Golden Rules

by FountainPenguin

Mike Dunn can't wait to get on the plane and fly into Muskoka. Just one airport, one flight, and a few more hours stand between him and a summer at Wawanakwa. Maybe when he meets people who don't know about his multiple personalities, he can finally make some friends! Unfortunately, not all of his alters are as enthusiastic about this trip as he is… (Written July - October 2015)

"Svetty baby, every year the bathrooms have been communal. It shouldn't be a problem in the least. I don't know why you feel this need to sulk as though some hotshot Finn snagged the gold medal for ice hockey just from under your nose."

I glared into the rear-view mirror without responding, biting my nails into the seatbelt at my chest. Twelve and a half years – maybe ten if we were pretending we cared about technicalities here – and in all that time I'd still never figured out which restroom I was supposed to be using. Bathroom duty was the boys' problem, mostly. Not Svetlana's. It was a petty thing to whine about at this point in time, but if I didn't complain about something different every now and again then I was going to go insane. We were missing not just skating, not just gymnastics, but all three of my summer tournaments for this. For summer camp. Granted, a summer camp featured in one of Canada's prime reality TV shows, but summer camp nonetheless. It was simply unfair.

Sydney looked away from the dark road long enough to toss me a sad glance, the stress-wrinkles deepening around her brown eyes. But before I could mumble an apology that I didn't actually mean, she lit up again. "Did I already tell you that last night, Chester snuck down to snitch at my brownies again?"

"Is that where he went?" I asked, keeping my voice level. "How much of that nasty sugar is floating through our bloodstream now?"

"Not much. I caught him halfway through his first one and sent him back to his room. He claimed Mal talked him into doing it." She cast a pointed look at my forehead when she said that last part.

Okay. The image of little old Sydney sending little old Chester back up the hall cracked my gap-toothed smile. I let my arms relax against my knees.

"There's my little girl."

"Ah, yes. Girl indeed." Closing my eyes, I slid my fingers over the bumps behind my skull. "This year I'm wanting to grow my hair out, Sydney. And I'm thinking of getting my ears pierced through when we come home."

"Oh. Oh… Really? Have you, er, talked that over with the boys yet?"

I treated her to my favorite dull-eyed stare.

"Okay," she amended, "silly question. Although I suppose you do have Mal to relay a-"

"Svetlana does not talk to Mal."

"… You can't ignore him forever, you know."

"Apparently I can." I tapped on the side of my head. "And I will, always and ever. He is capable of speaking English and Spanish, but he does not know a single word of Russian."

Sydney groaned and flipped on her blinker. We left the freeway behind. "He's your brother. I'm not asking for you to like him – please know I'm not asking for that – but for my sake, couldn't you both act like you respect one another in the slightest? Vito managed to befriend him all right. Manitoba outright forgave him, although I can't say I'd have gone that far myself in your position. But now that he's safely tucked away forever, can't you at the very least offer him the decency of conversation? You're his only sister, Lana. He isn't going to go away if you deny his existence. I need you to be a good influence on him, and building walls will only encourage him to smash them down with an assault tank."

I shoved my knee into the dashboard and slouched low. That wasn't fair. Vito acted either drunk or insane nine days out of ten, and Manny would forgive his own murderer once he'd been given half a minute to blow off steam.

"He chained up Svetlana and left her in a beaver dam," I growled.

"I know he did, baby."

"For twenty. Nine. Months. And he channeled her abilities painfully."

She sighed. "I'm sorry. That couldn't have been easy for you. I've always been thankful that you're tough enough to tumble with him and brush yourself off just fine."

"There aren't supposed to be beavers inside our head."

"There aren't. He didn't play fair. But please, sweetie, if he ever tries to offer an apology, promise me you'll accept and let the past go."

That wouldn't be necessary. Just as I wouldn't stoop to speaking English within his earshot anymore, Mal would never come around sniveling for my forgiveness if we lived to be nine hundred and five. And not simply due to his pride– I terrified him silly.

Oh, not always. And never when I was looking the other way and he had a large blunt object behind his back. But sometimes I gave him chills, and that was enough to keep me content.

I turned to the mirrors again and pinched the back ends of my hair. Honestly, we'd be so much prettier if Mike would quit trimming them off before they brushed our shoulders. It wasn't like it was that difficult to let them alone a few months more.

"Vito tattooed our thigh with that ugly rat and surfboard. Mal sliced our shoulder and hands many times when fighting in the food court place. Mike burned our neck after the boiled chocolate incident. And Manitoba got our left ankle bitten by the tiger at the zoo and scarred forever. So, Svetlana will pierce our ears. I'm not seeing a problem with this."

Sydney drew the car to a pause at a dark intersection. "Svet, I'm not really sure I approve of this. I think you should talk it over with them sometime while you're at camp. Why don't you write the others something in the notebook? I don't want you to make rash decisions; after all, it's their body too, and you need to respect as much."

"Like you're needing to remind me of that." I slapped my chest. It made a solid smacking sound. "Just look at me, Syndey. Look at Svetlana. She doesn't even have boobs. She'll never get to carry her precious future babies inside her stomach. Is it asking too much to want this one thing that lets her be a girl?"

Yes. Because they were boys and social stigma was a thing. Because male was our shared sex, if not our shared gender. Because there were five of them to only one of me. Because even if the others didn't always think things out before acting on their impulses, I was supposed to be the mature one in the family. Sighing.

Shedding my sneaker, I placed my socked foot against the chilly window glass. "Will you be watching us playing the TV game, Sydney?"

"The season won't air until a month or two after you've come home. But I promise I'll think about you every day. All of you."

As she took hold of the knob on the air conditioning, I reached out to wrap my hand over the back of hers. "No dating while we're gone? No alcohol?"

She sighed again. "No, no dating. I promise. Tell Mal, even if it is in Russian, not to worry about me." Then she rolled her eyes, still smiling. "To think, my youngest son – the one who got you all locked up in juvie for two years, no less – is the one who nearly had a meltdown over my being left home alone again."

"He cannot help himself if his trigger makes him so possessing," I pointed out, staring at the puddles that reflected the streetlights and the last of the stars. "He was never asking once to be split and take Spencer's place all those years. None of us did."

Sydney revved the car up the next hill. When we crested, our timing was as perfect as though it had been planned. The sky lit up pink and purple with the rising sun.

"Sorry." I tucked my hands in my lap. "That came out very mean."

She touched one sleeve to her eyes. "No, Lana. I'm the sorry one. It's my fault- all of it is. I should have stopped that wretched cockroach even once. I was just so blind. So confused. So in denial as my fantasy world fell apart. Everything was so crazy and I didn't understand."

"We are not holding it against you still, Sydney." I forced myself to smile again. "If you had stepped in back at that time, you never would have had your little girl now."

I watched uncomfortably as a tear trickled down her wrinkled cheek. "I love you. Each of you individually. Don't you ever forget that."

She didn't mean it deep down. In the same way I knew that we – the rest of us – would never quite give up our jabs about Mike's status as the goody-two-shoes golden boy, or Manitoba's astronomical luck when it came to survival, I knew.

Sydney was a good person, and I truly admired all those good things about her. But she wasn't perfect. She liked the rest of us just fine (some more than others), and that was her 'love'. But by unspoken agreement, we all knew that despite her claims, to Sydney we would never be much more than "Spencer's imaginary friends". Plus one psychotic freeloader.

So when I said, "Thanks, Sydney," and she murmured, "Mom", I didn't correct myself. It was clear she didn't want to talk to Svetlana anymore. She wanted to talk to her Spencer baby (Excuse me, I meant Mike). And that was sweet and sugar dust with me, because Svetlana had been up since three stuffing us with a healthy breakfast and running through every gymnastics routine we would miss during our trip, and she was about to crash with Too-Much-Topside Syndrome anyway. May as well do it on her own terms and spare herself a lasting headache.

I pulled up a picture of my violet leotard in my mind and imagined it melting into mist. I imagined cartwheeling away until I became a swirl of dust. I imagined bright strobe lights dimming down to dark. Going. Going. Gone.

Then I turned my thoughts to shining gold, eager eyes, optimistic grins, awkward feet, gangly arms, beds to make, hands to scrub, computer keys to tap, selfish fingers that ripped awards from another's hands, and ears fine-tuned to stealing someone else's praise. Once I'd bundled all those things into a great ball and released it in a firework, I gasped and…

… popped my jaw in a huge yawn, stretching my hands to the ceiling. Mom said some words that I didn't understand. I blinked. "Sorry?"

She repeated the phrase, casting me a sideways glance.

"Mom, you're speaking Russian again."

That made her laugh. Flipping back over to normal, she said, "Whoopsie. Sorry, Mike. I was just talking to Svetlana. I said we're less than five minutes from the airport now."

"Talking to… Huh?" A sluggish pattern of thoughts, like snowshoed footfalls on ice, stirred in the back of my head. "Oh, finally! Someone who thinks in English! Even if it is scum like you."

I pushed one palm up my cheek. Ugh. Good morning, Mal.

He chirped back his usual greeting of profanity and dove into spoiling the end of every book and movie Chester and Vito had touched over the last week. You ever have your mind wander off on some absent train of thought? Imagine it being the world's most frumpy little shih-tzu puppy that's always scratching at the door to go out. Despite not having legs. And being chained to the kitchen table upside-down.

Then make that puppy as omniscient as a god and throw in a sugar craving that could never be satisfied. That was basically Mal these days. Freaking… Five and a half months, and I still liked to live in denial. I'd tell myself that maybe this time when I awoke I'd get a little angel singing on my shoulder instead of a devil. That would be fair, right? One had to show up around here eventually, right? If anyone needed one, we did.

Always to no avail. Worst present I'd ever been given. See, after two years in juvie, the others and I had finally banded together on Spencer's birthday and managed to strip Mal of his driving privileges completely while the rest of his mind was overwhelmed with depressant drugs. But, in a moment of weakness I was now regretting, I hadn't been able to bring myself to commit a full-on murder and had instead only managed to knock him down a couple of mental pegs.

… to backseat driver.

Mal must have decided he really hated me this morning, because he was now quoting the entire Animal Planet documentary – with the appropriate accents – that he'd memorized at whatever time purely because he knew I hated the parts where the wolves kill the deer. And let me tell you, since we can push our thoughts on one another, he gets through it fast. If there's an exchange student program for multiple personalities, I'm swapping him out and running away to Arizona, I swear.

I stuck out my tongue in the rear-view mirror. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the frontal lobe. Didn't you enjoy your naptime while Svetlana was wearing the pilot's cap all morning?

Mal turned his gruesome tale into a grimace of a smirk. If he'd had physical hands, he'd be rubbing them into his eye sockets right about now. "Blame my insomnia, toots. I've never had a good night's sleep in my life."

I pointed to my eye. It shows.

"Your javelin hand shows."

Drop it there, Mal.

"You started it."

Sure- I always start it. I mean, I was born first.

"Is that right? What's it say on our birth certificate? Not Mike."

I slammed my palm into my forehead.

"Boys." Mom glanced at me again. "Are you going to attempt to strangle yourself your whole time at camp?"

"If I have to spend all summer with him yapping in my ear," I said, voicing Mal's thoughts as much as my own.

The roar of an airplane overhead made me start. Mom sighed and slowed down the car. "I really shouldn't let you out of my sight for so long, should I? This was a mistake. An awful mistake. Perhaps we should turn back now."

"No!" I yelped at the same time Mal shouted, "Please!" I took her elbow. "Please don't, Mom. We can't bail on Chris now – not after he actually accepted us. Me." ("Us," Mal corrected.) "I really, really want to go. Make friends. Try for the money. Be on TV. Test my limits. Enjoy having a new experience. Stop being afraid. As scary as it is, I know it'll be fun if I go into it with a good attitude. We'll be okay. I mean, Svetlana's a survivor. She'll get us out of anything. And Vito always has my back."

"So long as a pretty face doesn't wedge itself between you two."

Couldn't you at least pretend to be positive?

"I was being positive."

Mom rested her chin on the steering wheel as she eased into the parking garage. "After everything I allowed you to go through your entire life, you know I owe you this and so much more."

I put my palms together. "We'll behave. I promise."

"I don't."

As she turned off the car, she gave us a sharp look as if she'd heard that bit. "Malice?"

I went cross-eyed, staring up my forehead.

"What, is she referring to me now? Ooh, congrats, turkeycake – you've acknowledged your baby boy's existence. What would you have me do, erupt confetti from my nose? I was just wondering if you'd go on blanking me forever. I'm hurt, Mother. I think all those months of silence qualify as emotional abuse. Ah, well. She said hello; the least I can do is return the favor. Let's make this fun. Two truths and a lie, perhaps? For you, Mother, I can make myself behave. I won't promise to be sweet and boring, but I won't fight with my roommates." Then he laughed. "Oh, toss it. It isn't in my nature to be agreeable and I'm not fooling anyone here."

"He said okay."

"Then okay." Mom popped her door. I did mine. We stepped out in front of the airport to witness another plane shoot over the building. Watching it grow smaller and smaller among the clouds, I felt a thrill chill me from the laces on my sneakers to the scruffy spikes in my hair. I couldn't wait to be airborne.

"Clothes," Mom said as she dropped my big golden duffel into my arms. "Brownies," she said as she handed me my brown backpack next. "That is, if you can sneak them under Chef's radar."

"Brownies?" I unzipped the top. Sure enough, a fat tupperware was snuggled between my notebook and my summer reading homework. "Mint? Aw geez, Mom, you have no idea how much I love you."

"Typical Mother. Sure, cater to the favorite son; see what I care. I don't remember him ever leaping up to take those blows on your behalf."

"Mal says thanks too."

"Oh, I'm sure he does." She ruffled up my hair. Reaching out to undo another zipper, she continued with, "Tell Malice not to feel slighted. I packed a baggy of gingerbread scraps in there too. Make sure somebody takes one for the team and lets him have his little treat now and again."

"Is she serious? I pop out to eat those cookies once during the Christmas party and suddenly everyone is convinced I go gaga for them? Excuse me, Mother, but I'm an adult. I'm thoroughly offended that you would consider me otherwise."

You're thirteen.

"And easily the most mature banana in the bunch."

They have frosting and gumdrops, I wheedled.

Mal snorted. "Fair enough. At least she tried; that's something different. Different is always good. I knew my puppy eyes would bring her back around eventually."

Don't you mean 'eye'?

His presence warmed as he smirked like a lynx and pushed back his floppy hair to flaunt the burn scars he thought he actually had. "We'll make a snarker out of you yet."

Since they were really my eyes, I rolled them. Luckily I don't need to hide behind snark, because I'm not concealing any crippling emotional baggage or social phobias. Ignoring his protests about how that was both untrue and a low blow even for me, I said, "I'll make sure of it myself. But only when he's being a good boy."

"Then if that's your logic, why are you not shoveling them in right now, tootsie roll? I'm getting hungry."

"… bag for Svetlana. The jerky and bacon strips are for Vito." She frowned into the backpack. "And I think Chester packed his own snacks in the paper sack with the twine, but he wouldn't let me see what they were. I suspect fruit snacks and Cheerios."

"Thanks, Mom." I leaned slightly down and squeezed her in my tightest hug. "You're the best."

We headed inside the airport, greeted at the door by a taxidermy of a moose with antlers raised high. I skirted around him and, despite Mom's protests, headed down the left hall towards the floor-to-ceiling windows at the end. We were just in time. An enormous, shrieking hunk of metal came roaring down from above, but before it could slam into the tarmac, it pulled up and landed as delicately as a falling leaf. I dropped my duffel, pressing my nose to the glass as the machine rumbled off around the corner of the building. "Whoa."

"Shotgun!"

"That is so cool! I want a plane!" Note to self: Buy plane.

"One flaw with your plan, Mike. Where do you expect to find all that money? Even the million may not cover that."

Hmm, true. Welp, I guess we're becoming a pilot then, guys.

"Seriously, jink? That's the first answer that comes to mind? Personally, I was thinking more along the lines of us stealing the plane."

You have no sense of delayed gratification, do you?

"I'm a simple being; sue me. Oh wait, you can't sue yourself. This round goes to me."

I chuckled at his fumbled reply as one of the planes on the ground charged the end of the runway and lurched into the sky. Watching the big steel bird carcass suddenly go airborne, I gasped and…

… whirled around, waving my hands in front of my face. "Dadgum, woman! I don't know what witchcraft nonsense flew into Mike's head, but this ends now. No way in this life or the next am I climbing into that rotten, clattering tin can. Did you see it? That thing is a darn funeral pyre just waiting for a spark!"

