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At breakfast the next morning, everyone was just as always. Anne Maria nearly choked Cameron with her hairspray. "Sorry, short stuff. On the upside, now your lungs are waterproof!"

I sat with Mike and Zoey on the other end, just opposite Cameron.

Brick and Jo started competing with how fast they could eat, resulting in Jo having to rescue him when he swallowed his spoon. When it finally came out, it hit Mike. "Ow!" He gasped, and suddenly started talking like his Chester character. "Darned kids! Back in my day, we ate with our hands like decent folk!"

Zoey and I giggled. "You're hilarious!" Zoey smiled. "Unless you're not joking. But...you are, right?"

"Lose the old man impression." Jo ordered. "It offends my sense of victory. But your Russian gymnast Svetlana? How do you summon such strength and precision?"
"I..uh, rehearse a lot in front of my mirror." Mike said. I could tell he was lying, but why? Was it to do with his secret? Hmmm, I'd have to get Mike alone and ask him sometime. Maybe he wouldn't tell me, but it would be worth a try.

Lightning nearly choked at the other table, and this time, Dawn saved him with the Heimlich manouver, and picked up the cockroach Lightning had choked on.

"Whoa, that was close." Lightning said. "Thanks, creepy girl."

"Hm? For what?" Dawn asked, glancing up. She stroked the roach. "You're safe now, little one."

Awww, she'd been trying to save the roach, not Lightning.

I went over to Dawn, unable to force down any more of Chef's gruel. "Um, Dawn?" I asked. "Does the roach...talk to you?"

Dawn didn't look up from the roach as she answered. "I can understand many creatures."

"Like, the same way you read auras?" I asked. That was the one thing I'd picked up about Dawn. She was really creepy, but only because she seemed to just "know" things, claiming that she got them from people's auras.

Dawn nodded, but again, she didn't look up.

We had to evacuate pretty quickly, because a mutant rat started creating havoc.

"Attention, campers!" Chris' voice blared through the loudspeakers. "Please head to the looming tragedy that is Mount Looming Tragedy. The race begins now!"

We got there pretty quickly, but Cameron was so out of breath, he actually threw up.

"If we were hamsters, I would've eaten you by now." Jo informed him. She glanced at me. "And probably you, too, strawberry shortcake."

OK, that was going too far. She was obviously making a reference to my hair and height, but using a kiddie character to do it? Once this challenge was over, I was going to kill her.

Chris explained our challenge. "Part 1 is an uphill battle. You have to climb all the way up to that cliff." he pointed. "First team to reach the top gets advantage in Part 2. You can climb using your hands, or whatever you find in the pile." he gestured to a pile of junk. "Don't worry, this junkyard doesn't have a dog. It has a giant mutant beetle!"

We gasped. It was a giant roach, about fifty times bigger than the one Dawn had rescued from Lightning's throat.

It was time to go. "Let's hustle, Maggots! Double time!" Jo yelled out.

Poor Cameron had the most trouble. I pulled myself up on one ledge, and had to try to pull him up. He was really weak, since he'd probably never had to lift a thing in his life, apart from books. He slipped again.

"You can do it, Cam! Focus!" Zoey called down.

I reached down. "Cam, I'll help!" I managed to pull him up onto the first ledge, at least, and happened to look up. Mike was helping Zoey up, and they were, at that moment, staring into each other's eyes, smiling. Cute!

Jo was still yelling at everyone. She and Brick were at the highest point.

Lightning was high up, too, and yelling sha-something the whole time. I was actually relieved to hear Scott yelling at him to shut up.

"Get ready to lose to a girl again!" I heard Jo say to Lightning.

The reason I mention her saying that was because I also heard Lightning ask "What girl? Who's he talking about?"

I kept pulling at Cameron, but looking down, I saw another team member not even trying.

"Anne Maria, get up here before I throw something down!" I yelled.

"No way!" the girl argued. "I'm not ruining my nails!"

Actually, all of us fell after Lightning knocked some rocks down. I landed on top of Cameron, who groaned and reached out.

Anne Maria happened to be standing there, and she slapped his hand away. "Don't touch the hair!"

I jumped off Cameron and snapped "If you don't help, I will be the one touching your hair – because I will make sure it is messed up by the time I'm finished with it."

"Don't mess with me, shortie." Anne Maria scowled.

"Oh, I'm not messing with you." I shot back. "Just your hairdryer which is hidden in your hair and which Chris should be confiscating right now!" I yelled it out, but Chris ignored me.

Meanwhile, B was trying to make something from the junk pile, so Zoey, Mike, Cameron and I also started searching, while the fire-breathing roach attacked Sam for his not-so-good recorder playing.

"Hey! Hey, poof head!" Jo was yelling down at Anne Maria. "Too bad they don't make spray-on style! You could use some!"

Anne Maria clutched her hairspray can so hard it exploded. "What did you say to me? Oh, it is on!" She started climbing, and when Chef started throwing ice blocks down, they didn't work because of how hard her hair was. "I'm coming for you, Pasty!" she screamed at Jo. Well, at least Jo made her climb.

