Duncan and Trent walked down the path, deep in conversation. "So my cousin Allie is, like, super into this garageband from her town a couple miles away," Duncan said, before pointing to the logo on his chest, "and for my birthday last year she gave me this shirt. She said it's 'cause the lead singer has the same one on his beanie."

"That's super sweet." Trent smiled, causing his friend to turn away to hide how his cheeks were turning red. "I'm guessing you two are pretty close?"

"Yeah, have been ever since-" Shit, I can't tell Trent about my sister. He'd probably think I'm a weirdo or something. Why do I care so much anyways? "Ever since she was born, really. She turns ten this September."

"Didn't realise you were such a softie," Trent chuckled, "but I'll have to check them out. Maybe you could take me to a concert, or something." Duncan could feel his ears turn red. It would be totally platonic, he reminded himself, you and Trent are just good friends, there's nothing special about any of this.

"Totally, yeah." The two smiled at each other, when something in the corner of his eye caught Duncan's attention. "Did you see that?" He asked, turning around to see what it was.

"See what?" Trent turned to see what his friend was looking at, but all he could see was Chris' cabin.

"I thought…" Duncan shook his head. "It was probably nothing. Let's head to the dining hall, see if we can catch Chef in a good mood." Trent laughed at his joke, and the two headed off.

Duncan had seen something, however. Beth let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding, before nodding at Timmy. The raccoon signed something to her, causing the detective wannabe to get angry. "Timmy, watch your language. Just because Duncan thought it would be funny to teach you how to spell out swear words, doesn't mean you should use them. And Operation: Avenge Harold is not dumb, it is in fact incredibly important!"

When the brunette's back was turned, Timmy blew a raspberry at her, before following her lead and heading into the cabin through a partially open window. Landing on the wooden flooring below, she let out a quiet 'oof', getting up quickly and looking around to make sure no one had heard her. As soon as she was certain the coast was clear, she ushered Timmy out the door of the room she had landed in.

The poor little raccoon was quite overwhelmed by the size of the cabin, being more used to the smaller ones that the campers had been given. He quickly adjusted, and was soon hopping around into every hiding place he could find like a miniature spy. His mission? To find the room where Chris had his ideas for future challenges.

Finally, Timmy stumbled upon a suspicious looking door with a big yellow sign on it, which he could not read, for he was a raccoon. But there was a blue light coming from the gap between the door and the floor, so he thought that accounted for something. Jumping up as high as he could, Timmy grabbed the handle and pushed it down, opening the door and revealing what lay within.

Monitors lined every wall, each side of the room being covered up to the ceiling. There was a table that was attached to three of the walls, notepads and documents littered all over its surface. On the one empty wall, there were crumpled up balls of paper, red marks covering what little of the front of the papers Timmy could make out.

Trying his best not to get distracted by all the new sights and smells, Timmy leaped up onto the tabletop, collecting anything that looked potentially useful. Then, a whirring noise. The raccoon looked over at the door and saw, shuffling along the floor, a Roomba. Beth told him that Chris had eyes everywhere, but he hadn't thought that he would have spies in his own cabin!

Putting the notepads and sheets of paper in between his teeth, Timmy jumped down from the table and ran, headfirst, into the little robot vacuum. The Roomba was flipped onto its back, causing it to beep in agony, and Timmy ran back the way he had come as fast as his little raccoon paws could carry him.

He ran back into the room he and Beth had landed in and quickly hopped out of the window, Beth following soon after, albeit with much less grace than her furry friend. They ran as fast as they could back to the other cabins, as if Chris was on their tails, even though he most certainly was not.

The two of them ran into the girl's side of the Bass cabin, nearly knocking Trent and Duncan over in the process. "Hey, watch where you're going, Four Eyes!" Duncan yelled after her, but she was already inside. The delinquent muttered something under his breath, before continuing to head over to the Gophers' cabin with Trent.

"Thanks for walking with me this morning, Duncan. I know you're not exactly an early bird." Trent said as he climbed the steps to the cabin.

Duncan shrugged. "It's no big deal. The woods are dangerous, Zeke's gone, it's cool." A puff of air came from Trent, almost like a laugh, but not quite, and he opened the door to the boy's side of the Gopher cabin to a very unwelcome surprise.

You see, Geoff and Trent had been engaging in a series of small-scale pranks on each other of the malicious variety, each one progressively getting worse than the last. However, none of the previous pranks had been as bad as the one that Geoff had just played on Trent, all in the name of embarrassing the budding musician as much as he'd embarrassed Gwen at the talent show.

Geoff held surprisingly strong grudges.

"Ha! You totally fell for it, dude!" Geoff laughed, watching egg yolk of unknown origin drip down Trent's chin from under the steel bucket on his head. Trent tried to pull the bucket off, but it was stuck on tight, and Duncan had to help him out.

