Know your Fielding from your Faulks? Take part in our novel contest...

Thirty eight of the finest writers working today have contributed short stories to Ox-Tales, a collection of four volumes loosely themed around the elements of air, earth, fire and water. Published by Profile Books every copy sold raises at least 50p for Oxfam.

The Independent has a limited edition box set, signed by all 38 authors, printed on fine art paper and beautifully bound, which will go on sale in Oxfam in the Autumn priced £495, to give away. Plus 10 runners-up can win a set of all four books. All you have to do is match 20 of the authors involved (pictured above) to the first lines of their Ox-Tale.

Oxfam Bookfest runs until 18 July, www.oxfam.org.uk/books

1. Cheating is an interesting concept, don't you think?' said Chris.

2. In some parts of the Scottish Highlands there are glens that are accessible only by sea. No roads go to these places, only sheep tracks, or paths that disappear after heavy rains or the run-off from winter snows. Sea lochs, though, are always there, often protected from the Atlantic as it sweeps round the coast of Scotland, and a small boat from a harbour further down the coast may slip through these waters and make land safely.

3. It had been her fault, entirely. Dee's fault – the whole bloody evening.

4. Only a few hours earlier, Vanessa Veals had put five cubes of ice into a Victorian rummer, poured in vodka till it almost reached the brim and added some fresh mint, a slice of lime and a dribble of grenadine cordial. It was her second "proper" drink of the evening, and after it she would stick to what she called 'just wine'. She took it into the sitting room, kicked off her shoes and sat on the sofa, where she fired up the television.

5. There was once a Boy King who refused to speak.

6. There are some days when the sun is so bright that when you look away everything turns black. I had a dog like that; a sun-black dog with the light in him so bright that the rest of life went into shadow when he was killed.

7. "A good agricultural smell," Rebus muttered. It was an August evening, the sun sinking. The field had been ploughed, but there was no sign of manure. Edinburgh's pathologist, Professor Gates, was crouching over the body of local farmer Dennis Maclay. Rebus peered over his colleague's shoulder.

8. Sand flies are dancing in the glare of Cheyenne's headlamp as she pants along the beach at dusk. Pfoot, pfoot, haaa. Her legs are flecked with seaweed and breaded with sand. Her hair is hanging in wet strands against her cheek. In her arms, she is juggling the liquid heft of a large, sea-sodden dog.

9. A few weeks before the main events of this story disturbed forever the life of its protagonist, Ivan Andreyevich Ozolin, he had believed himself to be in love with an older woman, Tanya Trepova.

10. Driving to work I saw the most beautiful roadkill. It was a carpet of iridescent butterflies, squashed but flashing on the highway, as if concrete had worn thin over a seam of priceless opal. Wings twitched and glinted in the heat, spurring that human compulsion to stop and urgently gather treasures. But it was a frustrated compulsion. Under the sparkle were only dead insects. Like suicide-butterflies they swarmed from the jungle to die under mini-vans that throbbed drum and bass music; and when the traffic was light, to lie wavering in gentle reggaes that wafted down the mountains like fog. Even in death the butterflies were delicate and stunning. What a baroque start to a day, to a season, this emperor's carpet of beauty and needless death; if any death can be needless, or beautiful. I tried not to hit the butterflies with the car but it was impossible; I swerved and slalomed in vain. And the drive made me ponder: whatever made the creatures shine in life was still active after death. Beauty had survived them, and in a strange way was even framed and made meaningful by their deaths.

11. Thomas was eleven years old and had no brothers or sisters. Or a father, for that matter. This didn't worry him. Except Ringo, his bestest friend, none of the boys in his class had one, and his dad often came home drunk.

12. At my door, something changed, maybe before. I'm fiddling for my key when he leans forward and cheek-kisses me lightly. "Alright. I'm gone," he said. "You're okay from here, yeah?" It sounds fine saying it, even then he sounded pleasant enough, but there was an opaqueness, a slight hardness in his eyes that had always shone warm and clear with me. He made a "phone" gesture with his hand to his ear before disappearing down the stairs.

