Disclaimer: I own The Office! It's mine! All mine! Just kidding.
Author's Note: I AM VERY SORRY for not updating in such a long time! I blame my long absence on my future AP bio and English teachers, who assigned me multiple summer reading books, packets, and projects. Seeing as school starts in, erm, two days, I'm NEARLY done with my homework, and I think it's about time I take a break and do something unrelated to the Calvin cycle. So, yay, here's chapter 11. I feel like I should warn you – there's some fluff at the end, so if you're allergic to jam…sorry. I had to get it out of my system. And, as usual, many thanks to the reviewers of the last chapter! Feedback completes me.
Chapter 11: In Which Certain People Are Up To Certain Things
Andy grinned smugly at the camera as he walked toward his boss. "Of course Karen and I will win," he said confidently. "Although the sandcastle was basically my doing, so I deserve the prize more than her. You see, I have a Cornell back round in sand art. I kid you not! When I wasn't busy being hung over and Frolfing – Frisbee golfing, duh – I started a sandcastle club. My specialty? Sand replicas of the Taj Mahal." He sighed, eyes glazed with memories. "Beer me that prize, Michael…."
"Our sandcastle…is awesome," Kevin declared with a toothless grin. "We are so going to win. I hope the prize is edible…or naked."
Meredith sipped her sandcastle as she walked along, the makeshift flag tucked behind her ear. "I was thirsty," she explained.
"I will win this contest. Fact: I am a Schrute, and Schrutes are always on top," Dwight said seriously. "I hope the prize is a sack of potatoes, because I'm running out of ammo for my spud gun."
Angela ignored the camera man's question, and instead asked him one of her own as the group congregated. "This is where we were sitting earlier, right?" Her face fell as the camera man nodded. "I thought I left my back pack here…I think I've lost it….have you seen it?"
"Allllllllll-righty then!" Michael rumbled, halting the talking head sessions. "Let's check out these sandcastles!"
"We're first! We're first!" Andy cried, speeding to the front of the group.
The rest of the Dunder-Mifflinites hurried away in pursuit of the overly enthusiastic, skipping salesman. The camera man tapped Jim and Pam on their shoulders, indicating that they should hang back, in order to inform the couple of Dwight's scheme.
Pam shook her head when the camera man finished his story. "Typical Dwight," she sighed. "Thanks for telling us. Now we know to be on guard and ignore him…."
The camera man saluted the couple and walked off to join the group.
A smile had slowly spread across Jim's face while the camera man spoke. By the time Pam had responded, his face was positively glowing. He flung an arm around her shoulder and sighed.
"Oh, Pam."
She grinned up into his glazed-over hazel eyes. "You okay? You look…drunk."
"Drunk with happiness," he murmured.
She laughed. "Why?"
He spun to face her, hands firmly planted on her shoulders. "What do you mean, why!?" he cried. "Dwight has, yet again, given us the perfect opportunity to mess with him, and we didn't even have to lift a finger!"
Pam's eyes lit up. "You have a plan?"
Jim grinned. "I always have a plan."
When Michael led his grumpy entourage back to the middle of the beach, having already trooped around the entire pond, Pam and Jim were still huddled on the beach in a two-person conference. Michael cleared his throat authoritatively, hands on his hips. Startled, Jim and Pam sprang apart. Jim got to his feet first, looking guilty, and, after brushing sand off his butt, helped Pam up.
"So," Michael said darkly. "What have you been up to? You missed the judging."
"Sorry, Michael," Pam muttered.
"Sorry," Jim echoed.
"I'm very disappointed in you two. Not only did you slack off on team bonding, but you didn't even have a castle! Just a pile of sand! Like something that used to be a sandcastle but then got ruined. With lots of dents in it, like somebody was rolling around on top of…oh…ew…."
Pam blushed as Michael, coming to a realization, tugged at his collar uncomfortably. Dwight snickered. Jim shot the camera a nervous, wide-eyed look. Kevin giggled.
Michael was at a loss for words. "Well, that's just…I don't even…I hope you guys at least used protection."
"No!" Pam cried.
"You didn't use protection?" Kelly squealed.
