Paris! Well, fun fact…the Eiffel Tower is struck by lightning around ten times a year. How's that? I have been to Paris, but it was an overnight trip. Their baguettes and croissants are delicious, especially with hot chocolate. But for me, French is one of the hardest languages I've ever tried to learn. Too many silent letters! Thanks for reviewing, AnonBrowser, iwashere01, IllusionSign and lordgemini.

Team Victory was certainly the most relaxing team to share a compartment with. We slept after the movie, and then chatted over breakfast. I'd only really gotten to know Lindsay last time, but I soon started to realize how much I liked Bridgette. We hadn't really gotten to know each other on Action. We'd mostly been co-host and former contestant after I was voted off, so I hadn't had the chance to talk to her properly. After the incident in the Yukon, we had a bond, and we felt more relaxed and able to talk. Although I'd hoped to become better friends with Gwen, it hadn't occurred to me to befriend Bridgette (mainly because I'd seen so little of her before). She wasn't like Duncan, who I had just enough in common with, but we had plenty of other things that we could bond over. It turned out that we were both really into sports and fitness, and we were also both really easygoing.

"Have you ever been skateboarding?" I asked. "Chrissy made out I sneaked off set last season to go to the skate park. At least that was plausible."

Bridgette shook her head. "Nope. I don't trust my balance skills. It's funny, though, because it's not like that when I surf."

"Seriously, skateboarding is like surfing on land." I insisted. "Probably if you just tried getting on the board and imagining you were on a wave instead of a sidewalk, you'd probably be awesome."

Bridgette looked more interested. "Maybe you're right," she admitted. "I mean, I surfed down the pyramid back in Egypt. I guess that's surfing on land, sort of. It would be nice to have something else I could do when I can't get to the beach. I mean, I like sports but, well…you saw me on the first season, right?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Is this something to do with the times the lights kept wrapping around your leg when you were hiding by the fire pit, or walking on your hands…"

"And the time I burned my team's tent." Bridgette confirmed, nodding. "I just seem to lose all my balance skills when I'm not on some kind of board. I'd like a few more land skills."

"I guess maybe when we go home, I could teach you how to skateboard or something, if you gave me some help in surfing." I offered. It wasn't that I couldn't surf, but I wasn't great at it, and it would've been great to learn some more advanced stuff.

Bridgette's eyes lit up. "Oh, that would be fun! We should definitely do that."

One thing we didn't talk about was the Yukon incident. I'd sort of wondered whether I should bring up Geoff and whether she had thought about what she was going to tell him, but I got the feeling that if she wanted to talk about him and what had happened with Alejandro, she'd talk when she was ready.

I tried to keep DJ involved, who was sitting with us. It was almost impossible not to get along with him, so we talked to him, too, talking about the challenges and places we were hoping would come up. I was personally hoping to go somewhere as wild and warm as the Amazon had been, maybe India or

Thailand. DJ was hoping to go to another place with lots of wildlife, like somewhere in the savannah in eastern Africa. Bridgette was more interested in Australia, to which DJ immediately agreed, talking about some island where there were lots of wild dingoes and a zoo based on a famous crocodile wrestler known as "Crikey". Lindsay joined in, saying she wanted to go to France and Los Angeles.

Well, our girl was extremely lucky. The plane started lurching around in the evening, and then a familiar voice came through. No, it wasn't Chef, just an imitation of him. "Ahem, this is your captain speaking. If you'll look out your window, you'll get to see what happens when a plane does a somersault!"

"How did Izzy get into the cockpit?" I exclaimed as we heard a tussle.

Finally, Chef's real voice came through. "Y'all might wanna hang on to something heavy!"

We all dived for different things, and we landed in a canal, but at least we all survived. I turned to look out the window.

"I can't believe it!" I exclaimed. "Lindsay, you were just talking about wanting to come here!"

Lindsay looked out the window and started squealing. "Omigosh, omigosh, Paris! I have to shop here!"

Chris didn't give much of an intro because of the crash-landing, but at least we were close to the Louvre, which is where the challenge was meant to take place.

"There's only one guy I want to share this with," Lindsay gushed, obliviously as usual, "The guy I've been dreaming about since we've been apart! Where's my Tyler?"

"Hey, Linds." Tyler greeted her obligingly.
Lindsay narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure that's you? Cause you look slightly different in my head."

Alejandro glanced over at Noah and muttered "Everything looks slightly different in her head." Noah nodded. Well, to be fair, I'd been thinking the same thing. It wasn't like Lindsay heard, and the only reason I had was because I was standing close by. And hey, if I had defended Lindsay, I would be a hypocrite, since I'd dished out a few times and that had been on attack. One snide comment? Everyone was entitled to one or two. Besides, at least I'd only heard one from Alejandro, and that was on a ratio of about twenty from Noah.

"Do you always wear a tracksuit?" Lindsay asked Tyler. "Oh, it doesn't matter, because you and me together in Paris only means one thing."

