But when the examiner opened the door
and called me out, my head was high, even
though my back hurt to match my arms. And
even though I’d barely cleared seventy-five
percent of the area.
The weather examiner hung up my coat.
“That was another—”
I held up my hand. “Failure. I don’t mind
saying it. Thank you for the chance.” At least
the weather didn’t make me quit. And it had
been interesting. “I won’t forget it, sir.”
“Nor will I forget you.” He folded his
arms. “I was about to call it another unortho-
dox success, Kris.”
“Success?” I grunted, holding out the
dripping hat.
“Your fourth.”
“Fourth!” The hat slipped from my fin-
gers. “But I failed every time. Even the fog
test.”
“Kris, you passed the fog test when you
insisted on taking the other, tougher ones.
The first colonists demanded
to return to Earth to avoid wild
weather. You wanted to challenge
it again.”
“But after the wind test, you
said I cheated by using the protec-
tive gear to hold—no.” He raised
his eyebrows as I worked it out.
“You said I didn’t ask permission.”
A smile. “Creative thinking.
And you didn’t finish shovel-
ing, but we had to call you out of
there. Those who don’t pass are
pounding on the door, yelling to
be released before then.”
Still inside the mittens, my
fingers trembled. “The umbrella?”
“Designed to fail, to test your
reaction. You tried to fix it with
the wind—that was a first. You
thought of weather as a tool, not
an enemy.”
He tossed me a dry hat.
“You’ll be needing that on Colony
World.”TA-DA! I WIN, RIGHT?
PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS!LOOK AT
YOU, FLYING.
AT LAST.