Oh yes, I love this episode!

We hung around the bonfire for a while after Katie had gone. Bridgette had to drag Sadie back from the dock. The chubby twin was still crying.

The Gophers came up. "What do you guys want?" Courtney asked. "Come by to rub it in?"

"We got some extra dessert after our hot tub party." Trent answered. Beth held up some green Jell-O. "Thought you might want some."

Gwen explained that they didn't want to go back to their cabin since Owen's...uh, fumes...weren't bearable and they were airing them out.

Beth offered the Jell-O to Courtney. "No!" she said too quickly. "I mean, no thanks, I'm good."

"What, are you on a diet or something?" Duncan asked.

"No." Courtney scowled. "I just don't like green jelly, okay?"

I frowned. "You call Jell-O jelly in Canada? So what do you call the spread that the United States call jelly?" (I thought we were all from North America, right? All English speakers – this is an English-speaking part of Canada).

"Jam."

Beth moved on to offer it to someone else, but before she could, DJ screamed and knocked the plate out ot her hands. "SNAKE!"

Cody came up and pulled the 'snake' out of the Jell-O. "Chill, dude. It's just a gummy worm."

"Sorry for tripping." DJ apologized. "Snakes just freak me out."

"I feel you." Tyler said. "Chickens give me the creeps, dude."

That set off everyone. We all started talking about our worst fears. "Back when my town was an environmental nightmare, the government put a dome over it." I told my group. "It made me a bit claustrophobic. Like being in a glass case, cut off from humanity."

Beth was scared of being covered by bugs, Harold was scared of ninjas, Heather was scared of sumo wrestlers, Leshawna was scared of spiders...the list goes on. Gwen's fear was similar to mine – she was scared of being buried alive.

"Walking through a minefield...in heels." Lindsay said.

"Flying, man." Owen said. "That's some crazy stuff."
"I would never go up in a plane." added Izzy. "Never!"

"I'm scared of hail." Geoff said. "It's small, but deadly, dude."

"Being left alone in the woods." Bridgette admitted. Yeah, she'd said she got scared in the forest, and that was with the rest of the team.

"Bad haircuts." Sadie sniffled.

"Okay, I change mine!" Lindsay said. "That's so much scarier than a minefield!" At least I didn't have that airhead on my team. She was worse than Katie had ever been. Although Sadie was pretty close. What did Katie mean, Sadie was smarter than her?

"Having to defuse a time bomb under pressure." Cody decided.

"I'm not really afraid of anything." Courtney claimed.

"Baloney!" Duncan pretended to cough.

I grinned. "So what are you scared of, Duncan?"

There was a long pause.

"C-Celine Dion music store standees." Yes, you got that right. Big bad delinquent Duncan was scared of a cardboard cutout of Celine Dion.

Trent finally told us his fear. "I hate mimes, like a lot." He looked at the one person too scared to say their fear. "All right, Courtney, you're afraid of something. Spit it out."

"No, nothing!" Courtney insisted.

"That's not what she said last night." Duncan muttered to me and a bunch of the guys.

"Duncan, did you ever consider the fact that maybe I was just humouring you and your stupid story?" Courtney asked. I laughed. If not for the reference to the story, I could've thought they'd done a lot more than cuddle.

"Sure, sure, Princess, whatever floats your boat." Duncan said.

"Shut up!"

The next day, Chris told us that our challenge would be facing our worst fears. We didn't take him seriously until he called out to Heather. "Meet us all in the theatre. It's sumo time!" Heather choked on her coffee.

"Gwen," added Chris, "You, me, the beach. A few tons of sand."

"Wait, how did they know those were your worst fears?" Lindsay asked blankly.

"Because we told them." Gwen realized.

We'd been filmed talking around the campfire. Chris must've watched the footage and decided to make a challenge out of it! Sneaky bastard.

"They were listening?" Lindsay asked, horrified.

"There's a reason why they call it a reality show, bubble brain." I quipped. "They listen to that kind of stuff."

"That's like eavesdropping!"

As it was, for some reason, there were two glass cases lying around. One for me, which I'd have to lie in, somewhere around the camp for ten minutes, and everyone would act like I didn't exist for that time – just as the government had made like Springfield didn't exist back then. Gwen had to spend five minutes in the other glass case under the sand, but unlike me, she got a walkie-talkie to communicate if she got scared – because my claustrophobia was about being cut off from humanity, I didn't get one.

At least I managed to do it, mostly just by keeping my eyes shut and reenacting musical numbers in my head. It was a relief when Chris let me out and my whole team congratulated me. Even Courtney grinned at me.

As for the other challenges...well I was busy pretending that I wasn't in a glass case when Chef, dressed as a spider, went after Leshawna and when Beth jumped into a kiddie pool full of bugs. But I saw Owen and Izzy when Chef took them flying in a crazy plane, and Sadie and Lindsay wearing wigs with horrible hair. Bridgette was in the woods already, though.

