ight, let's keep going. Thanks for reviewing, Gage the Hedgehog.
"Nobody's leaving until I find out who ate my pudding pockets!" was the first thing Bridgette and I heard as we came up the steps to the cabin. It looked like Leshawna and Heather were having a major fight. Leshawna was the one yelling.

"I ate them." Heather confessed coldly. "So what?"

"Whoa, pump the brakes a minute! You're so-whatting me? That's my food! No one touches my food!"

"Whatever, deal with it!" Heather snapped back. "It serves you right for leaving your junk everywhere. Especially that." She pointed at a large purple bra hanging off one of the top bunks. "That is bugging me."
"Yeah, it'd bug me too if I didn't have anything in the front or the back to shake!"

"Yeah? Well, you've got so much junk in your trunk, your jeans should come with a trash compactor!"

"Ooh, you want a piece of this?"

"Uh-oh." Bridgette murmured. The girls looked up.

"Bridgette! Stephanie!" Heather said in a sweet voice, totally fake. "It's so good to see you! Come in, come in! Welcome to our cabin! We're like a big family in here!" She linked arms with both of us as she spoke.

"Big and dysfunctional." Gwen muttered from her place on one of the bunks.

"Anything you need, just yell." added Heather.

"Thanks for the awesome welcome, Heather." Bridgette said. I said nothing, but let the other girl drag me along.

Lindsay spoke up, smiling. "Welcome to the club! It'll be so much fun, as long as you do everything Heather says. Ow!" Heather had stomped on Lindsay's foot. She laughed off the statement, claiming Lindsay's words were a joke.

Then she tried to give Bridgette the bed that Lindsay had already claimed and offered me the one nearest. She also wouldn't let either of us talk to Gwen or Leshawna, trying to keep us away from them. I gave them an apologetic look, mouthing I'll talk to you once I've settled in and told Heather to back off. Bridgette just smiled awkwardly and waved to them.

"This is great!" Lindsay said brightly. "I bet we're getting along way better than the guys!"

Somehow, I doubted that. I already knew that Heather wasn't as nice as she made out, and Gwen and Leshawna clearly hated her. DJ, Geoff and Duncan got along well, and I was sure they had no problems with Trent or Owen, so they were probably getting along great.

Heather started offering us her makeup and accessories, telling us we could help ourselves to them whenever we liked, but slamming the jewellery box shut when Lindsay came up.

"Thanks, Heather, but I've got all the accessories I need with me, and I only wear dark makeup, apart from foundation." I told her. "Your skin tone has a different look to mine, so what looks good on you wouldn't look good on me." I actually wore foundation to make me look paler, although I couldn't quite beat Gwen in that department – she was almost white. But I wore just as much eyeliner as her. Our main differences was that I wore purple lipstick and eyeshadow, and she wore dark blue – I remembered her telling Trent in the Awake-A-Thon that her favourite colour was midnight blue.

"Thanks, Heather," Bridgette echoed my words, "But I like to keep it natural."

Heather shrugged, taking an eyebrow pencil to Bridgette. "Like my mom always says, a lady can always use a little boost in the looks department."

"And my momma told me ain't nothing free in this world." Leshawna interjected. "Watch what you take from this girl, Bridgette. You too, Steph."

"Mind your own business!" Heather snarled.

"We're a team and we gotta live in the same cabin, so this is all of our business!"

"Yeah, we're a team!" Bridgette agreed. "We should be using this as an opportunity to get to know each other better!"

I'd never seen a girl switch from nice to cold the way Heather did at that moment. "You wanna play that way? Fine! Be on their side!" She started putting down some tape to separate the bunks. "This is my side, and that's your side."

Leshawna scowled. "Yeah, that's right. You keep putting down that tape, and if you cross it, I'll smack you down!"

Heather looked at Bridgette and I. "You can choose the weird girls if you want, but just so you know, once you do, you're, like, not allowed on our side. Right, Lindsay?"

Lindsay stuck her nose in the air and went to stand next to Heather.

I shrugged, about to make my choice as Bridgette spoke. "Let's build bridges, not walls."

"Take your pick." was Heather's reply.

