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There once was a man and his wife who had seven children, all boys. They were all very human and very poor. The youngest boy was so tiny and malnourished that they called him Little Thumb; but though small, he was very clever. Then there came a very bad year, and the famine was so great that these poor people decided to abandon their children in the woods. But that’s not how your story starts. Your story starts with the monster.
DIRECTIONS: Fill in the correct letter with a #2 pencil on the answer sheet. Do not use ink or ballpoint pens. Questions left blank will be marked incorrect. Completely fill in each circle.
“You have singularly bad timing, Sun,” Hati says as he leads Sun back into the lab. Glass cabinets overhang black-topped benches. At the end of the aisle, the hatchling is suspended in a tank of proteinaceous fluid. Sun gasps at the sight. It’s only been a few days since the poor thing was eating in the video. “What happened?” She steps past Hati, putting a hand on the glass.
Esteemed neighbors, emissaries, ambassadors, and dignitaries, I write to you today not only as a statesman but as a scientist. We in the city of Omelas have been exceedingly lucky in recent years. The wars, diseases, and financial instability that have rocked the world have so far passed us by. Partly that’s been due to prudent precautions and smart public investments, but it’s also true that our fine city benefits in unique ways from ancient, dearly-held customs.
A scream rises from the bush. One last call to the living: a warning of pain. Katarina’s heard that same sound more times than she’s had hot dinners but still a ribbon of unease unfurls in her gut. She sets her cleaver down for a moment, shifting from one foot to the other.
Baba’s skin splits open with the sound of thunder. A parent’s intuition, he says, switching on the news. A ticker tape warning runs across the screen telling us to leave, leave, leave. The sky over our home is cracking but Baba will not go. He runs up to the roof instead and grows larger than I ever knew him to be.
The Map Sphere consists of thirteen stellar sails, circular in shape, arranged asymmetrically around the host star. They are easy to miss but look closely and you will see them: specks against the dark, clustered in no more than thirty degrees of arc. They are not really a sphere, this is true. Their total power production is so low you would be forgiven for doubting their function.
“This is it,” says Sister Auralee. She stamps on the ground beneath them. “This is where we’ll plant the church.” The turf yields to her bare feet, warm and spongy like bruised flesh. Grass peeks between her toes. She smells moisture, the tang of fibrous peat deep below, a thousand years of bones and dead leaves packed into the dirt.
It was a different kind of migration when our parents moved to Lagos; Dad, a young accountant, had got a job at the federal secretariat, and Mum, a teacher, lugging three boys aged one, three, and five, transferred later from her state civil service job to the Federal School of Arts and Sciences on the island.
I was on the school bus when the second bird came out. The bus struggled up Trabuco Hill Road. Gears ground. This was the part every day when we all joked about getting out to push. Another year and I’d have my driver’s license. Then no more bus.
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