Nervously, I stepped towards the door, beckoned by the specific sequence of lights above it. It was more of an archway, I supposed. A portal of sorts into adulthood. If you passed the test on the other side.
Turning around, I wrung my hands and took one last look at my parents.
My platinum blonde mother, a neuroscientist, gave me a smile of expensive veneers and a thumbs up. My balding chemical engineer father just nodded.
I knew what that meant. The words had been reverberrating around my head for years. “When you turn thirteen, you will take a test. If you pass it, you will live happily ever after. If you don’t…” but he never finished that sentence. It always just hung there, an unnamed, silent threat. But as I grew, I filled in the blank for myself.
“You’re gonna fail!†was the schoolyard sneer. “And when you do, they’ll send you away!â€
“Where to?†I sniffed.
“To a place where they’ll teach you to clean poop out of toilets!†Childish maniacal laughter often ensued next.
I gulped.
My best friend, Zia, took my hand as we entered the large, domed room.
“Good luck,” she whispered. I smiled grimly back, and we broke apart.
Brushing my long brown hair out of my face, I turned into the cubicle to my left, my name on the LCD screen above the entrance.
Carroway, Meg.
Here goes nothing.
You really like descriptive adjectives… that’s a thing I’ve always noticed about your writing. It’s not a bad thing, in moderation, but there are places where you can “condense” your writing for lack of a better word. Even though I say condense, there are some places where you could add in longer descriptions which serve the purpose of just a word or two but do so without being so obvious. I’m looking at this now and thinking, OK, the author wants us to know that the character’s parents are smart and a few physical features to boot. And that’s how I read it. I think it might be better for the reader if you somewhat mix in those features to a larger description or action. That way the reader gets the image without realizing what you are trying to do. Also, “LCD” is not necessary. I would just put “screen,” which would make the writing flow a bit better, plus, we don’t know if they’ll still be using liquid crystal displays in the future. Maybe they’ll engineer bacteria to produce different colors according to the voltage of electrical impulse they receive. But then you might get the prismatic chicken pox (which is caused by a virus, but you get my drift. It was a bad joke. shut up.)
On the non-critical side, pretty much everything else is good or great. Nice exposition, you give us a good amount of info in a short space, and I always like how you are able to portray the emotion of the character. I also like how you switch frequently to flashbacks. You do that a lot in your writing, and you do it well, with the result of adding to the character in just a few lines where it might have taken a large paragraph to explain in the present. It also shows that the kids are jerks. Some things never change. Also, I like the premise. I remember you talking about it in WaBiaY Club. I’ll keep reading.