Page 10 of Kiwi Sin

Daisy had told me to say this, had said it was all right. How could you correct a teacher, though?

“Yes?” the teacher asked. “Speak up. Time is money.”

“Can you please call me Oriana?” I said. “That’s my new name.”

It felt like, once again, everybody could see through my school uniform, through my hair that was cut to just below my shoulders and pulled back at the sides, exactly like most of the other girls. Through my low socks and school shoes and all the way to the person beneath, in her long dress and huge apron, her knee-length hair knotted and hidden away under a cap, her ungroomed eyebrows and cludgy white trainers. To my absoluteother-ness.

The voices were a buzz now. Mr. Smith said, “Well, you aren’t the first person whose parents made an unfortunate choice on the birth certificate. Oriana it is.”

He was one of those sarcastic teachers, it seemed. Sarcasm wasn’t something you saw much at Mount Zion. He made a note, then said, “Less chat, please. We’re going to start out today with an exam, just to maximize everyone’s pleasure.” More buzz, of the protesting sort, and he put up a hand for quiet. “This is how I find out where you are and what you know. Do your best on it, I’ll survey the wreck of my hopes and dreams for the year, and we’ll go from there.” And passed out sets of stapled papers.

I got mine last. Back row, in the corner. All around me, girls had their heads down and their pencils moving. As for me? I held my pencil in one frozen hand and stared at the printed words.

Which of the following is FALSE about scientific theories?

That one, I could guess, because the last answer was, “They are firmly established and cannot be refuted.” I’d spent most of my life hearing about how so-called scientific theories were wrong andcouldbe refuted by the word of God, so that was the answer. I circled “E.”

Which of the following is/are characteristics of living organisms?

(A) Organized structure.We were organized because we were made by God, and God made things perfectly. That was true, then.

(B) Growth and reproduction.Obviously. Babies.

(C) Maintenance of homeostasis (stable systems).

(D) A and B

(E) A, B, and C

I had no idea what “homeostasis” was. “Stable systems”? What?

Wait.Think.

We’d learnt Latin at Mount Zion, because Latin and Greek were the root languages of Western civilization, which was the only real civilization. “Homo” meant the same, and “stasis” was like “stay.” So that meant staying the same. Stable systems!

I’d got it! This wasn’t too bad! People didn’t stay the same, right? So that one was wrong. I circled(D).

Right. Next question.

What is the correct sequence of increasing organization in a human body?

A whole string of different words in different orders. Organelle, atom, molecule, cell, neutron, organ … on and on.

I knew what cells were. Organs, too. I’d heard of molecules, and even atoms. Those were the smallest, right? I didn’t know what “increasing organization” meant, though. Maybe smallest to largest, since organs were big? I didn’t know what all the wordsmeant,though. I skipped that one for now.

I turned the paper over and got an easy one.

How old is the earth?

(A) Ten thousand years

(B) One hundred thousand years

(C) One million years

(D) One billion years

(E) More than one billion years