I took one last glance, and in perfect sync with Bridgette, I stepped over the line...to Gwen and Leshawna's side. The two girls grinned.

"You two just dug your own graves." Heather informed us.
"Let's try to get along, okay?" Bridgette pleaded. "Otherwise the guys are going to cream us, don't you get it?" The two of us looked at each other. We quickly grabbed the free bunk – since I'd had top in our old cabin, we switched and Bridgette got the top.

Okay, did anyone seriously expect me to be with Heather and Lindsay? There was no way I'd ditch my fellow goth girl, and I was looking forward to getting to know Leshawna better, too. I was just glad Bridgette had had the common sense to stick with us. Not that I had doubted – she was the most levelheaded person who had been on the Killer Bass.

We had to go back to the cafeteria for the challenge. Chris finally explained about breakfast. The reason we didn't get any was because of the nine-course meal we were getting for the challenge. It was called the Brunch of Disgustingness.

"Each member of each team must finish each dish." Chris told us. "You will not know if the next dish will be grosser than the last, not as gross, or just as gross, just that it will likely be gross."

Whoever was finished first won the round. The winners would be the ones who finished more dishes faster.

I shrugged. I could eat anything, really. Well, I could swallow anything, as long as I didn't let it touch my tongue. Although I remember Lisa once told this story about a guy who died by choking on broccoli and had to do one good deed before St Peter let him into Heaven. Then when he finally did it, St Peter wasn't looking at the time and he was damned to Hell.

Chef spoke up. "Tell them what they'll get if they win, Chris!" Thank you, Chef!

The winners would get to spend two days at a nearby five-star hotel where they would get spa treatment, great food and shots in case they'd caught anything like parasites or something while they were here. As for the losers, they wouldn't get any food that night, and although it would be a two-day break, it would be just like any break while on the island.

At least it seemed to persuade Heather to want to be a good teammate. We were determined to win.

The first course was actually pretty easy, when you didn't think about it. For me, at least. It was meatballs – actually...beef testicles. But I could do boys were really grossed out. More than us. Trent struggled to bite down on one. DJ nearly started crying.

I finally crammed one of the meatballs into my mouth. Heather bit into one. Leshawna swallowed one of them.

"Okay, gross me right out the door!" whimpered Lindsay. "But I could totally use a pedicure at that resort. My corns are growing corns!" She kept eating.

Bridgette was still staring at her plate. Heather glared at her. "What are you doing? Why aren't you eating?"

"I'm a vegetarian!" Bridgette told her. "It's against my principles."

"Are you sabotaging the team just to spite me?"

Surprisingly, it was Geoff who stepped up to help us win. He couldn't just let Bridgette suffer through it. "It's not that big a deal." he told her. "Sometimes they castrate bulls for...uh...medical reasons." After that, Bridgette ate her portion, and we won the round.

Bridgette smiled at the blonde guy. "Thanks for the talk, Geoff."

Duncan glared at Geoff. "What, you're helping them, dork? You just cost us this round!"

"Yo, it's my business who I talk to." Geoff argued. "Give me a break, man!"

"We can't let them win!" Trent protested.

"Come on, DJ chickened out!" Geoff said.

Finally, Chris blew a whistle. "Are we here to argue, or are we here to eat a series of revolting meals?"

The boys immediately shrugged and apologized to each other. And that was it. I knew from having a younger brother that guys were pretty simple with friendships, but these five made up so easily that even I was blown away.

Next, we had pizza. Okay, that was fine. But the pizza had live grasshoppers, jellyfish sauce, and live anchovies.

"Eww, I hate anchovies!" exclaimed Lindsay.

I was more worried about having bugs and tiny fish jumping around in my mouth. Even Heather said she couldn't do it, but Gwen told her off. I finished my slice at about the same time as her. Next, Bridgette looked scared as Heather told her it was her turn.

"Go, Bridgette! Go, Bridgette!" chanted Leshawna. The blonde took a bite. "Right on, girl!"

Lindsay was up next and she was terrified. "There's no way I'm eating that! It's not even food!"

