The Cubby Hole (IQ Testing Book 1) (4 page)

Marsilla exhales shaking her pixie following behind Rincon, staring at the fighting teens too.

Duchie skips side to side down a worn pathway between tall trees, low plant bushes and colored wildflowers then stops. She narrows her eyelashes with concern. She squats then leans into the low bushes. “It’s…”

“…a baby kitten,” I see the movement under the low bushes too. I release Buffo then run and slide into the low bushes of plants, smiling and laughing. I see a tiny litter of baby kittens. The six-week old kittens hide and play underneath a low bush as I grab with quicker hands. I feel pain. “Ouch!” I pull back my hand covered in my blood. I frown with pain and annoyance, saying. “The bushes have prickly thorns. Be careful!” I nurse my hand wiping the blood on the leaves. I received a nasty slice along the top of my hand then spot the kitten. I grab with my healthy hand then cuddle her into my face tickling my chin with her tiny soft fur too happy to worry about a simple wound. “Awe! She’s so soft and sweet. Her claws are tiny too. She’s so cute. Can I take her home with me for being a good citizen?” I rub the kitten as she purrs in my neck, smiling and nodding.

Buffo kneels and smiles reaching for a baby puppy. It hides and yelps underneath a different set of low lying plant bushes. He yells. “Ouch! I got bite too by the prickly thorns. Be careful, ya’ll!” He ignores the bleeding tiny cut then cuddles the six-week old puppy smelling the newness of a baby animal.

Rincon smiles kneeling and patting the puppies along with Hatch and Duchie. Marsilla, Jara, Lamis and I play with the tiny kittens, smiling and giggling with fun.

One of the schoolers runs behind us yelling and fingering. “Hey ya’ll, there’re baby farm animals near the water pond. Come down here!”

I giggle cuddling the kitten for the last time then place her onto the grass when another schooler comes behind me. The schooler grabs and cuddles the kitten. I stand and cuddle with Buffo walking down a sloped hillside of wildflowers, low bushes and tall trees. Rincon, Hatch, Jara, Lami, Duchie and Mesilla follow behind us whispering about the forest.

I see a lake of water surrounded by tall trees with a fishing pier. Between the lake and the hillside there is an assortment of baby farm animals standing in the openness of a grass field of grass and wildflowers without a fence or corral. The baby farm animals consist of numerous chicks, lambs, colts, calves, rabbits, ducklings, and other schoolers who smile and kneel on the ground playing with the animals too.

I run from Buffo smiling and giggling. I squat and touch two of the baby chickens. They’re soft and fluffy. They wiggle side to side inside my hands as I feel their tiny stick legs and sharp toes. I giggle handing the solo chick to Buffo.

He strokes the chick then gives to Duchie. Duchie giggles and pats the chick handing to Rincon.

I bump elbows with some of the new teens from the other towns crowding around one of the ten colts. I take my turn to caress his long thin legs using a stiff brush to groom the baby horse. It neighs stomping its tiny hoofs when one of the teen feeds it a small crap apple stolen from the apple tree nearby. Buffo elbows his way through the crowd of teens kneeling beside me, touching and probing the silky coat of the colt. We giggle and laugh.

I chase after the two bunny rabbits cuddling their soft fur into my neck. The lamb baas with noise for its mama until you feed it an apple slice then it chews allowing me to rub its soft fur too.

Buffo and I elbow around the crowd of teens getting to each baby animal patting and giggling with silliness with our unique farm experience. I cuddle with Buffo nodding and saying. “I believe that we’re done with the pink color forest woodland park place. Where to next?”

Hatch walks with Jara, saying. “I don’t wanna leave and return and answer six more dumbo questions to attain the color of…”

Rincon says. “Yellow, it is the next color tone on the chart for reaching the gold color tone. You hear the me-chee say if you reach the gold color tone then you can select any job position that you desire within Colfax.”

Hatch says. “I got a job with my daddy. I’m going to a me-chee programmer and program that me-chee with a funnier personality and a hair style too,” laughs.

