Okay, I'm finally getting back into the routine, because its the holidays! HOORAY! Anyway, I will maybe update one or two chapters more, then I won't be able to update until the next holidays, or maybe until a long weekend. SORRY!

Well, it's been delayed long enough. Lo and behold: THE NEXT CHAPTER!

Chapter seventeen: Giant clams

Sparx and Nova went back to camp feeling a little triumphant. Tired, yes, but triumphant.

"So... what happened?" said Chiro glumly.

"We found out about the big booming voice." Nova replied. "He's the host inside this telephone booth thing, and there's this speakerphone on the top."

Sparx and Nova looked around. "Where's Antauri?" they said in unison. (A/N: great monkeys think alike!)

"Off meditating." said Chiro shortly. "He'll be back soon." And sure enough, Antauri walked through the trees. Well, staggered would be a better word.

Antauri had a fearful look in his eyes. "Red-knee... red-knee..." he gasped.

"What are you going on about, you crazy chimp?" Chiro snapped.

"Red-kneed... Red-kneed Mexican..."

"Antauri! Shut up!"

"Red-kneed Mexican Tarantula!" the black monkey cried. Then everyone took a little more notice. They took a step back, and observed the monkey a little more carefully.

"...Antauri," said Ciro slowly, "What happened when you saw the tarantula?" Chiro was freaked out, even though he had eaten a tarantula a few days before.

"Um... I was meditating near a palm tree..." Antauri stammered, "And I felt something brush against my foot. I opened my eyes and saw a Red-kneed Mexican Tarantula there. I didn't think much about it until I remembered they could make monkeys very sick..."

Everyone looked fearful. They were eyeing Antauri's shoulder very carefully...

"Why are you looking at my shoulder?" Antauri questioned nervously. He looked at his shoulder... and saw a giant tarantula with orange-ish knees there, making itself very comfortable. Antauri remained still, yet so very pale.

Chiro slowly picked up a stick, crept over to Antauri and poked the spider with the stick. But as soon as the stick went near, the tarantula raised to hairy front legs and grabbed the stick. Chiro wasn't holding the stick very firmly, so the tarantula pulled it right out of his hands.

Antauri took matters into his own hands... literally. He picked up the spider and threw it away.

The host's booming voice suddenly echoed across the island: "CONTESTANTS! COME DOWN TO THE BEACH NOW!"

Everyone obeyed instantly.

------

Gibson watched the television screen anxiously. "Antauri! The spider's bristles make people and monkeys sick! And it's a Mexican Red-kneed Tarantula, not a Red-kneed Mexican Tarantula!"

Otto threw a ball at Gibson from behind, hitting him directly on the head. Gibson fell forwards. "Otto!" he cried. "I'm trying to watch our team endure hell!"

"But Gibson," said Otto with his cheeky grin. "It's not on yet, it's only ads!"

Gibson sighed. Why did they have to vote off Otto first, he wondered, why not someone sensible like Antauri?

-------

On the beach, the contestants gathered impatiently. The host wasn't there - probably making his way back from the telephone-booth-speakerphone thing.

Soon enough, the host arrived. "Normally you aren't this fast," he said, "Because you never come down to the beach without protests, which gave me enough time to get down here!"

"Get on with it!" Chiro snapped. "What's the next task?"

"Whoa, calm down!" the host said. "You're getting as bad as that little blue monkey!"

Chiro took this as an offense, and quietened down.

"Now," said the host, "There are five giant clams in the ocean about 400 meters out - one of them has a small, yellow and blue, 500g weight inside it. All of you must go out there and open the giant clams and find the one with the weight. Whoever finds it... wins immunity."

Nova sighed - she was sick of swimming out to sea and finding things underwater. Yet she, as well as the others, was determined to win.

"Where are the giant clams?" Chiro questioned.

The host sighed. "400 meters out. Around that area." He raised a hand and gestured towards some coral reefs.

"Wait..." said Nova. "400 meters from the reefs, or 400 meters from the island?"

The host began getting annoyed. "The coral reefs are 400 meters from this island," he snapped, "Which means the giant clams are in the coral reefs!"

"How will Mr Jeepers do it?" Sparx pointed out.

The host grinned. "He can take part in the task if he wants to," he said. "If he feels that he cannot do it, then fine."

"Hold on a sec!" said Nova. "He's... just a toy!"

"Then he won't be able to do the task then, will he?" said the host in a babyish voice. "Okay, everyone ready? Start in three... two... one... GO!"

Everyone, excluding Mr Jeepers, ran out towards where the host had said the reef was.

------

A storm brewed over the island. Dark clouds gathered in the sky above the contestants, who were already wet and miserable.

It seemed like the swim would never end, even though it was only 400 meters. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Nova spotted a clam.

But not just any clam - a giant clam. When the host had said 'giant clam', they thought he had meant as big as Chiro's head - even though that's pretty big, it was nothing compared to the one in front of the contestants minus Mr Jeepers. It was bigger than Chiro INCLUDING his head, and Chiro did have a very big head.

Sparx tried to cut in front of Nova and steal the clam. "Back off!" she hissed. "It's mine!" (They're saying this above the water, in case you were wondering!)

Antauri and Chiro decided to evacuate quickly before Sparx and Nova's war got a little out-of-hand, so they swam up ahead.

Sure enough, three more giant clams were spotted. Antauri and Chiro swam to the nearest two, and tried to open them.

Back with Sparx and Nova, Sparx seemed to be winning until Nova got on top of him and held his head underwater.

Sparx decided that the battle had gone a little too far, so he pulled her tail and swam off as soon as her grip had loosened.

------

Scary music suddenly came on, and the Survivor logo appeared on the television screen to show that ads were coming. Gibson sighed. Why were there so many ads?

