Okay, let's make a start on the show. Thanks for answering, OmniIBIBUltraInstinctGodzilla, GuestSpirit and Gucci Mane LaFlare. Answers…well, you should be able to pick out if you were right or wrong just by reading this chapter, at least in some respects. Peyton's too shy for friendships at first sight, but enemies and crushes? That might be another story.
None of us campers met on the mainland. We were all put on different boats, one by one. All I knew was that I was going to be the eighth camper to arrive, so I got my first glimpse of the first seven campers when I reached the dock. I noticed immediately that there was no five-star resort, but I decided not to mention that. There were lots of little wood-panelled buildings scattered around, so it looked like we'd have shelter. That was still better than Survivor.
I snatched up my pale blue carry-case, tossed it onto the dock, and then made my entrance, a flying dismount I'd learned in hip-hop classes. And I pulled it off, landing on my feet.
In seconds, I was standing in front of Chris McLean for the first time. He greeted me with a "Looking good, Peyton!"
I managed to hold his eye contact for a few seconds, but then I looked down with a shy murmur of "Hey, Chris," before I went over to join the other campers. I quickly stood over to the side next to a short girl with a face full of braces. I saw them because she smiled at me as I came over, so she seemed safe to stand next to. I was getting "dangerous" vibes off a guy a bit further away who had a green mohawk and a tonne of piercings, and near him was a goth girl who was wearing a scowl worth every snowflake in a Canadian winter. There was also a tall dark muscly guy, a friendly-looking blonde guy in a cowboy hat, a blue-eyed blonde with great curves and a tall thin Asian girl who would have been gorgeous if she wasn't scowling harder than the goth girl.
The next competitor looked like an athlete. I mean, he was water-skiing on the boat and he was wearing a tracksuit and headband. "Ladies and gentlemen," Chris announced, "Tyler!"
The guy must have heard his name, because he waved. But then he lost his balance and went flying into our luggage pile. All of us cringed. As for his suitcase, it splashed into the shallows, soaking the Asian girl.
"My shoes!" she exclaimed, scowling even harder if that was possible.
"Wicked wipeout, man!" Chris called out. Tyler's hand appeared out of the luggage first, giving a thumbs up before he climbed out.
Before we knew it, another camper had arrived. This one was skinny, carrying a keyboard, with little glasses, gingery hair and stubble.
"Welcome to camp, Harold," Chris greeted him. The guy looked around for a moment.
"What's he looking at?" the short girl said in a loud whisper. She had a childish voice with a bit of a lisp, just like the way she looked. I kind of liked her, though.
Harold finally spoke up. "So you mean this show is at a crappy summer camp and not on some big stage or something?" He had a low, raspy voice. When Chris confirmed his words, he looked pleased. "That is so much more favourable to my skills."
The next contestant was another guy. This one carried a guitar case, and he had black hair and green eyes. Chris called him Trent. He seemed pretty cool, telling Chris he'd seen him on some ice-skating show.
Trent looked how I felt about the other contestants when he looked at us, but he quite happily joined us, shooting a smile at the goth girl. At first, she continued scowling and looked away, but the second he stopped looking at her, she glanced back and I saw a tiny smile on her face.
The next contestant looked nice. It was a girl with a blonde ponytail, carrying a surfboard. She smiled at Chris and greeted him with a "Hey. What's up?"
"All right!" Chris said. "Our surfer chick, Bridgette, is here!"
"Nice board," the guy with the mohawk said sarcastically. "This ain't Malibu, honey."
"I thought we were going to be on a beach." Bridgette pointed out. Well, we were, but there weren't any waves. Still, she got over it quickly, greeting the rest of us with "Hey, guys."
The guy with the cowboy hat separated from the rest of the group, and I detected a flirty tone in his voice. "Hey," he said, "I'm Geoff."
Bridgette turned towards him, almost knocking half the people down with her surfboard. "What's up?"
"Dang, watch the board, man!" Harold exclaimed.
Bridgette can't have heard him because the girl next to me spoke up to her. "Hi, I'm Beth!" And then Bridgette turned again and nearly knocked the same people down. Well, at least it meant I knew two more names from the people who arrived before me.
"Okay, we've all met surfer girl," the Asian girl muttered. "Can we get on with the show, please?"