Buffo fingers the trees. “Let’s eat the food of the forest too. I spied a batch of pecan trees, apple trees and low hanging blue berry bushes over yonder,” releases Ketona then shifts into the forest with Hatch, Jara, and Duchie.

Rincon nods scooting beside Ketona, grins. He playfully taps her elbow, saying. “A snack of nourishment sounds delightful before our next set of academic questions. This is a wise decision. Food is the source of both mind intelligence and body energy. We should arrange a pod of seats for our enjoyment of the gathered snacks.”

I nod working with him, Lamis and Marsilla shuffling around the broken tree limbs and loose small rocks from a natural row of small flat boulders for a circle of semi-short stone chairs.

Java leads holding her breasts carrying no fruit items as Buffo and Hatch return dropping both arms and hands full of nuts, apples, pears and berries on top of the tree bark, when the teens grab handfuls of food sitting around a non-camp fire, chewing.

Duchie says. “I find it interesting that all the teens have advanced into the first color tone of pink.”

Buffo chews. “I don’t. All the questions were short and stupid. All the future questions from the me-chee will be more short and stupid. Then when all the shortest questions are addressed we be done with Citizenship Day. I’ll start my new job with my daddy next week,” fist-bumps with Hatch, chuckling.

Rincon scoots next to Ketona chewing then swallows the food with his gracious southern-beau manners. “I assumed you answered both numbers seven and eight correctly too, Ketona.”

I nod, chewing. “I answered 6,400 years for the radiation question.”

Duchie says. “We’re all vying for the same limited work jobs at the same limited work buildings here inside the Cubby Hole for advancing to the next color tone. You must answer every single academic question…”

Lamis frowns with confusion sitting next to Rincon. “I couldn’t figure out that answer swiftly enough. Ten seconds might be a lot of time for a machine, but my human brain needs more than ten tick tocks on the clock, especially when being quizzed and nervous. I was calculating out the math using my hands and fingers when my cat suit sizzled in heat then turned the color of pink. Then I looked up to see that my me-chee shielding had turned pink too. So I presumed that I have gotten three-fourths of the total questions correct. Then the chair dove into a dark hole when I started yelling and screaming in fear and fright,” giggles. “But I know what to do for the next scary ride. Scream louder,” giggles with the others.

Rincon nods, scanning the landscape of the forest then views Lamis. “I concur. You must remain calm not allowing your emotions to sway your responses while calculating your correct answer. Each half-life, an average of one-half of the nuclei present will decay. Therefore, after one-half live decays then only about one-half of the radium nuclei remain. After two half-lives, the sample contains one-half of one-half or about one-fourth of the original number of radium nuclei. The number of nuclei remaining after
n
half-lives have elapsed is one-half to the nth power. Having 15/16 of the radium nuclei decay means having 1/16 of them remain, which is one-half to the fourth power. The answer is four half-lives, which is 6,400 years. That was the correct answer for addressing the scientific question which allowed me to advance from silver into pink,” smiles and chews.

Java frowns with annoyance. “This is just some non-fun time before we start our new fun working jobs. My daddy’s a legal technician. I’m going to be like him too working in the legal building in Colfax.”

Lamis chews then swallows. “I didn’t get to hear the last question. What was it?”

Rincon laughs then says. “A dead body lying on the bottom of a lake will surface due to gas like the popping of a cork. The gas has formed and compressed inside the abdominal wall and chest cavity from the both decay and eating internal bacteria. I knew that there were factors associated when a body rose to the surface, the length of time after drowning including fat content, the water temperature at the bottom of the lake, the depth of the lake location, and the consumption of food, before death. I didn’t have readily available one food item high in carbohydrates that would quickly refloat the dead body then I thought of...”

“Beer,” chuckles Buffo then cracks the pecan shell. He nods and chews.

