The Serpents of Arakesh (3 page)

After school I went straight back to Highgate, dumped my bag and my lunchbox, and headed for my secret hide-out. The worst thing about living somewhere like Highgate is that there are people watching every single thing you do. Most of the time it doesn't matter, and you get used to it, especially when you've lived with it all your life.

But sometimes it can be pretty annoying. Like when you get a really, really bad mark for your homework, and next thing you know someone's peering over your shoulder and sniggering. Or when you just need some space to think things through and be alone. Or when you've got something private to do. Like today.

No one knew about my hide-out. It had been my special place for years, and my biggest fear was that someone would find it and take it over, or tell Matron.

It was right in the middle of the shrubbery at the side of the house. To get to it, you had to burrow through the middle of a huge old flax bush, the secret entrance to a
kind of tunnel I'd made by pushing through over the years. It twisted and turned through dense leaves and between thick, woody trunks till all of a sudden you were through — right up against the brick wall of the house, completely hidden by the shrubs in front and on both sides and overhead. The clearing had grown bigger over the years, same as the tunnel … same as me, I guess. It was big enough so I could sit leaning against the wall with my legs stretched out in any direction. I could even lie down if I curled my legs up a bit.

It was awesome. Being in there was like being in a totally private, completely secret little room — a house of leaves. It had a damp, earthy smell and the light was greenish and dim, like in a jungle. It was always cool, even in the middle of summer, and in winter it was freezing.

I'd often thought about moving the special things from my bedside cabinet to my hide-out for safekeeping. But I was afraid they'd get wrecked when it rained, and anyhow, I needed them close at night.

As I crawled through the tunnel, I realised I still had an apple from my lunch in my pocket. Suddenly I was ravenous. Even though the apple was softish in places, with little black dents in the skin, it smelt wonderful. Everything tasted better in my hide-out. I ate every scrap, even the core, and spat the pips away into the undergrowth.

Time for business. I took the white card and the ballpoint pen out of my pocket. This was one time I was determined my handwriting would be its very tidiest, with no spelling mistakes. That shouldn't be too hard; most of it was totally straightforward stuff like name, address, and telephone number.

Carefully, I brushed some rotting leaves and twigs away to make a clean place on the ground, laid the card down and began to fill it in.

It all seemed pretty simple until the last line.
Please
explain, in 20 words or less, why you believe you should be selected for this unique experience.

I gnawed on the pen, my mind a complete blank. What was I supposed to say? Was there some magically right answer that would give you a better chance of being picked? Well, why
did
I believe I should be selected? I knew I wouldn't be — like Cameron said, the chances were practically nonexistent. But after all … I scribbled:
Sumwun has to — it mite as well be me.

Above my head I heard the window of the staff room slide open, and Matron's voice: ‘A cup of tea would be
most
welcome, thank you, Cook.'

Having the staff-room window just above my hide-out was a problem in some ways — when the window was open, I had to be extra careful not to make any noise. But there were advantages. I got to know about things before anyone else and sometimes I heard things I was pretty sure Matron would have classified Top Secret. If I was ever found out, I'd be dead meat — we'd had it drummed into us over and over again how wrong it was to eavesdrop. But I reckoned it wasn't eavesdropping so much as military intelligence — because at Highgate, the more you knew, the safer you were.

I slipped back through my tunnel, crept away from the entrance, stood up and dusted myself off. I could hear voices and laughter from the lawn on the other side of the house. There were probably ten minutes or so before afternoon tea — long enough to slip out and post my card if I ran all the way to the postbox, although there'd be trouble if I was caught.

I was out of breath by the time I reached the postbox. I took the card out of my pocket and looked at it one final time. I wondered who would look at it when it reached its destination. I imagined it lying in a clean, manicured hand … a red pen like Miss McCracken's poised over it,
ready to mark it with an angry red cross.

Suddenly the card seemed grubby, and I noticed one corner was crumpled from being in my pocket. And now that I looked at it again, I had a sinking feeling that
well
should only have one ‘l'.

But it was too late to worry about that now — it would look worse with heaps of stuff crossed out than with one tiny mistake nobody would even notice. Quickly, I dropped the card through the slot of the postbox and raced back to Highgate.

It was dumb luck that I was in my hide-out when Matron went through the mail just over a week later. And it was even luckier that Cook was in the staff room, having a cup of tea before she started making dinner. Because if Matron hadn't told Cook about the letter, I wouldn't have heard about it either. At least, not until it was too late.

It was Thursday — sausages and mash day — and one of those warm, muggy afternoons, so the staff-room window was open.

At first, I didn't pay any attention to the voices drifting over my head — it was like having the TV on in the background when you're busy doing something else. Which I was — carving a little wooden horse out of a hunk of wood, using a craft knife I'd borrowed from the art room at school.

I don't know whether it was the sound of my name, or the sudden change in the tone of Matron's voice, that made me sit up like an ant had bitten me on the bum.

‘What on earth … A letter for
Adam Equinox
!'

‘Really, Matron? Now who'd be writing to him, I wonder?'

Cookie's cool. She's pretty much on my side, but she needs her job, so she doesn't often show it. At least when
She
— as she calls Matron — is anywhere near. It was Cookie who kept the newspaper cutting for me when I was just a baby, and it's Cookie who sometimes slips me crackers and apples when Matron's not around.