Sydney groaned. "I thought you might have something to say about it."

I clutched my elbows and leaned over, squeezing my one good eye shut. "We're dead. We're dead. Someone bring me a typewriter so I can write up my will, because – surprise! – we're dead. To Vito, I leave my favorite cane, for smacking Mal upside the head should he ever step out of line again" ("Hey!" he complained from who-knew-where). "To Svetlana, I leave my homemade Battleship game, and don't you dare put it up on that Bay website thingamajig. Finally, to Manny, I leave the golden crown forever. Apparently he'll need it if he plans to keep existing. Wait a moment! It doesn't matter what I leave them." I looked back at Sydney and finished flatly with, "Because we're all dead."

"Can I have the pool table and the minifridge?"

"I dare you to lift a finger, rodent."

"Now, now, prunecake; you know flattery gets you nowhere with me."

She placed both hands on her hips, then moved one up to her forehead instead. "For the love of the stars above. Granddad, there are trained experts in this field who will take very good care of you. You shouldn't get worked up over a concept you know nothing about. You've never been on a plane in your life."

"And you wanna know why? Because back in my day, we didn't have no stinkin' aeroplanes! When we had somewhere we wanted a' get, we walked there on our own two feet as nature intended, and we counted ourselves grateful for the exercise! Grateful!"

Sydney took my wide hands in her own thin ones. "Can we be reasonable here? If the plane weren't safe, people wouldn't ride it, and the airport wouldn't exist."

"And if smoking and drinking were bad for your health, you would quit both cold turkey and never look back."

"… You make a fair argument there," she admitted, dropping her gaze. She sucked in her cheeks. "Still, that doesn't really change the fact that going on this show was Mike's decision – the first time he'd stood up to me for nearly his entire life, in fact, which tells you enough – and it isn't your place to ruin his dream."

"Ha!" I slammed my invisible cane against the ground. "If it's anyone's place to complain, it should be someone who got dragged into this without any choice in the matter. Cramming into a deathtrap and being shipped out to a slaughterhouse full of greedy antisocial teenagers for the next month and a half is not how Chester plans to die."

"Define every day of our lives."

Sydney pushed her fingers through her salt-and-pepper hair as if she wanted to lift herself from the floor. "The plane will be fine. Statistically speaking, it's far safer than… Actually, I don't think I want to tell you that. But if you're so concerned about it, allow one of the others to walk onto it. Manitoba, maybe; he'll love the adventure. In fact, that's it. Let's get Smith up here right now. You don't even have to know we're flying."

"And give up this?" I spread my hands to indicate color and free movement. "Ha. I don't think so. This here lone wolf has a steamy date with Mark Twain. And then I'm driving to Florida."

"Granddad, please. The flight boards in forty-five minutes, and you still need to go through security. And find your gate."

"Gate nothing. I'm not going, and you can't make me. You're not my mother, or my real granddaughter." I crossed my arms again and flopped down on a large yellow duffel bag. "This grumpy old butt is staying right here, even if I have to stay this way all month with no food or water. Dagnab that."

Sydney sighed. "You may think you're an elderly man, Chester, but that doesn't change the fact that you're still trapped in the body of a sixteen-year-old boy. A scrawny sixteen-year-old boy. It would be very easy for me to scoop you up and carry you down to that plane myself."

"Aw, I love her. I'm getting warm fuzzies just at the thought of curling up in her caring arms again. Maybe she won't drop us down the stairs this time."

I arched my brow. "Don't correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that we had only the one ticket from the sad, sadistic man. They won't allow you past security."

"Then so help me, I will march straight down to the counter and purchase a second one."

"You wouldn't dare." It was all I could do not to widen my eye. "You don't have the spare change for that."

Sydney grabbed the duffel bag and full-on yanked it out from under me. As I rolled backwards on the floor, she stuck out her chin. "Just try me, old man. One working woman in an empty household for the next month and a half equals low cost for food. Plus, no need to pay for therapy either. Meaning I could, indeed, scrounge up some money to throw out for this, if you're willing to push me that far. Eating only a bite of bread and cheese every few days is nothing new to me, and you know it."

While I picked myself up, Mal opened an imaginary mouth, shut it, then opened it again. "She wouldn't."

She would. In fact, she'd completely starve herself to do it too. And Mal would have a fit. Even if he didn't, it still wouldn't be fair to her. Slouched before her, I frowned down at myself and sighed. "I thought ya didn't want Mike to go through with this jam-headed gig to begin with."

Her shoulders slumped for only an instant, then squared up again. "Be that as it may, I will fight you tooth and nail to get my son on that plane. I'll drag you by the ear. I'll carry you over my shoulder if I must. Is that what you want me to do?"

I winced. "Kind of. My back is aching. Dang kid, I think I've contracted scoliosis just since sitting here."

"You have not. Again, sixteen-year-old's body."

"A sixteen-year-old with dadgum terrible posture." I pressed on my spine until it made a light snapping sound. Sydney let a smile slip.

"I won't deny that."

"Ahh, I'm going to regret this. We're all going to regret this, you mark my words." Still hugging my shoulders, I glanced back through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Another plane launched itself into the sky. Safely.

Sigh. "Fine. I'll throw in the towel and let Manitoba walk onto the iron bird of death, and I'll like it. On one condition."

Sydney shut her eyes and closed her fingers around her nose. "Let's hear it."

"I want an ice cream. One of those milkshakes from that shop place with the lousy freckled redhaired girl with the braids. As you so pointedly reminded me, I am trapped in a sixteen-year-old's body. Calories don't count towards heart attacks 'til we're thirty."

I swear, that woman was plucked out of heaven just to be the one to raise us. She's almost too good these days. Almost. With a great sigh, a few more attempts at bartering, and several complaints and orders to stay where I was or find myself grounded for the rest of my life, she withdrew to her car. But we had arrived here an hour early for a reason - she knew she'd struggle to put us on that airborne morgue. Some battles were worth fighting. But when you'd been dealt a poor hand, sometimes you had to fold. Snag the queen of spades to shoot the moon.

While she was out, I examined my opportunities for picking up a rental car so I could get the heck out of here. There weren't many this early in the morning. The ones that were seemed to be mostly punks or thieving sharks or evil Russian communists ("I'm telling Svetlana you said that," Mal taunted). I made conversation with one driver who looked promising, but I accidentally let slip that I hadn't ridden an aeroplane yet, and the man came to the (arguably close) conclusion that my parents had dropped me off to take a summer visit to relatives I didn't know but who were still expecting me, and he began to act really hesitant about letting me in the car. Conforming wretch.

So I went back inside to linger by the giant stuffed moose just before Sydney returned with my requested shake. I slurped it loudly through the straw, just to annoy her.

"Better?" she asked when I had finished.

"No. Well, maybe a little." I considered myself a distinguished gentleman, but unfortunately Mike did not, and he wasn't wearing a proper suitcoat with handkerchiefs tucked in the pockets. So I embraced my inner disrespectful teen and wiped stray splatters from my mouth with my wrist. "Now, let's reel in Manitoba."

Sydney checked Mike's bag. She sat back on her heels, then checked it again. "Oh no."

"What did you do this time?"

She bit her lip. "I didn't pack Manny's hat."

As Mal broke into delighted guffaws inside my brain, I simply shook my head and sighed.

"Can't you call him?" Sydney asked the question in an absentminded voice as she pulled out our (Mike's) yellow pajamas and refolded them tight. She knew it was pointless, and I knew it was pointless. Manitoba had been dominant personality for the last six months, yes, but these days that pretty much just meant he got to be the one to dream, because he'd had a… "freak accident" when we'd dethroned Mal. Honestly it's a miracle that stupid kid survived the reboot with as much of himself left as he did, but he's still wandering around somewhere in our subconscious and hanging on by a tiny thread. He doesn't even glow orange anymore. Or maybe he does now; dunno, haven't seen him face-to-face for years. In constant pain out Topside, he wouldn't be coming up without his hat or a very good reason.

I did the knocking on my temples routine anyway. "Hello, anyone awake down in the ol' noggin? Smith, you're up to bat."

"Put on a different hat," Mal suggested. "The more ridiculous, the better. He always senses when something weird is in our hair, and Vito and I have a running joke to dress him up stupidly before ol' V flips over control. You should've been there for what we did to him on his birthday. Worth every chain around my ankles to see his face in that mirror."

"Malice says we ought to try one from the gift shop." I glanced over at a little hole-in-the-wall counter labeled Silver Wings in ghastly blue letters. "That'll flip his lid."

Sydney zipped the duffel up again. "I suppose it's worth a shot."

We found a collection of toques and caps and fishing hats at the stand. At random, Sydney grabbed a red one with an anchor. "We're just trying this out," she explained, and the girl behind the counter turned to help a woman in a wheelchair count her change.

Facing me again, Sydney placed her arm behind my neck, drew me close, and kissed my forehead. "Granddad? I'm trusting you to take good care of my kids out there."

"Yeah, yeah." I rubbed her kiss away with the back of my wrist. "I didn't limp all the way over here for you to get all sappy about this. Gimme the stupid hat already."

She did. I yanked it down over my ears. The floppy thing smelled just as mothball-y and unsanitary as it looked. I swear I felt wriggling legs skitter across my scalp. I gasped and…

… nothing happened. Nothing besides a slight prickling in the back of my brain that suggested I'd gotten Manitoba's attention, though not his willingness to come out and play.

"Aw, gosh dangit." I upturned one palm. "He's gotten all offended that this isn't his fedora and won't show his mug, the spoiled brat."

Sydney tugged on the graying tips of her hair. Then she let go and placed her hands together. "Did I ever tell you what your Aunt Elaine got me for my birthday when I turned seven? Shiny red paint. Bells and whistles. Pink and purple ribbons. Glass tinted light green. It was the best treasure I ever got, before I had you."

"Yeah? What was it?"

"Oh." She placed a hand to her breast, pretending to be surprised. "I'm sorry. It's supposed to be a secret."

I grinned. "You play real dirty, Sydney. Was it bigger or smaller than a breadbox?"

"It was about like this," she said, holding her palms a few inches apart.

My forehead began to bubble. Trying to suppress my chuckle, I took a step forward and squinted hard. "What? I'm sorry, but I have pretty dang bad eyesight and I can't quite make out what you're doing. Can you give me some more verbal hints?"

"A switchblade," Mal tried. "Car keys. A lighter."

Sydney chuckled, attracting a puzzled frown from the girl at the register. "Though I always dreaded it when I went to sleep and yelled at it every morning, it was always my best friend by noon. It had arms that moved as gentle as ripples in a stream. Unfortunately, it whined like an infant until I smacked it on the head."

"Smoke detector. Coat-rack on a creaky floor. Iguana. With diaper rash. During Jimmy Two-Shoes marathon week."

I ground my knuckles into my scalp as the prickling picked up. "It doesn't matter what it is, ya dingbat dropping. She won't say it to us. It's a secret, remember?"

"Sorry, Mal." Sydney spread her hands. "He's right. I promised never to tell."

Manitoba couldn't take the mystery a second longer. He practically grabbed my shoulder and hurled me to the side. I gasped and…

… straightened up, squinting at my forehead as my entire left side erupted in phantom pains. "Hello now, somethin' pretty here just ain't right." Even though I suspected what my palm would be greeted with, I reached up to pat the soft fabric. Sure enough, I'd been had like a cockie. I grit my teeth. "Crikey! Sydney, ya two-timin' li'l conch, what'd ya do with my fedora?"

"She's at home. In the bread drawer." She rolled her pupils to the top right corner of her eyes and let them stay there. "Where Vito throws her eighty-nine percent of the time."

"At home, eh?" I blinked hard, and when I opened my eyes again, I took in the bustle of the airport for the first time. We were already on our way to Muskoka. There were people wandering about in all directions, and every one of them a suspicious character if you want my two cents on it. On auto-pilot – if you'll forgive me this one pun – I grabbed for my left hip. Nothing. Aw, dandy cripes.

"She left it on purpose, you know," Mal said.

"Oh, did she really now? Well, how's that, then? Leave it to an old sheila like that to make a bad situation even worse. This is the kind of insult that breaks the necks a' camels, Sydney! No lasso? And my poor fedora left home alone?" I grabbed Sydney's elbow (which she didn't react to, but Mal did with a sudden hiss) and raised one fist in the air. "You abandoned her on purpose purely ta spite me! You're really no better'n Kurt after all, eh!"

She jolted to attention. Snatching me by the collar, she yanked my gaze down to her level. "Don't you dare breathe a mention of him in my presence again, Smith. Even Malice is a thousand hundred times better than that twisted viper ever was."

"It's nice to know I'm still appreciated, Mother. Considering how over the years I have saved your life and ours a grand total of thirty-seven times. Quick – now ask her for a nine-month advance on our allowance while she's distressed."

I put my hand back up. "I'm not your son, Sydney, and one a' these days you gotta realize that. You don't tell me what to do. I'm the alpha now. It's my body. And most importantly, you're not my mother."

She lifted her palm to meet mine and whispered, "If that's the case, then I guess it won't be domestic violence to smack you silly this time."

Oh, speaking of blows, that was a low one, bringing up my birthday and all. But she wouldn't. Not with her golden child in here. I stared at my raised arm. It trembled just a little in time with the flickering burns on my left. Somewhere deep down, Chester was shifting again. Maybe struggling to take another jump so soon after he'd punched his card out. I set my jaw, refusing to let him steal my place. We set this straight here and now.

"Don't. Tell me. What. To. Do."

"Whoa, whoa!" Suddenly Mal snapped up on red alert, kicking against his chains and banging on his glass walls. "Smitty, you stupid coward! Don't go Kurt on me. Hit me instead. I've taken the most, whatever Vito says. I'll let you! I won't complain! If anyone, hit me! Well, preferably Mike, but I-"

"Shut yer flytrap an' stay outta this, O Malevolent One." He needn't have strained himself. Maybe he'd forgotten that I'd been on the receiving end of Kurt's fury too once … particularly when he'd shoved me from his truck on the freeway and … No matter what else happened, I would never let myself become like him. Letting my hand fall with a great groan, I clasped my fingers over Sydney's knuckles. "You don't understand, sheila. I raised that fedora from the egg!"

That attracted a few long glances from even some of the snide passersby who hadn't noticed our earlier tension. Cursing loud enough for them to hear it down in subspace, I pried Sydney's fingers from my shirt and pushed her behind me. As much as she grated on my nerves at times, Mike and Mal still saw her as their mum, and I hated to think what either one of them might try doing to me in my weakened state if one of those wily crocodiles out there got ahold of her and didn't spit her back up.

Everyone saw the steely glare in my eye and decided to keep moving.

Sydney poked my ear from behind. "Exactly how many biology classes have you forced Vito to sit through on your behalf? Huuhh… Disregarding the first logic flaw in that statement in favor of the second, you bought her at the flea market not two months ago."

I couldn't do it anymore. I was exhausted, my birthday memories of the lake were coming back, my left side was engulfed in invisible flames, and I definitely didn't want to go on some rickety old magic bird thing. I dropped to all fours, slapping one palm against the tile. "No one understood me the way she did, Sydney! She was my soulmate!"

Sydney and Mal looked down at me for a long time as I wallowed in a bitter heap of self-pity. At last she said, "Manitoba, you're regressing to your adolescence and becoming ridiculous again."

"I'm ridiculous?" I jerked back, gripping my knees. "Oi, now if she were Mike's fedora, you'd've driven through a bloody blizzard ta get her here, now wouldn't ya? An' brought a milkshake, eh. But because I'm just a" – supply your own excessive amount of air quotes here – " 'personality', me an' my feelin's don't matter near as much ta ya as yer precious li'l Mikey boy's. Go on. Look me straight in the googlies an' call me a liar, sheila."

She crouched beside me, placing her hand beneath my jaw. "Is that what this is really about? Manny, you know I would never hurt your feelings on purpose. It simply slipped my mind to check the bread drawer last night while I was in Mike's room helping him pack." She thought for a moment. "Him and Svetlana pack. Believe me, if you wouldn't miss your flight before my return, I would rush home and fetch your hat in a heartbeat."

"Don't trust her," Mal warned, still regarding me with a wary tone. "She's a filthy liar when it comes to love. She loved Kurt once, remember? She doesn't even love me, and I'm irresistible."

