Okay, time for the next challenge! I think this was one of the better episodes. Without Leonard trying to levitate the pig, who will take the wall, and who will have to pair up on Team Maskwak? Thanks for reviewing, yeezynight14, Gage the Hedgehog (although I don't understand what you mean in your reviews), OmniPlanckInstant, Bloodylilcorpse, SilentSinger948 and SuperKitty4789.

I was actually the last person to wake up the next morning. I had forgotten where I was for a moment, then I heard Sugar's voice yelling and opened my eyes blearily, trying to remember the names of all my teammates. Shawn was still absent, but everyone else was around, talking. It looked like Sugar had been yelling at Ella, who was looking confused and upset about something. Sky was trying to play peacemaker, and Dave was hovering nearby. Beardo was hanging back.

I decided to join him. "Not going to get into this conflict, huh?" I whispered.

"Actually, it's not an argument." he answered. "Ella wasn't really doing anything, but Sugar took offense to something she said and it's not going over well."

"Guess I missed the action." I sighed. "Oh well. I think our team's going to have to look after Ella in this game. She's so naive."

I liked our team overall, though. Despite Ella's innocence, Sugar's vanity and Shawn's paranoia, I felt like our team got on well. Dave I wasn't sure whether I liked or not. He'd seemed quite nice on the zeppelin, but our other teammates seemed to be getting on his nerves. Sky was all right, though. She was definitely unofficial leader. Just before the challenge, she got all of us together (except Shawn, who still wasn't back) and said "Guys, with our diverse set of skills, I think we can win these challenges, but we have to work together. Come on, let's do it! Go Team Maskwak!"

"Go Team Maskwak!" the rest of us echoed, except Dave, who followed suit more reluctantly afterwards. Beardo made a party noisemaker sound.

Beardo was definitely the member of the team I liked the most. He was cool and chill, friendly and his sound effects made me smile. Even though he was talking now, he still made sound effects sometimes.

The intercom blared into action just after Sky's pep talk. "Campers, the only good thing about this morning is that it's gonna get worse...for you. There's a path heading into the forest. Follow it to today's challenge!"

We met Shawn halfway through the path. He'd probably been up earlier than us, but he hadn't come to join the team because he was busy foraging for our breakfast. He'd apparently found a lot of edible things growing, so we were fed and ready for the next challenge by the time we reached Chris.

Our challenge was a greasy obstacle course relay, or as Chris called it, the "Oof-stacle Race of Hilarious Hurts". He took us through each obstacle – the greased up bridge over thorns, the greasy zipline, the greasy tubes, greasy tyres to run through, a wheelbarrow race over grease, and finally a greased-up wall. We just had to do one section each.

Oh yeah, and we didn't have a relay baton. Instead, we would pass a greased-up pig to each other. "Not so much batons as bac-tons!"

Topher burst out laughing. "Good one, Chris!"

"Thank you, Topher." Chris clearly liked Topher. I didn't. The sucking-up was going to get pretty grating, the longer Topher stayed.

Scarlett was the one to point out the problem. "There are only six obstacles, and we're both teams of seven."

"Two of you on each team will have to double up on one section of the race." Chris told her. "Now, decide who's on what, cause the race is about to start!"

Our team conferred. "Sugar should take the last section." Shawn suggested. "Back on her farm, she plays with greased pigs all the time!"

"Are you kidding?" I scoffed. "We need someone smaller and more agile on the wall. Sky, you're good at gymnastics, right? I think you should take the wall. Sugar would be good at any of the others!" I added to placate the pageant queen. "In fact, I'm so confident that she'll do well that I'd like to pair up with her for the relay...if that's all right. There's no way we won't get the lead!"

Sugar shrugged, but she looked agreeable, so that's what happened. We didn't really figure out our spots, though, apart from Sky on the wall. We just ran to whichever one was closest. Well, okay, not all of us.

I thought that Sugar and I should be on the obstacle that had the other partnership. It turned out the twins were on the tubes together, so I pulled Sugar over to that obstacle. Beardo ended up on the bridge, Shawn on the zipline, Ella on the tyres, and Dave on the wheelbarrow (he'd looked a bit worried at the mention of grease, but I hoped he would do all right).

