Chapter Text
It all began with Brookland school’s headmasters Grand Educational Excursion. Which sounded impressive until you realised it was just a poorly disguised excuse for twenty bored Year 10s to be dragged into the Lake District to “build character.”
Alex Rider had fought trained assassins in Venice, infiltrated nuclear facilities, and leapt out of a helicopter with only a half-functioning parachute and a grudge.
But this? This was worse.
"This trip is going to be sick, bruv!" shouted Jamie Weston for the fifth time in as many minutes. “Proper Bear Grylls vibe. I’m gonna drink stream water and everything.”
“Do us a favour and drown in it,” muttered Alex, too quietly for anyone to hear. He sat wedged between the condensation slick window of the minibus and a tower of shared rucksacks, one headphone in, not playing music but pretending to. His waterproof jacket was zipped to his chin, and he wore the resigned expression of someone who had accepted their own impending emotional doom. Tom was lightly snoring in the seat across the aisle next to him, having been kept awake by the ruckus of parental disputes all night.
Brooklands Secondary’s Year 10 Lake District Adventure™ had been billed as a transformative character-building experience. In Alex’s experience, "character-building" generally meant someone would get hypothermia and the teachers would pretend it was a learning opportunity.
Mr Harrow, the geography teacher with a comb-over and a voice like a broken smoke alarm, sat up front beside the driver. Occasionally he banged his clipboard on his knee and shouted things like, “Remember your buddy system!” and “No wandering off!”
Not that anyone was listening.
Jamie was too busy trying to impress Katie Fenton with a loud and inaccurate explanation of how to wrestle a bear. Liam “Beans” Murphy, so named after a tragic incident involving school lunch chilli and a fire drill, was recording the journey on a GoPro his uncle gave him for Christmas.
Alex pressed his forehead against the glass, watching the rainy northern countryside slide by in shades of grey. They'd be arriving at the activity centre soon. Then three days of group bonding, campfire songs, unqualified map reading, and kids who thought you could boil pasta in a kettle.
He tried not to think about it. Or about the fact that someone had called him “heroin chic” in the lunch queue last week. That someone had been Jamie, who was now three seats away attempting to ignite a portable gas stove with a lighter.
He should have said no to the trip. Mrs Jones had even offered him a forged letter about a “family bereavement” if he’d wanted out. But no. He had insisted. He’d been insistent that he could be normal.
He was fifteen now. Just a kid again. Just Alex.
No more spy games. No more near-death experiences. No more extracting uranium rods from underground bunkers with chewing gum and a shoelace. Just… PE class. Homework. Group projects with people who thought Uzbekistan was a made-up country.
Normal.
He wanted normal.
Then Jamie, blessed with the lungs of a foghorn and the subtlety of a sledgehammer, turned around in his seat and shouted, “Oi, Rider. You alright, mate? You look like you’ve just escaped from rehab. You gonna make it through the trip, or should we get you an emotional support llama?”
Laughter erupted around the minibus.
Alex didn’t react. He didn’t even blink.
Instead, he slowly pulled out his other headphone, looked Jamie in the eye, and said with absolute, weary sincerity, “I hope you get eaten by a fox.”
The bus erupted again, but now it was harder to tell if they were laughing at Jamie or at Alex’s deadpan delivery. Jamie, ever the alpha, recovered with a theatrical gasp and a, “See, Katie? He’s feral!”
“Right,” Mr Harrow bellowed from the front. “That’s quite enough banter. Ten minutes to the centre. Prepare yourselves for nature.”
Beans raised his GoPro. “Day one, gang,” he said solemnly. “If I die out there… tell my mum I never passed my maths mock.”
Alex leaned back against the cold window, letting his eyes close briefly.
Ten minutes to the centre.
Three days of pretending.
What could possibly go wrong?
-
The activity centre was a converted youth hostel with a leaky roof and suspicious stains on the floorboards. It sat hunkered in the shadow of a slate-grey hillside like it was trying to apologise for existing. Outside, the rain had turned to a lazy drizzle that smelt like sheep and damp trainers.
"Welcome to Gorsefield Lodge!" Mr Harrow announced as they tumbled off the minibus like miserable dominoes. "Our home for the next three days. Phones off, minds open, teamwork essential."
No one clapped.
Beans sneezed. Loudly.
Inside the lodge, the air was thick with the scent of mildew, floor polish, and a group of teenagers realising they were about to experience suffering. The entrance hall contained laminated posters titled things like LEAVE ONLY FOOTPRINTS, TAKE ONLY MEMORIES! and ARE YOU A TEAM PLAYER? There was also a stuffed badger in a glass box by the stairs, which seemed to be judging them.
“Right!” chirped Miss Dalton, the younger of the two teachers and unfortunately the more enthusiastic. “Room lists are up. Bags in the drying room first. Remember, no changing your allocations!”
A groan rippled through the group.
Alex moved wordlessly toward the noticeboard, already resigned to fate.
Sure enough, there it was:
Room 5
• Jamie Weston
• Liam “Beans” Murphy
• Alex Rider
He briefly considered faking a broken leg.
“Oi oi!” Jamie bellowed. “Dream team!”
Alex gave him a tight-lipped smile that could have curdled milk.
Room 5 was on the first floor: two bunk beds, a single window overlooking a rain-slicked field, and an overpowering smell of old socks and damp wood. Someone had scrawled POO into the condensation on the glass. Probably Jamie, who immediately threw his bag on the top bunk and started unzipping it like he was setting up camp in a warzone.
Beans wandered in behind them, wheezing slightly under the weight of his gear. “D’you think we’ll get haunted here?” he asked, dropping his backpack with a thud.
“We can hope,” Alex muttered.
