Lukas was tenth in line, Max eleventh, Sami twelfth. Once the third recruit had left, Max and Sami started to follow Lukas’s lead, jumping up and down to keep warm in the biting cold. Max’s hands and feet were already numb. He kept looking at the mountain slope. It was barely visible through the blizzard. How cold would it be up there? He felt a pang of anxiety just thinking about it. And then he thought, I don’t have to do it. I can walk away now. Go back to my old life.

But what kind of life was that? He had no home. No friends.

He caught Hector looking at him. As soon as their eyes met, Hector looked away and shouted, ‘Next!’ Max continued to jog on the spot, determined that he was going to pass this selection.

Twenty minutes after the first recruit had left, it was Lukas’s turn. As he waited for Woody and Angel to hand over his map, compass and beacon, he turned to Max. He spat his gum out into the snow and curled a fresh piece into his mouth. ‘Don’t go following me,’ he whispered. It was the first thing he’d said to Max since before dinner the previous night. He had a fiery glint in his eyes. Max could tell he was desperate to succeed.

‘I’ll be following the map,’ Max said.

Lukas scowled at him. Hector shouted, ‘Next!’ A moment later, map in hand, Lukas had sprinted into the blizzard and disappeared.

Max turned to Sami. His new friend was shivering. Max wondered how he would manage in this cold. ‘You’ve got to keep moving,’ Max said. ‘That’ll keep you warm. If you start to get confused, or sleepy, or your movements are slow, that’s hypothermia. If that happens, you have to use the beacon.’

Sami gave him a distressed look.

‘But I’m sure that won’t happen,’ Max added quickly. ‘You’ll be fine.’ Privately, though, Max didn’t think he would be. Sami would be going home tonight, wherever home was.

‘Next!’

Woody thrust a map and compass into Max’s hands and winked at him. Angel hung the lanyard round his neck. Quickly, Max examined the map. A black cross marked their current position. He knew that because the pattern of the contour lines on the map showed that it was in a valley with steep slopes on either side. At the top of the slope was a red flag. That had to be the cache. Max looked at the scale marking on the map and estimated the distance. Three kilometres, uphill. This was going to be tough.

He ran, following the prints left by the recruits who had gone before. There was no sign of any of them up ahead, the visibility was so poor. Looking back after a minute, he couldn’t even see Hector, Sami and the others at the starting point.