Closer to the After life
"What doesn't matter?" Tom and Max said at the same time.
Hana shrugged. "If it's Professor Atticus—which I doubt—we need to do what the poem says. If it's not him, we still need to do what it says. We'll be really tempted to leave the square, but we can't. Then, at the last second, whoever it is will wink us away. Poof, nice, and easy—just like the chair thing."
"How do we know for sure we'll get winked?" Tom asked, even though the answer had just clicked in his head.
"If somebody else is doing this," Hana said, "they could obviously just kill us if they wanted to. Why would they go through this whole ordeal to get rid of us? If anything, now we have even more pressure to pass these tests." She shook her fists and screamed in frustration. "This is so stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!"
"Way to sum it up intelligently," Max muttered. When she gave him a cold stare, he threw his hands up. "Hey, I agree with you!"