The place was his.
First a dock. Purple jet skis and a motorboat with a radiant orange stripe bobbing on ropes at the end. A distant hotel proudly atop the rise, white and double-floored, with the pine trees scattered beyond. Dozens of soft lights dangling from lampposts blinked down at him, illuminating the surrounding area with a glow intermittently gentle and unnerving. Watching. Waiting. Breathing.
He stopped sulking the instant he saw them and rubbed furiously at his stinging eyes. When the lights did not immediately disappear, he rushed over to the other side of the boat. Perhaps it was a mistake, or perhaps it wasn't; it would change his fate nonetheless.
"Last stop for losers!" hollered the intern steering the tugboat – he wore two nametags, Kevin and Joey – and he rang a bell by his window as the dented dingy bumped into place beside the dock. The boy expected a plank to be lowered for him to walk across (y'know, pirate style), but instead one hand grabbed him by the back of his hoody, another by the backs of his knees, and tossed him flat on his face. He'd hardly hit the dock before the boat began to chug, chug away into the darkness behind him.
"Thanks for all the help, ya knob!" he shouted back. Unsurprisingly there was no reply. The boat had been swallowed up like marshmallows at a campfire. This was with little question the half of the island they'd been told on the bus ride that they were forbidden to explore, and if it had a hotel, well… He could see why.
And not even a single intern stood by documenting all of this, which meant the place was probably surrounded by stable hidden cameras. Trees, bushes- even chipmunks could be suspect, because if Chris didn't have a problem with torturing twenty-two sixteen-year-olds on a reality show, he probably didn't have a problem with freaking up their biology. The boy poked once at the inside of his nose just to show he would, cameras or not, then scrambled to his feet and took off across the dock. Stumble, stumble, snorted hick laugh that proved stereotypes came from somewhere, and genuine grin.
His name was Ezekiel, this teenage boy – Ezekiel Adam Foster if you wanted him to squeal and come scampering – and in a year's time that same name would be splashed across the news channels where it would flounder for several months before slipping away in silence into the horror stories mothers told their children to coax them into taking baths and choking down their peas and carrots. And today he'd already jumped off a deadly thousand-foot cliff into shark-infested waters, lugged a crate about twelve miles along a beach, been nearly strangled to death by some tough girl, and ridiculed until the very moment his shoes had left Camp Wawanakwa soil. All without a word of complaint, thank you very much, and a one-way ride on some dinky tugboat was the thanks he'd gotten for it? Yeah, some team.
But it was a joke. A trick. They were tearing each other apart in dirty cabins and choking down food that wriggled like Jello and looked like scrambled eggs crossbred with coconuts and a dead mongoose, and this place, with its slippery yellow tiles and its thatched-roofed awnings and its water triple-blue with chlorine and its swim-up smoothie bar in the shallow end, was all his.
"Wicked pool, yo!" His farm boots and thick socks were the first to go, but once he'd felt the water his snot-colored hoody didn't stand a chance. Ezekiel kept his favorite turquoise toque stuffed on his bird-nest hair only as an afterthought, then ran around to the high-dive.
"Heh. Watch me do this cannonball, eh. The Zeke is the best at all a' the- whoa! Whoa! Ahhh!"
He came up spluttering and clawing at the aching in his open eyes. A moment of puppy-paddling around rewarded his fingers with the cement edge of the pool.
"Heh. Yeah, I could get used a' this. Yo! Someone bring The Zeke a fruit plate or somethin', eh?"
Nothing.
"Knobs." Ezekiel hauled himself from the pool, shook out his hair dog-style, and finally sat back to wring water from his toque. "Yeah, well, they're all upset 'cuz I was the first one to get kicked off the show, eh?" For a minute more he continued to stare sulkily at his dripping hat, then he stood. "I'mma go find me some hot-dogs or somethin', yo."