Glaring at the taller blonde sitting on the bed in front of him, Trent huffed, wiping a few bits of egg off of his face. "I'm going to take a shower, and I swear, if there is another prank waiting for me there, you'll regret it."

・・・•・・・•

It was now midday, and all the campers were lined up on the beach, awaiting for Chris to begin talking to them about what awaited them. "Today's challenge will test your minds, your teamwork, and your skills in the kitchen!" Geoff and Trent sent each other hateful glares at the simple thought of working together. "You will be cooking a three course meal and serving it to me, for tasting."

Noah raised a hand, although he didn't wait before talking. "Hate to interrupt, but don't you have Chef for that?" He sneered, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

Chris scoffed in reply. "You seriously think I let that guy cook me food? No way, man. My actual chef just quit like a week ago and I just ran out of leftovers, so until I get a new one, you guys are my substitutes. Anyways, the winners of this challenge will get a reward, whilst the losers send somebody home.

"Each team will appoint a head chef to create the theme of the meal and oversee the cooking. To cook, you need ingredients." The host let out a chuckle, and the water closest to the campers began to bubble. There was a beeping noise, and then, out of the water came a food truck, being driven by a dolphin in a spiffy new uniform. "Every morning a truck brings us food. Today's task starts there."

Geoff, since he was the nearest, opened up the back of the truck, revealing an incredible display of different fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats, and practically any food you could think of. "We could totally do a killer Italian theme with this!" He said, climbing into the truck and stepping carefully around the food.

"Yeah, that's great and all, but we're going to need a head chef." Lindsay said, flipping her blonde hair behind her shoulder. She put out a hand and Heather untied one of her pigtails, giving the hairband to Lindsay so she could tie up her own hair. "I nominate myself."

"But Geoff came up with the theme," Gwen stated, snarling at the blonde, "don't you think he should be head chef?"

"If I did I wouldn't have nominated myself for the position, would I?"

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Geoff snapped, popping his head out of the truck. "I don't really appreciate what you may be implying, dudette."

Lindsay rolled her eyes. "Fine then, we'll have a vote. All in favour of me as head chef, raise your hands." Lindsay, Heather, and Trent all put their hands in the air, and finally, Cody, although he seemed much less certain than the others were. "Why, it looks like I win!" The blonde faked an innocent giggle, before stepping into the truck, forcing Geoff to get out. "We'll be doing French, now come on!"

Duncan had snuck to the back of the truck, and discovered a large variety of cooking appliances, including one that was particularly familiar to him. "No way!" He chuckled as he pulled away the half of the cloth covering the old-fashioned barbecue. The teen dragged the barbecue out of the truck, ignoring Lindsay's complaints about how he bumped into her. "My παππού had something just like this. He used it to cook σουβλάκι at family gatherings."

DJ looked down at the barbecue, then up to Duncan. "Do you know how to work this thing?" He asked as Timmy fiddled with the metal bars resting above the coals.

"'Course I do. What kind of grandson would I be if I didn't learn the family recipe?" Duncan went back into the van and began picking out ingredients. "We could totally do a killer Greek theme with all of this!"

Beth picked up Timmy so he wouldn't injure himself, holding out one arm so he could use it as a swing instead to entertain himself. "I guess we've found our head chef then." There was a small smile on her face, and, thankfully for the plan already formulating in her mind, nobody opposed the idea.

"Well then, let's get grabbing!" Duncan said, a huge grin on his face as he disappeared back inside the truck. He and Lindsay grabbed the ingredients they wanted, passing them around with their teammates, before stepping out of the truck and heading towards the kitchen.

・・・•・・・•

"Alright, since we only have five people on our team, I'll be doing the main course by myself." Duncan said, setting all the ingredients out into three different groups; one for the entree, one for the main course, and one for dessert. "DJ and Tyler, you'll be on entree. Beth and LeShawna, you'll be on dessert."

Beth looked at the ingredients that lay before her. "Uh… Duncan, what exactly are we making?" The punk glanced over and sighed.

"Right, you, uh, don't know. Of course. Do you want me to write a recipe or something?" He seemed jittery, almost like the mere thought of cooking a family recipe on national television was making him overwhelmingly excited.

Chris walked into their kitchen just in time to hear Duncan's idea. "Well if you're going to make a recipe, you're going to have to make it snappy. You guys only have three hours on the clock!"

Duncan bit his lip, looking from the ingredients, to Beth and LeShawna, then back again. "So we don't have that much time. That's okay, that's fine! You guys can just wing it."

LeShawna's brows furrowed, as she gave the head chef an incredulous look. "That doesn't really sound like a great idea…"

"Yeah, well, it'll have to do. If either of you have ever made doughnuts, λουκομάδες are basically just like that." The punk ran a hand through his mohawk, clearly already stressed out as he washed his hands once again before he began cutting up his chicken and lamb into little cubes.