I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. I didn't apologize, but I did drop the theatrics and haul myself back to my feet. "Right. Where's my ticket at, beauty?"

"Here." She placed it in my hand and closed my fingers over it. "Do not. Lose this."

"Lose it? What a lark! You remember who it is ya summoned here, Syd?" I jabbed a fat thumb into my chest. "I'm Manitoba crackin' Smith. The only thing I ever lost in my life'd be my respect for that creepin' louse, Mal-issa."

"Uncalled for, Toby!"

I slapped my temple at the same time I told him to fling himself off a skyscraper overlooking a canyon. He withdrew, crossly muttering. I stuffed my fists in my pockets and rocked back on my heels. "So. How's about you spill that secret now, eh? I've waited long enough."

"My sister gave me an alarm clock."

"What?" This time, I stuck a finger at my head. "I came out here in this silly hat for that? Why even call me up at all, eh? Was ol' Chester really drivin' ya ta such a bluey? Not givin' ya yer precious Mikey back, was that it, sheila? An' you thought with my condition" – I gestured to my left side here – "I'd be more agreeable?" As Sydney lay her hands on her waist, I threw mine in the air. "I expect ya want me to go off now and commit my act of selflessness to trigger your stupid golden boy back inta your arms. Cripes alive, I don't bloody get paid enough for this."

"Actually…" Sydney drew her brows together. "I asked Chester to sub out for you specifically. I thought maybe you'd like to have the honor of being the first one to peek inside the plane. Seeing as, well, none of you has ever set foot in one before. You'd like that."

Checking out the plane's interior? Good. Fun times. What an adventure! No complaints here. But strapping myself down to a tiny plastic seat as the stupid thing zoomed into the air at illegal speeds? With my crippling phobia of falling from great heights? I didn't think so. I'd sooner pass the baton off to Vites. Flying was unnatural for humankind. Witchcraft, I say. I never trust anything that nature doesn't raise herself.

Or maybe … Actually …

This could work.

I tried not to delve too into that line of thinking for fear that Mal would sense my plan and start whining for the others to intervene. Instead, I clapped once and held out my hand for the lousy yellow duffel. "All righto tonight-o then, eh. Are we doin' this gig or ain't we?"

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Sydney asked, waving vaguely at my head. I slung off the fishing hat. Mike perked up immediately and, being the golden boy he was, waited patiently for me to hand him back the reins. I didn't. Tracing my fingers through the spikes in my hair, I tossed the hat to Sydney. She caught it, replaced it on its rack, and followed me from the stand. I started to regret that as we moved away. The hat wasn't my usual, sure, but at least it was a hat at all.

We checked the duffel at the front counter and made the long, slow walk over to security. I stepped into the lane of divider belts, holding the loop of the backpack with one hand. With the other, I tipped my (unfortunately imaginary) fedora. "Well. We're off then, sheila."

Sydney leaned across the belts and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I wrenched my left arm away and stumbled a bit back, caught off guard for half a second, before I scooped my arms beneath hers and hugged her in return.

"Good-bye, kidlets. Take care of each other. Miss you already. I'll be rooting for all of you."

"… Thanks, Sydney." I put my chin on her head, shutting my eyes. "For everything you've ever done."

Mal tried to wave a hand he no longer possessed. Still using his typical monotone, he said, "Love you too, Mom."

I felt her smile, even though she couldn't possibly have heard him. "Yes, good-bye to you too, Mal. Please stay out of trouble."

"No promises on my part, toots."

To me she whispered, "If he just said 'No promises', smack him a good one for me behind the ear."

The line had shifted forward without me. I untangled our arms. "I gotta bolt, Syd. Thanks for trusting us."

"Don't let me down now."

Well, that just made me feel worse.

"Hey, there are six of us runnin' amok in here these days. We can't all screw up too badly, eh?" I winked, she waved, and we parted on that note. Deep down, I would never stop thinking of Sydney as a coward even yellower than Mike was gold. But whatever else she was, she was the toughest little sheila I'd crossed paths with for a long while that day she let us go all summer, not six months after we'd stumbled home from juvie.

I went through security (with the Malevolent One severely disappointed that the scanning machine didn't consider him to be dangerous and start blaring). But I took my time replacing my shoes and digging through our things. Someone had packed me an avocado, so I ate it because I wasn't sure if I'd be coming back before it went rotten. When I'd convinced myself that Sydney had gone for good, I grabbed our pack, drew myself up to full height, circled all the way back around, and marched straight for the front counter. I thought very hard about our summer camp cabins the entire time.

"Come on, wallaby-brains," Mal scolded, picking at one of his chains with his fingernail. "McLean sent us our ticket. It's in your pocket. Sydney checked the duffel. It's gone. There are bathrooms and other gift shops on this side of security too. You're not lost, because you have me up here and I know everything. If we leave, we'll have to go through security again. We have absolutely no reason to go this way. Can't figure out which direction is north without the sun above your head, hm?"

When I reached the front of the line, I propped my arms against the counter and flicked my boarding pass across the desk. "I'd like ta be exchangin' this here beauty for a flight straight through to Australia."

"… Huh?"

"Australia?" the man behind the counter repeated, peering at me over his glasses. I straightened my spine, still wishing I had a fedora to tip up with my pinkie finger.

"Yessir. I'm headin' down under ta meet up with my wife after thirteen years rougher'n snakeskin. Her name's Nellie. Most beautiful li'l sugar glider from here to the lucky country itself."

I think that confused Mal more than my hijacking our destination in the first place, because he paused over the words, "We're… not… married. I'm pretty sure I would've been there for our honeymoon."

"Um." As if he could read our thoughts too, the man looked at my face, looked at my ticket, glanced around, saw no one who resembled me or seemed interested in what I was doing, and looked at me again. "I think I'll need to see an ID for that."

"In the car," Mal said, answering my unspoken question.

I slammed my forehead into my folded arms, which did nothing for my left hand. "Ugh. Why couldn't we a' joined the airplane season, eh? Then we'd've had a bloody passport, at least. And they even stopped in kangaroo kingdom then."

"I believe we were in juvie at the time."

"I hate ya like a cockroach."

"Ooh, that cuts me deep, Tobes. You shouldn't say that. I'm a part of you."

"Sorry, kiddo." The man poked my elbow with the boarding pass. "But I'm sure you'll get to see her soon. Love will find a way. Have you tried webcam?"

I stomped away from the desk, pressing the ticket to my lips and trying not to tear it up with my teeth. A jabbing in my brain suggested that Chester was picking up my irritation… and clinging to Mike, Vites, and Svet for dear life, maybe yelling that he wasn't coming out again until we touched down safely in Muskoka, dagnabit. Or something like that. Mal would know. He was good with reading feelings.

"Props to you for trying, doll-face- I still can't believe you were actually intending to go through with that, and I can hear your thoughts."

Sorry, Nel. Your little numbat gave it a fair shot.

So I stormed back through security. Past a huge bronze cast of a chubby beaver. Up a cold hallway amidst a gaggle of summer touristfolk. I was getting hunger cramps. Nothing looked appealing. I also needed to use the washroom, but Mike would want to trigger if he saw the sinks, and he'd skin our wrists to the bone with his washing. Then we'd miss our flight and the next. And then I'd really be in trouble. So instead, I made a quick swing by two gift shops. No luck fishing for fedoras. Whatever.

I filled our water bottle at a drinking fountain, pushing in the large button with my hip so I could rub the corners of my eyes with my free fingers. "What say you, Malevolent? Have I completely lost my oil or what now, eh?"

"To be fair, you did have a mental breakdown over the temporary separation between you and your 'female' hat. I mean it quite literally. Pieces of the ceiling started falling apart in here. A little more to the left, my chains would've snapped under the rubble cascade and I'd be the one driving right about now. Do it again. It's funny."

I'd tipped, all right. Or that wouldn't have sounded so natural. I screwed the cap back on our bottle. "I have an idea. Why don't you and I go out to dinner with a nice pair of croc-"

"Of course it would be just like Chris to buy us seats on a flight that goes in circles."

I sort of recognized that grumbling female voice. But apparently not as much as Mike did. Before I could process that A) he had even heard that, and B) I should prepare myself to block him out, I gasped and…

… slammed into a… drinking fountain, or something? dropping our water bottle. From there I fell to the floor. I clawed my way back to my feet, muttering a bunch of "Aw, geez"-es and rubbing at my stinging chin.

How long was I out? There was no sign of Mom, and that irked me quite a bit. Here we were, about to leave all summer, and I hadn't gotten the chance to say good-bye (Mal found that part the most amusing). Had I missed the whole flight too?

I looked at the ticket in my hand. Still boarding.

Scratching the back of my hair, I glanced around. What had triggered me? I hadn't felt us getting anxious. We weren't in the bathroom. A water fountain, yes, but fountains were for drinking rather than washing- every good boy knew that. There wasn't any medicine to take or unpleasant food to eat. I didn't see anyone who looked particularly like they wanted my help. Nothing was even gold, which wasn't really a trigger but might have explained something.

And then I saw them, and it clicked.

Eva sighed, tapping her foot and drumming her fingers against her blue duffel. "It'll be nice to see Cody, Noah, and Iz again. I can't believe it's been two months."

Gwen rolled her suitcase back and forth, craning her head back over the crowd the way they had come. "Okay, seriously. Did they get pulled into buying ice cream again?"

"Sorry, sorry!" Two pale hands shoved – literally – a couple apart, and Sadie barreled through with two pink suitcases on wheels. Katie raced after her, a small red flip-phone clutched against her ear. "Totally my fault, I accept full responsibility for everything. There was this really creepy guy ogling Katie outside the bathrooms and I had to deck him."

Gwen continued to stare into the crowd, now looking a little more uncertain.

"Well, we're here." Eva nodded into the waiting area on her right, and they all filtered in and started to look for seats.

Their faces were as familiar to me as my own reflection. I'd seen them about as many times. Unless one of the challenges was particularly up their alley, I was the only one of us who watched Total Drama. Well, Mal too, but he was no fun ("Oh, come on, I'm hilarious!") and so he didn't count. Apparently, the universe figured I had seniority when it came to meeting my idols. Worked for me. Grabbing our bottle and shouldering my backpack a little higher, I headed cautiously into the waiting area.

Katie shut her phone and dropped into a seat beside Sadie. "Courtney says the gate attendant won't let Zeke on the plane because he's too animal. They're going to make him ride in the cargo hold."

Eva choked on the thumb in her mouth. "Are they high on CPs again?"

Gwen sputtered, "That's the last place in the entire world they want to put him. Did they forget that being down there is what cracked him in the first place?"

The only available seat was on the opposite side of the waiting area. I placed both options on my mental scale. To wait in comfort, or enjoy an early introduction? I wasn't keen on interrupting, but I really did want to say hi, and maybe snag an autograph from Sadie while I was at it; from what I'd seen of her, she's kind and cool. She's awesome.

"I know." Katie passed the phone off to Sadie. "Courtney is so ticked right now, and their flight takes off in fifteen. Chris won't answer any of her calls, and she wanted to know if anyone else can get a hold of him."

"No cell," Eva said, shrugging.

Gwen sighed and reached into her pocket. "Don't think I'm doing this for Courtney. I only want Zeke to stay as far away as possible from anything that might trigger his vicious side up again." She dialed a number with her thumb and held the phone up to her ear. Ring. Ring. I edged a little closer, still keeping near the windows as I watched another plane rev up for take-off. Click.

"Gwen!"

The greeting was so loud that she jerked back with a gasp ("Gah!"), nearly dropping the phone in the process.

"Haven't seen you since the prom fiasco. How's college life been treating you, brah?"

"Heh heh, yeah, it's great, Chris. Best part is, it's several thousand miles away from you. Okay, listen. I didn't call you to hear the sadistic music in your voice." As she spoke, she stood and began pacing in front of the seats. "We just got another call from Courtney. She and Cody are down in Berens Rivers with Zeke right now and the gate attendant won't- Hello? Uh, Chris? You can't make them put Zeke in the cargo hold. Oh, you've got to be kiddi- He hung up on me! Now what?"

"We try again under a new number?" Katie suggested.

Sadie climbed up on the nearest chair and cupped her hands around her mouth. "Hey! Does anybody here have a cell phone we could borrow? Like, the emphasis on borrow! We'll totally give it back when we're done! This is not a blatant robbery!"

Eva rolled her eyes, but I couldn't suppress a little snicker. Unable to restrain myself a moment longer, I took a breath and walked up to them with a friendly wave.

"Hey, you guys! I know you from Total Drama. What a coincidence to meet you here. Looks like we'll be on the same flight to Muskoka." They were giving me dull looks, so I gave them a nervous chuckle. "My name's Mike Dunn. I'm one of the new contestants competing on Revenge of the Island."

"Really?" Sadie frowned Katie's way. "I don't remember Chris saying anything about new contestants this year."

Katie shrugged and rubbed the back of her head, not taking her eyes from me.

"He didn't exactly warn us very far in advance about Sierra and Alejandro either," Gwen pointed out, poking Sadie with a sharp elbow.

"Or that entire dumb season until two weeks before you left."

"Point taken, Eva."

My smile twitched down at the corners. "Seriously? Uh, but what about those three girls from the e-mail? The girl with all the butterflies? The one who wouldn't shut up? Most importantly, the blonde in the mountains who shot the flying squirrel? You know, the ones whose audition tapes… We had a vote? Chris said the whole cast was supposed to pick whoever they most wanted to see as a final contestant? No?"

Gwen shrugged. "Sorry. 'Chris' must be one of those keywords I had my computer block two years ago."

"Got me," Eva grunted, tossing her MP3 from hand to hand. The music switched from the "Come Fly With Us" song from World Tour over to "You're Playing With the Big Boys Now" in the middle of a sentence. That bothered me.

"Oh." I looked down at my waist, then up again and turned my palms towards the ceiling. "Surprise!"

Sadie was the only one to smile at me. She reached out a hand (Score!) and held it tight as we shook. "It's totally great to meet you, Mike. You're so stinkin' cute that you're like giving me goosebumps, and you seem real sweet too. I hope we can be great friends this summer."

"Aww," Mal and I cooed together.

Sadie glanced uneasily over her shoulder. Since Gwen was still sulking over Chris snubbing her, Katie was still standing off to the side in a weird way, and Eva was still being Eva, she turned her attention back to me and thumped her chest. "So like, whatcha got tucked up that there sleeve, partner? Hit me up. You must be pretty special if Chris chose you to join us this season."

"Me? Special?" I felt my eyes dart around of their own accord. "Uh, I don't know if I'd say it like that. I'm actually pretty normal."

"And boring."

"Right, what he said. And boring. Very boring."

Sadie sized me up in a careful way, tapping on her chin with one long nail. "Aw, don't put yourself down that way, munchkin. You've gotta have something. Boring isn't usually Chris's style."

I squeezed my forearms. "Um … nope. Sorry. There's nothing in here but me."

Katie had continued to give me strange looks all through the conversation. Now, at this lull, she took her hands out from behind her back. "Hey Mike, by any chance, is your last name, like, Jewel or Judge or something?"

Mal sprang to attention. "Huh?"

"Uh, y-yeah? My, um, dad's last name was Juarez."

She grabbed Sadie's shoulder. "I knew it! Sadie, remember when I told you I grew up in the same church as Harold like, way way way back before I moved to Twig Harbor and we became BFFs?"

Sadie gasped, clutching her cheeks. "Oh my gosh, I totally remember that. Not knowing you was the second-saddest time in my life. So like, then did this kid live near you too?"

"Kind of," Katie said. "We basically just went to daycare together like on Fridays for a year." And, stepping forward, she slugged me in the shoulder. "Ow," I cried, grabbing for the spot. It didn't really hurt, and I was more shocked than anything else, but Vito still cocked his head. "Hey, what was that for?"

"She hit us! Punch her back! Let me at her!"

"You totally hurled Princess Quack on the top shelf of the toy closet just because you were mad I wouldn't kiss you. And blew cracker crumbs in my eyes! You never said sorry!" Katie stayed angry for about two more seconds, then burst into a fit of giggles. "Oh my gosh, you were always getting into trouble back then. You were super annoying at the time, but looking back on it, you were just really awesome."

"Uh-huh," I said, still rubbing my arm.