Now, if it were up to him to decide which of the two camps deserved the coveted "Zeke's Most Favorite Hang-Out Ever, Eh" award, Playa Des Losers would have won it hands down. Really, the only thing Camp Wawanakwa had going for it was that hundred-thousand-whatever-dollar prize money. And even that didn't seem quite so special when one had free reign over a pool, tennis court, hot-tub, the entire interior of a five-story hotel, smoothie bar, fully-stocked buffet table, gym, and facial station. Those last two were avoided at all costs, but at least the interns were nice.
And there were interns, as it turned out. To clean, to cook, to do his laundry, to give him mouth to mouth that time he tripped over a chair and said chair pinned him underwater. Ezekiel still hadn't figured out why none of them had come to greet him at the dock when he first arrived, but he thought the fresh fruit and perfect hamburgers he received the next day might have been to blame. He could forgive them for their perfect hamburgers.
He got to know their names, even if it was still a time before their faces matched right-ways-up inside his head. The one who toted the jingling keys and always carried spare lightbulbs was Josh. Kevin had dark skin and only wore purple sweaters, even in the sweltering June air. Drake flipped the burgers, mostly, and didn't talk much behind his black hair. Nervous, chubby Stuart talked even less. Never once, in fact, though in the end it would become a game for all of them to try. Ian was a mechanic. Melody wanted to be a vet. The pretty, freckled girl who skulked around the kitchen with a broom and sometimes used it to chase nosy boys away was Tara. Or sometimes Samantha. They were twins. Well, triplets, but Jordyn liked to throw herself on the couch in the game room and chat nonstop to somebody on the other end that nobody ever figured out.
Marcia "From the States" Anderson was the oldest at thirty-eight and a fan of dressing and talking like she were twice that. After four days of swimming and card games and slurping grape smoothies and losing against himself in tennis over in the court, it was she who Ezekiel plopped beside, arms folded, with an anxious, "Yo, yo, Marcia. Long time and no see, eh?"
She stopped scrubbing the buffet table and turned to look at him on his rock, her hands on her hips, the rag balled up in one fist. "So you've finished all those sandwiches already, have you? It's been what now? Twelve minutes?"
"Yeah, my dad likes to say that I can eat almost as much as our hog Jake, which I don't really get. Uh, what's up next on the menu?"
She snapped the rag at his hat, sending it flying into the pool. A playful gesture. He hoped. "Oh, the usual stuff we dish up around here, sugar pie. This is your fourth day now- you know the drill."
A stain on the purple table cloth required his instant inspection.
"Well, bless my boots! Is our favorite local celebrity starting to turn mush-head sun-baked?"
"Huh? Me?"
Marcia clucked her tongue and went back to wiping crumbs from the far corner of the table. "Come on now, you're a farm boy. Y'ever seen a sun-baked pig before? 'Course not. Pigs are clever. They slather 'emselves in mud and rest the day away. I was just asking if you've turned sun-baked bored, sweet pea."
"Well, I just- Yow!"
The intern gave her rag a few shakes and peered at Ezekiel over the rims of her tortoiseshell glasses. "Don't think you can stick your dirty paws on my nice clean plates now. Tablecloth or not. I've seen you picking at your nose."
Ezekiel stopped sucking on his injured thumb and turned his attention instead towards the tiki smoothie bar over in the shallow end. "Yeah, well… I just came o'er here to say that I can make a pretty mean biscuit, yo. So if y'ever wanted The Zeke a' help out in the kitch-"
"I won't have any big TV stars doing my job. Especially not when they're already Vitamin-D deficient as it is. You want to get me fired? Now, you can just go and move your scrawny little tail back into the sun- and that's an order."
"Yes, ma'am. Word!"
Three days of filming a week. Three challenges. Three eliminations. That had been the deal. By all accounts, shouldn't at least one other person have been sandeled off already?
"It's gonna be that big brick guy, eh," Ezekiel told Kevin, who was refilling the grape canister at the smoothie station. "The one who wouldn't jump, y'know?"
