Annie, Maddie and Matt spent the rest of the carriage ride talking and laughing like they used to.
It was a good way for them to get rid of all the nerves that they had, and before they knew it, they had finally arrived at their destination.
Which was a little too quick if you asked Maddie, but oh well, if she brought it up now, no one would back her up.
Annie was the first out of the carriage followed by Maddie and then finally Matt. Once they had all got down from the carriage it left and turned back in the direction that it came from.
"Guys is the carriage supposed to go back instead of waiting for us?" asked Matt as he looked at the leaving carriage but got no answer.
"Guys??" called Matt again when he realized that both Annie and Maddie had not answered him, causing him to frown and turn around to see what made them both speechless.
"Wow..." he said as he also marveled at the spectacle before them.
"Wow indeed." replied Annie as the three of them continued to stare.
"Guys, are you sure that we're at the right place?" asked Maddie as she turned to look at them and they looked at her.
"Of course we are, I doubt that we would get dropped off at the wrong place." replied Annie as Maddie went back to looking at the building in front of them.
"Then how come what I'm looking at doesn't look like an exam centre at all?!!" asked Maddie in disbelief as she could not believe this.
When Aunt Stella mentioned that they would be writing at the test centre since Annie decided that they would, Maddie didn't know what to expect, she thought that it would look like one measly building falling apart due to years and years of use.
She never expected this spectacle that was in front of their eyes at all.
The building in front of them was far from old, in fact it looked new, very new. The centre was huge for one, but talking about the size would not even suffice for the marvel in front of them.
A virile erected construction made out of fine polished limestone that glistened in the sun's delicate rays. Adorned with several white stones adding to the decor of the exterior of the building. The front gate was split into three arched entrances carved smoothly out of polished onyx, the jet black colour alternating with the fine polished white limestone giving a sharp contrast.
Those three entrances led into the main building. On top of the three entrances had six small towers. The backdrop of the entrance being the stunning visuals of the building itself. From this distance it was hard to tell how truly huge the building was, but it was clear that it was huge. In the midst of the main arch connecting all the entrances was a huge, majestic clock whose seconds hand continued to move telling the time to all that passed by.
On the main building itself stood six other high towers, looming high and proud as guardians of the building. The several windows only adding to the sheer beauty and breath takingness of the sight before them.
This was not a test centre, it looked more like a gothic cathedral to be honest.
"I agree with you Maddie, this is...just surprising." said Matt as Annie nodded, if the Artrovan test centre looked like this, then how did the school itself look??
"Alright, alright, I think we have marveled enough." said Annie as she was reminded that they were not here to gawk but to write a test.
"We should get going now, we don't want to be late for our test." said Annie as Maddie and Matt nodded and they all proceeded to walk to the building.
They all walked together through the centre entrance as they stepped through another door into the building as they marveled yet again.
The inside was definitely more breathtaking than the outside, the interior was nothing short of exceptional. The floors were made of clear milky marble. Annie was sure that she could see her reflection in the shiny marble floors.
"Once again, I am telling you, this isn't a test centre." said Maddie as Annie and Matt laughed when they suddenly heard the sound of someone clearing their throat as their attention was drawn to their right.
They saw a woman, who was fairly short with curly brown hair packed neatly under a red cloche, matching with her red cape coat worn over a white dress.
The woman's face was very serious. She gave off an austere feeling about her and it was clear that she was not here to dilly dally.
"My name is Mrs. Mariweather and I will be your supervisor for today." said the woman calmly as from the tone of her voice it was clear that now was the time to be serious.
Annie was the first to approach the woman, she walked up to her and gave her nicest smile.
"Good morning Mrs. Mariweather, my name is Annie, nice to meet you." said Annie with a smile as the woman looked at her, she was neither pleased nor disappointed.
"Good morning Mrs. Mariweather, my name is Matt, nice to meet you." said Matt as he smiled and followed in suite.
"Hello Mrs. Mariweather, I am Maddie." said Maddie simply, she saw no need to introduce herself, if this woman was here then it meant that she already knew them.
"I am aware of all your names already, and just a note, whenever you introduce yourself, please do try to add your last name, there are many people with the same name, that is why we have last names." said Mrs. Mariweather as Maddie was already sure that she didn't like her. There was something snubbing about her.
"Alright Mrs. Mariweather, thank you." said Annie as she smiled.
"Hmm..." replied the woman.
"Now come, come, follow me, there is no time to waste, the day is still fresh and there is certainly a lot to do." she said as she walked ahead and Annie, Maddie and Matt followed behind her.
As they walked through the empty halls, the of her heels hitting the thick marble floors as the clip clop sounds echoed in the large halls.
