Occasionally, I heard a muffled teacher's voice issuing clipped directions. To make the situation even eerier, a brooding storm darkened the hall, only dim light came through the rectangular sky lights. It made me pensive. This one morning's experience was supposed define a child, the scores engraved in files that follow a child until graduation. The test scores on that one arbitrary day might influence teacher pay, initiate a flurry of worried parent calls, and be abused by any number of people.
Bells rang, jarring the uncanny silence.
A mistake, I mused. But the bells kept on. They spent twenty-five minutes that way.