Dodgeball, huh? And because the Awake-A-Thon lasted so long, no break day in between – I'm pretty sure this marks at least day six, possibly the end of the first week! Thanks for reviewing, lordgemini, Gucci Mane LaFlare and OmniIBIBUltraInstinctGodzilla.

I think Katie appreciated me staying to walk her back, especially as I'd been so quiet before. But I felt really guilty about making her cry, and I certainly wasn't afraid to speak to her. I privately thought of the two girls as being like two parts of the same person. The rest of the team were sitting around the campfire.

"Want to come back and hang out with us?" I offered. "You're not mad at us, are you?"

Katie shook her head. "No," she said, still sniffling a little. "I knew this would happen at some point. I just kind of always imagined me going. Sadie's the smart one, you know. I always swore to myself I'd go on for both of us if I had to, but I didn't actually think it would come to this. Not so soon."

She looked like she was about to cry again, so I quickly said "So how about coming back with us? I know if my best friend was gone, a campfire with everyone else would feel good."

"I'd rather just go back to the cabins." Katie said, shaking her head at my suggestion. "I need some time." She looked up at me, looking hopeful. "If you want, you could come with me. It might help me feel better to have someone."

I wasn't sure. On the one hand, I kind of wanted to go back to the campfire. On the other, Katie really seemed like she needed to talk, and I'd kind of given myself that responsibility when waiting for her at the dock. So I walked back to our cabin with her.

By the time the other girls came in, all ready to sleep, Katie was definitely over her tears. She even smiled a few times, wanting to chat. I was too tired to say much, but she'd gotten more sleep than me, so that made some sense. I was glad to collapse into my cabin bed instead of on the ground. Either way, it seemed like I might have made a new friend. While I hadn't been too keen on Katie before, she was nice, at least. I needed all the friends I could get on this show. And I wasn't going to volunteer the information that I'd had a hand in sending her best friend home. For now, though, I was just looking forward to getting some sleep.

Well, if it wasn't for the fact that I could hear snoring through the walls all night. Wheezy, loud snores. We even heard some of the guys complaining through the walls, and we gathered through it that Harold was the offender. No one on our team got any sleep except him. And I mean, at least most of us got a little sleep before. Duncan got about five seconds and that was it. And I was betting, over at the Screaming Gophers cabin, Gwen was catching up on her sleep rapidly.

By the way, this was the only time Harold's snoring really got to us. My guess is that it was brought on by earlier lack of sleep, because he didn't snore the night after, and he hadn't been doing it the first night we arrived. But it didn't make it any easier to have another night where no one could get to sleep.

Actually, Gwen was still pretty tired, but the other Gophers were mostly fine, even Heather and Trent, who'd been awake almost as long. Even Owen, who'd sleepwalked all over the island during the Awake-A-Thon. He'd just taken off his clothes in his sleep and went off somewhere. Apparently, too many baked beans.

Even Chris noticed our team was tired. "Duncan!" he greeted our most sleepless teammate. "You look like crap, dude."

"Stuff it," was all Duncan said.

"Harold snored all night!" Courtney explained (I should explain that Harold hadn't yet arrived).

As it was, when Harold showed up, it turned out someone had drawn on his face. But he seemed to like his new inked moustache, anyway.

Gwen got a lot of cheers when she finally arrived at the mess hall, but she looked so tired that I doubt she even noticed much of it. I guess that was the price of winning the last challenge. Not that most of us Bass were doing much better, but at least we hadn't spent so many hours straight trying to keep our eyes open.

Chris had apparently got a mini-stadium set up for the next challenge, like a little indoor court area on the beach. There were even two sets of bleachers, one for each team. Duncan collapsed on the one with our logo. "Wake me up, and it'll be the last thing you do," he warned us before closing his eyes.

Courtney glared at Harold. "This is all your fault, you know! You and your snoring face!"
"It's called a medical condition," Harold countered, "Gosh!"

It turned out we were playing five-a-side dodgeball, best out of five games. Well, we could possibly get a sixth player if we caught a ball, because then we'd get the thrower out and bring someone else onto the court. We could also deflect a ball with another one, but if it knocked the ball out of our hands, that also meant we were out.

I wasn't much good at throwing, but I knew how to dodge gracefully from all my practice in dance – precise and quick movements were vital. Just about everyone had to sit out one or two games, so I happily sat out the first game. Meanwhile, DJ, Katie, Courtney, Tyler and Harold went up for the first game, against Cody, Leshawna, Owen, Lindsay and Heather.

"Bring it on, fishies," Heather taunted, "Otherwise winning three in a row just won't be as satisfying!"

"Oh, you're going down!" Tyler declared. "We're gonna bring the dinner to the table, and then we're gonna eat it!" Okayyyy…I even saw Courtney facepalm at that one.

Tyler was pretty useless. The first ball he threw hit me right in the face.

"That'll smear the makeup." Chris commented. I scowled. Okay, so I wore a lot of makeup. So what?

Courtney gave me a halfway sympathetic look before turning back to Tyler. "Nice job. Now see if you can hit someone on THEIR team!" she practically screeched. Then two seconds later, Owen took Tyler out.

Harold was also pretty terrible. He went on about his "wicked skills", and ended up throwing the ball…high. Not across. Leshawna just picked up the ball he'd thrown and took him out in seconds.

Our first point of the episode was actually from Katie. Lindsay was walking across the court, asking "Can someone tell me what I'm supposed to do with this again?" and didn't even see Katie's ball until it hit her in the face. It was actually her second bruise, as Chris had already demonstrated on her during the rules when she'd asked what to do when the ball came at her (yes, REALLY. I was starting to realize exactly why Lindsay had insulted me – she'd just said what she thought and hadn't meant to be rude or insulting, just she was speaking her mind and was too oblivious to know what it felt like to hear it).

