Shout out to my reveiwers! Delovlies, LadyAnj, UltimateMaxmericaShipper, PrincessSwim, Guest, Ilovethisbook, and Nameless!

The party was going quite well. At least from the perspective of how they had planned it. To everyone else, it seemed a disaster. Gracie surveyed the scene, still feeling nervous. Her stomach growled, and she knew everyone else was hungry too. The reception for the Prime Minister of Zealand had been secluded to begin at two in the afternoon, and dinner was scheduled, so no one had probably eaten lunch. Unfortunately for them, the only thing served until dinner was tea.

Gracie allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction. Mackenzie had the great of idea of telling all of them to wear evening gowns when Ebony was present, so the brunette now wore a strapless dark gray floor length gown, while the rest of them were dressed in tea-length dresses, like the rest of the women present. The skies were cloudy, promising rain, and the palace was quite a dash across the gardens. Everyone seemed bored.

"Change the tune, why don't you?" Sirena asked lazily to the solemn violin player providing music. "This isn't a funeral!" Although she was on the other team, they were all in this to sabotage Ebony, to keep Ethan theirs, and the five other girls from the other team—Sirena, Michaela, Elvira, Lissa, and Nicole—were supposed to help mess up everything. They were doing a pretty good job.

Elvira, dressed in black with thick eyeliner, glared dangerously at everyone and spoke to know one. Michaela had drunk a little too much tea and was very hyper, currently laughing it up with Ethan. Sirena was complaining and acting miserable. Nicole was trying to speak with the Prime Minister's wife Katie, and Sarah, who was engaged to their son Dean, but kept asking them to repeat things, claiming she couldn't understand their accents. Lissa was speaking to the youngest daughter, Ruth, and didn't seem to be very civil, as she was hanging on Wesley's arm and giggling incessantly.

Adele had also gone into flirt mode, and didn't seem to be working very hard to make the party a disaster. She had engaged the Prime Minister's son Dean in conversation as soon as he had been welcomed by King Jackson and Queen Francesca, and hadn't stopped. Poor Dean looked very uncomfortable as she stood quite close to them, by some of the male staff who were helping out with the garden party. Dean kept throwing glances at his fiancé, but to no avail.

Gracie tried to signal her, to get her to get the queen off their tail, but Adele didn't seem to notice. Instead she laughed loudly, and was now touching Dean's arm. One of the servants who had come with them from Trentworth, she recognized, stood close by, ready to help the maids transport more tea (and snacks, if there were any) from the palace, left the scene quickly.

"What's Adele doing?" Nat came up behind her, holding a microphone and Mackenzie's script. "She needs to get the queen away from here. If looks could kill, I'd be dead. I was standing by her, and she kept trying to get my attention."

"That bad?" Gracie nervously grabbed handfuls of the skirt of her pink dress. Nat raised her eyebrows.

"Are you kidding? That means its working!"

"Where's Katherine?" Gracie peered through the bored guests. Lissa did not look happy at all now, she noticed, and realized Ruth was flirting way too much with Wesley, she noticed.

"She and Michaela are keeping Ethan far too occupied to notice Ebony." Nat affirmed. "And Sirena is bossing Ebony around with her complaints, and keeping her far too occupied to notice Ethan."

"And Mackenzie?"

"Seducing Josh." Nat shivered, motioning to where the tall strawberry blonde was laughing seductively with the next youngest son.

"Poor kid. He's too young to be corrupted." Gracie shrugged. "But it's almost time for our welcome speech."

"It's going to suck!" Nat said gleefully. "Anyway, I think now is a good time to talk to Ethan about Ebony, so Katherine can go distract the queen, since Adele seems busy. The other girls can distract Sophia, hopefully. Can you give these to Mackenzie?" She handed Gracie the microphone and script.

Gracie grimaced. "I guess so."

"C'mon. You're on the same team. Give her a chance. She's actually been pretty decent to us since Ebony got here."

"That's because she's taking out all her meanness on Ebony." Gracie affirmed. "Okay. Oh, speaking of which, looks like she just escaped Sirena."