Bridgette put her hands on Lindsay's shoulders. "Lindsay! Let's try a little yogic meditation, okay?"

Lindsay nodded, still looking scared.

Bridgette demonstrated. "First, get into lotus position..."

A minute later, Lindsay was humming as she sat in lotus position, eyes closed. We fed her the slice, and she ate mindlessly.

The boys were pretty interesting to watch. Trent had an interesting method of getting the slice down. "DJ," he said, "I need you to hold me down, while Geoff, you stuff the slice in my mouth. And no matter how much I scream or beg, you have got to feed me that slice."

One minute later, Trent was struggling to get out of DJ's grip, yelling "No, stop! Wait, it was a joke! I was kidding!" He tried to laugh. "I'm warning you, my dad's a lawyer!" But he still ended up being force-fed the pizza, and helped his team in the process.

Leshawna was who lost us the round. She insisted she couldn't do it. "Little grasshopper minding his own business – what do I want to go and bite his little head off for?"

There was a tie at one all.

The third dish was a twisted version of spaghetti. It was worms with snail slime sauce. Ew! It even looked poisonous.

Suddenly, Geoff stood up. "I can't take it any more!" He ran for the door, screaming.

DJ stood up. "I'll take care of this." He got to Geoff at the door, and pinned him down painfully before convincing him to come back.

The guys won by blindfolding themselves and telling themselves they were eating spaghetti. They cheered.

"Come on, you guys." Bridgette said to us. "Let's show them some girl power!"

"Bridgette's right." Gwen added. "Let's kick some boy butt!"

"Yeah, just like I've been saying all along," Heather agreed, "We've gotta act like a team!"

"Says the girl who divided our cabin." I muttered under my breath. I didn't need anyone to hear that, but it made me feel better about not calling out Heather directly about her hypocritical comment.

Next, we had French bunion soup with hangnail crackers. We won that one. Lindsay was especially good by this time. Bridgette poured the bowl's contents into a funnel which Lindsay had in her mouth. The ditzy blonde swallowed, and then said "I didn't even taste it."

Four more courses went by, and each of us won two. We were tied with the guys, four-four. The ninth course would tie it all up, and to be honest, I was nearly full of the crud. But I was going to manage this last course if it was the last thing I did.

But then, we were served...dolphin hot dogs.

"But dolphins are our friends!" Bridgette protested.

Heather, on the other hand, grabbed some ketchup from the middle of the table and hissed at Bridgette to eat it, since it was already dead.

Bridgette refused. "I'm not doing it! You can't pressure me!"

DJ spoke up and said he wouldn't do it, either. "I ain't eating no dolphin."

So Chris had to give us a tiebreaker.

One person from each team would drink as many shots of blended cockroach as possible. Whoever drank more won. And we didn't get to choose who did it, so I swear it was rigged.

I was picked to go up for the girls, while the guys' team ended up having Owen chosen. Fifteen little shot glasses were put in front of us and filled with blended roach.

Owen and I began downing the shots steadily, one by one. One...two...three...four...five...six...suddenly, Owen grabbed one faster. I quickly grabbed another and downed it, but Owen got the last shot glass before I did.

He won for the boys.

"Stephanie, you are completely useless!" Heather yelled at me.

I scowled. "Get over yourself, Heather. At least I tried. Next time, you try drinking seven glasses of blended roach and see how fast you can do it."

Just about everyone was sick after that. Geoff and Duncan actually puked on the camera lens, and Chris looked like he was about to blow chunks himself.

The guys left that night, while Gwen, Leshawna, Bridgette and I locked ourselves in the cabin, leaving Heather to yell at us through the door to let her and Lindsay in. Gwen, Leshawna and I laughed together, while Bridgette stared out the window forlornly.

"Missing someone?" I asked her.

She looked up. "Oh. Maybe. I guess so."

I gave a sigh. "I wish we were with the boys. At least then we wouldn't have to put up with the Queen of Mean and her slave."

You've probably guessed that Stephanie doesn't think much of Lindsay. She may have to put up with her dad being stupid and her brother being a bit dumb sometimes, but family vs competition – she's probably not sure how Lindsay even got this far. Too bad.