"Princess- Hold on- I have those memories! Is that Katelyn Evans who took my Goldfish crackers and poured grape juice in my hair? Whoo, puberty didn't do her any favors in the looks department." Mal let out a cackle to himself, probably rubbing his hands together. "Oh, I've waited a decade to continue that prank war. I'll play nice and take it easy on her when we first get on camera, but one by one, she's going down. I will humiliate her like none other."

No dates until you learn to drive, hotshot.

"Get out of my life, Dad; you don't understand me."

"... and stuff, but you turned out so cute and sweet in the end. You look exactly the same as the last time I saw you, except that your hair sticks up in all those fetch spikes now and you have noodles for arms and you look like an adorable little dork." Katie bounced on her heels, clasping her hands. "Can I ruffle them? Your spikes, I mean."

"Me too?" Sadie begged.

Chuckling, I leaned forward and allowed the girls to run their fingers through the tufts in my hair. At last Katie pulled back and pointed at my nose. "Back then, your name was like, Steven or something, though."

I winced. "Spencer."

"Right, that was probably it. But you prefer to go by Mike now?"

"Uh, yeah, actually I do."

"Mike then." She smiled, instantly cool with everything again. "Precious. So, I guess we'll have to like, catch each other up on our lives this season. Me and Sadie will totally have to make you our BMF – best male friend."

"Second best male friend," Sadie corrected.

"Oh my gosh, that's right. I totally forgot. I can't wait to see Trent again after so long!"

Sadie's expression said that Trent was exactly who she hadn't been thinking of. But she plastered on a smile and wiggled her fingers in two hang-loose signs anyway. I gave my arm a final rub. "We, uh, we only knew each other for a year, Katie. And that was so long ago, haha! I don't even remember much about that time in my life."

"She'd look better if we closed our eyes," Mal decided. "I like Eva. Let's break her wrist a little and see what she does about it."

From then until we were called to board, Sadie gabbed to me about what I should expect from the island, how to wriggle under Chef's caring wing like Tyler and Beth had, which of our fellow campers I needed to be aware of because of this or that thing they'd done that hadn't made it to the final cuts, that it would be a bad strategy for the competition but still a really good idea to befriend Cody post-game because he's a real sweetheart and is an amazing artist, and that if I were interested she and Katie could give me a whole tour of the coolest secret places on the island like the pet cemetery, which I wouldn't mind at all. Finally we made it to the front of the boarding line. I handed my ticket to the gate attendant, and she spared it half a glance.

"Spencer Juarez?"

"Yes ma'am." Sigh. One of these days. One of these days.

"How old are you?"

"Fou- Sixteen." Against every instinct I caught myself, but the attendant still gave me a long sideways look. Thank goodness Kurt's genes made us so ungainly and tall, and she took my word for it and moved on.

"Traveling alone?"

I glanced over at the girls, who were waiting patiently (or impatiently, in Eva's case) at the entrance to the next hall. "Well, sort of. I met up with some friends on the way here."

She waved me through. "Enjoy your flight, dear."

I followed the others down the slope, and by the time we reached the plane itself, Gwen had her arms wrapped around her shoulders. "Oh man, walking onto these things never gets any easier."

"Particularly after last season," Katie reasoned. She reached out for Gwen's fingers, then took Sadie's too. "On the count of three, all right?"

"One." Gwen.

"Two." Sadie.

"Three," finished Katie. Together, they stepped through the door. Eva followed with less ceremony. Chuckling, I started after her. But as I approached the entrance, I felt a desperate, panicked tug at the base of my consciousness.

"Oh, come on-" I gasped, and …

… I balked. "Ahh, I can't do it. We're dead! Call 911! Call the morgue! Call a bugler! You can't make me climb in that tin bottle! What do I look like to you, a miniature ship? I want a refund, dagnabit!"

All four of the girls who'd been walking in front of me turned around. The pudgy Chinese one quirked up an eyebrow. "Uh, Mike? Your voice went a little… whacko there."

The tall, brown-skinned girl tilted her head. "Are you okay? Your eye is kind've…"

"Who's Mike? Chester's in charge now." I stared inside the hulking belly of the beast, clutching my stomach and shuddering with every breath. "And if you ninnies think I'm placing one foot inside that tinfoil taco, you've got another thing coming to you."

The girl with the black ponytail frowned up at the ceiling. "Personally, I would've gone with burrito."

"Claustrophobia?" That was the fourth girl. The incredibly pale girl with the weird blue streaks in her dark hair. Punk kids these days. She took her hands from her shoulders and stepped towards me.

"No! I just-"

Someone tapped me on the arm. "Excuse me? Can we like, squeeze past you or something here? The flight takes off in ten and I want to put up my bag while there are still spots left."

"I don't blame you for hesitating. That big bird looks like it's about to pop. Oh, there goes a screw."

"Don't rush me," I muttered back. "Teenagers."

Blue-streak girl stepped out of the plane. Maybe to let the impatient group of boarders pass, or maybe to bring herself closer to me. She held out one palm. And she smiled. "Hey. It's okay to admit it if you're afraid. I'm claustrophobic myself."

"I am not claustrophobic!" I couldn't help myself. I dropped my arms and rolled my eye. "Trust me, in my off-time, I share my entire world with five enormous attention-hogs in a very small space, and that isn't even tallying the dang splinters into the whole darn equation."

"Aw, you can be so cold, fiber-man, pretending you don't want to get cozy with all this. Won't you allow me just one snuggle? I already lost my father, my brothers, and my sister, and now you want to take my last grandpa too? Have I not suffered enough for one lifetime?"

I scratched my head hard, but ignored him. "Dang brats these days, always gotta have labels for everything. Can I not just be a little concerned about throwing myself into a winged steel – steel – coffin?"

"Forget this." The girl with the ponytail took a step forward, cracking her knuckles. "What d'ya think? Should I toss him in a seat, or stuff him in an overhead bin?"

I pulled my arms back. No need. Chubby girl pinched her shoulder. "Eva, let's save force for a last resort. Can't you see he's panicking? Maybe the same way a certain someone I know would get around fire?"

"Whatever." Eva took the duffel bag from Pudgy Chinese and slung Tall Brown's backpack over her shoulder. "You guys look busy, so I'm gonna find our seats. Give me a holler when you're done playing psychiatrist and want my help after all."

"Eva," protested Katie, grabbing her arm. "Remember when we talked about how like, patience was a virtue?"

"Claustrophobic or not," Blue-Streak said, "let me help here. Airplanes aren't so bad, you know? Hey, after World Tour, nothing about commercial flights can faze me. Okay, now, really deep breath in."

Like it was that easy.

As a line gathered behind me, I supposed that sooner or later, the girls were going to get one of us on the plane. You're gonna get us all killed, Mike, I thought, but he didn't respond. Probably wouldn't have even if he'd heard the words. Just to give it a fair shot because why the heck not, I tightened my eyes, gasped, and …

… I don't know how Svetlana does it. I don't think any of us do. She can switch out at will, and will purposely do it at the worst of times if we get her too angry. The rest of us are still scratching our heads on how it works at all. I've tried thinking adventurous thoughts. I've tried listening to lousy pop music. I've tried staring at the color violet. The only sure-fire way I knew to bring out anyone was to pull off my shirt and let Vito roam around like a wild pony, and I definitely wasn't going to do that in public.

Punk Blue offered me her hand, dainty as a lady, so I took it and gripped hard. She tugged me forward. The line of disgruntled boarders moved with me, which meant I couldn't go back. Two or three ducked around us, bashing my sides with their suitcases as they went.

"One step at a time, Mike. You're doing great."

"I think I want you to buy me a pizza, so I can enjoy something less cheesey than this conversation."

I was still gritting my teeth as we made it through. Punk Blue loosened her hand slowly and returned it behind her back. "There we are. See, that wasn't terrible."

Then she leaned in, uninvited, and pecked my cheek. That took me so aback, I gasped and…

"Hey-yo, pasty-face!" I shoved her off. "Reel in the rubber lips. I ain't really into the brooding types, if ya know what I mean. I get that it's tough ta restrain yourself around this hot bod, but who gave you permission to touch the Vito?"

The girl (She really was pasty) had a face like someone had just slapped her nose with two fish. "Uh, Mike? I wasn't… coming onto you. I already have a boyfriend, sorry."

"I don't!" the fat girl behind her volunteered, like she thought she was even in the bracket.

"Actually, porkpie," I said, tipping my chin towards a brute of a girl with a shiny black ponytail, "I was lookin' at her. Now there's a girl who knows how to play rough."

"I'm done." Eva tossed her duffel to some tall black chick, which caused the tall black chick to gasp and drop it on her own foot. "Hold this."

Was she gonna-?

Yep.

Okay, you don't have to give me that look! I know it's pathetic that I got myself pinned in one second flat, but she had my arms wrapped tight to my sides and, in my defense, she caught me totally off my guard! I mean, a city alley I could understand, or even a subway, but who freakin' tackles a guy out of a freakin' airplane?

And she wasn't too small a person neither. It was like getting bodyslammed by a hippo driving an assault tank through a mountain. Next thing I knew she was on top of me, glaring and huffing, her big breasts squashed against my chest, arm across my throat, blocking my ability to breathe clean Topside air. I saw swirly stars. Of course- I cracked my head hard on the wall and metal floor and maybe some random Joe's boot when I landed. Mal screamed for me to fight back. I was slipping fast. I think I might have managed to whisper 'Call me' just before I gasped and…

… I was halfway in Eva's arms and halfway on my own feet as she propelled me through the door of the plane. I figured someone must have provoked her to frustration, and I had a pretty good feeling that someone was me. My right hand was warm and sweaty. The back of my head stung. I felt like I'd been punched in the chest by a wrecking ball. My hair felt like it had been ruffled the wrong way down and hastily pulled up again by someone who cared more for the look than the feel. Other than that, I had no idea what had been going on at the party without me.

"Oh my gosh," I said when I saw Gwen and Sadie standing there, gazing at me in a mortified manner. Katie was crouched behind them, trying to wrestle Eva's duffel from her foot. Eva let go of me so she could snatch it back and march off. I took the opportunity to rub my elbow. "I am really, really sorry. See, I have this little, um … I- I want to be an actor when I grow up, and I've been taking like, classes and stuff ever since I was three? You know, improv. Plays where I do method acting. Things like that. My parents basically raised me on that stuff, so that's just how I grew up. A-and it's become a defense mechanism lately, so when my anxiety acts up – like I feel like I'm about to die, or a pretty girl holds my hand – well, sometimes my mind goes kinda blank, and my theater instincts tend to kick in without warning. I-it's something like a gift, only really not."

"Um, sure." Gwen's voice came out slightly in a squeak. She took a step back. Her hands in fists near her chest. Then she hurried after Eva, who had already gone to find their seats, without even waiting for Katie and Sadie. The muttering crowd folded around me. One lady asked me if I was all right, which didn't much clear up my confusion. As she left, I just slouched over with a soft sigh. We weren't even on the island yet, and already I'd driven a wedge between myself and the other competitors.

"Why are you acting like that's a surprise, cupcake? What, you thought they could ever like a broken kid like us?"

Kind of, yeah. I admired them because they seemed like nice people, so I'd sort of just assumed…

Katie patted my hair. "Don't mind her, Mike. I wouldn't say she's a total marshmallow on the inside, but she's at least a bit of a Gummibear once she warms up to you. Give her some time- I'll talk to her. What seat are you in?"

"Uh…" I pulled my ticket from my pocket. "19A."

Sadie scratched the place between her pigtails as she turned away. "Weird. It seems like Chris always tries to get everyone rows 4 through 6 on every flight."

"Guess I'm a surprise reveal." I shrugged. "Maybe it's best if you pretend you don't recognize me when we first air."

Katie giggled. Swinging one arm around my neck, she drew me deeper into the plane. "Aw, we could never bring ourselves to do that. You're our BMF now, remember?"

"Pants her!" shouted Mal. "Yank her hair! Grope her chest! Pinch her throat and press hard with your thumbs! It would be funny!" And then he said, "Whoa, hello rich person life."

Carpet. That was my first thought: Carpet. I'd been expecting a bus with wings, and that's pretty much what I got. But it was an incredibly nice bus with wings. Smiling attendants stood beside a curtain on my left. To my right, rows and rows of seats lined like dominos all the way to the back. The aisle was a little cramped, but there was carpet and overhead storage bins and TV screens on the back of every seat holy crap!

Mal tapped on the edge of my consciousness with his knuckles. "Note to self: Steal plane."

As I ran my hand along the ceiling, it occurred to me that if we won the million, we could live like this all the time.

I said my good-byes to Katie and Sadie in Row 5 and was treated with double hugs, to my amusement and Mal's displeasure. From the seats on my left, Gwen gave me a strained smile. Eva stuffed her other earbud in and turned away. I could hear "For these last few days, leave me alone".

There was already a couple sitting in Row 19 when I arrived, but I had the window ticket, so I slipped past them and strapped myself in easily enough. It was a cushy seat. Cramped, but cushy. And the view, when we finally took to the air, was the most breathtaking sight I'd experienced for probably my entire life.

We're flying! I whispered to Mal, and that made him chuckle a "Thanks for ruining the surprise, toots."

I wish I could've enjoyed the whole experience for myself. But in this family? Ha- Not a cupcake's chance in juvie.

As it turned out, the flight was four hours of absolute waking nightmare. I don't know what was going on in my subconscious, but everybody was awake, and all of them were unhappy. According to Mal, Svetlana was her usual wriggly self, Vito complained about the in-flight snacks and movie options, Chester thought we needed to see the bathroom every fifteen minutes (I am not convinced that sink water was sanitary), and there had been some sort of freak-out about how high in the sky we were… I stopped listening around there, because the man in the seat beside me was going through some rant about me needing to "Cut things out" and "Stop jabbing his cheek so often".

It all got to the point where I unclipped my seatbelt, marched to the back of the plane, and flat-out told the stewardess there that I had multiple personality disorder, and would she please strap me to her folding chair and supervise me for the rest of the flight? Unsurprisingly, she didn't believe me. She gave me some Teddy Grahams and sent me back to my assigned place. Chester wasn't very happy about that.

I stuck my forehead to the window and closed my eyes. Just one more day, I told myself. Total Drama was a pretty popular show. Tomorrow, I would be on camera for the world to see. And sooner or later the others would jump up to say their Hi, and then no one would ever believe I was lying about my alters again.

For awhile, I waited for Mal to say something about that, but he didn't. Surprisingly, he was the only one really behaving himself here. Maybe he'd fallen asleep. Maybe my thinking of the cameras had triggered his social phobia and sent him into a panic attack. Maybe he'd disconnected. Each option was equally unlikely. I guess he just didn't care.

My ears popped. I pulled my giraffe-patterned notebook and pencil from the backpack and tugged down the tray in front of me. Turning to a fresh page, I wrote 9:32- 1 more hour to go. We can do this, guys! and left it sitting there.

The snack-cart lady brought us orange juice, which I didn't remember asking for but which brightened our resident pain-in-the-brain considerably, so I choked it down anyway. Vito and I passed some time playing hang-man in the book. We finally gave it up because Mal wouldn't stop yelling the answers and begging me to draw Mike with the noose around his neck, which I'm sure he wasn't amused by when he got it back.

I tossed the pad on the floor, leaned back, and rubbed my eyes deep into my skull. Geez. Did this plane have an on-board club and bar? I was so flipping bored. I'd take an endless dark blue corridor to another minute chained down to that tiny seat like a prisoner while Mal listed off every sin I'd ever committed and pretended that the reasons for each one didn't matter in the least. I punched some buttons on the TV screen and put on a Kentucky Jones movie that I didn't care for, knowing Manny would.

As the plane started to descend, I returned my tray to its upright position and checked the notebook. Someone had put together a couple word-searches for Chester. Several pages had been simply torn out, and checking under my seat, I found half a dozen of Vito's tiny paper cranes. After that there was a doodle of the Temple of Doom that had somehow turned into a chicken going over a waterfall into a pit of scarabs.

Then, apparently one of the splinters had woken up enough to drive, because he or she had covered two pages with a panicked slant of writing that consisted entirely of He hit me I'm sorry he hit me so sorry I can't don't let me die he hit me. Poor guys. I'd like to put them out of their misery, but they're slippery little things.

Svetlana had left a petition stating that we should never set foot on a plane again, and that all in favor were to sign below. Even though it must have been a good forty minutes, Mal still found the whole thing to be hilariously funny. "I know she speaks with that stupid accent, but she seriously has to write that way too?"