"Someone missed their double cappuccino macchiato this morning," the guy with the mohawk teased.
"Get bent," the Asian girl snapped back. Okay, so maybe he wasn't dangerous. His tone had been light. Still, I was getting dangerous vibes, and I usually trusted my gut. Only time would tell if he was okay or not.
The next guy looked Indian. He was about the same size as me, actually, but maybe a little shorter. Chris introduced him as Noah.
"You got my memo about my life-threatening allergies?" the guy said as he passed.
"Sure someone did!" Chris said brightly.
"Good, is this where we're staying?" Noah asked, looking around.
The guy with the mohawk spoke up again. "No, it's your mother's house, and we're throwing a party."
Noah just looked unimpressed. "Cute. Nice piercings, original, do them yourself?"
The mohawked guy finally reached out, taking hold of Noah's bottom lip. "Yeah, you want one?"
Even that didn't seem to rattle him. "Um, no thanks, can I have my lip back, please? Thanks." Well, at least he let go. But that seemed to tell me I was right. No one in elementary school had tried stretching my lips, but I didn't doubt that was more painful than being pushed around a circle.
A yell from the next boat got my attention. "What's up, y'all, Leshawna's in the house!" As soon as the girl reached the dock, I couldn't take my eyes off her.
She had an amazing smile, for one thing. And she was so confident. She high-fived Chris as she walked past, saying 'Hey, baby, hey, how you doing, how's it going?" Then she turned to us and said "Feel free to quit now and save yourselves the trouble, cause I came to win!" She even offered a high-five to the dark guy. Her skin was almost the same shade, just much darker, like high-quality chocolate.
Leshawna reminded me of Diana Ross. Although they didn't look totally alike, I still thought Leshawna was gorgeous. She wasn't classically beautiful like the Asian girl or even the blue-eyed blonde. She had that sort of 'big is beautiful' look. Or maybe it was just the fact that she seemed so confident, so comfortable in her own skin. She reminded me of Queen Latifah, too, who I'd had a tiny crush on since I saw her in the movie musical Hairspray last year. When Harold had the nerve to say he'd never seen anyone as big and loud as she was, she was ready to argue with him straight off. Wow. I stood up for what I believed in when I had no opposition I was aware of, but I couldn't argue without getting stressed. I could learn a lot from Leshawna, and despite being sure she'd never be interested in being friends with a little mouse like me (pink fur or no pink fur), I hoped we'd be on the same team.
The two girls that arrived next looked a bit more approachable. They were just about as girly as I was, but in a more childish way with their black pigtails secured by pink hair bobbles, matching their shorts. Yes, they were wearing the same pink shorts with little stripy black and white tops. One was tan and super skinny, while the other was pale and…well, fat. Not that I'd say it to her face.
"Ladies," Chris greeted them. "Sadie, Katie, welcome to your new home for eight weeks."
Neither girl seemed too sad that they'd been lied to about the resort. "Omigosh, Sadie, look!" the tanned girl exclaimed. "It's a summer camp!" Okay, so she was Katie.
"Okay, I always wanted to go to summer camp!" Sadie said excitedly. "Eee!" Katie actually did a little clap before they raced over to join us.
The next guy had a toque, stubble, and no luggage. "Ezekiel! What's up, man?" was Chris' greeting this time.
Ezekiel looked up and said "I think I see a bird."
Trent snickered.
Judging by Chris' next words, Ezekiel had been homeschooled all his life, so maybe he hadn't had friends to teach him phrases like "What's up". Poor thing.
The next guy looked a bit puppy-like with his big blue eyes and ruffled hair. Chris enthusiastically introduced him. "Cody! The Codester! The Codemeister!"
Cody high-fived him and said "Dude, psyched to be here, man. I see the ladies have already arrived. All right." I felt my skin crawl as he clearly checked out every single girl that was here so far.
He even tried to say something to Leshawna, but she put out a hand and said "Save it, short stuff."
The next guy announced his arrival with a loud "Woohoo!" He followed this up with "Chris, what's happening? This is awesome! Woohoo!"
I could tell Chris was trying to match his energy. "Owen, welcome!"