Gibson was aware of quiet footsteps behind him, and noises which sounded like muffled laughter. Gibson knew what was coming. He spun around and caught the ball that had been coming at his head at full speed. The guilty thrower? Otto.

"OTTO!" yelled Gibson. "Stop throwing this ball at me!" Gibson threw the ball away and Otto ran off to fetch it, laughing as he went.

------

Try as they might, nobody could open the clams. They sat there contentedly - if clams could talk, they would be throwing insults at the cold and wet contestants.

"Nyah-nyah-ni-nyah-nyah!" they seemed to taunt. Luckily they couldn't talk or they'd cop a full punch from Nova. Even water couldn't slow her down.

Antauri pulled and pulled. Nothing seemed to happen. Then a small groaning noise sounded - the clam vibrated a little and slowly opened.

Antauri was amazed - until he saw that nothing was in his clam. Looks like he wouldn't win Immunity tonight.

Chiro gave a punch to the clam. "Dammit!" he cried. The clam must've felt the punch, and it opened a little bit quicker than Antauri's clam did.

Nothing was inside. But while Chiro was looking in, the clam decided revenge would be nice so it closed its mouth thing on Chiro's head.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" came the muffled yell of Chiro. "GET ME OUTTA HERE!"

Sparx, who was on his way to a new clam, saw Chiro, took a dive and yanked his head out of the clam's grasp.

"OW!" the very angry leader yelled once he and Sparx had surfaced. "You could've done it in a more gentle way!"

The red monkey was fuming. "Well, sorry!" he said, annoyed. "Would you like me to put you back in and try again?"

"No, but make sure Antauri saves me next time." came the muttered reply.

"I'll make sure you save yourself next time." said Sparx, and swam off.

------

Nova jammed her metallic fingers in a gap in the clams mouth thing and pulled with all her might. Nova, being the strongest of the lot, opened the clam as if it had taken no effort at all. Inside was a yellow and blue ball.

"YAY! I FOUND IT!" she cried triumphantly, but it was underwater so it didn't sound right. Nova then realized the danger she was in, for the rest of the contestants had heard her bubbling away about finding the weight - they were all determined to win.

Nova gasped, accidentally took in a mouthful of water, spat it out and swam off to the beach.

------

The host waited patiently.

Half and hour had passed since the contestants minus Mr Jeepers had swam out to find the clams. And, as mentioned a few paragraphs ago, the storm had finally burst. Rain fell in torrents across the island, the cold biting at the host's face.

The host pulled out an umbrella, opened it and sat beneath it.

He waited some more.

The rain still fell down.

The host pulled out his phone and played a game. Like I said, he was under the dryness of the umbrella.

The rain fell harder, and hailstones began to smack down on the umbrella. The beach looked a dirty brown - the sand was no longer a golden yellow.

Finally, Nova swam ashore with a yellow and blue ball in her hands and Sparx, Chiro and Antauri right behind her.

Sparx did a massive jump on her, and the weight flew out of her grasp. Chiro leapt into the air and would've made a fantastic catch if Antauri hadn't jumped on his head and caught it first. Nova was still lying face down in the dirty wet sand.

Sparx wouldn't give up that easily. He took three giant steps and one colossal leap, and landed on Antauri. The weight went rolling across the sand, and Sparx ran over to it and picked it up. He looked carefully at it, walked over to the host and handed it to him.

"So I win Immunity, right?" he said with a big grin on his face.

"No."

The world seemed to freeze. The rain seemed to slow, and the waves seemed to stop. Nova looked up. Chiro stared at the host in awe. Antauri was almost as amazed as Sparx.

Sparx broke the silence. "What do you mean, no?"

"Refer back to my instructions!" barked to host, as the pelting rain and hail finally stopped. "I said whoever FINDS the weight wins Immunity, not whoever brings it to me! And you did not find it, am I correct?"

Sparx shook his head.

"Then who did?"

"... Nova..."

Nova felt a small grin spread across her face. "I win!" she yelled happily. "I win! I win! I win!"

"Not yet, you don't." said the host, pulling a small shell necklace out of his pocket and put it around the golden monkey's neck. "You have to survive several other tribal councils before you win the game."

"What I meant to say was, I won the task." said Nova proudly.

Chiro looked around, bewildered. "Where's Mr Jeepers?" he asked.

"Right here - what? I had him here a second ago!" said the host, worried. "We can't lose a contestant like we lost Bill when he was part of Survivor!"

Antauri looked at the floor where the host had been sitting. "Umm... excuse me..." he said. "You've been sitting on him."

The host looked behind him, and turned quite red. For on the ground was a very flat toy penguin.

"Oh... um... my mistake..." he stammered, very embarrassed. He saw everyone around him was smirking.

"Get back to camp!" he snapped. "Tomorrow is tribal council - in the morning! Be there at dawn! No later!" The host stormed off.

------

The contestants walked back to camp. Sparx was very annoyed. "I should've won!" he complained.

"You should've listened to the instructions!" Nova retorted. Sparx was silent for the rest of the way.

When they got back to camp, they stopped dead. Everything was gone. Replaced. Replaced? Yes. By a huge lake.

"Our camp!" whispered Chiro. "Where did it go?"

"It's been flooded." said Antauri quietly. Things just couldn't get worse...

They've been fighting. They've been rained on. They've been voting. They've been enduring, and now they've been flooded... well, their camp has been flooded, at least. How they'll get through it, I don't know... well, I do. You don't.

Chiro: What happens?

Me: You already know, you've been through it already!

Chiro: Oh yeah! And I know who wins! The one who wins is-

Me: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP CHIRO OR DIE!

Chiro:... okay...

Me: Good! turns to reviewers Review time! HOORAY!