Summary

The story opens on the protagonist, Abby Mallon. She works for a company called American Scholastic Tests, and her job is to write questions for standardized tests. The narration notes that Abby’s greatest fear is public speaking, and she therefore enjoys the fact that her job requires very little interaction with other people. However, one day, her supervisor tells her that the questions she writes are becoming too creative and abstract, and thus they are promoting her to a different position. The position will require her to travel to high schools around the country, gives presentations about their tests, and answer questions from students. They tell her that she can have a vacation before she begins her new job. Abby is quite daunted by the idea of this new job, as public speaking still scares her very much. The narration notes that Abby...