Sirena was hacking over her cup of tea, which they had agreed on as the signal if Ebony needed to be contained.

"Shoot." Nat hurried towards Ebony, and Gracie headed over to Mackenzie and Josh.

"Do you have a lot of tornados in Zealand?" She heard Mackenzie say. "I bet you're not afraid of them."

The seventeen year old flushed red as she walked her fingers up his arm. "Uh, yes, I mean no. We had a lot of flooding though last month. My father had to declare a state of emergency."

"I heard there were a lot of farmers in Zealand. Do they wear overalls like they do here? I bet you would kill in overalls."

"Mackenzie!" She called, overly sweet, before any more of her strange flirtation could continue. "Nat wanted me to give these to you. It's almost time to welcome our guests!" She smiled a toothpaste advertisement smile at Josh, who was sweating now. Mackenzie's smile fell flat.

"I guess you're right." She turned back to Josh. "Lovely meeting you, honey." She turned to Gracie and the two headed back.

"What's Adele doing? She's supposed to get the queen off our backs!" Mackenzie hissed.

"I don't know. She's not doing what she's supposed to. Nat went off to talk to Ethan and present him with our concerns, and Katherine is trying to talk to the queen."

"Katherine can't do it. She won't stand up to her. One question and the queen will see right through her. You better go get Adele." Mackenzie stormed off towards the angry looking queen. Gracie hurried past the king, Prime Minister Gorman, and the cabinet member, Anders Vennor, over to Adele.

"Adele!" She smiled through gritted teeth, and tried to nod discreetly at the queen. "The queen would like to speak with you."

"About what?" Adele snapped, her tone turning sour.

"Um, the tea and snacks." Gracie said quickly. Adele gave her look that said 'no!', but it was too late.

"Are there eny snekes?" Dean butted in, in his heavy Zealand accent. Adele took it all in stride.

"THERE ARE SNAKES?" She squealed, leaping towards Dean, all but in his lap. At that moment, the hidden sprinkler right behind them came on, showering the three of them in water. Adele screamed, and jumped up.

"We're having a party here!" She screamed at the gardener, the one who Gracie had noticed earlier. As all the sprinklers in the gardens went on, she heard Mackenzie yelling blame at Ebony.

"Ebony! I thought you talked to the gardeners to make sure this didn't happen!" She wailed, as the guests tried to shield themselves from the water.

"That was Nat's job!" Ebony retorted. The sprinklers turned off, leaving everything muddy and gross. No one looked very happy anymore.

The next thing she knew, Mackenzie muttered something to Ebony, who pushed her backwards, where Mackenzie landed on her backside in a huge mud puddle.

Katherine felt Ethan grab her arm as she tried to step away.

"I didn't expect this from you." He said, his voice low. "What are trying to accomplish by making Ebony look bad? The girl just got here!"

"I-It wasn't my idea." She stuttered, hurt by the anger in his eyes.

"So you just go along with it? This is low, Kate."

"I'm sorry." She squeaked out.

"Look, you guys weren't supposed to know this, but my father wants me to send someone home from the loosing team after all this. And this meeting is very important, too. The Prime Minister is very upset about the uprising in Yukon. He isn't happy with the way we're treating the situation, and the relations are tense."

"Uh oh." Katherine rubbed her forehead. Her headache was worse than ever now. "Okay, I got to fix this. And I will."

"You better. My father doesn't like you that much. If this keeps going south, it's between you and Gracie."

Katherine blinked back tears. "B-but I—this wasn't my idea!"

"So fix it." Ethan stalked away. Katherine hugged her arms around herself, trying to get hold of her composer. She had never seen him like that, and his words dug deep. She had a lot to do.

She took a deep breath. Be strong. You can do it. You are not going home over a party. Get it together.

As the clouds finally opened, showering the already wet guests with more water. Two of the servants pulled mud covered Mackenzie and Ebony apart, as Gracie burst into dramatic tears, apologizing profusely. Katherine ran up to Nat, who was trying not to laugh at the situation.

"We have to fix this. Ethan's mad. He's furious. He says this is a lot more important than we thought. And if we lose, there might be an elimination."