"Is it me or does this woman seem to be on edge?" asked Maddie telepathically as she linked Matt and Annie.
"I don't think so, maybe she's just someone who isn't friendly." replied Annie.
"That is true, or maybe she's just serious because this is a serious setting, you won't actually expect her to be all smiles and welcoming to the people she's going to supervise." said Matt as Annie agreed with him.
"Sure that might be it, but I'm sure it's not it in this case, she just seems to be on a high horse, I'm not saying that she shouldn't be serious in a setting like this, but at least, she shouldn't look at us as if she was forced to be here and do this as a favour to Aunt Stella." said Maddie.
"Maddie you don't know that for sure." said Matt.
"Why are you always quick to think that people are just that bad?" asked Annie.
"I'm not quick to think that people are bad, but I am quick to notice that people are bad, didn't you see the way she looked at us, as if we are beneath her?" asked Maddie.
"Gosh lady, no one asked you to sacrifice your Saturday, if she wanted to, I'm sure that she could have sent someone else to do this in her place." said Maddie as Mrs. Mariweather turned to the right swiftly and they continued following after her.
"You see, why does she have to be so quiet? The least she could do is to add some commentary and tell us a little about this place, after all, I am sure that she knows this is our first time here." said Maddie.
"If we were here for a tour Maddie, then I'm sure she would have made herself better suited to be a tour guide." said Matt as Maddie scoffed.
"Geez, I get it, you don't agree with me, whatever." said Maddie as Annie shook her head.
"I don't really think that all that is important, I think that we should just make sure that we don't cause any trouble here." said Annie as Matt agreed with her and Maddie scoffed.
"Yeah, yeah I get it, let's just write this test and get it over with." said Maddie as she sighed, she had a feeling that Mrs. Meriweather was more cold to her than Annie and Matt, and she already had an idea of why that was so.
She was way too used to this by now, which was why the only highlight of her day would be going over to Ollie's so she could finally learn how to convey.
"Here we are." said Mrs. Mariweather as she suddenly stopped and turned to face them, causing, Annie, Maddie and Matt to halt in their tracks before they crashed into each other.
"You see what I'm saying??She at least given us a heads up before stopping abruptly like that." said Maddie as she shook her head.
"This is the room in which you will be taking your test." declared Mrs. Mariweather as the door opened and she walked in as Annie, Maddie and Matt followed after her.
The room was very bright on the inside, with lovely warm sunlight shining into the room, causing it to feel as if they were outside rather than inside.
The room was filled with white wooden desks and nothing more. Annie estimated that there were almost twenty desks.
"Please choose your seat because you will be seated until you have completed your test." said Mrs. Mariweather as Annie, Maddie and Matt looked at each other, wondering what exactly the seating rules were.
Were they allowed to sit next to each other? Or were they not? It was rather confusing, Mrs. Mariweather was not really specific with where they were to sit, but the desks were close to each other, if they weren't allowed to sit next to each other then why would the desks be close to one another?
"Oh you know what, let's just sit down already, for safe reasons we should sit far apart." said Maddie in annoyance as Matt and Annie agreed with her and they proceeded to choose their seats.
Annie chose the third desk in the first row as she sat down, while Matt chose the fifth desk in the third row, and Maddie opted for the first desk in the last row that was right beside the window, where she could see the beautiful garden outside.
After all, just in case she did not know anything that could come up in the test, at least she would have a beautiful view outside to bounce back on. You couldn't blame her for preparing for the worst of situations.
"Alright now, I will tell you about some important rules." said Mrs. Mariweather.
"Firstly, you are not allowed to speak in this room, this is a very serious room in which very serious tests are taken." said Mrs. Mariweather.
"Secondly, there is no eating allowed in here, no gum chewing, no crunching, no nothing." she said as Maddie resisted the urge to roll her eyes, did she see anyone with food in here? There were only the three of them, and it was obvious that they didn't have any form of food with them.
"Thirdly, you are not allowed to communicate with each other once your test commences." she said.
"And last, but not least, any wrong behaviour and you will be dismissed without hesitation at all." she said.
"Are we clear?" she asked as Annie, Maddie and Matt all nodded.
"Good, now onto the test rules." said Mrs. Mariweather.
"Like I said earlier, you are not allowed to talk in this room, all forms of communication is banned in this room." said Mrs. Mariweather.
"In order to preserve the integrity of the academy's assessments and also to prevent cheating, there is a hidden detector in this room that will go off if any of you try to communicate telepathically." said Mrs. Mariweather.
"Well then, byeeee." said Maddie as she broke the mind link between the three of them.
"If it goes off, you will undeniably dismissed and you will be unable to continue with the test, are we clear?" asked Mrs. Mariweather as they all nodded.
