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    Your companions in fantasy and adventure,
    Quentin Quested and the Quest Team
    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.

My secret mission
    In the end, I told Cameron.
    I had to — no matter which way I looked at it, I was going to need help. He was the only person I felt I could trust, apart from Cookie — and I didn’t want to get her into any kind of trouble.
    I told him at athletics practice. We’d both been knocked out of the high jump — I’m no good at it, and Cameron is one of those guys who trips over his own feet. I sidled up to him. ‘Hey, Cameron,’ I said in his ear. He jumped about a metre, and looked at me kind of warily from behind his specs. Cameron likes to stay on the right side of the teachers, and you could see he wasn’t too sure I belonged on the same side. I gave him a reassuring grin, and stood close so I could mutter in his ear.
    â€˜Hey — you know that bookmark you gave me?’
    â€˜Yeah?’ he said cautiously.
    â€˜I filled it in and sent it off, and guess what?’ Suddenly I felt shy about telling anyone my amazing news — almostas if telling might make it vanish in a puff of smoke, or something crazy like that.
    â€˜What?’ He was interested now — he’d stopped leaning away and was really listening.
    â€˜Well,’ I hissed, looking round to check no one else was within earshot, ‘I got a letter saying I’m in the final ten!’
    That got his attention all right. His head whipped round fast enough to dislocate his neck. ‘Wicked!’ he goes, real loud.
    â€˜Shhhh!’
    â€˜Sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Adam, that is just so cool — you’re not kidding me?’
    I guess he could see I wasn’t. He grinned. ‘Wicked!’ he said again.
    I hadn’t expected my news to be greeted with this much excitement — in fact, to tell the truth, I’d had a niggling worry he might try to claim the prize. But he seemed really happy for me. It made me like him even more.
    â€˜It is wicked, huh? Only thing is, though —’
    Quickly, without going into too much detail, I filled him in on the problems with Matron, and how I’d had to take the letter. I wasn’t sure he’d approve, being such a goody-good, but all he said was, ‘You nicked it? Wicked!’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I told him, one eye on the sports teacher. ‘I’m going, I’ve made up my mind about that. Only problem is, I have to figure out how, without Matron smelling a rat. I’ve looked at the map on the back of the letter, and it’s about four-hundred kilometres. I could hitch, I guess —’
    He interrupted me: ‘We can’t talk about it now — Mr Thomas is giving us funny looks. How about you come home with me after school tomorrow? Bring the letter and we’ll make a plan. The whole thing is just way, way cool — you have to do it! And hey —’ he was really getting into this now, ‘we could play Quest for the Golden Goblet , too— that way, you’d get an idea of what the whole thing’s about before you