The Gophers were doing better, although, admittedly, they didn't have much competition. Since they had seven members still on their team, they were able to evenly split everyone up and leave Lindsay to order everyone around, which managed to be both beneficial and harmful to the team.

"Cody, Heather, you'll be making Niçoise Salad, Noah and Gwen will be on Ratatouille, and Geoff and Trent will be making Crème Brûlée. Any questions or complaints?" Before either Geoff or Trent could speak, Lindsay continued. "No? Good! Now get to work!"

Confessionals Start

"Geoff and Trent are hopeless, honestly," Lindsay examined her pointy red nails, "but if I'm going to keep LeShawna in the game, then I'm going to have to take matters into my own hands. If that means costing my team the win, then so be it."

"I can see what Lindsay's doing," Beth sneered, her arms crossed as Timmy played with her hair, "Pairing Geoff and Trent up together… who does she think she's fooling? I'm pretty sure everyone in Canada could hear Trent yelling at Geoff to give him back his binder last week. She isn't even trying to hide it!"

Confessionals End

As soon as everyone had gotten to work, Lindsay walked over to Cody and Heather. The two of them were working surprisingly well, cutting up the vegetables into even slices. The blonde cleared her throat, earning their attention. "I know you two have just started working on the entree, but would it be okay if I could talk with you, Heather?"

Heather smiled as she continued to cut the vegetables. "Of course, Linds-"

"Alone." Lindsay hissed, causing the shorter girl to shrink back a little. She exchanged an apologetic glance at Cody, before walking outside with Lindsay.

As soon as the two girls were outside, Lindsay shoved a finger at Heather's chest, shoving her back a little and causing her to let out a little whimper. "W-what is it, Lindsay?" The smaller girl asked, pursing her lips together in an attempt to stop herself from making any more noise.

"The Bass are getting too smart for their own good," Lindsay stated, resting one hand on her hip, "they know LeShawna has been working with us."

"But… she isn't in the alliance…" Heather said, confused.

"No shit, Sherlock," Lindsay rolled her eyes, "but she doesn't need to be. Anyways, the Bass are going to vote her off the next chance they get, and we can't let that happen."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Work on the anchovies for the salad, but don't debone them properly. It shouldn't be too hard to do, they're tiny anyways. Just make it look like an accident." Heather nodded, and the two girls went back inside.

Although the two of them were completely unaware, Beth had been listening through one of the windows in the kitchen, having left it open just a crack when she saw them heading outside. When LeShawna excused herself to go back to the cabins to fetch something, Beth gathered the Killer Bass together.

"This better be good, Velma, because in case you haven't noticed, we're all a little busy." Duncan snarled, walking into the group huddle.

"Trust me, it is," Beth looked out the window to make sure LeShawna wasn't anywhere close by, before continuing, "Lindsay plans on throwing the challenge so that we can't vote of LeShawna."

"Yeah, well, I don't really care as long as-"

"Which means Trent would be going home." Instantly Duncan's expression changed at the thought of his last proper friend on the island leaving. His back straightened and the look in his eyes became harder, more determined.

"So what? We throw the challenge harder?" The delinquent asked.

"We could try," DJ pursed his lips and looked over the kitchen bench their small group was working on, "but it would be pretty difficult. Some of the dishes they're cooking are really dainty, and one incorrect step could send their whole group to elimination."

"Then we just mess up our dishes even more."

"I don't know, dude," Tyler poked at a tomato, causing it to roll off the table and onto the floor, "I mean, some of these things are kinda hard to stuff up. Like, Greek salad? I don't think even I can mess that up."

Duncan stole a glance at the Gophers. Trent, the poor guy, was entirely oblivious to the whole situation. Biting his lip, he turned back to the group, before letting out a heavy sigh. "Alright then, I've got an idea. But you'll need to run back to the food truck. We're making γεμιστός."

・・・•・・・•

Noah kept stealing glances over at Cody and Heather, looking back down at the meal he and Gwen were preparing before anyone could notice. Anyone who wasn't Gwen, that is. "Is there something wrong, Noah?" She asked, drawing his attention.

"What? No, of course not." He rolled his eyes, before continuing to chop up the vegetables. "Why would you ask?"

"You keep looking over at Cody and Heather," Gwen gestured over to the pair in question, "it's kind of obvious. Are you thinking that Lindsay's using Heather too?"

That was most certainly not what Noah was thinking, but he decided to go with that. It would be easier talking about that than his crush on a certain brunette. "Yeah… I can't tell why, but there's something off about how they treat each other."

"I wasn't going to tell anyone since I thought it may have been a one-off thing, but you remember Boney Island?" Noah nodded his head. "Yeah, well, after I gathered enough wood or whatever, I saw Lindsay yelling at Heather, and she scratched her across the chest hard enough to leave marks."

