Well, the Race To The Case is on! Thanks for reviewing, OmniIBIBUltraInstinctGodzilla, Ms Sleepy Clover, lordgemini and the guest reviewer.
It was a long time before we got any word from Chris. Finally, "Okay, this is pathetic, campers!" blared from the loudspeaker. "It's been two hours now and no one has even come close to finding the suitcase. So here's your first clue: It's just…hanging around."
As we continued walking, I spoke up again. "So it's obviously been hung up somewhere. Probably in a tree. We should keep close to the forest and check the trees. I mean, is there anywhere else it could be hanging from?"
My teammates shrugged, but did what I said.
I think it was about half an hour later, when walking around the forest, we heard voices chanting "We found the million! We found the million!" I peeked out from the tree nearest us and spotted DJ's team. The biggest team, indeed, had the suitcase.
"Did you hear what I just heard?" Heather whispered to us.
"Darn it," Harold expressed, "We lost!"
Heather shushed him. "This is not over yet. Are you two up for a little burglary action?"
Well, yeah. There were bushes right next to the guys we could hide in. All was fair in love and war, and the only rule was the first one on the dock with the case won. If the guys' team didn't get it back to the dock before us, they wouldn't get the money. And we had a lucky break when the guys started getting suspicious that one of them might ditch the others and take off with the case, and so they tied themselves together (courtesy of Cody), then Owen needed the bathroom. While they were distracted, I held my nose so Owen's bowels wouldn't defeat me, made a soundless leap, grabbed the case, and then leapt back with it, beckoning my teammates to follow so we were out of range of the men before they knew we were there.
"Impressive stealth skills," Heather commented to me, actually looking like she meant it. "Did you do ballet too? Looked like a tour jete there."
I shrugged. "I took ballet for a few months when I was ten. Thought it might help my endurance skills. I'm just light on my feet because I've taken eight years of other dance classes – I experimented before I found the two I liked best. You have to be light to get away with the hip-hop acrobatics, and it helps with my jazz performances, too. That leap wasn't meant to be ballet – just a fast, stealthy way to get the case back here."
Heather shrugged. "Maybe we were even at the same ballet school for a while, even though you wouldn't have been in my class if you only took it for a few months. I started when I was three."
I frowned. "So why didn't you just do that at the talent show? I mean, you might have won the challenge. And I knew you were going to. Your outfit said as much, and didn't you say that was the plan? I mean, you could have read out Gwen's diary another time if that's what you wanted to do."
"And risk the cameras not seeing it?" Heather raised her eyebrows. "You just don't understand how important revenge is to me. I don't like it when people question my authority."
That's all Gwen had done? I didn't say anything more, but I just looked at her. Meanwhile, Harold was putting together a getaway hang-glider for the three of us to get to the dock faster.
Heather said she was impressed with his skills, too. It looked functional, at least.
"I told you we both had skills," Harold boasted proudly. "You need us."
Heather's expression changed. "I need dead you," she declared. "This is where we split up." And in seconds, she'd kicked Harold right in the worst place and shoved me into him, hard enough that I dropped the case and she took it, along with the hang-glider.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Harold croaked out as I started to pull myself off him.
"You didn't really think I was going to split the money with you, did you?" Heather mocked. "I don't think your little elf friend thought that."
"Kinda…"
Heather jumped off the cliff with the glider, calling "If you learn one lesson from this, it's who to-" She cut herself off when the hang-glider broke apart and she plummeted down, screaming.
"Dang," Harold commented. "That wasn't my best work." He sounded solemn, but I saw his eyes gleam.
"…was that on purpose?" I asked. "We lost her, and she probably lost the case, but we've lost it, too."
Harold shrugged. "Well, I might have suspected she'd try to scam us. Losing the case wasn't in the plan, but still. If we get it back, we can still split the money. If we find her on the way, maybe we can scam her out of an equal share."
"Why would you let her have any of the money, though?"
"I kind of feel bad for her. I have some idea of why she's mean, and if I'm right, I think she's actually pretty pathetic herself. We've both been picked on a lot, but we found ways to deal with it. I think she got badly picked on and didn't find a good way to deal with it."
Well, I still didn't understand why, if she'd been bullied, she would become the bully. If she knew how it felt, why would she want to inflict it on others? But I knew that was a common happening, so maybe Harold was right.
"Anyway," he went on, "Maybe if we're nice to her and give her a chance, she might soften up a bit. I bet no one's responded to her treatment by being nice."
"I guess," I said thoughtfully. "I don't know if I agree. But I'll let you decide this time. But if she betrays us again, then we do what I think next time."
Harold nodded, but this time, he was grinning confidently. "Sure. If I'm wrong, what you say goes," he said, but his tone implied that he was absolutely sure that he was right.
"Attention, campers!" Chris' voice blared. "The case is wet! Repeat: The case is wet!"
I looked at Harold. "I somehow think we're right – she probably lost it. Let's head to the shore."
Harold started running, and I followed. "We better take a canoe," he advised. "Then we can follow it."
As it was, just as we got to a canoe, we heard another clue – that the case was somewhere beautiful. "And headed towards camp."
I looked at Harold. "What do you guess someone's got it?"