We were pretty level at the start of the race. Beardo was up against Rodney, and both of them kept slipping in the grease on the bridge. But Beardo just about got the lead. Just.

This gave Shawn the chance to get to the zipline first, but Topher, Kinosewak's zipliner, watched as Shawn freaked out (the pig tried to bite him in the forehead) and he ended up falling down the chasm while the pig went to Sugar and I.

Topher got the pig and began to self-advertise. I could hear him from the other side. "And it looks like gorgeous player Topher is learning from Shawn's mistakes." Then he looked straight at the camera. "Which pork will place first? Find out when we return, on-" Yes, you heard me, he tried to do Chris' job. He apologized profusely, but I don't think he was actually sorry.

Anyway, it was mine and Sugar's turn first. But it would've been a lot easier if Sugar hadn't spent a whole lot of time cooing over it like it was her baby or something. I literally had to drag her into the tubes while the twins were just getting their pig. And when we finally did get it through, Sugar wouldn't hand the pig to Ella. "I'm keeping her...him...is mine! Forever!"

Ella paused, then said "Well, maybe I could just piggysit her for a bit?" And without warning, she began singing "Hey there little girl, or fella, if you came over here, it'd be mighty swell-a!"

The pig immediately squealed happily and ran to Ella.

"I love you, grease pig!" Sugar called after it, but it was too busy dancing across the tyres with our princess, who was still singing.

The twins weren't finished until Ella was halfway across. "I'm sweaty and disgusting!" complained one of them, the one that had the least grease on her. "I look like you!" She glared at her sister.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" said the other twin, who was almost covered in grease. "But...you were the one who scared the pig."

"You beg my pardon?" the first twin snapped. "Whose fault is this?"

"Mine."

"Yes! Always!"

Okay, that was out of line. I remembered which twin was which – still couldn't tell them apart, but the mean one was clearly Amy. But it didn't matter anyway. My part of the challenge was over, so I had a chance to tell the twins what I thought of them.

"For Christ's sake, you two!" I yelled. "What is with you? Sorry, I forget what Chris said your name was-" I pointed at Sammy (of course I knew her name, but I knew the show well enough that Chris might penalize me if I called her by her unofficial but real name), "but I can't believe you're taking this! Are you just going to let people walk all over you? Grow a backbone, can't you?"

"Yeah." Amy taunted her sister, looking smug. "You're so weak."

"You're one to talk!" I snapped at her. "Sure, it's partly your sister's fault for letting you think you can get away with this. But I can tell you started putting her down before she started letting you and I don't get why! I thought you two were sisters! Family."

"Unfortunately." Amy muttered, now turning her glare on me.

"Yeah, unfortunately for her." I snarked. "Amy, if you need someone weaker than you to pick on, try some insects. Your sister has a better right to stand up for herself, and even if she's so weak she won't, it doesn't give you the right to pick on her! And as for you," I looked to Sammy again, "Unless you want her to keep picking on you, don't let her think she's right! Get your revenge!"

I stalked back to my place next to Sugar, leaving Amy lost for words and Sammy looking guilty, like not standing up for herself was some kind of crime.

At that moment, the intercom came to life with an air horn. Our pig stopped dancing with Ella and squealed in shock. Ella glared up at the intercom. "You scared him!" she scolded.

Chris' reply? "There is NO singing required in this season. NONE!" Ella gasped.

At least she got the pig back on track straightaway, before passing it on to Dave. "That mean man gave Mr Trufflehunter a dreadful fright!" she said in a trembly voice.

"His name's Grease Pig!" Sugar yelled across the tyres.

Dave started off all right. He would've continued on if not for Team Kinosewak's pig. Scarlett was on tyres, and she'd picked things up pretty well for her team, running nimbly through the tyres, dropping a pecan trail for the pig, so she didn't even have to touch it to get it following her. Then she had to pass to Max, and he gave her this weird futuristic thing to hold for a moment. Then she plugged something in on it, put it on the pig's head, and it did something strange. The pig's expression changed, and it started throwing grease at first Dave, and then Max. But at least Max wasn't a germophobe. Dave started freaking out halfway through the challenge, and even once he'd passed to Sky, he kept screaming about needing hand sanitizer. I tried to calm him down, but I couldn't.