Vito had obliged with Mal's name, prompting Svetlana and Chester to scrawl insulting things at him for 'playing nice with the enemy again'. But it was the last signature on the page that puzzled me most. Two lines had been drawn beneath it for emphasis, and the writing itself was as neat and perfect as a stencil.

"What the…?" I squinted. "Hey Mal, who's this Manitoba Smith character?"

He jumped. "Beg your pardon, Michael? Rewind. I need to play that again. You literally don't know? How can you not know? You brought him up in your … camera … talking thing. Whatever that was."

We can't all just sit back and watch the screen all day like you.

"It is a nice gig I have going for me, isn't it? Ah, well… Smitty's the name of the 'Wild Card', as you were so fond of calling him once. Are you sure you weren't aware of his existence? I find that difficult to believe. Although perhaps I shouldn't, given your powers of observation. He's been around for awhile. Actually, he turned orange even before I turned green."

He turned… Oh my gosh. You're kidding. My throat tightened up. But I didn't… Yes, there was the time with the wolves and that other time with the snakes and the bear, but I thought he just one of the splinters. I didn't know he had a name! I didn't know he was solid! When did he evolve like that? I don't remember that happening! I don't remember that at all! I was just- just … I knew I had a survivalist in me, and I thought if I said…

Mal snorted. "There's the Mike we all know and love, stretching the truth one way or another. You never do grow, do you? And yes, that's sarcastic. We all know you can't. Hm. Because you're cute, donutbit, I'll throw you another bone. Yes, Manitoba is an old splinter. I mean old. As in, he scraped himself off and got over the insanity forever ago, like the rest of us. Some insanity, anyway."

You've got to be joking. I tapped on both temples. He's been fully developed for years, then?

"Well, he doesn't pop out Topside much, and especially these days. He hurt his poor wittle arm and leg in our last reboot. And even when he does show, I have a tendency to irritate him beyond belief to the point where I can flip him into Chester. It's one of my many talents."

I pushed my fingers through my hair. "Oh geez…" He's one of us. Solid and colored and with triggers and everything.

"Oh, yes. Been playing with the big boys for as long as I can remember."

Could you not have mentioned this sooner, Mal? Really? I mean, this is kinda huge here. We're mere hours away from the island and going on TV. This is something that you, as our permanent eyes in the sky, should be responsible for informing the rest of us about.

Mal smirked and seemed to flip some sort of coin or blob of gray matter into the air. "For your information, I don't like you, and to the best of my knowledge the others are all aware of his existence anyway."

So it was just me that got left in the dark. For three years.

"Twelve, actually. You know, if you weren't always so insistent about your 'I was born first' tidbit, I'd wonder if he came along before even you. Also, you didn't ask."

I groaned softly, prompting an odd stare from the man on my right. So this is my payback for that time Vito and I swore off Scooby Doo and shattered your little black heart? Okay, then what's he like? Aside from the survival parts, I mean. Is he nice? Is he strong-willed? Aggressive? Snooty? A bratty kid? What's his trigger? For crying out loud, what does he do?

"If I told you, this would stop being fun for me, now wouldn't it? I haven't had any playtime for six months. I have to take what you won't allow me when I can."

I loathe you. I loathe you so much, I could just throw up.

"Ooh, you're really stinging me now. Come on, Michael, I'm a part of you. Two sides to the same coin." He flipped the blurry untraceable thing again. I guess it really was a coin. "In case it hasn't clicked yet, if you would simply renew my driver's license and step away from the wheel, you wouldn't have to hear my voice ever again, and we could all be happy, just like we used to be back when we were friends. Why can't we be friends again, Mike? I love you, chickenpie."

I decided not to grace that comment with a response and sat brooding over this new development for a long time. The plane landed with a jolt and puttered down the runway. Finally it stopped altogether, and I grabbed my backpack and went to retrieve my duffel from the overhead bin.

My duffel wasn't there.

It wasn't anywhere.

Hang on. Did we leave it all the way back in the airport, and you purposely didn't tell me?

"Whoopsie. Sorry, love. Must have slipped my mind."

I scrubbed my right eye with one palm. Okay. Laundry day at camp was going to be awesome, then.

Mal chuckled. "Ah, here it comes. Pretty little fireworks, although I'd prefer a color other than gold one of these days. You're so predictable, toots. Though it's not a bad show for solitary confinement, I must admit. You really should take a raincheck sometime and pop in to watch your electrodes go nuts down here. We'll make a date of it. I'll let you kiss me if you buy the popcorn."

Mal, you rotten little sadist, one of these days I'm really going to let you-

My frustration finally got the better of me. I gasped and…

… groaned like a wagon wheel, hugging the backpack to my chest. "Thank Dear Saint Joseph; we're four hours into this crackpot game and we didn't even die yet."

Mal stuck out his lower lip. "Aw, I was having fun with him, Pops. Couldn't you wait your turn? Next time, at least knock first. We might be in the middle of a make-out fest then and I'd prefer to make sure I'm decent before you come barging in."

The crowd was pushing me from the plane, so I followed, covering my mouth with my fingers and speaking low so not too many of them would overhear. "You were born naked, you can die the same way. 'Sides that, it's not like you really wear clothes. We're all made of light in there anyway."

"Are we now? Is that why I'm so hot?"

"If that's what you need to believe, then yes."

"… You made a better comeback there than I did. Sorry, Gramps. It would appear that I have shamed the family name. You put me in an awkward spot. Aw, now you've got me all flushed and embarrassed. Just look at me; I'm turning from emerald to olive yellow."

I rolled my eye as I headed up a tunnel and out into the bustle of the airport. "Honestly, I'd count it a success to see you show even a flicker of interest in romance to begin with."

"It's not my fault I'm stuck in my prepubescent stage forever."

I was so busy talking to Mal (or myself, depending on who you might ask) that I'd forgotten to pay attention to where I was going. On the word 'with', I ran straight into some girl with too-short sleeves and too-long blonde hair that reached down to her hips. Her shoulder bag slipped off, scattering colored pencils and lipsticks across the tile.

"Hey! Dang kids these days. Watch where-"

Oh.

A dark pair of glasses were perched on her nose. Her eyes stared out from behind them in a judgmental way

"Oh, um… Er, my apologies. That was truly my fault here. No, no, please allow me to get those for you. Again, I apologize. You're a nice young lady. Dang pencils, always rolling everywhere. Back in my day we kept things like this locked up in treasure chests and buried eight feet underground in the heart of a mountain. Underwater. That'll wear the rebelliousness out of 'em. Nothing like the old days."

"She didn't deserve it, which is only another reason you shouldn't stoop to groveling in the dust like a filthy slave. We don't even know her. She is nothing, when we are a king! We have a crown! We are meant to soar!"

I'm not sure exactly when we made the switch, only that by the time I'd gathered the last of the pencils into a heap, I was Mike again. I held them up to her, and she grabbed them with a grunted thanks and instructions to watch myself better next time. That stung. I knew it wasn't exactly my fault they'd spilled, but I still felt guilty that it had happened. And to a poor blind girl…

… I frowned as she walked away. She had colored pencils and paper in her purse. She wasn't blind. Had she knocked into us on purpose? Who does that?

"I believe she may have been hoping to start a conversation, and perhaps was checking out our butt as we crawled around, but when she heard Chester being his cranky self and realized what a whackjob you are, she did the intelligent thing and left you sitting in the dirt where you belong."

I watched the girl disappear into the bathrooms. It bothered me a little that she hadn't even given us a real chance. I had dust and grit and fuzz on my palms. They were really gross now. It would've been nice to get a real thank you. Maybe things could've been different if Chester hadn't gotten in the way. I'd never know.

"Aw, does it hurt to remember this body is only a rental? That you yourself have overstayed your welcome in Spencer's home?"

Mal had a point, as usual. I had no right to complain about how many people were in here. Little Tyke had been brought into existence by accident and gone out the same way. Darren was the reason we had Chester. But Spencer had made me to protect him. And I'd convinced him to make Vito and Svetlana to protect me.

"And he agreed, because he believed you were his friend. His backstabbing best friend. Honestly. At least I'm always upfront with the world about my plans. And you wonder why we don't like you."

Oh, shut-

"There you are!" Katie cried, pushing against the crowd to reach me. "We were like, so worried that we'd lost you! I was flipping out. This must be what it feels like to be my mom. Hey, what you sitting on the floor for? Come on," she said, grabbing my elbow without pausing for an answer. "Everyone will be waiting down by the luggage carousel. I like had to run back up the down escalator in heels and past people to get back; I must have looked like a squirrel gone nuts."

I shot a forlorn glance at the bathroom as Katie pulled me past. My fingers were disgustingly filthy around the strap of my backpack, but I didn't want to keep the others waiting any longer than necessary.

"Sorry you had to come looking for me."

"No sweat, Mike. That's like what good friends do, y'know?"

That just made me feel worse. If our roles were reversed then I don't think I would've gone back for Katie, because-

"-because you're so self-centered, you wouldn't have even noticed she was gone."

Yep.

But I was glad I had Katie at my arm to keep me on track. The Muskokan airport was way bigger than the one back home, and between that and me trying to keep a bored Svetlana in check, I most certainly would have gotten lost. It was so big, we even rode a little subway to get where we needed to go. I had no idea what was going on half the time, but Katie took it in stride with the ease of a girl who'd walked these halls three times before. Like a magnet, she honed in on Sadie, and I was greeted with another of her plump hugs and lectures on staying with the group and never wandering off again, lest I make her like keel over and die from worry.

"Come on," Eva groaned, dragging Sadie away by the back of her striped shirt. "If the bus leaves without us, I'm gonna lose it. I am not getting cheated out of another season."

Katie blew a raspberry at her and linked arms with Gwen. "Don't take it serious, Sades. She's just anxious to reunite with her wittle Noahcake again."

"Oh, I so know."

"Fine, fine, and maybe that's part of it too. And Iz and Cody and maybe even Homeschool, if that will make you move faster. We still gotta grab our bags and find Kevin. Knees up. Snappy feet. March. March. All forward."

It was in this fashion that we made our way through the airport to the baggage claim. We attracted some stray looks. I think a paparazzi cam spotted us too, but he snapped no more than three hasty shots before scuttling after some girl with pale blonde hair who was gathering all her sparkly, sequined bags into a heap bigger than she was. The stack looked like it was going to crush the poor kid beside her who… Wait.

Eva saw him at the same time I did. Instantly she'd brightened like a Christmas tree. She charged across the huge room, skidding on the tile and belting his name for the world to hear through earplugs. Noah jerked up with a look of absolute terror on his face. I'm pretty sure the paparazzi caught her strangling him with both arms. Sadie and Katie exchanged panicked glances and scampered after them, gasping about social phobias and mental breakdowns. The blonde girl backed out of there fast.

"If anyone asks," Gwen said, angling her path in the opposite direction, "we weren't here."

Mal made like he was tugging on the back of my shirt collar with just one finger. "Hey boss, you know what would be fun? Climbing onto the luggage carousel for a short spin."

I stopped walking.

That would be fun.

I edged my way through the crowd and placed one shoe on the outer wall of the conveyer. The carousel rumbled in a great loop, bearing a load of bags and cases like butlers toting dishes. Its thick metal plates slid around the corner. Folding under one another. Pinching, biting, slicing…

The longer I stared at them, the more frustrated I became with myself for even considering Mal's request. I grabbed my golden duffel when it finally came by (we hadn't left it after all) and set off past the other carousels, after Noah and the girls.

"Why are you so boring, turkeydip?" Mal demanded.

I hiked the bag's strap farther up my shoulder. Don't you have some gingerbread cookies to bake or something?

"Oh pooh, am I bothering His Majesty?"

You kinda are, yeah.

"So it bothers you when I talk to you like this? And this? How about now? I deepened my voice for that one. Did you notice? Aw, you did. I can tell it in the adorable way you roll your eyes. No, no, don't speak. I don't want to hear your panicked denials. You do care, sugarflute. I can feel the sparks. So, are we 'cool' now? That's the word you use, isn't it? I'm not still bothering you now, am I? Oh dear, I'd feel awful if I was."

I made sure he was finished before I said, You're real mature these days. Aren't petty taunts like those beneath you?

"My dearest Peppermint Patty, if you don't like my commentary, perhaps you should have considered the consequences before fusing me to the base of your stupid frontal lobe!"

The last part was full of so much energy that it came tumbling out of my own mouth. Katie glanced back, but I'm not sure if she heard the words, half-muffled as they were beneath my fingers.

I sighed. You know what, Mal? Yabber away. I much prefer it to back when you were running around as a loose cannon.

A sniff from him. "I'll be back in the driver's seat one of these days."

We reached the automatic doors. The warm air outside hit me in a blast, and Katie and Sadie rushed to the curb to greet some man in red they recognized.

I'm looking forward to your dramatic re-entry, I said. I'll throw you a party.

"Oh, is that all? I expected you would've thrown a javelin through my personality hard-drive and split us into another few hundred pieces."

I slapped myself in the cheek. "Shut up!"

Eva and Gwen scowled over their shoulders at me like twins.

"I'm already shut up, chickadee. In my own head, no less. Isn't that enough for you, Your Highness? Or do you mean to take me down the same way you took Spencer?"

This time I smacked my palm into my forehead, simultaneously trying to send a shockwave of bad thoughts through my brain. Mal snorted, tossed me an "I can tell when I'm not wanted", and set his chin in his hands.

… Is it wrong that after almost eleven years, I still don't feel bad about what happened to him? I just wanted to exist like a real person …

I'd been following Noah, Gwen, and Eva towards the first big bus in line, so I jumped a little when the red-shirted man peeled himself from Katie and Sadie's embrace and called, "Mike Dunn?"

"Yeah?"

The man, maybe in his late forties, sent the girls on (Oh yeah, and Noah too). But as he came over to me, he pointed to another bus parked behind the first. "That's your ride."

So, with a shrug, I altered my course and climbed on. It was a nice bus. It had a striped gray floor instead of carpet, but there were plenty of benches and even a sign saying Bathrooms in the back. There was probably a sink back there, and I could finally wash the grime from my hands.

But much to my surprise, the seats were dotted with other teens, all except one of them crowded in the rear. I didn't recognize any of them from Total Drama. I hesitated on the tall steps. Was I really supposed to be here?

"Oh, of course you aren't supposed to be here, toots. You were an accident. Mom never wanted you. Our own host – our own God – didn't even want you. He simply said, 'Let there be Mike', and there was Mike, and Spencer looked upon the Mike he had created and saw that it was good. How long was it before he decided he didn't want you anymore? A week? Three? With you being you, it wasn't a difficult decision for him to make, I'm certain. No one wants a friend who demands too much and doesn't like to share."

I put my forehead to the metal banister bar and sighed.

Like a loose hair or a spider, I could feel him patting the back of my neck. "You don't even belong inside your own head. Or is it Manitoba's head? It's so hard to keep track, sometimes, of all the people in here whose existences you try to deny. Oh, that's right- You never knew Smitty was dominant, did you? All these past six months, you thought this body could belong to you.

"Well, I've got news for you, mallowduck – it hasn't been yours for seven years, and it will never be yours again. Vito has his brawn. Svetlana has her athletics. Manitoba has survival instincts that you wouldn't believe, and you've only seen the aftereffects. You think you could take any one of them in a fight? Don't make me laugh; it makes the chains cut deeper into my wrists. Even Chester can tell you the most random details about any tiny country in the world, and was blessed with the ability to negotiate a knife away from his neck with just a few well-placed words. Take it from someone who knows. Compared to them, what purpose do you serve, especially now? What's your gift, Golden? What talents did Spencer give you that make you so special?"

He was actually waiting for my reply.

Nothing, I told him, both because it was what he wanted to hear and because it was true.

He chuckled. "Good boy. You were meant to be his meat shield. Nothing more. But don't sell yourself short, either. You made do without his influence. You're a perfect thief, remember? You let Lana perform her acrobatics before the crowds, and you steal the credit whenever you have the chance. You would be nothing if it weren't for us. We're a messed-up piece of work, aren't we, tootsiecakes? Perhaps you'll gather enough courage to ask Svet out one of these days, because you'll never find any girl who would want a broken boy like us. I hope you don't mind the eight-year age gap. I sincerely doubt you'll find a better option."