"Alright, now, I will explain to you the nature of your test." said Mrs. Mariweather.
"The nature of your test will be part physical and part magical." she said.
"For the past twenty years the tests have changed in order to curb cheating, you won't imagine the number of people that try to cheat even though it is near to impossible." said Mrs. Mariweather with a slight shake of her head.
"Anyway, because of that, the test you will be writing today will be completely physical, meaning you will answer with a pen which is unerasable, so be careful before you write down your answers." she said.
"But regardless of the fact that it is physical, there are still some components that are magic, but those questions that need to be answered magically will present themselves as so, do you understand?" she asked as they all nodded.
"After your physical test, you will have an interview test in which I will ask you several tailored questions that you will only find out about during the interview, but you do not have to worry about that now." she said as they kept on nodding.
"Good, now, last by not least, you are not allowed to ask for any assistance and that also includes from me as well, but if you run into any difficulties, which I doubt you will, just raise your hand to alert me." said Mrs. Mariweather as they nodded.
"Good, now you have approximately three hours to write your test, now I know what you are thinking, the test is not that long, but we are merely giving you enough time to write down tangible, meaningful answers so you have no excuse of being rushed." said Mrs. Mariweather as she snapped her fingers and a weird looking pen and a pile of papers appeared on the desks of Annie, Maddie and Matt as they looked down.
"If you have any questions or concerns before you begin to write please express them now." said Mrs. Meriweather as she received no response.
"Alright then, you can begin, the timer is set, and good luck." she said as Annie, Maddie and Matt looked at each other and smiled as Maddie gave them a thumbs up as Annie giggled and faced her desk as Matt did the same.
Mrs. Mariweather did not seem to mind the display of friendship before as, she shrugged it off as she walked backwards and a chair and desk were pushed out from the wall behind her as she sat down and brought out a magazine that was titled 'Cape coat weekly' with a picture of a woman in a green cape coat.
Mrs. Mariweather opened up the magazine and started to read as it was clear that she no longer paid attention to the three children.
Annie, Maddie and Matt focused on the test in front of them intently as they remained in complete silence.
...
Three hours had passed swiftly and Annie was not even sure if three hours had really passed just like that?
She had already been done with the test for about twenty minutes now, but she was not going to take her chances by not checking through her entire test paper to make sure she did not make any mistakes.
Matt was also done, and he just like Annie was checking through his test paper as well, but Maddie on the other hand couldn't care less.
She had been done for the past forty minutes, observing Mrs. Mariweather who displayed herself as a very serious, strict, unmoving woman, and yet here she was, her head thrown back as she was fast asleep and snoring quietly, but nevertheless still snoring.
Maddie was not one to overthink her choices by going through her decisions, she had already answered every question and she did not recheck through her paper, she saw np need to, she didn't want to make herself feel any more worried than she already was.
"Psst, are you guys done?" asked Maddie as she whispered, she noticed that Matt and Annie were still.
Annie turned to look at Maddie as she nodded, wary that they would get in trouble if Maddie spoke any more.
"So am I." whispered Maddie as Annie shook her head and her eyes moved from the sleeping Mrs. Mariweather to Maddie.
"We should stop talking, what if the alarm goes off and we get in trouble?" whispered Annie as Matt agreed with her.
"Oh please, don't be worried about that, we're already done, and we didn't speak for the past three hours, and if we were breaking the rules, the alarm would have gone off already, besides, just look at our austere supervisor, you would think she would have woken up by now." whispered Maddie with a scoff.
"Oh don't be rude Maddie." whispered Matt as he shook his head and Maddie tried her best not to laugh, seeing Mrs. Mariweather so vulnerable changed the way she viewed her. Maddie could definitely see her as a woman who loved knitting on the weekends and drinking tea.
"Matt's right Maddie, don't be rude, instead of watching the poor woman sleep how about you go through your test just to make sure you didn't make any mistakes." whispered Annie.
"I already did." lied Maddie blatantly, she didn't need Annie scolding her for no reason.
"Three hours have already passed, who's going to be the one to wake up our lovely Miss. Mariweather?" asked Maddie as she smiled.
"For the record, I am just going to say, 'not it' there we go" said Maddie with a dubious smile on her face while Matt and Annie were still thinking about her first question.
"Not it." said Annie quickly, she didn't like being the one ruining someone's rest.
"Sorry Matt." she said as she smiled at Matt sheepishly, she didn't mean to betray him like that, but she didn't want to wake Mrs. Mariweather up.
Matt just sighed as he shook his head, of course he was too trusting to both Annie and Maddie, now he inevitably had to be the one to wake up their supervisor.