Noah's eyes widened in shock, before looking around to see if anyone else had heard. "We need to do something then." He said, continuing to work on their dish.

"Obviously, but I haven't figured out how yet." Gwen replied. "I'm guessing you're with me then?" Noah glanced up at the girl, smirking as he gave her a nod.

Geoff and Trent, however, were not having as good of a time in the slightest. They had been non-stop arguing since they started, and had barely gotten anywhere. "Look, I understand you hate me, because I hate you too! But there is a line that you cannot cross!"

"I don't see why stealing your weird short singlet is all that bad!" Geoff argued, almost knocking the bowl containing the yet-to-be-mixed custard ingredients off the bench.

"It is not just some singlet, it is my binder, and I need it! Very much!" Trent yelled. "Let's put it this way; how would you feel if I stole your favourite cowboy hat?"

Geoff put a hand to his head, almost in a defensive manner, as he checked to make sure his hat was still there. "I'd feel pretty bad, dude, but I don't see what that has to do with-"

"Okay, great! Now imagine that, but about one hundred thousand times worse. In fact, I felt so bad that if it weren't for the pure rage I was experiencing, I wouldn't have wanted to go outside at all." Geoff grimaced as he thought about it a little more.

"Then I just don't do that, right?" Trent nodded his head, grabbing the mixing bowl, from Geoff's hands so he could stir the ingredients together. "Everything else is off limits?"

"Everything except my pills." Trent raised the spoon in a threatening manner, almost daring Geoff to say he'd already planned something with them so he could whack him with the cooking utensil. Instead, the blonde just nodded in agreement.

Confessionals Start

"Look, I know I hate Trent," Geoff was holding his hat close to his chest and glancing around nervously, checking to make sure that there wasn't anything wrong with the confessional booth, "but he's right. I'm a good dude, unlike him , so I gotta respect his boundaries."

"Geoff and I managed to lay down a few ground rules; he can't take my binders or my pills, and I can't take his hat or his party photo album," Trent shrugged, "I was going to fill his hat with some of Chef's 'food', but I'm okay with sacrificing that plan to keep my pills safe."

Confessionals End

Heather flicked a few of the bones in the fish out with her knife, being as messy as she could. A few of them hit Cody, but he didn't seem to be paying too much attention, unlike Lindsay, who was watching her like a hawk. The poor girl could feel her eyes staring into her back as she tossed the tiny fish carelessly into the salad bowl.

As soon as she'd gotten through the final fish, that feeling left. The guilt still remained though, eating away at her. She wouldn't give her precious Cupcake such terribly prepared food, why was Chris any different? People complained about both of them all the time, but they'd never done anything bad to her!

Maybe comparing Chris to a rescue pitbull wasn't a good thing.

Heather looked around to make sure Lindsay was most definitely not looking, before reaching back into the bowl and grabbing as many anchovies as she could. She began to take the bones out, properly this time, and the weight on her shoulders began to be lifted.

Meanwhile, the Bass were having a lot more difficulty, and understandably so. Since Beth and LeShawna now had to wait an hour and a half for their dough to rise, they didn't have much to do aside from watch Tyler and DJ try (and fail) to figure out what they were meant to do with a bunch of vegetables and rice.

"If it's not a stir fry, then what is it?" Tyler whined, cutting off the tops of the capsicums as carefully as he could. "I don't get what you're asking us to make, dude."

"It's not that hard to understand!" Duncan huffed, finally walking away from his course so he could help out the other two. "Look, you've just gotta mix all this stuff together, and-" He resisted the urge to cringe as he intentionally mixed the wrong ingredients together. Γεμιστός was already an acquired taste, but it was going to take a lot of acquiring for anyone to like what he was making.

"There. Done." Duncan stood back from the rice mixture with a displeased look on his face, one he was trying his best to hide. It wasn't working too well, though. It looked fine enough, but there was an overwhelming smell about it that caused DJ and Tyler's noses to wrinkle up in disgust.

"You think this'll be enough?" DJ asked, grabbing a metal spoon and shovelling the rice into the open capsicums.

"Of course. There's no way Chris will be able to give this rancid shit more than, oh, I'd say about a two." The delinquent walked back over to his part of the bench, more than happy to distance himself from the entree. "You may want some nose plugs for when those go in the oven." DJ and Tyler exchanged nervous glances, before continuing to stuff the capsicums with their filling.

・・・•・・・•

Beth and LeShawna (although it was mostly Beth) we're scooping up small balls of dough to put into the frying oil, since it seemed like it had risen enough. Small drops of oil had managed to jump out of the pot they were frying in and down the sides, something both of the girls had failed to notice.

"Hey, LeShawna?" Beth asked, looking at the uncooked balls of dough sticking to the bottom of the pot, "They aren't cooking, do you think we did something wrong?"

