The Serpents of Arakesh (9 page)

I felt a pair of strong arms lift me, and carry me through the silent group of children like a baby. Shaw carried me all the way up to my room. By the time we reached it, my mouth was still dry and I was trembling, but I felt a lot more normal. ‘Well, yer sure are no lightweight,' Shaw grunted, depositing me gently on the bedspread. ‘It's good ter see the colour back in yer face, Adam.' He took a blanket from the wardrobe and tucked it round me. ‘Old Q and 'is gadgets. Usherwood 'ad a shock off that contraption once. Won't go near it meself, that's fer certain. But we've never seen nothin' like
that
before.'

‘That's quite true, we haven't,' said Q, who had followed us in and was hovering anxiously beside the bed. He still looked upset. ‘How are you feeling, Adam? I am so sorry — I had no idea the reaction could be so strong. It is extraordinary … simply extraordinary.'

I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile, but my lips felt numb and stiff. My voice came out kind of croaky. ‘I'm fine now … but it was weird … it felt like an electric shock, and the glass was hot. Burning hot, like fire. How come the other kids didn't get burnt?' I was feeling better by the second. I sat up. ‘Was it a power surge or something?'

Shaw paused at the door, listening. ‘No, Adam,' Q said, and there was a strange look on his face. ‘At least, not in the way you mean.' He put his hand on my shoulder, and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘I'd recommend you lie down for
half an hour or so. I'll draw the curtains.'

After they'd left, I lay in the semi-darkness and thought about what had happened. I hoped I hadn't broken the globe. It was so beautiful. Even now, etched on my retina, was a faint after-image of the dancing patterns of light, and of blue stars drifting in the wake of that savage explosion of power.

I must have slept, though not for long. When I woke the light in the room was dimmer. My shawl was snuggled into the crook of my neck, and something warm and heavy was resting against my leg. I put my hand down and touched it. A sandpapery tongue gave my hand a couple of businesslike licks. I smiled. Tiger Lily.

But how had she got in? And how had my shawl …

I turned my head. Hannah sat cross-legged on Richard's bed, her eyes very round. ‘Hi, Adam,' she whispered.

‘Hi,' I whispered back.

‘Are you OK?'

‘Yeah. At least, I think so.'

‘I heard Q and Shaw talking about what happened. I brought you Tiger Lily to make you feel better.'

‘Thanks. It worked, see?' I swung my legs onto the floor, and stood up. Apart from a kind of stiff feeling in my shoulders, I felt fine.

Hannah gave me a sparkly, secretive look. ‘And I brought
you something else, too. Look.'

She hopped off the bed. There behind her was a white, shiny plastic bag. Pinned onto it was a note, in slanty, grown-up writing. I turned on the bedside light so I could read it.

For Adam — a nice surprise to make up for a nasty shock! Please accept these with my apologies. Q.

I opened the packet. Inside were a pair of brand new jeans — the pre-faded kind — and a bright red hoodie. There were two T-shirts with designer logos on the front, one dark green, and the other black. And right at the bottom were two pairs of satin boxers, one a wine-red colour, and the other shiny sky blue.

Hannah was hopping up and down. ‘Do you like them? Are you pleased? Usherwood went into Winterton to get them while you were asleep. I wanted to go too, to help choose, but Nanny said I had to rest, and Usherwood said it would take twice as long if I was helping.' She made a face.

I stood gaping at the clothes scattered on Richard's bed. The rich colours glowed like jewels in the soft light. They were the first new clothes I'd ever had, the first present I'd ever been given. For some crazy reason I could feel tears pricking the backs of my eyes. I blinked them away. More to myself than to Hannah, I muttered, ‘I shouldn't really accept them.'

‘Adam,' Hannah explained patiently, ‘don't you know
anything?
When someone gives you a present, you
have
to accept it. If you don't, it'll hurt their feelings. And you have to say thank you, and tell them how much you like it,' she lowered her voice, ‘even if you really don't. And sometimes you draw them a picture as a thank-you letter — unless you're big enough to write real words.
That's
what you do when you get presents.'

Well, I know when I'm beat. ‘OK, Hannah,' I said,
‘thanks for letting me know. And now,' I gave her a grin, ‘you can make yourself useful by helping me decide what to wear to the banquet.'

Ms Usherwood stood up at the top of the long table, and daintily pinged her wineglass with her fork. If she'd set off a fire alarm, it couldn't have had a more immediate effect. The entire room was instantly silent, every eye fixed on her. I don't think anyone was breathing — I certainly wasn't.

Following Hannah's instructions, I'd thanked Ms Usherwood politely for choosing the clothes when she came up to my room to fetch me. She hadn't said much in return. There was something unsettling about the way she had looked at me — a thoughtful, measuring stare that made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I wondered whether it had anything to do with the plasma globe … maybe I
had
broken it and everyone was too polite to tell me.