Chewing on my lip, placing both hands on my chest, fighting with every gram of strength to keep my tears pressed away, I backed down the steps, which prompted a grunt from the ginger-haired boy who'd been starting up after me. "Um… A-are you sure this is the right bus?"

The man in red took a scrap of paper from his pocket and unfolded it into a long list. "Mike Dunn, yes?"

"Yes."

"Here for Revenge of the Island, yes?"

"Yes."

"So that's your ride then, yes?" The paper went back to his pocket. "Make yourself comfortable, Mike Dunn. Once we kick into gear, it's another three hours to the Wawanakwa shore. First challenge starts immediately upon arrival."

Irresolute, I returned to the bus, trying very hard to keep a level head so Chester wouldn't be tempted to make our private thoughts known to the world. I lingered by the first empty seat in front as the red-haired boy squirmed through, but the girl across the aisle was blasting so much hairspray all over her head that I quickly realized why everyone else had grouped in the back, and went to join them.

Apparently Chris had plans for a big season this year. I counted nine other teens on the bus as I headed up the aisle (One was the paparazzi girl whom Eva had chased away - Ugh). First to the right, a buff guy (maybe a football player) was up on his knees in his seat. His hands were pressed against the windows as he snapped something over my head at a strawberry-blond boy – nope, girl – to my left, who had her hands flat on the glass too. It looked like they were competing over who could take the heat the longest, and the smug look on her face said she knew very well that her windows were the ones that had been out of the sun.

Sharing a seat with the football player was a girl in a shiny red ribbon and heavy pink parka despite the June humidity, and she was flirting with him incessantly despite his complete lack of-

Whoa, hang on here! I pulled up short. Parka Girl was one of the videos from Chris's e-mail. The one who wouldn't shut up about her fake ancestors and their supposed inventions during her audition tape, and that Chris had dubbed as "The Compulsive Liar".

… Seriously? The others had voted for her to be our final contestant over the girl who'd shot the flying squirrel?

"Blob of dough is easier to take down than woodland survivor," Mal pointed out.

I couldn't deny that. Unless she had some serious hidden skills, I didn't expect her to last long if she didn't get over her disorder, and fast. I wished her silent luck, but kept most of it for myself. Chester had seemed to like her, though, surprise of surprises. I could feel him pricking his ears even now.

Another girl sat behind Red Ribbon and Big Jock. Her arms were folded over the top of their seat, her hair was so pale that it was almost white, and she gave me the weirdest look as I approached. I kept moving, trying to pretend that I didn't notice the way she swiveled around to follow me with her enormous light blue eyes.

After Pastel Child, I came across a large dark kid fiddling with the lock on his window, but I didn't get the chance to look at him very long because the football player finally wound up his rant with a furious "Lightnin' is the windowburn sha-champion in every vehicle!", and I was out like a snuffed candle. If this was going to be a reoccurring thing, I'd have to learn to brace myself around him constantly.

I wheeled around, dropping our bags. "Vhich little baby here is ze reigning champion?"

"Lana, talk to me, babe." Mal's fuzzy green form made a 'call-me' sign and wiggled it above his head. "I'm going to hook you up with Mikey. If we work together, we can break his heart by sundown. Can I count on your support in this daring mission, sis?"

As per usual, I cracked my knuckles and ignored him.

"Pay attention to me!"

I front-handspringed myself into the lap of a pretty girl with a pink jacket. Although I don't think any of my busmates were quick enough to appreciate the flawless elegance of my display, Mal didn't have a choice. He exploded into gasps in the back of my head, one hand pressed against his slip of a chest.

"That's it. I'm disconnecting."

No he wouldn't. He cared too much.

The girl I'd landed on hardly even flinched. In the back of my mind (not in a literalish way), I heard her stutter something along the lines of, "Um, okay, ya, ow… Hello."

I swung my legs around until I was perched on my knees, clasping my hands. "So? Vhich championshipping are ve discussing here today? Svetlana could top at vhatever it is and look most fabulous doing it."

The boy (I figured he was Lightning) regarded me with startled eyes, as if I'd plummeted from the moon and through the roof of the bus, and stopped for a smoothie on the way. His palms slid from the window pane with a squeak. But then he blinked hard, swallowing whatever question he'd been meaning to ask like he didn't want to look dumb.

"Ha! Like to see you even attempt that! You'd have a real hard time up against the Lightnin' at anythin', flippy… girl."

Pink Parka tapped on my wrist. "Ya, my great great, great, great grandfather Maximus, ya, he was from England - a real gentleman and invented politeness, that was him. Before he came around with his ideas for social reforms, people had a tendency to barge into the conversations of others, ya, and like catapult into the laps of people who weren't ready to catch them and it was always really awkward and inconvenient. Ya."

Mal and I both decided that something was wrong with her head, so I ignored her. "Is zhat ze being-so? Vell, zhen let us play zhis child's game. Knock up Svetlana vith your finest hour now."

"… Um." Lightning slid one hand back to rub behind his skull, sucking in his teeth. He cast an unreadable glance at Pink Parka. She lifted her shoulders and pointed up two thumbs. "Sure, we'll get on that. But later."

"Now I'm really disconnecting."

"Windows," Lightning remembered then. He dragged his eyes from me back to the glass. "Yeah, me and Jo over there were ducking it out to see who could touch the hot windows. The Lightnin' held out the longest. He's the best at playing Window-Burn, sha-yeah!"

He seemed to realize how pathetic it sounded before he made it even halfway through. He looked past me at Jo in an expectant way. But Jo had gotten distracted by a redheaded boy covered in freckles from head to toe who had chosen to sit next to her despite the plentiful seating elsewhere. He was whittling a block of wood with the heel of his shoe, and the shredded curls flying into her mouth and eyes were probably the only things keeping him alive.

"Bah! Svetlana could beat you vith eyes being gouged out vith melon baller!" I leaned past him and slammed my palms to the window. It really was hot in the near-noon sunlight, but I made myself believe it was Russian snow. "Zhis is not real sport, and if ve vere togezher on ze gymnastics court, I vould be dashing you flat zhere too."

"You know, my great, great, great uncle Vernon invented competitions, ya. Specifically racquetball, which is why I'm the world champ at it. Ya, I took home the gold medal when I competed in Taiwan last year - I speak fluent Cantonese."

That snapped my attention. Not one, but two champions playing on the field with me? Perhaps this summer wouldn't be boring after all. "Vere you? Ze gold?" I felt remorse for judging her mental capabilities if that was what the case was here.

Pink Parka smiled. "Ya, without even trying. I come from a really gifted genetic pool. Like my great, great grandmother Tiffany, ya, she's sisters with the Archduke of Rio de Janeiro, who invented crowns. I'm the product of a lot of different royal bloodlines and I don't understand why you haven't fallen to your knees to worship me, honestly."

"Pssh. Nah, girl, I thought it was your brother you said invented crowns."

"Ya, no. That's a common misconception."

Lightning seemed bothered by that, but instead of saying anything, he reached down to unzip his suitcase.

"Vell, Svetlana vill definitely have to be taking you on. She has not had much of ze experience vith ze racqueting, but she vould defeat you at it too, for she vill become ze best at it quickly!"

"Oh, so you're a girl then, ya? My fourth cousin three times removed, Ellen, invented girls. There used to not be people on the Earth before then. Sad, huh? Hey, if we're on the same team, I guess that means we'll get to share the same cabin, ya. You know, if you're really a girl. I'm Staci. I'm named after my great, great, great aunt Staci, who invented backflips. Ya."

… What's the phrase in English for when you realize you've just royally screwed yourself over? We were going to be in trouble when one of the boys came back, weren't we?

"Aw, what happened, Lanie? I look away for a quarter of a blink and you've put us all at risk. Not that that's unusual. Next stop, the asylum. That would be the trap for those with mental boo-boos that aren't ever going to be fixed, if my vocabulary was too much for your side of the brain. I do love the way we look in white - brings out the dark glimmer in our eyes, don't you think so?"

And Sydney wonders why I don't talk to him.

"Ah, vhat Svetlana vas meaning about ze being a girl zhing-"

"Of course you're a girl," fumbled Lightning. "You're plain gorgeous. Lightnin' knew it the whole time."

There went my escape route. I looked towards Parka for support, pinching my upper lip between my teeth.

"Ya, I don't think you're a girl." She gripped her breasts. "My great, great, great, great grandmother Shannon invented boobs, and you don't have any, ya."

Okay, now that was just blowing low and kicking down at people.

"Vhat? No, Svetlana is best at having ze boobs too!" I grabbed the hem of my shirt and yanked it up to my neck. "You're seeing?"

"I really should have predicted that one," Mal mused as I came to my senses, my shirt hanging around my armpits like some weird scarf. I blinked once, then again as he finished with, "But, somehow, she still caught me off guard. That's women for you."

We'd moved from the plane and out to a stalled bus. Fair enough, sure. I found myself kneeling on the lap of a girl dressed in pink and purple, but her clothing left everything to the imagination, and her baby cheeks made me quite sure that even if it didn't, she still wouldn't be hot. Okay. Why not?

She was staring at me in simple bewilderment, her hands braced against her thighs. Beside her sat a big black guy, hunched partway over. Jaw slack like his worst nightmare had just been confirmed. He had a basketball.

I ran my fingers over my hair and groaned. "Ayo, pansies, do I even wanna know what got me inta this spot here?"

The girl wearing pink grinned in a triumphant, smirky way as she rubbed the hair behind her red ribbon. "Ya, I told you you didn't have boobs. Round to Staci. My great, great, great grandfather, ya, his brother Winston invented circles. Before him, everything was square."

… So no, I really didn't want to know. I climbed from her lap, running my hands down my abs and wishing for a slap to the face on Mike's behalf. He'd never told me he needed contacts. Geez. I got that we were a sexy beast and all, and I got that he and Svet and Manny all had their turn-ons and I had mine, but one of these days I really needed to sit them down and give them all a stern talking-to about the type of girl I would settle with. If we were going to share, we'd better be sharing flippin' Ariel, not Ursula.

"I thought you denied ever watching 'The Little Mermaid'."

Says the snot who picked up the ref, I retorted, turning my back on Mike's now-ex-crush. Tucking my hands behind my neck, I glanced up and down the bus.

"… I like the 'Part of Your World' song."

Honestly, Mal just turned into such a flustered little Barbie doll at times, and I'd spent many an hour wondering why we'd ever been afraid of him. I mean, Mal was the kind of guy who, if he ever had kids, would raise them to be terrified of bugs just so he could tease 'em with centipedes and look like Captain Amazing when he heroically rescued his spawn from the scuttling beasts, and as far as I knew that was about the peak of his villainous ways. He was a panda bear; a creature that should be a ferocious predator, but had somehow gotten shafted by God during the evolution process and left to live as a pathetic leaf-muncher so roasted in the brain that it almost didn't know how to breed.

"Excuse you."

But then again, maybe I was getting cocky just knowing he was now stuck behind a one-way mirror in otherwise solitary confinement. You know, like how you might hurl rocks at a fence that divides you from a yapping pitbull, even though you'd bolt the instant it tore loose. Well. At least it would take a pretty solid smacking upside the head to shatter that theoretical fishtank we'd left him in.

"Yo." I cut off Pink in the middle of her rambling and tossed her a salute. "Better get some ice on that burn fast or exposure to the hotness here is gonna leave ya crisped. Peace out."

"She was totally a girl," protested Muscleman as I looked up and down the bus. "And Lightnin' knows a girl's voice when he hears it. He left seven sisters back home."

"My great-great-great-great-great aunt Lucille, ya, she invented sisters. Before her, there were never any girls in the world, ya, and people grew from watermelons. It made gardening a little awkward."

"… But you just said 'she' invented girls, snowcoat girl."

He said it like that was her biggest problem.

While Little Miss Parka scrambled for a cover-up, I continued to size up the other passengers on the bus. There was a pasty one with a forest green sweater and cream-cheese-colored hair that was kinda sexy, for a pale slip of a thing, but it was the girl heading for the bus's rear that made me stiffen up.

Yo Malevolent. Flippin' Ariel is on this bus.

Like molasses, he dragged his thoughts away from 'Up where they walk, up where they run'. "You're kidding."

Straight up, M. I blinked hard to get his attention and then looked directly at the girl I meant, just before she ducked into the rear bathroom. Her hair was red. I mean red. I hadn't compared her to Ariel without reason.

"In that case, she's my sworn enemy. Because in my previous life I was Ursula and no one is going to convince me otherwise."

… I honestly couldn't tell if that was sarcasm. To make matters worse, he began to whistle 'Poor Unfortunate Souls'. You ever get a song stuck in your head? Try having one rattling around in there that still won't cut out even when you've long moved on to other things.

Ariel was occupied, and so pasty white anyway that I wasn't convinced she was still alive. No way would I ever date a walking corpse. There had to be better options even in a dump like this.

Options… Options…

Huh. As I slicked back my hair again and headed in the direction of some bubblegum blonde chick with a nice waist and chest and even nicer legs (Hey, why not?), Mal broke off his song long enough to muse, "We need to watch that one again when we get home."

I wasn't so sure. I enjoyed movie night as much as any of us, but sometimes I swear I'm the only one who's noticed that Sydney rewinds and watches those things as many as five times in a single night to make sure we all get our turn. I didn't like Sydney, but I also didn't like bullying a little old lady into doing things that weren't even going to keep me entertained. Plus, I mean, Little Mermaid; come on now, guys. Grow up.

So I threw myself into the seat in front of Blondie and leaned over the back. "S'up, babe." I pointed to her shoes. "You're not wearin' any glass slippers, but you can still be my Cinderella 'til midnight."

"I don't get it."

Sure you don't, lugnut.

"Uh, can you like, not right now?" She lifted her phone to her ear and held one finger out to me. "Kinda trying to call my backup paparazzi here. Can you believe the helicopter hasn't landed yet? Rude."

"Pizzaria?" I asked, even though that probably wasn't what she'd said.

"Shush," she said, and into her phone said, "Uh, hello? What the hey happened to you guys?"

Well, this sucked like apples. I was playing the world's saddest violin to a chunk of pink plastic. I didn't have all day- if the fish weren't biting, I'd simply cast my line somewhere else. Turning in my seat, I raised my voice so it would cut through the awkward din, and thrust my fist in the air. "Ayo, is this a party here or what? Who's down for gettin' down with Vito tonight?"

A lone tan girl at the very front of the bus turned around. She was quite the looker, too, with hair so fuzzy black it was practically purple. Abandoning Bubblegum Blondie, I leaned away from the seat.

But, like a blockhead, I'd forgotten to remove the shirt completely. It was still rolled loosely around my chest, and when I pulled back, that knocked it back down to normal. I gasped and…

… We sort of floated for a few seconds, actually. Manitoba was default now, and since my shirt had only flung me back indoors rather than triggered anyone out, he had dibs on popping out Topside should he so desire. Which, since he preferred to spend his time trying to keep himself from fading from reality after that stupid stunt he'd pulled to even get the crown in the first place, he usually didn't. I can't believe he dragged me into that.

I was on my ledge, just able to make out his faint orange flicker way down there in the dark… beating in heaves… He was cross-legged, moving his finger along the ground as he wrote his name over and over in the dust. Just willing himself to exist. His crown rested atop his fedora- the only part of him that stayed solid. From the looks of it, the anxiety attacks were setting in again. Tough luck. There was a reason I'd never challenged him to play alpha wolf- I'd served my time when the meat suit was seven. Treated like a kid the whole time, what a nightmare. Came for the girls, stayed trapped in the panic and depression. Not a good look for Vito. Maybe next time we rebooted. I didn't mind sleeping down in the cave, but we were sixteen now, and I did have guns and abs…

… Oh, he finally freakin' looked up. Geez louise, it's a good thing we weren't, I don't know, underwater drowning or something. And once he realized we were all waiting for him, Manitoba made his usual "I'll pop back in five minutes, mate," comment and surrendered command to Mike. We went black.

I woke up lying sprawled on my back across one of the scratchy, stuffing-bleeding brown bus seats, my head against the hot window pane. I wasn't sure why. Not like that was unusual. There was an ache behind my skull - I figured from the impact.

"What time is it?" I muttered, flicking a spike in my hair. It was drooping stubbornly down in front of my face, so I could tell who had been messing around Topside even before Mal confirmed it for me.

"Vito was out."

He get us slapped by anyone? I swear, if we lose another tooth…

"He gave it a fair attempt."

