Going through the two week ranking assessment is a chore for Cavallan, simple but necessary. Doing it under a pseudonym is a bit more of a tangle, but he's prepared to buckle down and just get on with it.

But when he arrives, he meets an old friend and makes a new one. Suddenly it isn't as much of a chore, but it's no longer simple, either.

Now he has to dance a knife-edge between truth and deception, and the only thing waiting for him if he slips is pain...

E H Timms won the BBC Wildlife Young Poet of the Year award, hasn't managed to stop writing since, and now lives in South West England with a computer tethered to one elbow and far too many books.