I jumped up at that point, calling "Yay, Katie! You rule, girl!" Katie sneaked a glance at me and smiled. I'd mostly cheered for her to be kind, but she'd definitely deserved it. And maybe, just maybe, we'd end up being friends, now that I knew her a little better.

Courtney ended up getting taken out when she threw a ball at Heather and Owen caught it. This also brought Gwen out, but DJ took her down immediately.

DJ and Katie seemed to be holding court themselves, as they took out Heather, Owen and Leshawna. Soon, only Cody was left.

"Easy out, guys!" Courtney called from the sidelines. 'Easy out!"

I thought that was pretty tough, and Cody proved it was unwise. He used some kind of physics to take out first DJ, then Katie. They only had the chance to throw one ball, and Cody ducked it. Terrible.

The second game wasn't much better. I played in it. First of all, Tyler insisted he could win if we gave all the balls to him. Yeah, he almost hit Chef, Chris, the benched Gophers, and finally Lindsay, the only Gopher he actually didn't want to take out of the game. After that, while he was distracted telling her the bruises weren't so bad on her, he was taken out, and they went off together.

"Hey – hey, get back here!" Heather yelled after them. "You are so close to being out of the alliance!"

"How come she's letting everyone know she has an alliance at all?" I whispered to Katie. "Kind of kills the point, huh?"

Katie shrugged, but we didn't have any more time for a conversation. I probably shouldn't have been standing within whispering range to Katie, because Owen took both of us out. And it hurt, too.

And then he took out Bridgette, and then Geoff, and by that time, we'd lost the second game.

"Hey, it's two-zero!" Heather gloated. "How does it feel to suck so much?"

"Not very good," Harold actually answered her.

"It's not over yet!" Courtney replied quickly. The second Heather looked away, though, she gave a sigh. "It's so over."

She made it very clear that our only hope of staying in the game and evening the score a little was to wake Duncan and see if he'd agree to play.

DJ didn't want to. "Uh-uh. We wake him up, he'll kill us!"

"He won't kill us, guys," Courtney said confidently. "He wants to win too."

"Do we really want to take that chance?" I shivered.

Courtney gave me a hard stare. "Um, yes. It's not like we're making you do it – you're not expendable."

She actually tried to get Harold to do it, saying he was the second worst at dodgeball after Tyler and was the only one we could afford to lose if Duncan wasn't making empty threats.

Still, I had to admire Courtney. The second Duncan was awake (after everyone poked him with a stick to wake him), she was the one who stepped in to explain things. "Look, we are down two-nothing. I can appreciate that you need a little naptime, but we need your help."
"Oh, and why should I help you, darling?" Duncan replied.

And Courtney just smiled back at him. "Because I can personally guarantee that if we lose this game, you'll be the one going home. Darling."

So Duncan agreed to play, as long as we did as he said. And…well, good idea. Duncan's strategy was to just focus on one team member at a time, and systematically all aim for them at the same time. We won the third game (and I was in that one as well). I sat out for the fourth game, but it worked the same way, except that Heather ran out to find Lindsay and Tyler. She returned with Lindsay halfway through the game, as did Tyler a minute later. Courtney demanded to know what he'd been up to. "You were with that blonde Gopher girl, weren't you?"

Apparently, Courtney thought Lindsay was being a double agent and getting Tyler to tell her everyone's weaknesses.

Hey, I really appreciated Courtney's logic and game-savvy attitude, but it kind of didn't work when she was telling someone a girl making her hands have a conversation for no apparent reason was capable of that kind of manipulation. Seriously, Lindsay was making talking motions with her hands and nodding along like she was joining in, paying no attention to her team losing the game.

I played in the fifth game. In fact, almost everyone did, because there was a LOT of ball-catching and switches. I don't think Noah ever got up to play (and now I thought about it, had he played at all?), and no one on our team was letting Harold in at first. I did fine on my first go, even taking out Beth at one point, but then I fudged a shot at Leshawna and she caught the ball (and no, I totally was not distracted staring at her). On my second try, I ended up getting distracted while trying to get rid of Owen and didn't have time to dodge before I got a ball to the stomach.

Eventually, it was just two people – Owen, and Harold. Geoff had let Harold in earlier.

"Sorry, dude, but you've gotta go down!" Owen declared.

And then…that was when we saw it. Harold did some of the most graceful dodges that the world had ever seen. I couldn't have dodged all of Owen's throws.

We had to call a time out. "That was amazing," Geoff told him, "But dodging isn't enough."

"He's right," Courtney agreed. "To win, you either have to throw him out-"

"Which we all know you can't do," Duncan interjected.

"Or catch the ball. Can you do it?"

Harold said he would be able to do it, but none of us actually knew whether he'd be able to. We all cheered him as Owen wound up for his next throw.

And he did. He caught the ball. We'd won our first challenge, finally getting to hang and chill while the Gophers trudged off to their first campfire ceremony.

That night, they got rid of Noah. He'd apparently refused to play any rounds and then accused everyone else of lacking team spirit. Neither of those things made him very popular with his teammates.

As for what I'd done this first week? Well, I had DJ as a friend, it looked like Katie and I were going to pal up too, and I got on with Bridgette and Harold. And I'd so far survived three rounds, so I was now guaranteed at least 19th place.

Dodgeball isn't a very inspiring thing to write. Sorry. I knew Peyton would be good at dodging, but I doubted she'd take many people out, if any. And yeah, I played up Katie's skill a little because this was the one challenge she was really good in. Obviously, I'm not going to tell you where Peyton places yet, but let's just say she's on the more harmonious team for good reason.