Matron sounded grim. ‘We'll soon find out.'

There was a short silence. I imagined Matron slicing open the envelope of
my
letter with her little brass letter-opener. There was absolutely no doubt at all in my mind who the letter must be from, and what it was about. It was from Quentin Quested — it
must
be!

I felt a wild surge of excitement. Could I possibly have been chosen? Why else would he write to me? I willed Matron to read the letter out loud, so I could hear what it said.

‘Well.'

‘What does it say, Matron? Who's writing to our Adam, then?'

Matron's voice was as sharp as a knife. ‘Seems the sly little so-and-so has entered a competition — and not only that, he's been picked as one of the finalists. It says he's to go up north for the final selection process.'

‘Well, isn't that nice! Lovely for the wee boy to have a bit of a change, I'd say,' said Cook comfortably.

‘You don't for a moment think I'm about to let him go, do you? Where do you imagine that boy would have got hold of an entry form for a competition like this? I'll tell you where: he
stole
it. And I'm not prepared to reward that kind of behaviour. There is no question of Adam going anywhere, except into my office to be disciplined for this.'

My head swam. I felt dizzy, and as if I was about to be
sick. Chosen as a finalist — and not allowed to go!

‘On the other hand …'

I listened, desperately hoping Matron was about to change her mind. It had never happened before, but as Cook always says, there's a first time for everything.

‘It does seem a shame to give this chance up altogether. After all, there's a computer to be had, if we play our cards right. I wonder … perhaps it might be more appropriate to let Geoffrey go. He'd certainly have a better chance of getting through any selection process than Adam.'

‘But Matron …'

‘But Matron nothing,' she snapped. ‘Don't you have work to do in the kitchen, Cook? And it's high time I called the children in for homework. Yes,' — and I've never hated Matron as much as I did at that moment — ‘I think this opportunity will do very nicely for Geoffrey.'

I don't know how long I crouched under the window, as if I'd been turned to stone. It can't have been long, though — dazed and numb as I was, I knew that if Matron had gone to bring the children in, it would only be minutes before I'd be missed. The last thing I needed was for anyone to come looking for me.

Gradually the numbness was replaced by a weird feeling of disbelief. This was my one chance, the special, magical thing I'd been praying for, and Matron was going to give it to
Geoffrey.

Suddenly, like someone flicking on a switch, an idea formed in my head — a plan so perfect and complete I blinked. I backtracked and played it through my mind again. Would it work?

One thing was for sure: I had nothing to lose.

I turned round to face the wall and slowly raised my head up through the leafy ceiling to the level of the windowsill. I peeped through the open window and into the room. It was empty, and the door was closed. On the round wooden table in the centre of the room were two cups and saucers, beside a pile of letters.

In a second I'd boosted myself up onto the window ledge and hopped through. I was over to the table like lightning, rifling through the letters with hands that shook, looking for the one addressed to me.

It jumped out at me — Master Adam Equinox — on a fancy envelope with the same Quest logo as the reply card.

I put the other letters back. Vaulted back over the windowsill, and in less time than it takes to blink I was crouching in my hide-out again, the precious letter in my hand. I burned to open it but there was no time. I laid it carefully on the ground at the edge of the clearing and covered it over with dry leaves. I prayed it wouldn't rain.

I slithered back through the tunnel and raced across the lawn towards the house, my heart hammering as if I'd run a million miles.

Of course, there was a price to pay. It didn't take long for Matron to discover the letter was missing, and you can guess who was the number one suspect.

There was a search of all the dormitories. All the beds were stripped, and the mattresses turned upside down. Our school bags were tipped out, and the rec room and the homework room turned inside out.

I had a two-hour grilling in Matron's office, ending with being sentenced to my toughest punishment ever: no dessert or TV for a month, with a strapping thrown in for good measure. But I didn't care. All I was worried
about was whether Matron would connect the open window with the letter's disappearance, put two and two together, and discover my hide-out. I waited with a feeling of doom — but it didn't happen.

What did happen was that Matron found Quest Incorporated's phone number from Directory Enquiries. She told them I had chicken pox and couldn't come, and asked if she could send Geoffrey instead. She told me herself, while I stood on the footstool in her office and she tried to get me to admit I'd stolen the letter.

How can you steal something that belongs to you?

It was Cookie who told me they'd said no, the place in the finals wasn't transferable. Especially once Matron had admitted the letter had gone missing under what Cook called
mysterious circumstances.

It was two days before the dust settled enough for me to visit my hide-out again. Two whole days before I was able to retrieve my letter, and at long last read what it said.

I must have read the letter about twenty times. It was just too much to take in. I had no idea what it all meant — what would the final selection process involve? I hoped there wouldn't be any tests, like at school. What if I won my way through to the final five? What would it be like, being somewhere that wasn't Highgate or school? The whole thing was huge and terrifying and more exciting than anything that had ever happened to me.

Because there was one thing I was absolutely certain of: I was going to be at Quested Court on Saturday 13 July. No matter what it took — if I had to hitch a lift, stow away on a train, or walk the whole way — I was going to be there.

And no one — not even Matron — was going to stop me.