Owen wore a T-shirt with a maple leaf on it and green shorts, with tufty blonde hair. But all I could really see was the shirt. Owen was practically a mountain. He wasn't tall, but he was just so huge. Sadie didn't even come close. But he didn't seem to care that he was about three hundred pounds. He pulled Chris into a bone-crushing hug. "Awesome to be here, man! Yeah! Man, this is just so..."
"Awesome?" the goth girl suggested with a smirk.
"Yes! Awesome!" Owen agreed. "Are you gonna be on my team?"
The goth girl rolled her eyes. "Oh, I sure hope so."
Even Chris was annoyed at him, mainly because Owen hadn't put him down. "You about finished?"
Owen put him down and apologized, but the second he had, Chris was already looking at the next boat. "And here comes Courtney!"
Courtney was very pretty, curvy with coffee-coloured skin and shoulder-length brown hair with big dark eyes. Chris helped her down, and she said a quick "Thank you," before facing us. "Hi, you must be the other contestants," she said, smiling. "It's really nice to meet you all." She sounded like a mini-adult, not really like a teenager at all. I didn't mind, though. Maybe it meant she'd be more mature than the rest of us.
Owen grabbed her extended hand and shook it. "How's it going, I'm Owen!"
Courtney, glancing up at the next boat, said "Nice to meet you, Ow…wow."
She was looking at the next guy. So was everyone else. Most of the girls were staring, and Owen looked starry-eyed. Sadie even dropped to the ground in a swoon.
I suppose if I liked that sort of thing, I would have reacted the same way. He looked a bit too perfectly handsome and plastic to me, but still, perfect was perfect and he looked like every straight girl's dream.
"This is Justin," Chris introduced. "Welcome to Total Drama Island."
"Thanks, Chris, this is great." Justin said brightly.
"Just so you know, we picked you based entirely on your looks."
"I can deal with that."
Even Owen asked Justin some questions about the pants he was wearing. He seemed more interested than the girls. I was kind of hoping he might be on my team, because he seemed like a kindred spirit in that way.
The last contestant, Chris said, was called Izzy. Even from a distance, I could see her vivid red hair, curling crazily. She waved, calling, "Hi, Chris, hi, hi!" Then she let out a scream where she almost landed on the dock, missed, and hit her chin on the way down.
Tyler chuckled, "Ooh, that was bad." He was one to talk after his fail.
Courtney ran to the end to help Izzy up. "Guys, she could be seriously hurt!"
But Izzy seemed fine, talking a mile a minute. "That felt…so…good! Except for hitting my chin. This is summer camp? That is so cool! Do you have paper mache here? Are we having lunch soon?"
But Chris said we needed to pose at the end of the dock for the promos. We all got arranged. I wasn't one of the tallest or shortest, so I was standing just in front of Owen, with Noah on one side of me and Katie and Sadie sitting in mirror positions in front.
Chris stood on Izzy's boat, calling "One, two, three – oops. Okay, forgot the lens cap. Okay, hold that pose…one, two…wait, card's full. Hang on!"
"Come on, man, my face is starting to freeze!" Leshawna called out.
"Okay!" Chris called. "Everyone say 'Wawanakwa'!"
"Wawanakwa!" we chorused, just as the dock collapsed under our weight. We all ended up in the water.
"Okay, guys," Chris said, "Dry off and meet at the campfire pit in ten!"
We obeyed. As I walked, I found myself beside the really tall, dark-skinned guy with all the muscle.
"Sorry," he said, "I forgot what your name was?" He had a really gentle voice, despite looking so strong and a little threatening. I couldn't really be afraid of someone with that voice.
"Peyton." I told him softly. "I don't think I heard yours, either."
The guy smiled. "I'm DJ. Cool to meet you, Peyton."
"Ditto." I managed.
We shared a smile for a second. Maybe my fears weren't quite as real as I thought.
Well, who can be afraid of someone like DJ? You've noticed she already thinks Duncan is trouble and has her doubts about Gwen. Also, any doubt about who she likes already? Well, that might change – it's only the first day. Or it might not. We'll see. And yes, you probably caught it, but the person I took out of the show entirely so Peyton could be in it was Eva! I never really find much to do with her, so it was kinder to leave her out instead of kicking her out early.