I giggle and hug my boyfriend alleviating some of my tension seeing the fighting teens at cute playground park. I live in a world of posh beauty and slick stones of Colfax. No one fights or yells or causes trouble. I scan the forest seeing the yellow rays of sunshine and pretty wild flowers. I sniff the fruit bushes of blue berries and raspberries too. The landscape is both pretty and pleasure. I study Buffo. He eats then laughs then chews then chuckles. I feel safe with him and here.

Duchie frowns with disappointment. “I missed the dead body question too. However I did get the other answers correct advancing me into the pink color which was 87.5 percent. I got seven out of eight questions correct. Pfft! The next color tones will not be so easy for us.”

Rincon says. “A candy bar is listed in nutritional value as high in carbohydrates. The candy would cause a dead body to rise from the bottom too. That was my correct answer.”

Lamis nods and smiles. “Well, you can always stay within your present color tone until Citizenship Day ends without advancing to another color if you only guess two-fourths of the questions. That’s fifty percent. When does it end this afternoon, this evening, before midnight? Does anyone have any datum to share with me?”

Rincon chews then swallows, saying. “You are incorrect as usual. The me-chee host cleared stated that if you address one-fourth or less correct answers of the posed questions, then you are stationary in your current color tone. That is mathematically 25 percent of the questions. For a tally of four the correct answer is one. The me-chee host cleared stated if you answer three-fourths or more of correct answers of the posed questions, then you will advance to the next color tone. I did at hundred percent, a perfect score instead of the 75 percent, a passing score. The me-chee host cleared stated if you answer two-fourths of the posed questions with a set of incorrect answers, then you will slip back down into the previous color tone. To maintain your current color tone, you answer correctly one-fourth or less questions. If you attempt to answer all the questions and two-fourths are incorrect, then you will slide back into the previous tone color. This is the correct explanation,” nods then chews the pear.

Duchie frowns with puzzlement. “I don’t understand. Three-fourths is 75 percent. I don’t understand an academic test that allows a schooler to pass at 75 percent that is actually equivalent to the letter grade of D.”

Buffo frowns with puzzlement. “The letter grade of D is a passing mark carrying ya from grade to grade unless you study a little bit more and try to make a higher grade for your BPs, of course,” chuckles and chews the fruit.

Rincon frowns with confusion. “That is an incorrect analogy, Duchie. Three-fourths divided within the given formula is 75 percent. However we do not know the total number of questions of the denominator to multiple by the given mathematical percentage of 75. Take the previous questions in the pink tone color range to attain the perfect percentage of 75 you answered exactly six correct questions regardless of the order to receive the passing value of 75. Therefore we cannot guess the number of questions. But we can estimate based on the percentage value. If the perfect passing percentage is the number of 75 then the next series of questions for the next color tone will come in the following format. Numeric three divided by numeric four is a perfect value of 75 percent. The next round for the orange tone could have a maximum number of four total questions. If you receive a fifth question then the total questions could be eight based on a perfect value of 75. Six divided by eight is a perfect value of 75 percent. Nine divided by twelve is a perfect value of 75 percent. If you received a ninth question then the total amount of questions could be twelve. You see how easy it is to figure out the estimated questions for the next color tone using simple division of the math scale.”

Lamis nods and chews. “So I’m safe if I can answer the first six questions correctly getting the 75 percentage value and then advancing to the next color tone. That’s easy!” She smiles and chews.

Buffo frowns with worry. “I don’t think I can answer correctly nine out of twelve questions if they all related to radiated isotopes. My schooler studies drifted more into programming specs working with my daddy rather than a varied range of mathematical formulas.”

“I answered all eight questions and received hundred percent. Why didn’t the chair drop me after the sixth question down here into the forest park?” I frown with puzzlement, chewing on the pear.

Rincon swallows then frowns with puzzlement. “The answer is very simple. This is also a challenge to advance to the next color tone which is yellow for all the schoolers. Any challenge, that is timed, is also listed as a competition element among the schoolers. The me-chee host is simply allowing any schooler to achieve a perfect hundred score in every color tone since the winning object is the first place choice of any job inside any building here at Colfax. I greatly want the first place choice to choose my work job with my mama as a medical technician.”