LeShawna got up from her seat on another bench nearby. She looked at the stovetop and huffed in annoyance. "It's not on, you idiot." The girl growled, before putting on the gas and setting it on fire.

Instantly, the flames travelled up the side of the pot and into the oil, causing a huge fire to blow up in LeShawna's face. Just as quickly as it had gone on fire, Beth managed to get rid of it by putting the lid of the pot back on top. The damage was done, however.

Beth tried to hide a snicker of amusement as she looked at LeShawna, covering her mouth with her hands and fogging up her glasses in the process. "What's so funny?" LeShawna asked. Beth reached around for something reflective enough for her to see her face on, before finally handing her a greased up pan that Duncan had set aside for later.

It took around two second for LeShawna to notice the lack of a very important feature of her face.

Her eyebrows.

She let out a scream so loud it rattled the windows of the kitchen, and some campers had to cover their ears for fear of going deaf. "Tyler!" LeShawna barked, a fire blazing behind her dark brown eyes. "Get me my makeup bag!"

"But-" Tyler began, looking less then pleased at his newly designated task of errand boy.

"No buts! Just do it!" Tyler ran out of the kitchen before LeShawna could yell at him again, heading straight for the Bass cabin. Not wanting to leave his teammate waiting, the jock ran in and slammed the door behind him. There was a thump outside, which he chose to ignore so he could look around instead.

The jock rummaged through the LeShawna's luggage until he found what he was looking for. He let out a sigh of relief, shoving everything else back in before walking out the door, looking triumphantly at the makeup bag in his hands. "That wasn't so bad." He said with a smile. Then something got stuck on Tyler's foot.

Confused, Tyler looked down, and his smile turned into a grimace of fear as he realised he had lodged a hornet nest onto his foot, and that there were now at least two dozen angry hornets getting ready to sting him. He screamed in fear as he began running as best as he could, the nest still stuck on his foot, trying to get away.

Tyler ran all across the open area, through the woods, and to the Dock of Shame, before getting an idea. He shoved the makeup bag into the pocket on his shirt, took a deep breath, and dove off the end of the dock. The hornet nest finally came off his foot and sunk to the bottom, whilst the hornets that had followed him flew off.

Finally able to head back to the kitchen, Tyler got back to shore and shook himself dry, already walking back the way he had come. He took the makeup bag out of his shirt pocket and cringed at how wet it felt, hoping LeShawna wouldn't mind as he tried his best to ignore the itchy feeling of his hornet stings.

Tapping her foot impatiently, LeShawna held out her hand. "Give me the bag." She said, wanting to apply some new eyebrows on as soon as she could.

Tyler reached out to hand over the makeup bag, but Beth snatched it from him at the last second. "Hey!" LeShawna yelled as Beth tossed it over to Duncan, who was more than happy to participate in the game. "Give it back!"

"How about no?" Duncan smirked, tossing it over to DJ. LeShawna ran over to try and take the bag from him, so DJ rushed to the freezer and tossed the makeup bag in, LeShawna following in quickly after it.

"Oh, thank god." LeShawna said, picking it up and unzipping it quickly to check that everything was inside. Just as she turned around to leave, DJ closed the door and locked it, leaving her trapped inside. "Hey! You can't do this to me!"

Tyler finally stumbled over to the others by the freezer door, scratching his hornet stings in a half-hearted attempt to make the itch go away. "Do you think she's mad?"

"I will murder you!" LeShawna screamed from the other side of the door, hitting it so hard that small dents began to form in the metal.

Beth just shrugged and walked back over to the λουκομάδες she had been working on. "Better to have her let out all that anger now then later tonight after we vote her off." The girl let out a laugh as she began scooping more of the dough into the oil, making sure there weren't any drips on the side this time.

Tyler looked on nervously as DJ and Duncan returned to their stations, chatting away happily as Duncan finally got around to cooking the chicken for his σουβλάκι. How was he going to tell Lindsay he couldn't save LeShawna from elimination?

At that moment, however, Lindsay's mind was far away from that issue. The blonde was far more worried about the fact that Geoff and Trent were not fighting as much as she wanted them to.

Normally, she wouldn't dare dream of getting her hands dirty for anything ever, but right now was different. It was going to be very difficult to have even a slight chance of losing the challenge if the two people who were meant to be fighting and ruining everything for everyone else were having a good time.

So that is probably why Lindsay had grabbed a spatula and, whilst neither of the boys had been looking, scooped a bunch of custard out of the bowl and flung it straight at Geoff's hat. The goopy mixture dripped down his back and the taller of the two partners turned around, slowly, giving Lindsay enough time to run away.

Not wanting to send both of them back to square one with their dessert, Geoff decided to, instead of dump Trent's head into the bowl of custard, throw a handful of Cody and Heather's leftover anchovies at him when he turned around. So that is exactly what he did.