The intern shrugged in response, so Ezekiel busied himself with wringing out his soggy toque.
"Hey homie, are ya done with that refillin' yet? The Zeke needs a grape o'er here, yo."
He ended up serving the smoothie himself, but dozed off in a pool chair before he had the chance to finish it up.
…
"Wake up, little buddy. Come on. Up and at 'em."
Ezekiel snorted and flopped over onto his left side. "Huh? But I a'ready fed the horses this mornin', dad. I swear."
"Hey! You! Zeke!"
He blinked himself awake. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but even when they did he didn't recognize the intern who stood before him. "Eh?"
"Throw on your shirt, man. The boat's going to be pulling up any minute now. Now hurry up and go say hello to your new playmate."
Ezekiel fumbled with his hoody in the dark and took off across the slippery tiles while adjusting his hat at the same time. He left his shoes and socks where they were beside the pool- who needed them anyway?
"About time, eh. Bet those knobs just realized how hopeless they really are without The Zeke on their team to help 'em out."
He reached the dock a mere four seconds before the tugboat did. He skidded - actually skidded, and he would suffer many splinters for it later - to a halt right at the end and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the boat's headlights. A shape stood at the prow, but he couldn't make out the face in the shadows.
"Huh. Yo, playa-"
The girl in blue reacted before Ezekiel had even finished speaking. She launched herself over the side of the boat, grabbed him by the neck with both of her hands, and lifted him about a foot and a half off the ground.
"Look, pussycat- I haven't slept a wink in four days. I am really not in the mood for any of your stupid games."
It was Eva it was Eva it was Eva-
"Here's the spit: you give me my space and I'll give you yours."
Ezekiel licked his lips and squeaked a noise that Eva chose to interpret as agreement. Maybe he was too heavy for her at this point; she dropped him to his knees and then, as an afterthought, put her finger on the back of his head and pushed him over so that he lay face-first on the dock.
"And I don't want to hear a one of your sexist comments while I'm here. None, and I mean none. Once you start respecting me, then I'll start respecting you. We clear on that?"
She must not have seen his thumbs-up in the dark, because she nudged his shoulder with her shoe.
"I said, are we clear on that. C'mon. Get up, Homeschool." Then, with honest concern, "I didn't break your neck, did I? Freakin'- I broke his neck! Dang, he's scrawny."
"I can walk," he wheezed. "The Zeke is always-"
"Good, 'cuz I'm pretty beat. I won't be carrying you back to the cabin."
"Uh, cabin?"
"… Where are the cabins? Where are we?"
Ezekiel sprang up and, dusting off his front, made an attempt to give her a tour. But when they reached the "lobby" of the "hotel", she spied the striped couch and flopped down on it without yanking out the band that held up her ponytail. She didn't get up again after that. After a good ten minutes of pacing and coughing into his fist, Ezekiel excused himself and wandered away.
Eva must have slept for about fifteen hours in total, probably not even bothering to shower, because the next time Ezekiel saw her she seemed to be wearing the same rumpled gym clothes from the boat, and her hair had become a tornado of shadow. Sweaty strands clung to her upper lip. A little bit after noon she stumbled from the hotel, collapsed in the nearest lawn chair, and passed out once more. That didn't keep her down for long. She woke the minute the steak was brought out to the buffet table and went at it without any silverware. That was… okay.
"So, Zeke. Someone told me that you don't like the new girl."
He glowered at Kevin over his smoothie.
"Whoa, take it easy there, man- I didn't mean nothing by it. But wow, you sure know how to pick the wrong enemies."
"Doon't look at me! I didn't pick her. She picked me, eh?"
"Uh-huh." Kevin picked up his rag again. "I have to ask though, what did you do to make her so upset?"
