Who? My nanny? Jacob thought. What the hell was this?

“R-R-Rosa?” Jacob said.

“That’s right. Rosa. So far, so good, Master Dunning. Now, what was her last name?”

Oh, shit, Jacob thought. Abando? Abrado? Something. He didn’t know. The sweet, silly woman that he had played hide-and-seek with. Who’d fed him after school. Rosa, pressing her warm cheek against his as she helped him blow out the candles on his birthday cake. How could he not know her last name?

“Time’s up,” the man sang.

“Abrado?” Jacob said.

“Not even close,” the man said in disgust. “Her name was Rosalita Chavarria. She was a person, you see. She actually had a first and a last name. Just like you. She was flesh and blood. Just like you. She died last year, you know. A year after your parents fired her because she was becoming forgetful, she went back to her home country. Which leads us to our third question: What was Rosa ’s home country?”

How the hell had this guy known about Rosa ’s termination? Who was this? A friend of hers? He didn’t sound Hispanic. Again, what was this?

“ Nicaragua?” Jacob tried.

“Incorrect again. She was from Honduras. A month after she returned to a one-room shack owned by her sister, she had to go for a hysterectomy. In a substandard hospital outside of Tegucigalpa, she was given a tainted transfusion of blood and contracted HIV. Honduras has the highest concentration of AIDS in the Western Hemisphere. Did you know that? Sure you did.

“Now, question four: What is the average life span in Honduras for an HIV-positive person? I’ll give you a hint. It’s a hell of a lot less than the fifteen years it is in this country.”

Jacob Dunning began to cry.

“I don’t know. How would I know? Please.”

“That won’t do, Jacob,” the man said, jamming and twisting the barrel of the gun painfully against his teeth. “Perhaps I’m not making myself clear enough. There’ll be no Ivy League A in this class. No tutors. No helpful strategies to maximize your score. You can’t cheat, and the results are ultimate. This is a test that you’ve had your whole life to study for, but I have the feeling you were slacking off. So I’d try to think a little bit harder. HIV-positive life span in Honduras! Answer now!”