To Geoff, the look on Trent's face was priceless. But then Trent threw them right back at him, laughing with a cheeky look in his eyes. Cody, who had been watching intently ever since the first fish had been thrown, yelled out "Food fight!" As Geoff and Trent continued to fight, causing the majority of the Gophers to join in.

If Lindsay had known she was going to get food in her hair and stuck in her shoes, maybe she wouldn't have thrown that custard. But hey, there was no way her team could lose now, right?

・・・•・・・•

Duncan looked over his plate of σουβλάκι, a tear of pride threatening to spill from one eye. "Παππού would be so proud…" He sniffed, causing DJ to pat his back comfortingly.

"Of course he would, man." The taller teen said. He scrunched up his nose in disgust as a foul smell passed by. "Is that-"

"The γεμιστός? Yeah I'd say they're done now." Duncan chuckled to himself as DJ let out a heavy sigh and headed over to the oven to grab out the foul-smelling dish. Beth was scooping out the final of the λουκομάδες out of the pot she was frying them in, just as burnt as all the others she had cooked.

Tyler was in dining room with Lindsay, finalising touches to the decorations in preparation for the meals to be served. "Would one of you two go in and tell everyone their time is up? I'm starving!" Chris said, a hungry smile on his face as he laid a napkin out over his lap. "And make sure the Gophers bring out their meals first."

"Will do, sir!" Tyler said happily. Over the past half hour his stings had gone down a considerable amount thanks to some mysterious paste Chef had applied to them, and he didn't really have it in him to ask what it was made of. It certainly worked, though.

Tyler walked into the kitchen, stepping over food scraps as he made his way to the centre so everyone would be able to hear him. "Everyone, time is up! Chris wants the Gophers to bring out their stuff first, so good luck!"

The first people up were Cody and Heather. Together, they brought out their entree, both of them nervous, albeit for different reasons. One one hand, Cody was worrying over whether Chris even liked anchovies, or that they had put on too much salad dressing. On the other hand, Heather was hoping she had gotten rid of all the bones.

Suffice to say, when Chris took one bite, then another, and then a couple more, both of them were relieved. "This is a pretty good dish, you two. A solid eight out of ten." Chris said with a smile, causing the two contestants to jump around in joy.

Lindsay was less happy, however. She was still in the room, after all, and was fairly certain that Chris was meant to be yelling at them for forgetting to debone the anchovies. However, she kept her mouth shut as Gwen and Noah walked in with their dish, deciding to interrogate Heather about it later.

"This is pretty good too. You two get an eight out of ten as well." Gwen and Noah high-fived before walking back into the kitchen. Chris waited at the table for his dessert for a few minutes, before his impatience finally got to him. "Where are Geoff and Trent?" He asked.

"Sorry, sorry, we're here!" Trent said, carrying out a tray of malformed, white, custardy slop. He placed it in front of Chris and breathed a sigh that was clearly filled with regret.

"Where's Geoff?" Chris asked, prodding his meal with his fork. If he had wanted Chef's food he would have just gotten him to make it.

"Washing his hat. He's not in a great mood right now, and I wouldn't recommend trying to get him to come out of the kitchen." Chris scooped some of the custard onto his fork and shovelled it into his mouth.

There was a neutral expression on Chris' face for a second, and Trent almost thought he was in the clear, but then the host opened his mouth and let the custard roll off of it and back onto his plate, a grimace forming on his face. "That was disgusting! What- you know what, nevermind. I know what happened, I can see the food all over you. Two out of ten, purely out of pity."

Trent walked back into the kitchen, his head hung in shame. Geoff flung some water at him out of pettiness whilst DJ made his way out the door, a clothespin on his nose. As soon as he entered the dining room, Chris scrunched up his face.

"What's that smell?" The host asked, waving a hand in front of his face.

"The food." DJ sighed, resting the plate in front of Chris. "Hope you enjoy." The large teen backed out of the room as Chris took in a mouthful of the entree, not wanting to see his reaction.

As soon as DJ reentered the kitchen, Chris let out a loud scream and began yelling for water, causing Tyler to run into the kitchen to grab a cup, fill it up, and run back out, spilling at least half of it on the way.

"What did you put in those things?" DJ asked Duncan, one eyebrow raised.

"If I told you I wouldn't be able to use it on anyone else, now would I?" Duncan smirked, picking up his tray of σουβλάκι and heading back outside to see Chris fanning his tongue. Upon seeing the host bright red in the face and struggling to cool down, Duncan began to back out of the room just like DJ had before. "Do you, uh-"

"No, please, just anything that isn't spicy oh my god ." As soon as Duncan was close enough, Chris practically ripped the plate from his hands, shoving one of the sticks into his mouth. The expression on his face soon changed from panicked to relaxed as a small, genuine smile, free of malice, found its way onto the hosts face.