"Ugh," said Angela.
"I meant that no, we weren't doing…that!" Pam clarified.
"Definitely not!" Jim agreed.
"LIARS! DEMARCATION!" Dwight bellowed, pointing a finger at the scandalous sandcastle wreckers.
"Dwight! Shhhhhut…it!" Michael hissed. "I'm the one who gives demarcations around here, not you!"
"But I'm Assistant Regional Manager!" Dwight protested.
"To the," Jim reminded him dutifully.
"Whatever," Dwight sneered. "Jim missed team bonding, so demarcation! Fire him!"
"I'm not going to fire Jim."
"THEN GIVE HIM A DEMARCATION!"
"What's a demarcation?" Kevin asked.
"I have no idea," Michael sighed.
"I'm lost," Toby announced.
"That's because you have no family to guide you," Michael quipped.
"Hey…" said Toby.
"Michael, will you just be nice to Toby?" Kelly jabbered. "It's not like he's ever done anything to you! This is just like when Donald Trump got pissed at Rosie!"
Oscar raised an eyebrow at Kelly. "How is Michael hating Toby anything like that?"
"Well, because Michael and the Donald both have really weird hair and…."
The sudden eruption of noise as a series of pointless arguments broke out swallowed the rest of Kelly's reasons. Jim and Pam stood dumbfounded as the rest of the office bickered like eight year olds. Finally, someone had enough sense to shut everyone up.
"QUIET!" Phyllis boomed.
Crickets chirped.
"Wow, you don't usually hear those during the day," Andy noted in reference to the crickets.
Phyllis glared at him. He shut up.
Stunned at the boldness of his rather soft-spoken employee, Michael continued to stare at Phyllis for a moment before shaking himself out of his reverie. He cleared his throat.
"Well…thanks, Phyllis."
Phyllis beamed at him. Michael cleared his throat again.
"Well, whatever Pam and Jim did on top of their sandcastle is their business…and mine, because I'm the boss, so we'll talk about this later."
"No, we won't," said Jim.
Michael cocked his head to the side. "Yes, we will…I…whatever."
"Who won the prize?" said Andy.
Michael grinned. "Oh, right, that sandcastle contest!" he chirped. "I nearly forgot! Seeing as they were the only ones to make an actual castle, the winners are…Kevin and Oscar!"
The winners high-fived.
"Yay!" cheered Oscar.
"Niiice," drawled Kevin. "So what's our prize?"
"Why do they get the prize?" cried Andy. "What about my Taj Mahal!?"
"The Taj Mahal isn't a castle," Michael reasoned.
Andy made to protest, but Karen put a hand on his shoulder, holding him back. Andy glowered at Michael in silence, his arms crossed.
"What about ours?" said Angela.
"Yeah!" Dwight piped up. "Our sandcastle was a work of art!"
"Again," Michael said, "I don't know what your…thing…was, but it definitely was NOT a castle!"
"Mine was a castle!" said Phyllis.
"Mmm…right, okay," said Michael. "But…no."
Phyllis's shoulders slumped. Stanley rolled his eyes as he filled in 9 Across.
"So, what's our prize?" Kevin repeated.
"Your prize is that you guys don't have to pay the fee for using the camp site!"
"There's a fee?" said Karen.
Michael got a deer-in-the-head-lights kind of look on his face. "Oh…I thought I told you…didn't I tell you?"
"You did not," said Stanley.
"Oh," Michael muttered. "Well, it's $15 dollars per person, so…."
The employees grumbled. Toby summed it all up nicely:
"This sucks," he mumbled.
"I don't see how a crucifix with a beet on it isn't a castle," Dwight said matter-of-factly. "Whatever. I can spare $15. I am, after, Dunder Mifflin's top salesman." He smiled gloatingly at the camera without showing teeth.
Kevin sighed. "The prize isn't naked…."
Kelly crossed her arms across her chest and huffed indignantly at the camera. "Johnny Depp's mansion is totally a castle! It has thirteen and a half balconies! And Captain Jack is the KING! And the king always lives in a castle!" Her bottom lip quivered in response to a question from the camera man. "How is he a king?" she repeated back sadly. "He's the king of my heart."
