Merletta straightened her posture as he rattled off what was clearly a rehearsed explanation.
“Any mermaid or merman in the triple kingdoms has the right to apply to the record holder training program within two weeks of their sixteenth birthday. Nevertheless, applicants can only be accepted into the training program if they pass a series of entry tests. The training is rigorous and broad, and requires significant investment from the instructors. That investment cannot be justified unless a trainee at least has the capacity to succeed.” He looked her in the eye for once. “I’ll be frank—most people don’t, even amongst those select few who choose to apply.”
Merletta just nodded tightly, feeling like if she opened her mouth she might be sick. So far he had only told her what she already knew.
The merman was already looking down at his leaf again. “The most important quality in a record holder is memory. It’s also the most difficult to teach if the aptitude isn’t there. Combat and history we can teach, even literacy to an extent. But memory is more difficult to train if there isn’t a strong starting point. Therefore we’ll start there. If you can’t pass that test, there’s no point continuing with any others.”
“Yes, sir,” Merletta managed, again giving a small nod.
She watched with equal parts trepidation and fascination as the merman pulled out a collection of beautifully rounded shells, and an assortment of small rocks in a variety of colors. He explained the format of the test, which required her to remember which color rock sat under which shell as they were covered and uncovered rapidly, and to match rocks to like colors while still covered.
Merletta began to breathe more easily as she followed his instructions, answering correctly every time. The merman was insultingly surprised by her success, his eyebrows going up slightly with each correct answer.
“Well,” he said begrudgingly, after several minutes. “You passed the preliminary stage of the memory test.” He regarded Merletta silently, his eyes narrowing at her expression. “You look confused. Did you not realize you’d answered correctly?”
“No, sir, it’s not that,” said Merletta quickly, wondering how to answer.
She wasn’t surprised by her accuracy. She knew her visual memory was excellent—it was one of her greatest strengths. In fact, her memory was the reason she was there. Once, when she was a small child, a carer at the home had made a stray comment about her memory being good enough to be a record holder. It was more an expression than an actual suggestion—the carer certainly hadn’t intended to create a lifelong ambition with the careless words. But it had stayed with Merletta, and she had gone to great effort to discover who the record holders were, what they did, and what it took to join their ranks. And even from that young age, she had made it a game and a challenge to take every opportunity to test and improve her memory.
“I just…” She hesitated. “I was surprised by the style of the test. It was more…simplistic than I expected.” The truth was that it felt like a child’s game, the sort she and her fellow beneficiaries had played at the home by gathering together unwanted flotsam and turning it into a competition.
The merman made a disgruntled noise in his throat as he packed the shells and the rocks away. “Yes, well, that’s not the normal format of the test. The truth is you’re getting an advantage, which hardly seems fair to me, but the law says everyone has the right to apply, so—”
“What do you mean?” Merletta asked sharply. “I’m not looking for a handout. I want to take the same test as everyone else.”
The merman looked less than impressed by her interruption. For a moment he just glared at her, then he said, with a slight huff, “Well, that’s not really possible, is it? Normally applicants are required to read a complex description, then copy it out word for word ten minutes later, but since you can’t read—”
“I can read,” Merletta said.
The man stared at her, and this time she didn’t think it was her interruption that had thrown him.
“And I can write,” she added for good measure. She refrained with difficulty from rolling her eyes as he continued to stare blankly. “Some merpeople in Tilssted can read and write, you know.”
“But I thought you said you grew up in a charity home,” the merman said. His tone made it an accusation, as if he suspected she had deceived him somehow. “You’re telling me they taught literacy there?”
“Not generally,” Merletta admitted. “But there was an elderly merman who used to volunteer there. Denton. He was only supposed to teach us symbols, so we could read basic signposts, but he saw that I was more interested than the others.” And more capable, she added silently. “So he started teaching me to read and write.” Her voice took on a reminiscent tone. “He came every week for years.”
“Where is he now?” the merman asked, looking slightly suspicious for some reason.
Merletta felt her throat close slightly. It was almost like the feeling of diving below the surface, but she knew it was caused by emotion this time, not by the transition from air to water. “He died,” she said shortly. “Years ago.”
“Oh,” said the merman. He offered no condolences, instead straightening in his seat, his tone turning brisk. “Well, that’s good, then. You can take the normal tests.”
The memory of her mentor—one of the few genuinely kind-hearted merpeople she had ever met—gave Merletta fresh determination. She focused all her attention on the seemingly endless stream of verbal and written questions put to her. She would like to think that if Denton was still alive, he would have been proud to see her putting his teaching to such good use.
When she performed the first few tests flawlessly, the exercises became increasingly more complex, and it was all she could do to keep up. A few times she knew she had made an error, and she held her breath, expecting to be thrown from the room—and the Center—without ceremony. But apparently some mistakes were allowed, because the testing continued.
It was a struggle to maintain her stoic demeanor when it came time for the written tests. Her fingers gripped the carved coral writing implement firmly, her hands flying over the waxy leaf with incredible speed. Writing had never felt so effortless. Remembering the tortuously slow process of learning to write by scratching in the shifting sand of the ocean floor, she couldn’t help but imagine how much easier it would have been to train with such tools.
The testing had been going without pause for almost four hours when the merman finally sat back in his seat. He looked almost as weary as Merletta felt, but his expression was hard to read as he regarded Merletta.
She sat straight, her back stiff and her hand cramped, watching him nervously. Well? she wanted to say, but she curbed her tongue.
“You passed,” he said at last, and she almost shot out of her seat. “Both the memory and the literacy tests.” The merman gave a small one-shouldered shrug. “There were quite a number of errors in there, but within the allowable limit.”
Barely, his tone seemed to say, but Merletta didn’t care. She’d done it. She’d made it.
She was going to be a record holder.