Chris looked over to Lindsay, who was trying to shake food out of her hair. "Lindsay, go get Chef, will you?" He asked. The girl didn't question it, instead she ran out to find the bulky man.

After a few minutes, Duncan looked over to Chris once again to see him savouring every bite of his meal as if it would be his last one on earth. "Chris, what are you-"

There was some yelling coming from outside the dining hall, and Chris quickly told Duncan to shush. Chef came in soon after, Lindsay trying her best to drag him in even though he was walking in almost entirely out of his own free will. "What is it, Chris?"

"Chef, I know I don't say this enough," Chris began, getting up from his seat and walking over to the taller man, a single tear threatening to fall from his one of his eyes, "but the pure amount of love and heart poured into the food I just ate made me come to a realisation."

Tyler leaned into Duncan and whispered, "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

"Absolutely none whatsoever."

Chris stopped right in front of Chef and held one of his hands in his own. "I love you, Chef. And I know I may not be the greatest at showing it, but I truly do appreciate everything you do for me and this camp."

A smile managed to crack through Chef's hard, stoic exterior for just a second, a small twinkling in his eyes as his frown morphed from negative to positive. "I love you too Chris. But I gotta get back to work."

Chris cleared his throat and shook his head, as if breaking out of a trance, and let go of Chef's hand. "Yes, of course. You've got more important things to do. I'll see you later." Chris headed back to the table and took a seat, a dumb smile on his face as Chef left.

After a few minutes of semi-awkward silence, Duncan spoke. "So… did you like it?"

"Like it?" Chris scoffed. "That dish made me feel more emotion than I have in years. That was an easy ten out of ten, dude!" The host laughed to himself as Duncan walked back into the kitchen, ushering Beth out with the dessert.

Confessionals Start

"So… that was certainly something." Duncan scratched the back of his neck. "I kinda hope he doesn't take it too bad when he finds out about how burnt the dessert is."

Confessionals End

The meal Beth had prepared looked good enough. She had poured so much honey and sugar over the Greek doughnuts that the actual dessert couldn't be seen. Chris seemed more than happy to begin digging in, until he began to make choking noises as his face turned blue.

"Everyone, back away! I know what to do!" Tyler announced, running over to Chris and giving him a might whack on the back, sending a charred piece of doughnut flying from his mouth.

The four people in the room stared in shock as it hit the back wall, bouncing off of it and then rolling across the floor, coming to a stop at Chris' feet. "What did you do, exactly?" Chris asked, not doing a very good job at keeping the tone in his voice calm.

"I followed the recipe," Beth said, "I just didn't do a very good job at not burning the food."

"Yeah, well, I can see that. You almost killed me!" Chris let out a dramatic sigh like a teenager coming home from school being asked to do their homework. "You Bass are a mess! One spectacular dish and two shitty ones isn't going to help you win! And where is LeShawna?"

Beth perked up. "I knew we were forgetting something!" She said, before running into the kitchen and heading straight for the freezer. There was some yelling, before she came out with LeShawna. The teen girl had been in the freezer for so long her skin had begun to turn blue, and she was shaking from head to toe. The most hilarious difference, however, would be her wavy, uneven eyebrows drawn in with pencil.

Tyler tried to contain his laughter, as did Beth, whilst Lindsay and Chris remained unamused. "Perfect, now I can tell both of you how terribly you did! You guys had the potential to win, you know? The Gophers only got eighteen points. All you needed was five points, and you would have beaten them.

"But your dish was so terrible, so absolutely horrendous, that I am giving you negative points. That's right! Minus three points!" Chris let out a groan, running his hands over his face. "Just… bring out everyone else."

Tyler ran back into the kitchen and brought everyone back out so they could hear what Chris had to say. "The Gophers win. Again. And just when I thought you Bass might've had a chance." The host gestured at the smaller team. "I'll see you five tonight at the elimination ceremony, and, as promised, the Gophers will be having a reward tonight; a five star meal under the stars!"

The majority of the Gophers were ecstatic, cheering jumping and down out of glee. "Now I'm going back to my cabin to relax. Maybe get Chef to cook for me for once instead. At least he wouldn't try to kill me."

The host then walked out of the room, leaving a very furious LeShawna and Lindsay with their teams. Lindsay went into the kitchen and grabbed Heather, pulling her outside and shoving her up against the outside of the dining hall. Gwen and Noah, both suspicious of this, followed them as quietly as they could.

"What was that?!" Lindsay whisper-yelled, jamming a finger into Heather's chest, causing the shorter girl to whimper. "You were meant to throw the challenge! Not help us win it!"

Heather gulped, refusing to look her friend in the face as she fiddled with the hem of her shirt. "I-I'm sorry, Lindsay, I just thought-"

"Well, there you go! You're not the one who does the thinking in this alliance, Heather; I am. There's a reason for that, you know!" Lindsay pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, as if just speaking to Heather was tiring. "If you were the one making up ideas, we wouldn't have eliminated any of the Bass members! Like, at all! You know what else?"