He picked the lower bunk furthest from Jamie, sat down, and began unpacking with the efficiency of someone who once had to assemble a sniper rifle in under two minutes.
“Mate,” Jamie said, flopping backwards onto his bed. “You’re so neat. What, were you in the Scouts or something?”
Alex didn’t reply. He was counting socks and weapons. (Technically, the Swiss Army knife was for opening tins. Technically.) God he missed smithers’ gadgets.
Mr Harrow’s whistle blew downstairs.
“Common room in five!” he called. “Briefing, then dinner!”
Jamie was already halfway out the door. “Bet it’s spaghetti hoops,” he said. “I’m gonna inhale like four portions. Come on, Rider, you need bulking up. You look like an extra in Trainspotting.”
Alex stood. Breathed in. Let it go. He reminded himself, again, that he was not on a mission. No one was trying to kill him (yet). And MI6 had explicitly requested he not harm any of his classmates.
Even if they were idiots.
-
The common room was a garish, echoey space filled with fraying beanbags, mismatched chairs, and an electric heater that made a worrying buzzing noise when switched on. The ceiling had once been white. Now it looked like the underbelly of a diseased frog.
The students slouched into place in a loose semi-circle around Miss Dalton, who stood at the front beside a flipchart labelled ACTIVITY GOALS. She had a clipboard, a whiteboard marker, and a wildly naïve enthusiasm of someone who genuinely believed this trip might change lives.
“We’re going to focus on four themes,” she said brightly. “Communication. Resilience. Navigation. And mutual respect.”
Jamie elbowed Alex. “Resilience,” he snorted. “That’s what I’ve got after six hours on Fortnite.”
Alex stared ahead.
Miss Dalton beamed. “Tomorrow, we’ll be heading out for our orienteering challenge. That means maps, compasses, checkpoints, and eventually-” she paused for drama, “-a full overnight wild camp in the hills.”
A collective groan.
Someone whispered, “I’m calling Childline.”
“There’ll be no mobile signal,” Mr Harrow added grimly. “You’ll be relying on one another. As nature intended. Well that and a GPS and a map.”
Jamie raised his hand. “What if someone dies?”
Miss Dalton laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
“No, but like-hypothetically-what if someone goes missing? Or eats something poisonous? Like a mushroom. Or, like… Alex?”
The group chuckled. Alex blinked slowly. “I’ll be sure to point you toward the toxic ones.”
Miss Dalton cleared her throat. “Anyway! Dinner’s at six, lights out by ten, breakfast early. Remember, you’re here to push your boundaries. Let nature surprise you.”
Alex leaned back in the chair and muttered under his breath, “Nature can try.”
-
Dinner was served in what the lodge optimistically called the Dining Hall. In reality, it was a long, echoey and very multi-purpose room that smelt like gravy granules and wet wool, with folding tables arranged in long rows and stackable plastic chairs designed by someone who hated the concept of spinal comfort.
The food was a choice between beige and slightly wetter beige: pasta shells in an unconvincing tomato sauce, or something labelled vegetable surprise that looked like a tragic soup accident.
Alex had taken his tray with a nod of thanks, because years of espionage hadn't erased his manners.
He was scanning the room for a seat when he heard a voice that made his shoulders unclench slightly. “Alex! Over here.”
Tom Harris.
Alex’s best friend, and quite possibly the only person in the building who didn’t think he was a haunted Victorian orphan or a drug addict. Tom was halfway through buttering a bread roll and looked genuinely relieved to see him.
Alex made a beeline for the seat opposite. The table was surprisingly peaceful, mostly girls from the drama club and a quiet lad called Sanjay who was surgically attached to a Rubik’s cube. Bliss.
“Cheers,” Alex muttered as he sat. “If I had to sit within five feet of Jamie again, I was going to test how aerodynamic a bread roll is.”
Tom snorted. “How’s Room 5 treating you?”
“About as well as Room 101 would.”
Tom winced. “Beans still talking about ghosts?”
“He asked me if I thought badgers can smell fear.”
Tom grinned. “I mean… can they?”
Alex gave him a look.
Tom offered him half the roll. “You alright though? You’ve been a bit… I dunno. Clockwork. Not that I expected you to start singing campfire songs, but…”
Alex shrugged and began mechanically chewing through the pasta. It tasted like regret and powdered cheese.
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
Tom didn’t push. That was the thing about Tom, he never tried to fix Alex. Never asked too many questions. He knew about MI6. Not all the details, no one but Alan Blunt and possibly God knew all the details, but enough. Enough to know that Alex sometimes came back from half-term break with a cracked rib and a haunted expression.
Tom knew and still saved him a seat.
“Did I miss much on the bus?” Tom asked, steering the conversation gently away. “I meant to catch up, but I was knackered mate.”
“Mr Harrow nearly reversed the minibus into a ditch, and Katie Fenton fell asleep with her mouth open and drooled on her neck pillow. Oh, and Jamie’s doing that thing where he tries to flirt by being aggressively annoying. You’d think he’d be better at it by now.”
“With you?” Tom asked, wide eyed.
“God, no, he’s not flirting with me,” Alex said, alarmed. “I don’t think..”
“I mean…” Tom waggled his eyebrows.
Alex rolled his eyes. “I’ll add it to my list of concerns, right after whether or not I’m sharing a sleeping bag with a boy who thinks beans are a food group. No, it was mostly Katie once she woke up.”
Tom laughed. “Still glad you came?”
“No,” Alex said, but there was a faint smile now tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But this helps.”
A silence settled between them, comfortable and warm. The rain tapped gently against the window. Somewhere across the hall, someone let out a shriek as their chair collapsed mid-chew.
“I’m telling you,” Tom said casually, “first group hike, someone’s going to get us spectacularly lost.”
Alex stabbed a mushroom with his fork. “Yeah. Probably.”