"I know," Tyler agreed in a rather dreamy voice. "I love-"

"SHOPPING!" Lindsay cried. "I can pick out new clothes for you-"

Chris shut her up. "There's no time for shopping. The challenge is about to start. Everyone inside the Louvre!" He pronounced it wrong, with the one-syllable use, but hey, everyone on the show was English-Canadian and I wasn't going to correct him, no matter how much French any of us knew (and keep in mind we grew up in a place where half the country was French and we learned some in school).

No one else corrected him, either. The challenge was rather simple – each team had to find broken up statues around the Louvre, then go to the courtyard and put the pieces together. Team Victory had the Thinker, Team Chris got Venus de Milo, and Team Amazon had the Statue of David.

"But the Thinker isn't located in the Louvre!" Alejandro pointed out. "And the Statue of David isn't even in France."

"Well, we're not using the actual statues," Chris replied. "They're priceless. Chef made some fake ones, didn't you?"

At these words, Chef looked extremely worried and ran away. "That's right, don't become the world's most stupid art thief!" I called after him, earning some amused grins from the other contestants. Tyler outright guffawed.

"I almost forgot the twist twist." Chris went on. "Here's your motivation." Okay, get this. He'd decided to bring in wild animals to chase the teams. That is, a yeti for Team Chris, a bear with a chainsaw for

Team Amazon, and a baby seal from the Yukon for Team Victory. Apparently DJ almost ran it over.

Here's the thing, though. When the baby seal came out, so did a dishevelled-looking former contestant, looking nervous and tired.

Chris scowled. "Oh, great." He shoved the homeschooled hanger-on at me. "Toni, can you take care of Zeke and drop him off so he can't keep following us? Or at least get him somewhere where he won't bother us and keep hanging on."

Chris let me call a cab to Paris Airport, so I spoke to Zeke while we waited for it. "Why are you still on the plane?" I asked gently. "Your team voted you off. I know you didn't want to lose, but there was no reason to stay in there."

"This game's mine, eh." Ezekiel mumbled, not really looking at me. He looked awful, almost greenish, and he wasn't talking properly, but he probably just needed a bit of comfort.

"Look, Zeke, I'm booking you a flight back to Canada." I told him. "You need to get the competition out of your head. Go home, or to the Aftermath show if you feel up to it. Chris would never have let you back in, and I'm sure you know that. You look terrible. Have you been hiding in the plane since Egypt?"

"Uh-huh."

"And I'm sure you feel worse than you look right now." I added. "I'm taking you right to the airport and to Passport Control to make sure you actually go home. That's the best place for you now. I'm sure your parents are frantic, too, wondering what happened to you seeing as you should have been back by now. Let them know you're okay."

I saw a little change in Ezekiel's expression. He looked up for the first time. Then he nodded. "Yeah. Mom's probably worried."

I felt a lot better when I waved him off at the airport after booking him onto a flight to Toronto that had a few free seats left and helping him check in. I even asked one of the staff to keep an eye on him to make sure he knew what he was doing. Then I returned to the Louvre, to find that it was almost dawn, and Team Victory had just won the challenge. It was a close thing, though – Team Amazon was finished a few minutes later, just before Team Chris screwed the head onto their Venus. So they were the ones up for elimination for the first time, and Team Victory was back in First Class.

Before the elimination ceremony, Chris pulled me aside. "How's the Zeke situation?" he asked me.

"I put him on a plane back to Toronto." I told him. "I said his parents might want to know where he was, and I think that made him believe he should go home. I'd do a sweep of the plane if we're going to Canada again, but I think we're safe."

Chris grinned. "Good enough for me! Although as it is, we are headed for Newfoundland next, so be ready for that. But it'll just be a reward challenge, since it's a celebration of where we both come from!" He winked, and I rolled my eyes. Yes, we all came from Newfoundland, but neither of us actually grew up there. Chris' dad, my dad and their sister grew up there, but our dads moved to the mainland before they were married. And since Ezekiel would be on the mainland, there was no need to check there.

I peeped into Loser Class as usual after the elimination ceremony. The four guys were all there, all looking solemn.

Izzy was gone.

How's that for eliminating Ezekiel properly? I felt like he had to be seen off properly, on a real plane, so now he really can't come back. They'll have to find someone else to play the Ripper, another wild animal to hunt.

Another little moment to talk about – well, you know that island with wild dingoes DJ was talking about? It's one of the most dangerous places in the world. It's called Fraser Island. Dingoes wander the outdoor corridors. I saw one doing it when I was seven. Dingoes are usually shyer, but people are too soft on them on the island, so they're not as afraid and there's more attacks.

As for Crikey…well, you remember Steve Irwin? That's who I was talking about. It's actually called Australia Zoo, and it's a hour away from Brisbane, but it was run by the Irwins. They have dingoes too. As well as lemurs, anacondas, two kinds of dragons, and tonnes of other animals, both Australian and international. I like the kangaroos. The way they jump is so graceful.