The only reason Dave snapped out of it at all was because Chris called out "This just in: Amazon beat by gymnast, though only just...whatever. Team Maskwak wins the challenge!"

I started cheering, as did the rest of my team. Despite having been up against strongwoman Jasmine, Sky had managed to win the challenge for us. Although, to be fair, Jasmine was probably only halfway up because they'd been set back at the start with Beardo passing to Shawn way before Rodney passed to Topher, and they'd just been falling further behind all the time – if we'd been level, Jasmine probably would've beaten Sky.

Still, I couldn't say no to takeout food, even if it was just beaks and feet.

Even better, we finally had shelter. Thanks to Shawn, that is. He'd found a cave for us to sleep in. "I figured another night of sleeping in the rain isn't gonna help us win the next challenge."

"You finally going to come down from your tree?" Dave asked. He'd had a chance to wash the grease off and was looking a lot better for it, and not just because he was clean.

"Nuh-uh." Shawn said decidedly. "Thanks for asking, but no way am I gonna be an undead snack!"

I couldn't help rolling my eyes at how seriously Shawn took this zombie stuff. Oh well, I still liked him. He was a valuable team member (even if he wasn't great with today's challenge) and a good guy.

"So, who do you think's going home?" I asked Beardo. "I'm absolutely sure Topher and Scarlett won't be. They were pretty solid today."

Beardo paused. "Probably Rodney or Max." he said after some thought. "Even though Jasmine lost the challenge, I could hear her talking before the challenge. She's definitely team leader – they probably won't want to vote her out."

"I think the twins are on the chopping block, too." I added. "They weren't great today."

"You're telling me!" Sugar chimed in uninvited to the conversation. "Them cheerleader girls are hopeless! Bet the meek one gets sent home. At least the other one's got some spark!"

I wondered if Sammy would get voted out. Then I wondered if Amy would be mean enough to vote her own sister out. She'd been plenty mean at the challenge, as if she thought Sammy was just a weak echo of her, rather than her identical twin (with, I might add, a more pleasant if nonexistent personality), but I doubted that would be enough of a reason to vote her out.

I decided to listen to confessionals again before confessionals, but I got out later than the night before, since I wanted to finish my share of the takeout first. Still, I managed to get one from Team Kinosewak and one from Sky. Rodney was just coming out, so he saw me, but I only had to wait a few minutes to overhear the next one, which happened to be from Sky. She'd noticed how hard Dave had been trying to impress her for the last couple of days, and that led to a point that was good for me to know – her attitude. "I think Dave has a bit of a crush on me. But I'm not here to meet boys, I'm here to win." Not only was it good to know that Sky had her mind on the competition, it made me like her better. Not that I needed to – I liked her already.

From Team Kinosewak, I got to hear Amy explaining why she was so hard on her sister. It was the stupidest reason ever. "After I was born, Mommy and I had to wait seventeen minutes for Samey to come out. Ugh, can you imagine? If I could have walked, I would have left without her!" She even went on a little rant about how she didn't like it that I'd interfered in their argument, but I left before she was finished, since it was boring and I wasn't getting anything new out of her.

I was right about the twins not being big enough targets. When I heard the cannon, I waited outside the cave to watch the team coming back. I could only see their silhouettes, and I recognized two skinny petite ones, a tall one, a small squat one, one with a perfect coif, and one with their hair in a bun. No hulking great overall-wearer.

Rodney had been voted out for his early blunder.

Yeah, I got rid of Rodney. He's not my least favourite PI character (that dishonour goes to Amy), but his joke got old fast. I'd rather spend more time developing the twins and Beardo than keep him around. Especially since he doesn't have many inter-team interactions, which means there wasn't much I could do with him. Sorry, Rodney fans.