Tch. Did he really want to go through all this again? To this random, unimportant intern cleaning off the counter? Ezekiel rolled his eyes and readjusted his position on the tiki bar stool. "Well, my dad told me to always watch out for the girls on this show, eh? And to help 'em out if they needed me to. 'Cuz, you know. Guys are much better at sports than girls are. Girls care too much 'bout their shoes and their clothes and their nails'n their hair. Huh. How many girls d'ya know who've e'er slopped pigs, eh? Girls are prettier'n guys, and guys are just a whole lot stronger'n girls are. 'Tis just the way it works, y'know? So I said that to my team, eh-"
"You said what? In front of her? Oh man, dude! You're lucky she left you all in one piece!" Kevin wiped his face with the end of his apron and offered Ezekiel a crooked smile. "Seriously man, it must really suck to be you. Do you want your coffin made of oak, or spruce?"
Ezekiel stared straight ahead, his lip twitching once as he heard Eva gnawing on her steak. "Apple, actually, if that ain't too hard for ya." After that, he refilled his grape smoothie and then jumped into the water, rubbing his throat with his empty hand as he slunk back to solid ground.
He and Eva went on like this for the remainder of the day. She would give him a dull-eyed stare every time he moved too much and then turn back to whatever it was she had been doing, and he would try to stay a safe distance of at least twelve feet away from her at all times.
When dinner drew on, their static electricity exploded at the buffet table after Ezekiel made the mistake of saying 'Ladies first'. Memories made of lightning burned in her eyes.
"What's that s'posed to mean, Homeschool? Down to the letter? You can read, can't you?"
"Uh, I was just… My mom and dad raised a gentleman?"
"Oh, my mistake. I seem to have forgotten that girls can't be as strong as guys. You know what, pint-size?" She shoved him against the buffet table with her shoulder, then stood back and folded her arms. When Ezekiel didn't move, she made a motion towards the paper plates at the end of the table. Dripping with wariness, he took one.
"Why-?"
Eva snatched it from his hands and then proceeded to launch it Frisbee-style across the pool. It bounced off a tree and landed somewhere in the bushes. Once she was satisfied with her toss, Eva took another plate from the stack and gave it to Ezekiel.
"Go ahead."
"Huh?"
"Throw it, Homeschool. Like you mean it."
Ezekiel looked first at the plate, then at the bushes where Eva had thrown the first. If this was a contest, it wasn't a very fair one.
"Well? What are you waiting for, huh? Let's get a move on here."
"Just… don't get too upset when you lose ta The Zeke, eh? Ow! Leggo, dawg! I'm throwin' it already!" Ezekiel drew back his arm and sent his plate flying. It made it across the pool, but only just. Then it hit the yellow tiles at an angle, rolled onto its side, and ended up somewhere in Eva's bushes. "There! Now that's what The Zeke-"
She slapped him across the face with the third paper plate and then shoved it into his hands. "Ladies first," she snapped, and pushed him towards the table with her elbow.
So much for watching after the girls. Ezekiel grabbed a slice of bacon, a hot dog, ten grapes, and a fistful of pineapple.
And yet for some reason, even though just during lunch she'd had shreds of steak dangling from her teeth and barbecue sauce across her nose, Eva gawked as she watched all of this.
"What? I a'ready washed my hands, homie." After retreating a few feet away from the buffet table, Ezekiel took a large, defiant bite of his bacon.
"You aren't going to cook any of that first, Homeschool? You'll get food poisoning, you know."
"Cook? Tch. Yo, I ate raw meat all the time back on the farm, eh. Nothin' bad has e'er happened a' me."
"Well, that… is seriously messed up."
The two of them locked eyes. The words were on the very tip of his tongue. Eva only glowered at him. Egging him on with her silence. A long knife lay on the table beside the half-carved pineapple.
"Something you want to say, Homeschool? Something about us girls?"
"Nope, nope. Nuh-uh. Nothin' at all," he managed around his bacon. And, as he would find himself doing a lot over the coming eight weeks here at Playa Des Losers, he beat a hasty retreat back to the tiki bar, bare feet slapping and fingernails scraping like some sort of feral thing.