Now, more than an hour later, the table was still groaning with food — hot dogs, pizza, popcorn, nachos, hamburgers and — of course — fairy sandwiches, with crisps and sweets and marshmallows and cake to fill in the gaps, and about ten different flavours of fizzy drink to wash it all down. I'd expected to be far too nervous to eat, but I started off with a chocolate bar, just to be polite, and one thing kind of led to another.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,' — Ms Usherwood's eyes flicked to me, and away again — ‘may I have your attention, please. The names of the final five are about to be announced.' The marshmallow I was eating suddenly tasted like rubber. It was an effort to swallow; I was afraid I'd choke.

‘This is the procedure that will be followed. Five names
will be read out. Those five children, together with their parents, will leave the dining room and make their way through to the library. Mr Quested will then address each group separately.

‘The unsuccessful candidates will return to their rooms, pack their belongings, and leave immediately. Mr Quested will not enter into any dialogue with the parents of the runners-up. His decision is final, and not open to discussion.

‘If you wish to exchange contact information, please do so now, as there may not be the opportunity at a later stage.

‘It remains for me to thank you all for coming, and to say what a great pleasure it has been to share your company. Good luck to you all.'

She slipped out through the dining room door, leaving a sudden babble of voices behind her. Richard was shoving a piece of cardboard into my hand; I saw it was one of his dad's business cards. He'd scrawled his name and phone number on the back. He had a kind of bug-eyed, vacant look, a bit like a stuffed fish. He didn't say anything. Didn't have to — I knew just how he was feeling.

Genevieve and Maria were hugging, Silas and Zach shaking hands. Kenta was standing very still next to her father, neither of them speaking. Jamie was munching a chocolate doughnut in an automatic kind of way. He looked pretty green.

The door opened again, and in came Q, looking miserable. He had a piece of paper in his hand.

‘Thank you all for coming,' he said rapidly. ‘Especially the children — you have all been wonderful, every single one of you, and if we could accommodate you all on our special course, we would. But unfortunately that's just not possible.

‘Now. Please will the following children follow
Usherwood through to the library. I will join you there very shortly.' He cleared his throat.

‘Genevieve Vaughan-Williams.

‘Kenta Nakamura.

‘James Fitzpatrick.

‘Richard Osborne.

‘Adam Equinox.'

There was a odd, uncertain silence. None of us had any idea whether the news was good or bad. Only Zach made a little punching motion with his hand in the air, and whispered, ‘
Yes!
'

The five whose names had been read out shuffled to the door and into the library. The fire hadn't been lit, and the room looked gloomier and less welcoming than it had the evening before. We stood in a silent little huddle in front of the fireplace, and waited.

Sooner than any of us expected, the door burst open and in came Q. His glasses were sitting at an odd angle, and were more than usually misted over. He slammed the door behind him, and leaned against it. ‘Well, that was terrible,' he muttered. ‘I should have let Usherwood handle it, instead of insisting on doing my own dirty work. She would have taken it in her stride. So many angry parents! So many disappointed little faces!'

We all looked at one another, light beginning to dawn. There were one or two tentative smiles.

Q took his glasses off, polished them on his jersey, and replaced them on his nose. ‘Well,' he said, with a slightly shaky smile, ‘this is the easy part. The news for all of you is good. You have been chosen to stay on and work with me for the next two days. Congratulations.'

A tidal wave of relief broke over me, taking my breath away — a rush of joy so powerful I barely felt Richard's spine-crunching back-slap, or Jamie's earnest, sweaty handshake.

Q was moving round the room, fielding a barrage of questions from the parents and shaking the children by the hand. ‘No, the test results remain confidential,' he told Jamie's dad. ‘I may touch on the mechanics of the selection process with the children later on, but the results themselves wouldn't be of relevance to anyone other than myself.'

He turned back to the rest of us.

‘And now, my friends, perhaps it would be appropriate for the parents to return to their rooms and collect their belongings. I'll have a quick word with the children, and then it will be time for farewells and an early night. We have a long day ahead.'

Q beamed at us. He seemed to have completely regained his good spirits, and even behind the cloudy lenses I could see his eyes were glowing with pleasure.

‘So you are my five finalists,' he said softly. ‘Gen, Kenta, Jamie, Richard and Adam. Welcome to what I believe will not only be the most exciting two days of your lives, but quite probably the most significant two days in the history of computer games.

‘In fairness, perhaps I should say a word or two about the selection process. It employed a technique developed here at Quested Court; a technique so radical even I was uncertain of its success.

‘My greatest concern was that the results would be ambiguous — that the selection technique would not indicate which of you should be chosen. But when your handwriting, birthdate and other personal details, your responses to the computer test, and the video of your performance in the initiatives challenge were put into a programme derived from the Karazan source code, the results were conclusive.'

Q smiled round at our blank faces. ‘You could almost say that it was Karazan, not I, that made the final decision.

‘Karazan has chosen you.'