass on to you."

Oh no. Did he just call over an energetic one? Was she going to talk my head off? If I had known not talking might lead me paired off with someone like that, I would have definitely talked more.

"You wanted me Instructor Benc?" Said a smiling girl of about sixteen Calorin years.

Ferret had short brown hair with light brown eyes and a soft, round face. She was about average height with an athletic build.

"Yes, Ferra, I want you to take Salis here through the evaluations."

The girl, Ferret was what I had chosen to call her, looked at me. First with curiosity then, almost yelling she said "Cute!" With that, she grabbed my hand and leaned over to me.

"Your name is Salis?"

I nodded.

"You do not have to be shy. I promise I will be the best of friends with you."

I had met one of the types of people I had hoped to avoid. Since I didn't want her to talk too much, I hoped that answering her questions would make her speak less than if I didn't speak at all. I just hoped she didn't get too clingy or start viewing me as a pet.

"Shouldn't we start?" I said.

Ferret looked a little disappointed when I spoke, though I don't think it was because I wanted to start the evaluation. I was curious but asking her would only make her talk more.

"She can speak!" said Bench. "I knew you had it in you, Ferra. Now I know it was a good idea to leave this to you." Bench then turned back to watch the children practicing with their wooden swords.

"I will have her talking just as much as me by the end of the day Instructor Benc!"

Bench looked over his shoulder at her and then me. "If you do, I will have to call you the Deity that Beats Impossible Odds!" He laughed and then turned back to watching the practicing children.

"Oh, she cannot possibly be that bad."

Their conversation guaranteed that I would give Ferret a hard time. I would enjoy this.

"Salis," Ferret said. "Let us get to know each other well during your exam." She waited for me to reply but when I didn't she moved on. "Let us do distance running first."

Ferret started walking towards an oval track where a few other children were jogging.

"Do you enjoy running?" She asked me.

Since I had decided to talk a little but didn't want to talk too much, I replied with as few words as possible. Not that I would have normally answered any differently…

"I don't care either way."

"Why not?"

"Why should I?"

Ferret looked disappointed with my answers. My plan was succeeding.

"Can you tell me things that you like?"

There was no way I would tell her what I liked. I didn't want her finding out any of my weaknesses. Pali had already discovered my weakness to pineapple and that had not turned out well. So, I didn't want this person finding out one. I just had to hope she didn't go get advice from Pali.

"Do you hate me?" she was genuinely sad from the look on her face, "I hope you do not hate me. I just want to be your friend and to make you happy."

If I said I hated her, how would she respond? Would she stop talking and leave me alone or would it just motivate her and make her find out what she had done to make me hate her. To be honest, the pitiful look she had on her face almost made me feel bad, but why should I care if she was sad or not?

"I don't hate you." As much as I hated saying that I couldn't lie. I hated people that lied even more than people who talked too much.

Ferret bounced up and down excitedly, having received her first victory in the Salis v. Ferret war.

"So you finally admit that you liked me. Ferra is so happy right now!"

And there she was taking it farther than she needed to.

"I don't remember saying the word 'like.'" I said to her, hoping but not expecting it to fix the situation.

"Your shyness just makes you cuter." And then whispering to herself. "I just wish your voice sounded shy too."

I wanted to sigh but couldn't bring myself to. I wasn't being shy Ferret; I was being unsociable.

We had reached the track. The first thing I noticed was the small table with several hourglasses on it. There were also three pairs of shoes and sandals near what looked like a starting line.

The three children on the track were all running barefoot.

"Take your shoes off and put them over there with the others." She said with a suspicious smile.

I was more than happy to take the boots off and my foot wraps. Since my boots had no laces, they had chafed my calves. I didn't even want to try running in them even if they did still have laces. The one good thing about having the laces missing was that the boots came off easily.

"Ah!” was looking at my feet, "Even your feet are cute! I have never seen feet that wide on someone your age!" She looked up from my feet. "Do all Terran children have feet like this?"

"Never paid attention or cared," I said truthfully.

"Are they not awkward?"

"No."

Ferret looked back to my feet. I could see her holding back the urge to touch them.

She shook her head, apparently to focus herself and then walked to the table and picked up an hourglass. I couldn't see the small hourglass very well from the distance I was at, but it looked to have lines meant for measuring time.

“Ready?” Ferra had another suspicious look on her face. If I had to guess she was hoping I ran cute too. “Four laps!” She shouted suddenly, the embarrassment on her face making me think she had almost forgotten but barely remembered in time.

"Go!" she said, flipping the hourglass over.

Since I didn't care about setting records or impressing anyone, I didn't try running as hard as I thought I could. My legs were also still sore from my short hike on the mountain so I probably wouldn't have had much fun anyway.

When I had run four laps, only being passed by two of the other three students, I stopped in front of Ferret. I knew it would have been smarter and less mentally painful to have just run right past her but I didn't want to make of scene after she chased me down, giving her the excuse to cuddle me or something equally horrible after she caught me. I never had been as fast as any of the native Calorin children.

"You were holding back." She said as soon as I stopped.

I guess the fact that I was not breathing very hard gave that away.

"But your running form was cu… satisfactory." She added stopping herself from saying cute. I don't know why she was hiding it this time.

The rest of the test went by, thankfully, with little more than Ferret explaining what I needed to do and her commenting on her way about how I did.

By the time I had finished my last sprint my leg muscles were killing me. My feet were just as sore. Even though I had walked everywhere for the last few years, my legs and feet were no match for a helping of mountain and then repeated sprints.

"Did you have fun?" Ferret asked happily.

"No."

"I did not like it at first either, but when you get into shape, it will not be bad. You might even like it." Ferret looked towards the small building. "Put your boots back on and then let us go get a drink before we move on."

I was thirsty, so I liked that idea.