Angela gazed furtively past the lens at the camera man. "Are you sure you haven't seen my backpack?"
"So far this weekend, I have participated in too many stupid games, revealed my preference in underwear, listened to Andy sing, built a replica of the Taj Mahal that looks more like my grandfather's head than a building, and been bitten by bugs," Karen listed flatly. "And now I'm out fifteen bucks. So yeah, I'm in a great mood."
"What now?" Karen sighed after Michael had collected fifteen dollars from everyone except for Oscar and Kevin.
"We head back down!" said Michael. "Let's go back to camp and get our stuff."
Murmurs of relief passed through the crowd as the employees started off towards the clearing.
"I'm so glad the bonding games are done!" Phyllis confided in Stanley as they left the beach for the shade of the trees. Michael, however, overheard her stage-whisper and set her straight.
"Who said anything about no more bonding games?" he giggled. "We still the whole afternoon to hike down! Just imagine how many activities we can fit in!"
"Yes!" cheered Andy. "I have, like, fifty million more games in mind!"
Toby groaned. "This sucks," he repeated, so only Karen could hear him. She patted him on the back sympathetically.
After half an hour, the campsite was cleaned up and everybody was packed. The employees gathered in front of the trail leading to the bottom of the mountain. Before setting off, Michael performed a quick head count.
"We're missing five people!" he exclaimed.
"Kevin's not here," Oscar noted.
"Neither are Dwight and Angela," said Meredith.
"I'm not complaining," Andy muttered.
"And Pam and Jim are gone," said Kelly.
Creed looked puzzled. "Who are they?"
Michael frowned. His eyebrows furrowed in his annoyance. "I wonder what they're up to…."
Huffing and puffing, Kevin trotted as fast as he could over the soft sand. Finally, he reached his and Oscar's former construction site. He plopped to his knees and deftly dug up Angela's small backpack and stuffed it into his own. Then he turned and loped back the way he came.
"I've already told you thirteen times, monkey!" Dwight snapped. "I have neither a pen nor paper in my backpack!"
"But you always have writing implements!" Angela argued. "You always have a pad of paper on you to take notes on what Michael says, because Pam is so incompetent in recording accurate minutes!"
"Yeah, but, we're not at the office, so…." Dwight trailed off and Kevin, wheezing, approached them. He stopped in front of Angela, stooped over, and clutched his knees for a couple minutes, breathing hard. Finally, he straightened and unzipped his backpack. He tugged out Angela's bag and tossed it at her.
"I found this," he said simply, and then he disappeared once more.
Angela and Dwight gazed at each other for a moment, and then Angela dug inside her own bag. She produced a legal pad and a black pen.
"Well, now we have the materials for plans A, B, and C," she said matter-of-factly. "Which plan would you like to carry out?"
A smile spread across Dwight's face. "All. Three. Plans."
The corners of Angela's lips curled slightly. "Very good."
Pam sighed. "Can we leave the cabin now?"
Jim looked from the window against the back wall over to Pam again. "Nope! Dwight and Angela are still standing behind our cabin. If they're planning to sabotage us, we can't interrupt them."
Pam rolled her eyes. "This is so twisted."
Grinning, Jim left the window and strode over to where she sat cross-legged on the wooden floor. He sprawled out next to her. "Don't even kid yourself. You're enjoying this."
Pam smiled slightly. "So what if I am?"
"That means I'm rubbing off on you."
"Never."
"Never say never," Jim quoted.
"Dork," said Pam.
Jim shook his head, still smiling. "Again, with the insults! Can't you just be nice, Beesly?"
Pam gazed up innocently into his hazel eyes, her smile sweet. "Nope," she said simply, and she made to flick him in order to emphasize her mean-ness.
Jim grabbed her fingers before she could touch him. Gently, he pulled her toward him by her arm until their thighs were touching. He leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers. "Missed me, missed me, now you gotta kiss me," Jim chanted softly, entwining his fingers with hers.
"Such a dork," Pam repeated, but she pressed her lips to his anyways.