"What?" Heather dared to look up at Lindsay, only to turn away quickly upon seeing how angry and straight-up terrifying the other girl looked. In doing so, something caught her eye. Or rather, some one .

"You'd be back at home, probably following around some other people like the dumb sheep that you are, unable to follow their orders properly because you are useless !" Lindsay lowered her voice a little, beginning to grow aware that if it rose any higher others might hear her. "Absolutely useless. So useless that you couldn't incorrectly debone fish properly!"

Finally, Lindsay backed away, flipping her hair behind her and walking off towards the cabin. "Now I've got to go get ready for the dinner tonight. Make sure you aren't a complete and total stuff up for the next task I assign you."

As soon as Lindsay was out of sight, Heather rushed over to Gwen and Noah. Her two teammates were too busy talking about how horrible Lindsay was and what to do with her to notice the small girl until she cleared her throat.

The two friends jumped and immediately turned to face Heather, guilty looks on their faces. "What were you two doing? Listening in on my conversation?" Gwen and Noah exchanged glances.

"Look, Heather, we're just… worried. Your friendship with Lindsay doesn't seem…" Gwen tried to find the write words, urging Noah to help her.

"Entirely healthy. You do so much for her, and all she does is treat you like dirt. Why don't you cut her off?" Noah asked. "Or, cut her off as best as you can, since we're all stuck on an island together or whatever."

Heather crossed her arms and a pout formed on her face. "I understand you guys care, but, like, it's totally fine. Lindsay's cool beans, she's just having a bad day. The other team don't really like LeShawna, so they'll vote her off, which Lindsay doesn't want since LeShawna's her friend, and so she's kinda mad. It's cool, I get it. Maybe you guys should just stay out of it."

Before Gwen or Noah could say anything, Heather turned towards the cabins and began to walk away. "Come on, we should all get ready for the dinner as well. Then we can just pretend this never happened!"

The two friends were reluctant to follow, but then the rest of the Gophers ran out of the dining hall with scared looks on their faces, followed by LeShawna's angered yelling, and decided it may be for the best.

・・・•・・・•

"I'm pretty sure you guys know this off by heart by now," Chris sighed, grabbing a marshmallow and squishing it between his fingers. "DJ, Tyler, Duncan, you're all safe."

The three boys were happy to catch their marshmallows and shove them into their mouths. They looked over to Beth and LeShawna, who were sending each other glares that, if looks could kill, would. "Beth, LeShawna. If I wanted to I could probably send you both to court for attempted murder, but the manager says I can't do that.

"As much as I wish both of you were going to home or, if luck was in my favour, juvie tonight, only one of you will be walking the Dock of Shame." Chris held up the final marshmallow of the evening up against the moon, as if using it's light to check it for any flaws.

"Beth, you're safe." Chris tossed the sugary treat over to the brunette, who was more than happy to taunt LeShawna about her victory.

"Are you kidding me?" LeShawna yelled. "After all I've done for this team, and you guys vote me off? I-"

"Oh, don't try and bullshit us, traitor. We've known about your lies for a while now." Beth snarled, the other three backing her up. "Sure, we may be down a few members compared to the other team, but that doesn't matter. As long as you're gone, we'll be able to have a chance again, especially since you won't be throwing challenges for Lindsay ."

LeShawna opened her mouth to say something else, but two interns grabbed her by her arms and dragged her towards the docks, one of them putting a hand over her mouth so no one would be able to hear her yell insults towards her former team. After she was gone, Beth let out a breath she didn't realise she was holding.

"I'd say Operation: Avenge Harold is complete, guys." She laughed, pulling in her teammates for a victory hug.

・・・•・・・•

Noah checked himself in the mirror one final time, readjusting his glasses, his tie, trying to pat down any strands of hair that may have been sticking up. Everyone on the team was excited for the dinner tonight, and he felt a need to look his best. The cabin door creaked open, and he turned to see who was coming in.

"Hey, Noah." Cody looked oddly nervous. Not like the teen could help it, he was naturally awkward, everyone on the island knew it, but he seemed more nervous than usual. "I was, uh, wondering if I could ask you a question?"

"You just did." Noah pointed out, a smirk forming on his face. Cody looked at him with one eyebrow raised, clearly not in the mood. "Sure, what is it?"

"I've, uh, been meaning to ask ever since the end of the challenge, but…" Cody reached for his chest, where the pendant on his necklace would normally be resting, before remembering he'd put it away in an attempt to look more formal for the night. "Would you like to go to the dinner with me? I mean like… as, uh…"

"A date?"

"Yeah. Yeah, a date."

Noah smiled, the small gap in his teeth showing up as he did so. "Sure. I'd like that."