I sat up to the feel of a slight pop in my shoulder. Glancing over the back of the seat, I saw the blonde paparazzi girl from the airport with one foot pulled into her lap, her phone to her ear. Her eyes flickered up to give me a distracted glance, then went back down again. Into the phone she said, "No, outside. Outside, like on the bus! The second bus. Oh, here. I'll meet you on the sidewalk. Give me a minute."

I rubbed my eyes with thumb and forefinger. The girl with the really pale hair and the scary blue eyes was turned around, watching me from a few rows up, unblinking. I didn't like that, so I figured I ought to move towards the front of the bus and put my back to her. Yeah, it wasn't the best avoidance plan I could have managed, but hey. I was in a groggy state of mind, and I never claimed to be the smart personality.

The tan girl at the very front of the bus was still spraying her hair. She'd caught a green-shirted boy in the cloud. He reeled backwards, eyes rolling as he coughed. Maybe I'd stay out of that, then. The strawberry-blonde girl had put her back to the window, her head tilted slightly back as she squinted through the glass. She was covered in wood shavings. A smidge of blood scarred the place between her upper lip and her nose. I decided that I wouldn't sit by her either.

I think the freckled ginger boy just ahead of her was unconscious, and a girl with bright red hair was trying to revive him. That other girl I'd seen, the compulsive liar with the pink jacket and the red ribbon in her hair, had come over to watch, standing in the aisle with her hands clasped behind her back. She was saying something, but knowing what I knew about her, I doubted she was being particularly helpful.

So that meant I had the option to talk with the football player (I think he'd said his name was Lightning?) He'd given up on the window game, leaving me to wonder who'd come out victorious. I found my backpack in some random seat where Vito must have tossed it. Slinging it over my shoulder, I headed in his direction.

"Aw, really?" Mal complained. "He's all brawn and literally no brain. He's so empty-headed, I doubt I could even manipulate him into pushing a car down the cliff and into the lake. He reminds me of an old flame I had back in juvie. If I were to murder anyone on this bus, he'd be the first one I'd move on, since everyone else would assume he'd gotten himself killed through his own stupidity."

I shoved a yawn away with a slow wrist. Even better then, if I managed to befriend someone Mal couldn't stand. No you wouldn't. He's buff as an ox, and you're a coward when it comes to facing anyone head-on.

"Undeniable, but I'm working on it. You've seen my work. You've helped me work."

What, and now it's my doing? … Besides that, why would you want to kill someone on international TV? You'd just turn the whole world against us - You don't have anything to gain by it.

He thought about that. "Unless I was shutting them up because they were really grinding on my nerves. And if he was grinding on everyone's nerves-"

Please don't kill the football guy. I want him to be my friend.

"Ah- brilliant idea! For once, I agree with your decision. Surely we can use his brawn and lack of brains to our advantage. Let's act like you're befriending him, then find his weak point and use it when the time is right. I want to get us to the finals."

I slowed my pace. The fingers on my free hand crept upwards to rub my shoulder. Making allies was a good plan, and Mal was the clever one, but…

I don't know. That seems kind of mean.

"Swallow the pill. This is a reality show, tootsie. We came out here to lug that cash back home to Mom. Well, that was my plan. Apparently you just wanted to do what you do best and steal the limelight."

Well, yeah, but… I watched as Red Ribbon took the spot in front of Football Player, hooking her arms over the back of the seat as she informed him, serious-faced, about how her direct ancestors had been the ones to figure out how to tell the difference between someone who was dead and someone who was just unconscious. I don't want to play the game like Alejandro did. I really want to win, but I really also don't want to go home hated.

Mal probably grabbed two fistfuls of his hair and shook his head at the ceiling, because that's what I would've done in his position. "Mike, you've never seen this joker prior to today. He could live on the other side of Canada. Do you seriously think he'd make an effort to see you again when we all go home?"

What if Chris brings us back for another season and he hates me? I argued back.

"Here's an idea- After we use and dump him, just tell the guy that one of your alternate personalities stabbed him in the back, and you had no choice in the matter."

For a few long seconds I just stood in the aisle, tapping my chin. If this worked out and he believed me… We could get our money, and I could still keep my friend.

That is a cruel, cruel thing to do, Mal.

"Then why are you smiling, Golden Boy?"

Because it's always nice when everyone can win. It happens so rarely.

I walked over as the guy wadded up a ball of paper Red Ribbon had given him. Standing, he sent it sailing through the bus. It bounced off the windshield, rolled across the dashboard, hit the side of the little trash can below, hit the other side of the trash can, and then bounced in. Red Ribbon clapped, and I adjusted the strap of my backpack and stretched out my hand.

"Hey. Nice moves. You play a lot of basketball?"

He looked at me in surprise. "Uh. Uh, yeah. Lightnin's the sha-basketball champ back home, and everywhere."

"That's cool. You'll have to show me some tricks sometime - normally I'm such a klutz on the field, at least when I'm doing that or American football - I rule at normal football though - but when it comes to gymnastics I…" I trailed off, because I really didn't like the way both he and Red Ribbon were looking at me. They exchanged glances, and she said, "Ya, my second cousin once removed, he invented cuckoo-clocks. Cuckoo."

Well. That was hurtful. I wracked my brain as I took a step away, but I wasn't sure what I'd said wrong. Was I really that awkward?

"Uh, yeah." Lightning slapped me just behind the shoulder. "No worries, bendy girl. Lightnin'll train you so right hard, you won't even know the shape of the letter L, and you'll always come in second place right after him. And, uh… Y'know, maybe after you get your, y'know, cooties removed, you and I will have to spend some time behind the bleachers, or…"

My stomach hit the floor. "I'm a… guy. I-I'm just a child method actor in training who-"

"You shouldn't lie, Svet," Staci said, completely monotone despite her grin.

Mal erupted into laughter as I screamed at him, Why didn't you TELL me they talked to Lana?

"It didn't seem important?"

"Uh, okay, but really, I'm a guy. I have a sort of acting gift kind of-"

Lightning patted my hair in a gentle way. "Listen girl, you don't have to use that fake voice around the Lightnin'. We all know you're a girl. Bros don't hit on bros."

… What.

I could not even.

I think I might have… tilted my head a little… and just… set my teeth and squinted my eyes and shook my head as I carefully withdrew a few safe steps. Now I really needed to wash my hands. Lightning made a 'call-me' sign, then picked up his basketball, rolled it over his shoulders, and twirled it on one finger. Staci watched this for about two seconds before she swatted it to the floor. It bounced. He dove after it, almost steamrolling the girl with dyed red hair, who sprang straight onto the back of the seat just in time and perched there like a cat. The green-shirted guy who had finally regained his breath wasn't nearly as lucky. I heard him cry out as they both tumbled out of the bus and into the road.

"Heh heh, hooo… Worth it. All that set-up, so worth it. Okay, Golden Boy. If you're going to be such a crybaby about this, why don't we bring the blonde girl into our alliance instead? I like the look of her, and between her, Vito, and Svetlana, we might stand a chance at out-brawning him in an athletics event."

Agreed. Abandoning Lightning like a ball kicked over the neighbor's fence, I turned to the strawberry-blonde girl across the aisle. "Um, hey. My name's-"

"Beat it, poindexter." She didn't even open her eyes. "I'll tie you in a monkey knot."

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I cringed away. She reminded me of Eva, only without the music to give me clues on her state of mind.

"Strong feet! Man up to her, Golden Boy. We need her as an ally, not our enemy. If I can take those blows from Kurt, not to mention countless of Mother's sweet and kindly boyfriends, you can do this little thing for me."

I hated when he played that card.

"Mike," I croaked. It came out more like 'Mick'.

She cocked one fist. "Was there a syllable of 'beat it' I stuttered over?"

Mal complained about my cowardice, but I valued my manhood enough to ignore him. With a sigh, I ducked away. Okay, so I flopped that. We've all had our turns now. Is there anyone on this bus we haven't met yet, or did the others manage to burn all our bridges? Anyone at all you'd like me to relay a message to?

He mulled over that as I swiveled slowly around, running my eyes over every face on the bus. Finally, he shifted a little like he was trying to point a finger. "Fine. Maybe I'm biased, but I want to speak to the shivering thirteen-year-old there. What's his damage?"

There was a little black kid curled on his side in one of the seats, the hood of his red sweatshirt pulled over his head so that not much of his face showed besides his enormous glasses. He stared silently at the bottle of Germ-X in his hand as I walked over to him, tried to put on a smile that didn't look too forced, and sat down.

"Hey there. I'm Mike Dunn. Mike's my first name, I mean. Who are you?"

The boy sniffled. Propping himself up on one arm, he pulled back his hood to reveal a short cropping of dark hair. "Sorry. I'm Cameron Wilkins."

At least he acted like he'd avoided the others' notice.

"I don't see anything to be sorry about. First time away from home, huh? Same here. Can I get you anything? I smuggled a tupperware of mint brownies in my backpack, if you want one. Um, I know it's around here somewhere."

"Oh, you are such an adorable goody-two-shoed little golden-"

"I'm okay, thank you for your concern. I just have this medical condition."

Right then and there, my heart broke. Though he would never, ever admit it, privately I think even Mal felt a stab of pity in his twisted soul, because he let the sentence hang unfinished between us, and that pretty much never happened.

"Aw man, really?" I repositioned myself so that I was facing Cameron head-on. "I feel you. That's rough."

"Don't touch me!" One arm flew up to cover his face. I withdrew the hand I'd been bringing towards his back, and he lowered his, eyes screwed shut behind his glasses. "Sorry, just … please don't touch me right now. Sorry. Sorry, I just…" He sat up then, but pulled his legs up to his chest as he did. "I'm still adjusting to being outside my bubble."

"Um… Your bubble?"

He nodded almost imperceptibly, chin resting on one knee. "I grew up suffering from a mild but still very life-threatening subset of x-linked severe combined immunodeficiency disorder until just two years ago when I received my Artemis transplant right as I hit puberty. Let's just say I have really overprotective lymphocytes now, and a gift for killing bacteria. And not only the bad ones. I constantly have to take supplement medication to fix that. My immune system is still really weak and I don't do very well in new places. Makes me question sometimes why I believed I was up for this. I was just so… trapped, so ready to get out there and really see the world."

As he spoke, Cameron pulled a packet of baby wipes from the pocket of his hoody and began rubbing down his ankles. I started to itch for something to clean my hands with too, and thankfully he offered one to me when he saw me watching. "I've never even been to actual summer camp before. Or on an airplane before. Or outside my house farther from the grocery store before."

"This is too easy." Mal actually sounded bored, and if we'd given him a chair when we'd chained him up, he'd probably be leaning back on its legs. "Not even worth my time. You mark my words, baby Rapunzel will be the first one to go."

Cameron sighed. "I just hope I brought enough vitamin tablets to last me through July. If I can get through this whole show without contracting hepatitis, rabies, human immunodeficiency virus, or varicella, then I'll consider this summer a success."

"Varicella, huh?" I snapped my fingers, still scrubbing at my wrist with the wipe. An ache started to spark in the back of my forehead. "That one sounds really familiar, but you might have to jog my memory on what that is. I think I've gotten a lot of shots for that over the years, although I don't think I ever caught it. I almost never got sick as a kid."

"Hm. Interesting. I guess you had a lucky escape, then. Anyway, varicella is probably better known by its colloquial name of chicken pox."

I think Mal and I both lifted our eyebrows at that.

"Did that just happen? That didn't just happen. It's much too convenient." Mal practically grabbed me by the synapses and shook me black and blue. "Mike, he actually called chicken pox by its actual scientific name to a fellow teenager without even thinking about it."

Yes, Mal, I heard. They're my ears.

"No, you haven't processed what this means to me. This kid is a socially-inept supergenius who just confessed to being completely dependent on whomever can convince him they're his friend. And he just fell into my lap. I want him. Between his brains, Svetlana's athletic ability, Vito's brawn, Manitoba's survival, Chester's sweet-talking tongue, your sickening kindness, and my overarching guidance, we have the makings of a beautiful plan to the finish line spelled out here, even without the athletes on our side."

We exchanged a mental high-five. We are golden. That million dollars was as good as ours. Private plane, here we come.

"I will pretend you didn't just make that awful pun and simply point out that we work quite well together when we're getting along, toots."

Don't push it, Mallory.

"Mike?" Cameron flapped one sleeve in front of my face. "You went zero on me. If you hadn't remained sitting up and respiring at a steady rate, I'd consider questioning whether or not you were dead."

I shook my head and switched the wipe to my other hand. "No, I'm fine. I just have this … tendency to get spaced out a lot. Were you saying something to me?"

"I just inquired if your offer for mint brownies was still out on the metaphorical table, and if so then whether or not I could take you up on that now." Cameron leaned forward on his hands and knees. "Do you know by chance if they contain anacardium occidentale within them? That's how my mom always makes them. Oh. That's cashews."

Why, small child? Just why.

"Perfect." Mal went back to rubbing his imaginary hands. "While you win over Fawful here with your sappy friendship thing, I'll tell the other… Mike? Mike? No, sit your little behind back in that chair! You can't just walk away from him! We didn't ask him to join our alliance yet! And… you're… not Mike I hate my life."

It had easily been five minutes, and I was getting curious because I could sense that we were meeting a lot of new people, and I wanted to know who they were and what they weren't telling us. I figured that I wore the crown, I was dominant, and I deserved to spring up and take a peek every once in awhile. Wouldn't you?

We were in another bus. I hated buses, but I also didn't like the idea of jumping off the bus and getting run down. You never can tell when those things will bolt. They don't give you the same body language a wolf or viper would; they don't play fair. If it came down to choosing, I'd prefer staring at lousy seats than headlights and wheels. I'd have my chance to explore when we made it to the island.

As I glanced around, trying to ignore the fire on my left side and wishing for the comfort of my lasso and hat, I spotted a pretty face a few rows further ahead. She was a sugary-white little fairy, with one elbow propped against the seat in front of her and her fist curled against her cheek. She was waiting for me with a smile in her bright blue eyes. So I tipped my imaginary fedora and put one leg up on her bench.

"G'day, sheila. Crikey- someone went and wedged diamonds in your eye sockets. Allow me to get them for ya." I reached for her face (She didn't even flinch- What the hey?) and then drew back my hand when my fingertips brushed her lashes. "Ah, my mistake! Those diamonds are your eyes."

I waited for a blush or amused blink that didn't come. She just kept that same tiny smile, that same pose. "Good day to you too, friend. May we exchange words?"

"Certainly welcome to, I got no argument with that. Can I call ya Diamond in the Rough, beauty?"

"Hm? Oh. I'm Dawn. You're welcome to call me whatever you wish. I'll answer." She folded her arms. "I must admit, you confuse me. I have never seen quite so conflicting an aura as the look of yours. Not only did your glow skip three levels down to the astral plane, signifying a split-second shift from your desperation for self-love to a burning desire to protect your family, but your colors flared up especially orange and yellow as you left Cameron behind. And the most interesting thing is…" She made a swirly motion around my face. "Even though your thickest color layer keeps shifting, you never lose that strange patch of forest green between your ears. Green often represents balance and appreciation for nature and change, as well as feelings of resentment, childishness, and beliefs that you are the victim of some cosmic game. It comes as a startling contrast to the guilt-laden, adventurous orange spirit surrounding most of the rest of your person right now."

How many buttons had she just slammed in the course of ten heartbeats? She'd called me out on my guilt trigger. She'd nailed my huge weakness of needing to protect my family, and flat-out told it to the Malevolent One, which certainly wasn't good. Her deliberate words had even stunned him into uncertain silence. I could sense him flushing back up to emerald, feeling exposed and confused and suddenly a lot less secure behind his tower walls.

I understood that. He was used to snarking at us and prodding at our sensitive spots because we couldn't do a thing about it. But now somebody outside our body had picked up on his presence without me even dropping a hint, and prodded his sensitive spots, and he was wondering if she might know other things that she hadn't told us. Like maybe how to reopen the chamber where we'd sealed the last of Spencer's fragile pieces, and tell us how we could blot our green part out from existence permanently. Speaking of which, she could see our colors? Mal and I tried to exchange glances with one of us trapped inside the other's head. "Pardon?"

"I read auras. And yours swirls and fades and changes like a rolling river rather than lying still as a lake. Do you perchance suffer from dissociative identity disorder? I was under the impression that anyone with an alleged condition such as yours could not be any more real than, say, Santa Claus."

"… Santa Claus isn't real?"

