"Something's wrong."

The words were uttered by an anxious looking woman, whispered into the ear of the just as anxious man standing next to her. He pursed his lips, his silence confirmation enough that he heard her and agreed.

In front of them, a little girl sat in a chair that was much too tall for her, swinging her legs through the air and quietly humming to herself. Her wispy, dark hair escaped from its loose ponytail, framing her chubby face. She didn't seem to notice how worried her parents were getting. As far as she knew, nothing was out of the ordinary.

Her parents were another story. They had been standing confidently behind her for the past several minutes, waiting for the result of her testing, secure in the fact that whatever it was, it would be good. But as the clock ticked past fifteen minutes--the precise moment at which the testers always, always, always came back to deliver the results, ever since as far back as anyone could remember--they started to fidget, eyes darting around nervously.

Seventeen minutes had already passed in silence. Then eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. 

What was taking so long this time?

Twenty five. Thirty.

Forty.

Time was ticking, and still, the testers did not return.

The girl wan't concerned. She was content with the feeling of air rushing past her legs and the comforting tune of her favorite song.

Over forty-five minutes had passed by the time the testers returned. The girl's mother had been squeezing her hands together so hard, she couldn't feel them anymore. Her unblinking eyes had been glued to the door for the past quarter of an hour. Her father had worn down the soles of his shoes from his constant pacing, and he had strands of hair clutched between his fingers from when he dug them into his scalp.

When the door swung open, the girl's mother let out a little squeak, frantically scanning the expressions on the testers' faces. They were blank and unreadable. The father froze in his place and turned to them, a hundred questions on the tip of his tongue. But before he could say anything, one of them asked to have a private word with both the mother and father of the child.

The testers never asked for such a thing.

As everyone but the little girl walked out of the room, the woman looked like she was about to faint, her face turning pale. Her husband started gnawing at his lip, seeming like he wanted to throw up. The child hardly noticed as they left, but the sound of the door slamming shut behind them startled her out of her reverie.

She frowned, feeling for the first time that day that something was off. Hopping down from the chair, she tiptoed to the door and pressed an ear against the crack, curious to hear the conversation.

At first, the voices were too quiet to make out, but they gradually swelled louder, jumbling together, agitated and upset. And they were almost shouting now, but the door was so thick the girl still couldn't make out any individual words.

But then she heard what was unmistakably her mother's voice, hysterically rising above the others.

"Of course I know! She's our daughter!"

The child stepped back, blinking in surprise. They were obviously arguing about her, though she couldn't imagine why. Were her test results bad? Did the testers find that her Gift was one of the useless ones? No, that was impossible. It was all genetic, she was told, though she didn't quite understand that at such a young age. What she did know was that her mom had a good Gift, and her dad had a good Gift too, so logically, she must have a just as good a Gift, if not even better. It was apparently scientifically impossible to get anything less with a child like her. So no, it couldn't possibly be useless. But... was there any other scenario that would cause such an enormous disagreement?

The girl sighed, heading back to her chair. There was really nothing she could do but wait for them to return with her results.

Hardly a couple minutes had passed by the time the door swung open again. The expressions on the testers' faces were sympathetic. Her mother's eyes were red-rimmed, as if she had been crying, and her father was staring blankly into space. How bad could her results possibly be, to cause her parents to react like this? What kind of Gift could be so horrible?

Too impatient to wait for them to start talking, the girl spoke to the Testers for the first time that day. "Why are you all so upset? It's about my results, isn't it? What's my Gift?"

That last question seemed to be too much for her mother, who burst into tears as soon as the final word left the girl's lips.

She had never seen her mother cry before.

The testers exchanged regretful glances, and then one woman stepped forward to kneel before the little girl. "Sweetie," she said in a quiet and reassuring voice, the kind one might use to talk to a wounded animal. "Sweetie, I'm so sorry."

The girl had had enough. A five-year-old only has so much patience, after all. "What is it? I want to know what my Gift is!"

The woman in front of her took a deep breath, preparing to say the five words that have never been said to anyone in this room before. It was only five words, but each syllable weighed heavily on her tongue, making it near impossible to speak. It was five words that would change the course of the girl's life forever.

"Sweetie..."

"What?"

It's amazing yet appalling to think that so much trouble could result from just five words. But it could.

"You don't have a Gift."