"We'll just have to head to the dock, too," Harold said decidedly. "We might run into it that way."
We didn't find the case, though. What we did find was Heather walking along the bank, bruised and angry.
"Looks like a rough time," I commented. "Matches what you gave us."
"Encountered some beavers, eh?" Harold spoke up. "Yeah. They can get pretty territorial. Especially-"
"You know what?" Heather interrupted. "So far today, I've been thrown off a cliff – by you – attacked by beavers, left to die and I lost one million dollars which I'm kind of hoping to get back, so I really don't have time for the lesbian elf's idea of a joke or your Haroldness right now, okay?"
"We didn't throw you off a cliff," I protested. "You were the one who snatched the case and tried to use the hang-glider when you had no idea if it would actually work."
"Either way, you don't always have to be so mean," Harold said straight out.
"Excuse me?"
"Maybe if you were nicer, someone here might actually like you."
"People like me!" Heather insisted. "I'm popular!"
"Then how come no one wanted you on their team?" Harold asked her.
"Even I told Harold we didn't want you," I added. "We only let you join us because he wanted to ask you and I trusted him. And in case you didn't realize, I'm not ashamed of being lesbian, so you can stop trying to use that as an insult. I mean, do you even care?"
Heather sat down on a jutting edge of rock. "Not really," she admitted in a small voice. "As long as you don't hit on me, who cares?" She paused. "It's just nothing else was working. You kept telling Lindsay I didn't want to be friends and only laughing whenever I said anything."
"Except when you said I was a crybaby who didn't give any opinions of her own," I admitted. Something about Heather seemed so vulnerable now, that I could say that. "I just hate confrontation. That's why I let Bridgette speak for both of us when we moved in. I got picked on a lot in primary school, worse than your typical stuff. That's why it doesn't affect me."
Heather looked around, before she met our eyes. Both of us. "I don't like being mean all the time," she admitted in a voice that sounded like she was trying hard not to cry. "It's kind of become this habit of mine. Do you think that it's fun, being the one that everyone hates?" She started sobbing properly. "Look at me, I don't even have any hair!"
"Maybe you're so afraid that everyone will reject you," Harold suggested, "That you push them away first. I'm guessing either your parents are divorced, or you were really fat and pimply once."
"So how'd you become such an expert?" Heather asked him.
"Believe it or not, I wasn't always this cool. Plus I read a lot of my sister's psych books in the can." At this point, Harold looked at me, as if he was asking for permission. I nodded, knowing what he was going to ask. He looked back at Heather. "Want a ride?"
Heather blinked. "You'd still team up with me after the way I treated you? Both of you?"
"Sure," I shrugged. "But we both get forty percent and you get twenty for the stunt you pulled earlier."
"It's either that or a five-mile walk to camp, and those beavers are probably still looking for you." Harold added.
"Impressive extortion skills!" Heather said, actually looking a bit happier. "Deal."
"So," I said, "Does this make us friends or what?"
"Definitely," Heather replied, but as she spoke while Harold wasn't looking, she looked straight at me and shook her head. We exchanged smiles. We still didn't like each other at all, but I didn't quite hate her as much as I had before.
Believe it or not, the case never got to anyone. There was a lot of stuff I never saw. Izzy and Noah got on Justin's case for apparently stealing the case off them at some point, Courtney and Duncan had apparently split up, and DJ's team had fought Courtney in a hot air balloon stolen from the creators and they'd accidentally dragged a bear along, and even Lindsay got ahold of the case at one point. Then, when over half the cast was in the water, along with the case, a shark ate it.
Chris arrived at this point. "So," he said, "You lost the case. Way to go. I didn't want to have to do this," he said to the group in the water, "But since none of the fourteen of you officially won, you all officially tied." Which meant they had another chance. I wasn't in the water, but both of my teammates were, so they got the chance I didn't have.
But then, Chris revealed that he meant in Season Two of Total Drama. The rest of us – that's me, Katie, Sadie, Noah, Cody, Tyler, Courtney and Ezekiel – would be watching from the sidelines.
"Where are we staying?" I asked Chris. "The Playa?"
"Yeah…about that," Chris smirked. "We're not going to be on the island. We're in the city. You eight will get rooms at the Fruit TV studio. I just pitched a new feature that we need you guys for – it'll all be explained."
We could all go home for two days before we'd report to the studio and everyone else would report to a new location. Courtney whined that she wanted to be on Season Two (Chris also called it Total Drama Action), but that couldn't be helped.
Well, at least I'd have a few friends with me. And hey, if we had a couple of days free…
As I was thinking, I spotted Leshawna, still in the water. She met my eyes, and we both grinned. Our first date was definitely going to be in those two days.
Yep, Peyton's not in Action, but she'll be in the Aftermath. I wasn't going to write them originally, but…well…stuff happened involving Leshawna in both seasons and Peyton needs to know her girlfriend isn't perfect. Her girlfriend can be selfish or rude, her girlfriend can fall for flattery, but her girlfriend has every intention of staying true to her, never lying, and she (probably) didn't kiss anyone, hot or not.
As for the whole Fruit TV, I connect the word to "Fresh". Just an inside joke about Fresh TV.