I was taken aback too, but for a different reason. "Crikey. You're a witch."

She stared into my forehead, her little smile growing a little wider as if she could hear Mal's mental breakdown from where she sat. "Hm? If that's the way you'd like to put it, yes."

"Ugh." Mal slammed back his head. "Three Christmases in a row, you told me that Santa only brought gifts to the good children and always made me give up control to Mike – despite the fact that Christmas Eve is my birthday, my little trigger – so that we could fool him into bringing us presents. And I did it knowing full well I wouldn't be let out for another several weeks or so. Because I wanted those presents. And you're saying we would have gotten them through Mother anyway. You are the worst person ever."

I didn't know what to do. On the one hand, I'd been right all these years and witchcraft was a thing. On the same hand, she's an actual witch, what the heck, get out of there Manny before she lays a curse on you! I loved exploring ruins and tracking down ancient treasures as much as the next adventurer, but I didn't do spectral things like ghosts or curses. My whole left side was already in phantom flames, thanks.

"I… gotta go," I said, drawing back my leg.

"Hm? Oh." She fluttered her fingers, still not taking her fist from her cheek. "We'll meet again soon, Aura Orange."

I didn't have a hat to invest my identity in and knock off my head, and we all try not to trigger Vito if we can avoid it, even in situations like these. I did the most obvious thing: locked myself in the bus washroom where her nasty spells couldn't touch me, I hoped. I turned on the water and plunged my hands in the sink.

"C'mon, Mikey. C'mon now. Wake up. Please wake up."

I felt him stir. He tasted tired. A little sore. No surprise there, after how I'd flipped him over my shoulder and back into my subconscious like that, though it's his own fault if he was too oblivious to notice I was fighting to overpower him during his conversation with the sick squirrel child.

Ignoring Mal's dull comments on how I was a coward and whether or not I considered him part of my family, I mentally pried open Mike's imaginary hand and handed him the controls. Through his yawn, he perked up like he'd just noticed where we were. I gasped and…

… I was standing in a bathroom (the one at the back of the bus, I assumed). I still had my backpack looped over one shoulder, so it definitely hadn't been Chester out, and maybe I hadn't been gone long. The last thing I remembered was thinking how nice it would be to give Cameron a brownie and how if I played my cards right, I'd come home a millionaire.

I wasn't sure who I took over from, or what they'd been doing while I was gone. At the moment, I almost didn't care at all. I was in my element, at the sink. Taking care of us in that way only I could. Cleaning us up. Rubbing us down. Keeping us safe. All my aches. All my fears. Washing away down the drain. I could have stayed there forever, and tried to.

But someone rattled the doorknob. I glanced at it, then at the water again.

It felt so good to be clean, to know that this was Mike's time to just breathe and relax in actual fresh air, and none of the others were strong enough to overpower my little trigger so long as I just kept right here…

… but it would be rude to hog the bathroom if someone else was in need of it. No good boy would do that.

"Sorry, be out in a sec," I called back. I checked for a hand towel, but found none. Shaking water from my fingers, I unlocked the door.

I found a girl standing out there, in light conversation with the freckle-faced ginger boy. That red-haired girl who'd been trying to revive him, so I guess she'd succeeded. Apparently she reminded Mal of Princess Ariel from Disney's "The Little Mermaid", because when we saw her he started to whistle "Kiss The Girl" in a sarcastic way. It was the boy who wanted to come in. The girl held a zebra-print notebook in her arms, a blue pen cap between her lips. The pen itself was tucked behind her ear as her fingers flicked through pages of scribbled words and doodles of various flowers and animals. The boy's name was Scott; she thanked him for something as he squeezed past me.

She sounded pretty, with a voice like a stream or clean waterfall running over stones and between my fingers. She looked pretty, with short pigtails and hair brighter red than even mine. I never had been a particular fan of either of those - dyed hair or the color red - but the girl found a way they worked somehow that was actually really impressive. Her distracted attention was on the ginger boy as he shut the bathroom door rather than on me.

So I made a split-second decision and jerked up my elbow so it knocked the notebook from her hands. "Aw, shoot," I sighed as it went flying past her shoulder. A few loose pages fluttered off in all directions. "I'm sorry- I'm so absolutely clumsy, sometimes you'd think that's my primary gift in life. Here, let me get those for you."

Mal broke off his whistling.

Scooting past her close enough our hips brushed, I bent down and started scraping the papers back into her book. "Hey, you have really pretty handwriting. What is this stuff anyway?"

"Oh, it's… it's not anything much, really." A finger picked at the black choker around her pale, pretty neck. "I, u-um, was just scrambling to take notes on some of the other contestants here. Chris really caught me off guard by bringing along an entire busload of new faces, and I-I'm really not the best with names at all."

"Haha, me neither," I said, though my reason was most likely completely different from hers. Succeeding in tucking the pages back into her notebook, I sat back on my heels and held them up to her. "There you go! I fixed it for you."

Her eyes were light brown, with maybe a hint Asian around the edges. She smiled as she took it back from me. "Thanks a lot; that was very kind of you. I'm glad it's wired in your personality to be a sweetheart."

Ding, ding, and ding. Yep, she'd snagged me. Two seconds flat and I was so far gone. Mal could have catapulted me into subspace and seized control and I don't think I would've noticed.

"… That doesn't bother you?"

"My name's Z-Z-Zoey," she went on, and glanced down at her notes. "Zoey White. You must be one of the other, um, new contestants that was invited onto this season. L-looks like there are a lot of us, huh? Anyway, I'd like to get to know everyone's names and one fun fact about them before things get too c-chaotic on the island. Knowing Chris, that'll be first thing, right? Who are you?"

"Huh? Oh- oh! Name, right, sorry." Like a moron, I held up my hand for her to shake, not even standing. Who does that? "I'm Mike Dunn. That's D-U-N-N. It's Irish in origin. Came from a nickname meaning 'one with brown skin or hair'. Uh, not that I'm really Irish, exactly. Well, I guess I am. I had an Irish great-grandfather. Or he thought he was from Ireland, sometimes. It's also the name of an actor from the seventies who lived in the U.S.- Michael Dunn. I really want to be an actor too, so I've always thought that was funny. But I'm not him, which you can probably tell since I'm like 5'9" and he had dwarfism. Also he's dead. I was, um, born in September, about two weeks after his death date, so as you can see I can't possibly be him."

Oh my gosh, you're playing it too heavy. She's starting to look overwhelmed. Don't screw this up, don't screw this up. Especially after Lightning, you really need allies for this game, not to mention that she is super cute. Come on, you can do this. She's just an ordinary teenage girl- not a teacher or a cop or anyone like that. What is wrong with you? Just shut up, you idiot.

"I… didn't say anything."

"You want to be an actor?" Zoey asked, looking up (or down) at me before my mental ramblings could get too far.

"Yeah, that's the plan. I've been working at it for years. I do, um…"

Think fast.

"Erotics."

"Comedy routines, mostly."

"That's awesome. You'll totally have to show me s-sometime."

"Heh, yeah, sure thing," I said as my fingernails sunk into the folds of my pants. I pushed myself up to full height again, which made Zoey tilt back her head a bit. A tiny smile broke across her face.

"I know," I said, pretending to hang my neck in shame. "I'm a total giraffe."

"Boo! Boo! Bad joke!"

"I even have a giraffe notebook here in my backpack, actually." And a stuffed one in my duffel, but I wasn't about to tell her that. Unzipping the pack, I yanked my book out so she could see. "Kinda matches with your zebra, right?"

"Sure does. Funny how the world works out sometimes, don't you think so?"

"Right?"

There was a pause.

"Do you d-d-draw?" she asked, at the same time I said, "Uh, hey. Mind if we sit down? I walked around that airport for so long- I get so terribly lost sometimes, it's so ridiculous." We both fumbled for a minute there, and then Zoey found an empty seat, and I sat across the aisle from her, right behind the big kid with the red cap who I'd seen examining his window. He'd… taken the whole thing apart, actually. As we settled behind him, he was stuffing the glass pane into his bag. I think he was hoping no one would notice, because he put a finger to his lips when he saw my eyebrows go up.

As I set my own backpack on the floor, I turned slowly around to look at Zoey and stuck my thumb in his direction. She leaned forward, and I leaned forward to meet her in the middle as she let out a sweet, fluttery little giggle and whispered, "You should've seen what he was doing with the windshield wipers when I got on. I swear, half the people on this bus are bonkers. At least you seem normal enough."

My stomach tanked.

"I wouldn't get too attached. She'll ditch you the second she finds out you're broken."

I cleared my throat as I leaned away again. "So I told you about my acting thing, but you didn't tell me a fun fact about you yet."

She went totally blank. Her gaze went down to her notes, then up to me again. "Oh," she said, and a glimmer came into her eyes. "I s-sew my own cl-lothes. That's something kinda special, right? Or am I wrong about that? What do you think?"

"You sew your own clothes? That is so cool!" I pointed at her red shirt. I had no idea if it was a tank-top or crop top or what the difference between those was or if it was something else entirely, so I just left it at 'shirt' when I asked if she'd made it herself. She said she had. How cool is that? I didn't know you could do that.

"Ugh," she said then, rolling her eyes. "If I didn't look after myself, there's no way I would ever survive the summer. My mom is totally a sweater person. She doesn't seem to care how hot it is- there is always time for sweaters."

"Aw, I'm sure she just does it because she lov-"

"That doesn't excuse the sweaters." Zoey put up her hands, palms to me. "You don't understand. She makes me a new sweater like, once every three weeks. So if you ever want a sweater, I can so hook you up."

"I may have to take you up on that," I said, nodding. I figured that was the best I could say, since apparently I wouldn't understand. Zoey's eyes met mine for only an instant before dropping to her lap. She ruffled a page in her notebook. Her lips moved with a whispered word. One finger traced down a wall of bullet-pointed scribbles.

"You're reading off your papers," I realized.

That brought some color to her cheeks. Her eyelids flickered two or three times before they closed. "S-sorry. I have a little social anxiety."

"No, no, I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable. Aw, shoot! I just thought, uh… Maybe you should stop trying so hard and just relax a little more? I think that would help. I mean, you aren't stuttering so much when you're looking straight at me instead of trying to stick to the script."

She still struggled to meet my eyes. "Sorry. I'm from a small town where I already know everybody because I grew up with them, so I'm really not good with meeting people. And I guess part of it comes from being an only child. I a-always did want siblings, but it seems it wasn't meant to be."

She paused. Was she waiting for me to say something? Maybe she was waiting for me to say 'Sorry', even though it wasn't my fault in the least. I started to open my mouth, but she cut me off before I got there with, "So, um, what about you? Are you an o-only child?"

"Uh… Sort of."

She arched one brow. "Sort of?"

I scratched my arm. "Well, I spend a lot of time at home alone, even though I live with my mom… and my grandpa. And my twin cousins. Oh, and, uh… my big brother, I guess. I almost never see him. And there's one really, really annoying little one who stays upstairs all the time." I slapped my forehead for emphasis. No response but disgusted irritation. I could live with that.

Zoey's eyes turned wistful. "Big family. Did you have a big sendoff at the airport?"

"Not really. My mom, um, just kind of dropped me off, and I headed out. Oh- and I ran into Katie, Sadie, Eva, and Gwen from first season, so that was neat."

She laughed, brushing a stray scrap of bangs from between her eyes. "I got to meet Harold. His family had like, this huge good-bye thing for him. I guess his parents are divorced, but both sides showed up to wish him well. Then they started fighting, so that was kind of awkward, but I was able to introduce myself and weasel him out of there. We grabbed some slushees and just hung out until we boarded. He's pretty nice, and he told me some stories about the other contestants. I'm excited to meet them all."

Did she have a crush on him, then? That sort of bothered me a little. Itching for a way to avoid the subject and let her know that I might be interested myself, I turned the conversation topic around. "That's cool you ran into him. Where do you live?"

"Nowhere super special. Just the small town of…" She kissed her fingertips, made a spirally motion, and ended it with a pop, her forefinger in midair. "… Heapvale, Ontario."

Sometimes the universe just takes pity on you, and it's awesome.

"Hey, I've heard of that place! I'm from Auburn County, Manitoba. That's just on the other side of the border from you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, just a couple hours over and up north."

Zoey screwed up her eyes and parted her lips in an adorable little smile. "That's so cool. Maybe we'll have to get t-together sometime after the show."

My heart beat a little faster. She'd just asked me out!

"Toots, if you go in for a kiss, I swear I will puke on our cerebrum and kill us all right now."

Even though it pained me, I tore my attention away from Zoey for a moment and tried to get a good read on Mal's state of mind. From the feel of it, his little slip of spirit was slouched over, tearing fingers through his hair and wondering where he had gone wrong. Pssh– it's not like I could help myself for getting twitterpated. It wasn't my fault that Spencer's squishy romantic side had gotten bundled into me after the split.

… Haha, okay, it totally was. I may or may not have some greedy slimeball in me, and I may or may not have slightly cherry-picked the best shards of his old personality for myself when he – we – had started to go downhill. Hey, there may or may not be a little more to my birth name of Golden than the oh-so-perfect-son thing.

My fingers slid from my legs and into a clasped ball. I put them between my knees. "So Zoey, what brought you onto the show?"

"Well, don't get me wrong– winning the money would be sweet. But I'd also like to make some lasting friendships while I'm here." She did another smile and shrugged with one shoulder. "Like I told you, I'm not the most social bug under the rug, so it isn't easy coming out of my shell for th-this, let me tell you. I just hope that whoever wins the money deserves it, you know? Not like last season with Heather and Alejandro."

"I hear you," I said, placing one hand on my chin.

She adjusted the flower in her bright red hair. "Well, um, that's my reason. What about yours?"

"Oh, the exact same, totally." I waved my other hand and scooted a little closer in my seat. "The million bucks is cool and all, but money doesn't buy you happiness, right? You've just gotta have fun and make friends doing it. I knew that Total Drama was looking for new contestants, and I've always thought it would be cool to be on TV like that- you know, with my love of acting and all. So one day I just woke up and said to myself 'Mike, you know what must be done'. Haha, my doctor didn't want me to even send in an application form, said it was a bad idea. I'm not too worried, though. I know it's going to be tough, but I'm excited about this, I really am… I mean- Uh, did I just say…?"

Quick! Distraction! Do something silly and act like a lovable dork!

I grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled it over my mouth, trying to force my cheeks to flush the same color as Zoey's hair. "I-I don't regret coming so far. I mean, I've already met you before even getting to the island, so my making-friends goal is off to a good start."

Zoey put one elbow on her knee and held the other hand out to me. "Well, if we can be friends, then I wouldn't mind making it to the finale with you. Do we have a deal?"

"It's a date." Then I pretended to get all flustered like I'd used the word on accident. The bright smile never once left Zoey's pretty brown eyes.

Nailed it.

"Adorkable," Mal deadpanned. He sounded like he hadn't taken his hand from his face. "Speaking of lovey-dovey mush-mush, do you remember that time last season when Chris put them through the wedding challenge at Niagra Falls? And the water was gushing down the sides of the cliff, hundreds of thousands of gallons of it every minute, swirling in waves over the rocks, slapping against the walls, speeding down the river, kicking up into mist, spraying the tourists in their little boats, rushing and crashing and roaring all the way down beneath the bridge, making a sloshing sound like…"

Aw, come on, man! You are such a toad!

"Sorry," I said, putting my hands on my knees and standing up. "I really need to use the bathroom. I'll come back in a minute though, okay? I really want to see some of your drawings."

Smiling that same little smile, she picked my backpack from the floor and swung it gently onto my bench. "Anytime, Mike. I'll save your seat."

Honestly, I don't know how I made it those dozen steps to the back of the bus. I think I flew. I pinned myself up in the little stall, even locking it, pressed my shoulder against the door, and hugged myself tight all over.

I really liked the name Zoey. It had a little 'zip' to it that felt good whistling through the space between my front teeth. And right off the bat, she'd called me a sweetheart, without even knowing me. No one had ever called me 'sweetheart' before, even my mom. Then, she'd asked me for my own thoughts rather than simply spiraling off into hers forever after. And when she talked to me, she looked me straight in the eyes, not at her fingernails or cell phone or my abs (Vito's abs) or out the window or anything like that. And… and it was possible, even probable, that she'd noticed him while he was out, Vito– and Manitoba too, maybe, and Chester and Svetlana and…

… and she liked my personality!