"What?" Nat face-palmed. "Okay. Okay. There's still the dinner. But that's all messed up too. Do you have a plan?"

"I was hoping you would." Katherine confessed.

"Alright. We'll wing it. C'mon."

Katherine and Nat ran on ahead to the Great Room through the rain, as the guests were shepherded up with maids carrying umbrellas. They had initially planned on time for everyone to change into evening wear, and then dancing before a late, late dinner would be served. That gave them enough time for everyone to change to fix the disaster of a party. Katherine quickly told the musicians that dancing was canceled, and to only play for enjoyment, and gathered up the place cards, and rearranging them to fix her awful seating arrangement, while Nat ran down to the kitchens to talk to the chefs about hurrying dinner. Hopefully, they would have it mostly prepared ahead of time.

"These decorations need to go." Katherine said, as she and Nat surveyed the room once those things had been accomplished. The flowers were obtrusive, clashing with the fabric drapings on the walls.

"We don't have time!" Nat exclaimed.

"Then we'll make time. Get rid of the wall hangings, this room is beautiful enough." Katherine said. "I'll go get my maids, and maybe they can help."

"Can we help?"

The two turned to see Gracie and Adele, still wet and bedraggled.

"Mackenzie and Ebony are on their way, but they had to change first. Ethan talked to us, too."

"Katherine felt her shoulders relax in relief. "It's about time!"

In short work, they managed to fix the decorations and everything, and even had enough time to change while Mackenzie and Ebony gave an extended apology and a rather botched welcome speech. Thankfully, the kitchen staff was able to finish the meal in time, since they had started in advance anyway. Appetizers were whipped up, complete with kiwis, as a nod to the Zealand representatives, who got quite a kick out of it.

Katherine was chatting with Sarah and Dean when she saw Ethan coming toward her. She tried to ignore him, but it was clear he had to speak his mind.

"Can I borrow her?" He asked, taking her hand.

Dean smiled. "Of course. Meybe I should heve hed a Selection myself." Sarah playfully swatted him on the arm, and Ethan led her away.

"I'm sorry for going after you."

"I guess we kind of deserved it. Things got a little out of hand." Katherine admitted as they stepped out onto the terrace.

"Well, you guys fixed it. I'm proud of you." He kissed her cheek. "And my dad just told me that relations should be secured for now."

"And the eliminations?"

"I may have exaggerated a bit." Ethan stuck his hands in his pockets. Katherine sighed, and shook her head. "Hey, it worked!" Ethan held up his hands in defense.

"About gave me a heart attack, too. What about Ebony? Did Nat talk to you?"

"She did. And I know you don't think it's fair, but it was mostly my dad. She's mostly just here for political reasons."

"Mostly?" Katherine eyed him.

He squeezed her hand. "Well, the people seem to like her, too."

"And what about you? Do you like her?" She nudged him with her shoulder.

"Eh, I don't know. A little too strong for me. Besides, I already like someone else." His eyes became very soft, and he brushed back the hair from her face.

"A lot of someone else's?" Katherine stepped back, and Ethan frowned.

"Look, Kate…I wish it was different. I wish I didn't have to go through a Selection. I wish I could be like them." He nodded to Sarah and Dean. "But at the same time, look how happy Andrew and Christine are. So happy they skipped out on this, and are probably making out somewhere…" He added.

"But that's just how it works. I get it. I may not like it, but I get it." Ethan smiled gratefully at her. "And at least one good thing came out of this."

"What would that be?"

"I got to see Mackenzie get tackled into the mud!"

"You could have saved me earlier."

Lissa looked up to see Wesley standing by her, where she was attempting to enjoy some ice cream as the last of the guests thank the hostesses of the other team and left.

"You looked pretty happy with Ruth." Lissa said glumly.

Wesley sat down next to her. "Aw, Lis, that girl's a nightmare. I only was nice to her because my mom told I better not be spending any time with you. Will you forgive me?"

"Oh, I don't know…" Lissa tried not to smile. It was hard to be mad at Wesley. "I guess so…" She sighed dramatically.

Wesley smirked. "I'd kiss you if we weren't in public."

Thanks for reading!

-Shades