CHAPTER 1 GRADUATION DAY. I can hardly stand still as my mother straightens my celebratory red tunic and tucks a strand of light brown hair behind my ear. Finally she turns me and I look in the reflector on our living area wall. Red. I'm wearing red. No more pink. I am an adult. Seeing evidence of that tickles my stomach. "Are you ready, Cia?" my mother asks. She, too, is wearing red, although her dress is made of a gossamer fabric that drapes to the floor in soft swirls. Next to her, my sleeveless dress and leather boots look childish, but that's okay. I have time to grow into my adult status. I'm young for it at sixteen. The youngest by far in my class. I take one last look in the reflector and hope that today is not the end of my education, but I have no control over that. Only a dream that my name will be called for The Testing. Swallowing hard, I nod. "Let's go." Graduation is held in the colony square among the stalls filled with baked goods and fresh milk because the school isn't large enough to hold all the people who will attend. The entire colony attends graduation, which only makes sense since everyone in the colony is related to at least one of the students crossing over to adulthood or celebrating their promotion to