They had all been sitting at the poolside, listening as Trent strummed out a song on his guitar, and when the screech echoed over their heads there wasn't an ex-camper among them who hadn't looked up.

So yes, they had known something was wrong when they had heard the scream. But neither Ezekiel (nor any of the rest of them, for that matter) had had any idea exactly what was wrong until their newest arrival showed up at the resort in the middle of the day.

Nineteen jaws splashed into the water when they saw her standing there. Even Izzy had been left nearly speechless.

"Holy Cody's stuffed emu and all of Noah's false teeth," she murmured. A huge grin split her face, but she said nothing more. No one said anything more.

So this was Heather. Heather the manipulator, Heather the bossy, Heather the backstabber, Heather the queen bee. To her credit, she stood there with her arms folded and her head held high. Her cheeks flushed a horrid strawberry. Her lower lip had caught itself in an earthquake. Her hair lay sprinkled in patches across her otherwise bald head. Embedded in her pretty Asian face were the most furious silver eyes that Ezekiel had ever seen in his life, and he had been stuck with Eva for eight weeks straight.

"Beth," she said, "that swimsuit looks very nice on you today. Tyler, I like your headband. Noah, you are seriously smart- Don't think I didn't notice. Trent, you're a wonderful guitar player. Harold, I've always liked your shoes, even if they are dorky. Cody, I'm glad to see you're walking again. Sorry about the whole gagging incident- You understand. Katie, Sadie, the two of you are as fashionable as ever. Homeschool, I just love that necklace you have on. Justin, you look really buff in those trunks, and Eva, your eyes really are lovely."

With that, Heather spun around on her heels and marched into the hotel, yanking the heavy door shut behind her. Ezekiel knew he wasn't the only one who heard her let out a long, strangled sob.

No one said that she deserved what had happened to her, even though Ezekiel could tell that some of them were thinking it, and even if she did. No one made any jokes about how she now looked just as bad on the outside as she was on the inside. Even after she left, no one said anything at all.

Lindsay was the first one to move. She scrambled up to her feet and bolted inside the hotel with Beth and Tyler following closely on her heels. The action seemed to break the spell that had frozen them all in place. Sadie leaned forward, clutching at her stomach while Katie wrapped her arms tightly around her shoulders and murmured rapidly under her breath. Bridgette bit into her own knuckles, Trent picked at the strings of his guitar, Izzy burst out laughing, Justin rubbed his own hair and gave a whimper of sympathy, and Geoff took off his hat and said, "Whoa, harshness."

She didn't come back outside until later that afternoon. The patches on her head had been shaved off completely, leaving her scalp dotted only with a few specks here and there. They all looked up when she came out. They were silent and glaring, but she ignored them. Instead she marched across the yellow tiles, waded through the water, and flopped down on a stool between Ezekiel and Noah at the swim-up tiki bar; Beth had quickly made herself scarce when she saw Heather coming.

Heather. Ezekiel hadn't peeped the beginnings of a single word to her back on the island, but he'd heard all the stories, and most of them were downright awful.

And there was another funny thing. He hadn't wanted her to win the money, not in the least, and all of them had created their dares with the thought of torturing Heather in mind, and yet Ezekiel hadn't even considered the idea that she might be joining them here next.

She served herself a grape smoothie and drank it all practically in one long sip, eyes closed. He saw her wince as the rush of cold gave her a freeze-brain, and then she filled her cup again. And a third time. With grape.

"What?" she finally snapped at them. Ezekiel flinched away, but Noah didn't even look up from his book. He was smirking, though, and not bothering to hide it.

Ezekiel held his squirming tongue. Heather glared at him, then at Noah, then across the pool to where Bridgette, Beth, and Leshawna were watching her and trying to pretend that they weren't.

"All right, fine." She stood then, directing all attention to her with the words and simple movement. "I shaved my freaking head. Whoop-de-doo. Thanks a lot, Linds-iot."

The giggles broke free.

"Go on- Laugh it up already. I dare you."

Oh, how they laughed. Some only lightly, but others shattered into huge fits, while Heather stood there, apparently stunned at their nerve. It dawned on Ezekiel then, somewhat slowly, exactly how she must have come to end up this way.

"Well, Heather told me once that if I didn't do everything she said, she'd cut off all my hair while I was sleeping," Lindsay had said yesterday, scribbling furiously on her index card, "so I think maybesheshould be the one to getherhair cut off. She'd totally deserve it." She'd suddenly looked up, blue eyes wide. "Do you think that's mean of me to say? Will I get, uh, bad mojo curse stuff all over me?"