I witnessed Heather with the sumo wrestler. She was trembling the whole time, but she still scored a point.

Trent stayed by Gwen for the first few minutes of her being buried under the sand, but then Chris sent a mime after him and Gwen was left there for much longer than intended. She was lucky to survive. At least Trent faced his fear. Then again, that was another point against us and for the Gophers.

On the bright side, Cody couldn't defuse his time bomb. But negatively, he ended up stumbling towards Bridgette, covered in trash from the explosion, and she was sent running back to camp.

We also watched DJ and his snake. "Hey, you can do this, buddy!" Duncan called out.

There was a pause, as DJ stared down the snake. Suddenly, he gave a little scream. "It blinked!"

"It means she likes you!" Sadie called.

I frowned. "How can a snake blink? They have no eyelids." I looked at Chris. "Is it genetically engineered or something?"

Chris shrugged. "I don't know. The producers got it somewhere. Ask them."

"It's the smallest snake ever, DJ!" Courtney yelled.

"Yeah, but it's slimy and scaly...slithery..."

"We need this point, DJ! Suck it up!" The rest of the boys and I shook our heads at her. "What? We're heading back to Loserville, people."

And then DJ held it. Courtney smiled. "See? Fear is only in the mind."

Then came the Celine Dion standee. I sat with the rest of our team, giving Duncan an encouraging look, but Courtney stood beside him. I worried that she was going to yell at him, too. But she didn't.

"She's pretty, she's nice." she said. All Duncan had to do was hug the standee.

Duncan still looked scared. "That looks really...real, man." he said shakily.

"Dude, she's made of cardboard! Get in the game!" called Tyler.

But Courtney smiled at Duncan. "Hey, it's okay if you can't do it."

But Duncan managed it. He ran at the standee and threw his arms around it. We all started cheering, but Courtney loudest of all. "Duncan, you're awesome!" she cried, hugging him.

Then Chris made an electronic hail cloud chase Geoff.

Lindsay, of course, didn't understand it. "Look, that cloud's following him! It's like his own baby cloud – I want one too! Here, cloudy cloud!"

The Gophers scored 7 – Owen, Izzy, Lindsay, Gwen, Trent, Beth, and Heather. We'd only scored 4 – me, DJ, Duncan and Sadie. It got to Tyler. He was supposed to spend a few minutes in a pen with chickens, but he couldn't even look at them.

"Tyler, this is the last challenge!" Courtney shouted. "Quit being such a girl! You have to do this or we're going to lose this!"

"Actually, if you do the math, you can't possibly win." Cody pointed out. "The score's seven to four."

But there was one more challenge left.

"Who?" Courtney asked. "It can't be me. I didn't..."

"You didn't have to." Chris said brightly. "We're always watching your reactions." And Courtney had reacted to Beth offering her the Jell-O.

There was a high diving board with a tub of green Jell-O in it. As it turned out, that was what Courtney was scared of. "Only the green kind!" she protested. "It's like sugary, jiggly snot!" All she had to do was jump in. If he did, Chris would automatically give us the win.

"This is insane." Courtney said as she began to climb. "I could seriously die doing this!" But she climbed, and climbed, and climbed...she was at the top.

"Like you said, Courtney, it's okay if you can't do it!" Duncan called up.

"It is? But we'll lose!" Bridgette protested.

But unlike him, Courtney couldn't do it. She climbed down, tears in her eyes.

I went to the confessional after that. "Look, I might not have decided to vote Courtney tonight, if she hadn't been yelling at everyone else except Duncan. But she was a hypocrite today, and that's why I'm voting for her. I bet she's already got a lot of votes already after what happened."

But then Duncan came up to me and told me "Look, I know you were going to vote for Courtney. I think we should vote off Tyler instead."

I folded my arms. "I know you like Courtney, but she deserves to go this time. Why should I vote for Tyler?"

"Because if you don't, you should probably start running." Duncan said, his blue eyes threatening and serious.

I shrugged. "Okay, okay, you don't have to threaten me."

I still voted for Courtney, though. I just didn't show my vote to anyone else. If Chris didn't air everyone voting, which he didn't do, Duncan would never know that I'd ignored his threat. Not like I was scared of him and his hook and knife, anyway.

Well, not really.

It didn't matter. Tyler was out anyway. "It looks as if a new pecking order has been established." Chris joked.

"It's not like he called fowl." added Duncan.

"Time for Tyler to fly the coop!" Geoff continued.

"He won't be flying high tonight." finished Bridgette.

"Okay, that's enough!" Courtney said finally. Okay, maybe that made up for her yelling at Tyler earlier today. I guess she knew how close she was this time.

It's weird, Courtney came so close to elimination twice, but her elimination was rigged. Hope you liked this chapter.