The rest of us found ways to climb. Zoey found rope, Mike found suction plugs, Cameron found bubblegum, and me? Well, I actually found a couple of hooks to pull myself up with.

The Toxic Rats won, because of B's invention, even though Jo got up first. And Anne Maria accidentally punched out Brick instead of Jo.

The next part of the challenge was in an icy part of the island. Everyone was shivering. I mean, come on – pink jeans and a blue T-shirt were not good clothes for snow.

Part 2 had two ways to win. Each team got a snowy fort. We either had to destroy the enemy's fort, or capture their flag.

We got the good fort, because Scott told the others to take the cruddy one, that it was nicer on the inside than the outside. But ours was the good one!

The boys slapped palms. I jumped up and down. "We rock!"

We had a shovel to hurl snowballs with surprises in them to cause damage – we couldn't be sure if it would damage our own fort, or the other team's fort, though. First, we had to choose a captain.

"As team captain, I say we-" Brick and Jo started saying at the same time. They ended up thumb wrestling. Jo won.

Brick saluted. "Never met a girl stronger than me, not even my mom."

Jo started ordering us around. "Brick, Lazy, Zoey, you're on offence. Capture the enemy's flag. The rest of us will guard the fort and fire the enemy's snowball."

Mike caught hold of Zoey's hand. "Be careful. I think Scott's psycho."

"And you...uh...don't let Svetlana pull a hamstring!" Zoey said, but she looked like she knew that wasn't the best thing to say. "I'm just gonna go over here..."

I grinned at Mike. "So..." I said. "You and Zoey? You guys are so cute together."

I saw a slight tinge of red on Mike's dark skin, and he diverted his gaze to the ground for a moment.

"I'm not making fun or anything." I told him. "You like her, right?"

"Enough talking!" Jo yelled, just as a snowball hit our fort. "Come on, people, we have to attack!"

Cameron was clinging to the flag, and Anne Maria didn't follow Jo's orders until she grabbed the spray can and threw it out so she'd go after it – and after the flag. "This ain't over!"

Jo laughed. "Too easy!"

Suddenly, our fort began melting. Cameron clung onto the flag,

"Shortcake, help guard the flag – if one of the others gets it, they'll probably drag him along." Jo ordered. "Mike, do your Svetlana thing and use the catapult."

Mike frowned in concentration. "I can't! My personality – I mean, impressions, are hard to..."

"First up on the vault...five time Russian champ..." Cameron called.

"Is Svetlana!" Mike had suddenly turned back into her, and he went straight for the flag, bouncing off the shovel and towards the Rats' fort.

"Did he say 'personality'?" I whispered to Cameron. "Like, he's not acting – she's another personality?"

Cameron nodded. "That's why he couldn't do it before I said that. It's psychological."

Sadly, our fire-breathing roach started attacking as our fort melted around us. "I want my bubble! I want my bubble!" Cameron screamed.

"Leave him alone, destructive!" I yelled out. "We didn't do anything to you!"

The roach shot fire at me, which I ducked.

But somehow, our fort was still standing when the Rats' one melted. I looked out. Scott was pointing at B. "Nice magnifying lens, Beverly. That's sabotage!"

But we'd won – we got hot chocolate.

Zoey was looking annoyed. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Mike." she said. "He was really sweet to me earlier today, but when he was helping us capture the flag, he started doing another impression of some guy called Vito. I thought he liked me, but then when I tried to take the flag, he said something about making an appointment to be around him."

I frowned. I'd have to talk to Cameron about it, but I didn't say anything to Zoey just yet. It was becoming obvious what Mike's secret could be – if he was saying it was acting, and it wasn't, then his secret had to be that he had split personalities! And if he didn't want anyone to know that, then I wouldn't tell Zoey.

All I said was "Well, you know Mike, a true actor. But seriously, he really does like you. When he told you to be careful around Scott, it was obvious how much he really cares about you."

I talked to Cameron afterwards, about Mike. "So, what you think is that his impressions are actually...alternate personalities?"

"It would explain a lot." Cameron said. "If Mike had Svetlana's skills as himself, then he wouldn't have to act to use them."

"It might also explain what Zoey was telling me." I added. "She said that back in the last challlenge, he was calling himself Vito and treated her like some insignificant little girl. Mike would NEVER do that, even if he was just acting."

B was voted off that night for sabotage. However, another player came back – as an intern. I saw Dakota hanging around that night, wearing the intern uniform.

"How did you get back here?" I asked. "Didn't you get kicked off for not helping your team?"

"Yes." Dakota scowled. "My dad paid for me to come back. But now Chris is making me be an intern! Which means I have to work!"

I couldn't help smiling. "Sorry." I said. "But if you ask me, competing is worse. Does it suck, having lost?"

Dakota tossed her long blonde hair."Yeah. Well, I don't know about it if you're here for the money. I didn't come here for the money, I came here for camera exposure."

I shrugged. "Well, you still get that as an intern, right?" What a princess.

I wasn't interested in seeing more of her, but it looked like I'd have to.

Next up, Izzy gets a cameo. YAY! Please review!