"Honey," Leshawna had soothed, "if anyone's gonna be gettin' 'bad mojo curse stuff', it's gonna be that nasty witch herself."

So Heather had shaved her head to stay in the game, then, only to end up losing out on the hundred thousand dollars anyway. Ezekiel felt a brief stab of pity for her- He knew how much girls valued their hair, and he could faintly remember what hers had looked like, all long and black and shiny and lovely and…

… But the stab of pity was just that. A brief stab, and then it was gone. He had neither forgotten nor forgiven what she'd done to Beth and Trent.

Without warning, Heather spun around and punched him in the face. Then she snatched up her smoothie glass and slammed it down against the counter, where it exploded into a thousand tiny pieces.

"It's not funny! And where is Lindsay?"

In retrospect, Ezekiel was actually grateful that she'd hit him. It meant that he'd been covering his injured face with his hands and didn't get shards of glass in his eyes. When he finally peeked through his fingers he saw Heather, her hands flat against the counter, her trembling arms streaked with bloody lines and pinpricks of glass. She glared at anyone who dared to look her way, then finally sat down and chose another cup to fill with grape smoothie. She drank it in a single gulp once again. After she finished, she turned to Ezekiel.

"You didn't deserve it, you know."

"Huh?"

"You were the first one eliminated. You said all of those sexist things back on the island, and then you got to spend eight weeks at some five-star resort as a reward for your bad behavior. You didn't deserve that. You deserve worse, just like… all of your… loser friends! That is, if a sexist, homeschooled prairie boy like you even has any friends."

Her words finally made Noah turn his attention away from his own scratched arms. "Okay, there was one person on the island who never had any direct conflict with you, and now you're trying to make him your enemy. Please explain to me how this will benefit you in any way whatsoever. I'm honestly searching for answers here."

"Shut it, Noah!" Heather wrenched the red book from his hands and tossed it over her shoulder and into the pool. He watched, unimpressed, but finally did slide from his stool to go and get it.

"I didn't like that one very much anyway."

"Just shut it already! No one likes you!" Heather slammed her hands down on the counter once again, and Ezekiel cringed instinctively at the sight of the glass splinters piercing deeper and deeper, but she hardly reacted. "You're all a bunch of absolute losers that no one likes!"

"And you're one to talk, Rapunzel." Duncan scoffed from his place near the hot tub. Heather's hands flew to her bald scalp. Then she whipped off Ezekiel's toque. He reacted swiftly, lunging towards her before she even had the chance to pull it over her head, and they both splashed into the water. It was a moment before they surfaced again, Ezekiel frantically blinking chlorine from his eyes as he tried to make out Heather's form.

"'Tis mine, eh! Give it back!"

"You want it?" Heather asked, holding it high. "Come and get it, sexist boy."

Sexist boy, sexist boy. How could she go from yelling at Noah to being concerned about her baldness to falling into the water and then go back to the 'sexist boy' comment?

So, now what? If he tried attacking her for his hat, she'd call him abusive or controlling or even misogynist. If he didn't fight, she'd surely rub it into his face, saying that girls were so much better than hay-hauling, pig-slopping, sports-watching, hormone-driven, muscle-headed guys were. Then would come the sneaking into his room, filling his shoes with mud and his bed with corn kernels, rubbing his feet with garlic while he slept, throwing his clothes out in the hopes that the pigs would devour-

"Stop it, Heather." That was Bridgette, fists clenched, the sharp brim of Geoff's cowboy hat low over her flashing Granny-Smith eyes. "Give Zeke his hat back and back off him already."

"So the sexist boy can't even stand up to a girl?" she taunted, and finally did toss Ezekiel his toque as he swam towards her. "Do you ever wash that horrible, mangy thing? It smells disgusting, and I swear there are dandruff flakes all over it."

Yep. He definitely should have tried attacking her. Honestly, where was Eva when he actually needed her?

Ezekiel could have sworn that Heather deliberately followed him around for the rest of the day. After the hat-stealing incident he, she, and Noah reported to the infirmary to have Melody pry the glass shards from their skin and properly bandage their scratches. Then it was off to the buffet table for dinner. Ezekiel and Heather took one look at each other and both lunged for the grapes.

It was a pathetic fight, really, but he won. Mostly. And he, Harold, Cody, and Justin had hardly started a game of Go-Fish in the card room when she showed up, threw herself down into the nearest armchair, and apparently fell asleep.