13. Simon Prendegast swam as far into the shallows as he could before he grounded his stomach on the sandy bottom, then stood up suddenly in water that only came halfway up his shins – a trick which had given him pleasure for three decades. He pulled in his stomach as he made his way up the beach to the hotel. He was tall, thin, sixty, crusted by the sun. The Spice Island was under-occupied at the moment, it being November, and only just out of the rains. He followed his usual route, across the lawn, past the sign saying "Do not molest the plants" and around the lagoon pool, noting with pleasure that, though already 8.30am, only three or four of the sunloungers had towels on them. Down the beach, the Half Moon Bay had built a separate hotel for Germans, which amused Prendegast enormously.

14. It began with the moths. Genevieve woke up early but in these times of austerity it was too cold to leave a warm bed and too dark to do much anyway. She wished she had a boyfriend to keep her warm in the bleak midwinter. Her boyfriend walked into the freezing fog one night and never came back. Genevieve liked to think of it as a mysterious disappearance but she knew he was living across town with an actress called Melanie who did throaty voice-overs for public information broadcasts, telling people how to cook with hay boxes and emphasising the importance of sealing up draughty windows.

15. When Napoleon's soldiers retreated in chaos from the burnt-out ruins of Moscow in the winter of 1812, and tried to beg their way back to France, some stragglers wandered southwards through the frozen marshes of Pripyat to turn up, mad with hunger and cold, with cracked lips and frost-bitten feet, in the snow-bound villages of Ukraine. They would knock on the doors, and plead, "For the love of God, give me refuge, mon ami."

16. One evening just after my fiftieth birthday, I pushed against the door of a pub not far from my childhood home. My father, on the way back from his office in London, was inside, standing at the bar. He didn't recognise me but I was delighted, almost ecstatic, to see the old man again, particularly as he'd been dead for ten years, and my mother for five.

17. Phil had lapsed again. He felt too full, and there was still more food working its way through, yet to be registered by the time-delayed fullness meter. Three desserts had been a bad idea, even if they were small. The trouble was, the desserts were always the most tempting thing on the buffet, which created logistical difficulties when several of the main course options were too good to turn down. When you factored in that it was all free – or, at least, paid for – regardless of how much you ate, it was impossible not to go for the dessert, extremely difficult not to have two, and strangely easy to have three. He'd never done four, though. There were limits.

18. I've given them all nicknames. The Minister, the woman from the Foundation, the sleek new rep from the pharmaceutical company. Stupid nicknames that come of their own accord, spawned out of the marshy recesses of my brain, the indefinable area I associate with swelling and bad dreams.

19. Looking back, it astonished her that none of them had broken down in the hospital. Even Dilly, who could be relied on to burst into tears over a shed eyelash, had been completely mute. Chrissie supposed it was shock, literally, the sudden suspension of all natural reactions caused by trauma. And the trauma had actually begun before the consultant had even opened his mouth. They just knew, all four of them, from the way he looked at them, before he said a word. They knew he was going to say, "I'm so very sorry, but –" and then he did say it.

20. The young mahout who was leading the elephant, sometimes by the ear, sometimes by the trunk, was wearing a long white shirt that flapped loosely about him. The elephant kept trying to curl his trunk around it, tugging at it. The mahout ignored him and walked on, speaking all the while to the elephant in confidential whispers. I longed to know what he was saying, but didn't dare ask. He looked friendly enough, smiling at me whenever he glanced back up at me to see if I was all right. But he didn't seem to want to talk, and anyway I wasn't sure he spoke any English. But I knew that if we didn't get talking, then I'd be left alone again with my thoughts, and I didn't want that. And besides, I really wanted to find out more about this elephant I was riding. I decided to risk it and talk.

How to enter

Email your answers, numbered 1 to 20 with the corresponding letter of the writer above (if you think that extract one is written by Diran Adebayo, then 1A) to comps@independent.co.uk

Entries must be received by Friday 17 July. Winners will be picked at random and notified by telephone or email on 31 July. The Editor's decision is final. Only one entry per household. For further terms and conditions see www.independent.co.uk/legal