"Tch…" Ezekiel drew a card from the pile on the table, watching her out of the corner of his eye. "Well, I just don't get why Eva and Coourtney and Trent and Leshawna and e'eryone haven't tried takin' revenge on her yet for all a' those things she did to 'em back on the island, eh?"

Cody said, "That would be Beth's doing. She's been going on and on about how we shouldn't sink down to Heather's level, or something like that."

"Hey, give her a second chance." That was Harold. "Maybe if you tried being nice to her and stuff, she'd be nice back to you. You don't know until you try. Kindness changes people."

"Huh. She's only spoken to me once - and she gagged me with my bandages - and I was part of her team for almost four weeks, heh heh."

Ezekiel added, "She picked on poor Beth! She e'en tricked Trent into kissin' her, yo! I doon't like her. She's exactly like my cousin Jess'ca, eh? 'Cept she's bald."

"Izzy tricked you into kissing her," Harold pointed out, "but you don't seem to think that makes her a bad person. Lindsay kissed Noah. And-"

"I doon't like her," he repeated stubbornly. "She was mean to Beth, she hurt Trent, she's tryin' a' steal The Zeke's monopoly on e'erythin' grape, she punched me in the face, she got my arms all cut up with shards a' glass, an' then she stole my hat without askin' for it."

"She's not that bad," Harold muttered, and Cody muttered back, "Oh, no, of course not. She's only about ten times worse. Again, bandages. Couldn't breathe."

Justin asked for Harold's threes, then drew a card from the pile and said, "You do have to give her props for being a good strategist, though."

"Props, eh? Yo, what is this? Some stage play at the city theater?"

They all looked at him and shook their heads, and Cody said, "It's just a figure of speech."

"… A what of speech?"

"Forget it. But do you have any sixes?"

"Uh… Nope, nope. So, uh… Fish."

Cody did. "I think Beth was really brave to stand up to Heather. I wish I would've stayed to see how that fight ended. Maybe then I wouldn't have gotten mauled, heh heh. I do have a sweet scar though, right here on my hip, see?"

"Does it hurt?"

"Beth is pretty brave," Ezekiel agreed. "Yo, did you dawgs hear the story 'bout what she did when, uh, that Gwen girl dumped all a' Harold's fire ants all o'er Heatha?"

"I'd nearly forgotten that! See, I'm allergic to ant bites, heh heh… But Beth dragged me over to the Bass cabin and sweet-talked Duncan into letting me sleep in there for the night. I thought he was going to gut her like a fish. Yeah, she's pretty cool."

"She's way nicer'n Heatha is," Ezekiel said, folding his arms. "Now that Heatha's come here, she's gonna be tryin' a' take revenge or somethin' on poor Lindsay'n Beth and all a' the other people she don't like, eh?"

"Which is everyone."

Harold said, "She might have already learned her lesson. Now that she's out of the competition, maybe she'll stop picking on everybody and stuff. At least allow her the option of turning a new leaf before you judge her for what she's done in the past."

"Tch… try tellin' that a' my cousin Jess'ca. She and Heatha could be like twins, eh?"

"You know Zeke, I seem to remember Beth saying once that you and Heather could be like twins."

"Gettin' off the subject, Justin."

The game turned into a second and then a third, and when they finally finished, Heather was still snoozing 'Z's on the couch. All four boys eyed her from across the room as Justin shuffled the cards and started dealing once again.

"Loser wakes her up and brings her to her room?" he suggested.

"Nuh-uh!" Ezekiel was on his feet at once, shaking his head. "The Zeke always loses. Always."

"I'll get ugliness all over my beautiful hands."

"And I'm also allergic to meanness. Achoo." Cody rubbed his nose with his sleeve. "Heh heh… Sorry, guys."

"Leshawna will kill me," Harold protested.

"Well, we can't just leave her there. It's cruel and unusual punishment. That face of hers needs a major beauty nap in a real bed."

"It's not like she can get much worse than she already is."

"Gosh. Whatever happened to 'Do unto others what you would have others do unto you'? Whatever happened to chivalry?"

"She would never bring any of us to our rooms either."

"That isn't the point, Cody."

"The Zeke ain't touchin' her, e'en if his dad told him to always look out for girls, eh?" And Cody nodded in agreement.

Needless to say, Heather spent her first night at the five-star hotel sleeping on the couch in the card room.

Well… she completely deserved it. What a knob. He didn't even feel bad.