Oh, well, now here's an episode I like! Thanks for reviewing, StarHeart Specials, shahmeeralikhokhar and Gage the Hedgehog.

The end of the sixth week marked another letter. I also got a care package from Mom. This one held some more macaroons, which I shared with everyone except Heather (although I stashed some away before handing them out so Owen couldn't get to them).

The letter was from Lisa, as usual.

Dear Stephanie,

We just got the Hide and Seek episode. Why did you side with the boys? I thought you and Bridgette were friends! Oh, and I don't know, but I don't believe that Geoff didn't vote for her, unless Izzy changed her vote or something. Either way, you seriously left him hanging upside down all night? Like I said, I don't know what you see in Duncan.

Heather spilled Lindsay's nail polish, by the way, and she said in the confessional that she thinks Heather might not be as nice as she thought. Has she left Heather's alliance yet? Is she still there?

My prediction for the next elimination is Heather, if she doesn't keep winning invincibility. Otherwise...probably Duncan or DJ. This is where the nicest competitors have to be kicked off, right? That was why you voted Bridgette out.

By the way, that torture challenge...I wonder who thought of that. But the New Age music didn't seem so bad – how come Gwen couldn't take ten seconds of it? Otherwise, it's inhumane. I mean, I know Izzy enjoyed it, but electrocuting someone can be murder.

As for the key thing...poor Trent! I was hoping he'd stay around for longer. Also, I don't know if you know this, but before she kissed Trent, Heather told him a ton of lies about Gwen, saying that she was playing him for his vote and really doesn't like him.

Tasha isn't going to send another letter, she says, but your friends all miss you, and they're glad you're still in. Don't come home without the money.

Love, Lisa

I also spent some time hanging out with Duncan. But then, it was the start of the seventh week, and the first challenge of the week, with the final seven.

Chris told us that he and the producers had thought of the best way to help us de-stress. "Then we decided it would be more way more fun to see if we couldn't push 'em over the edge!" He held up four pairs of handcuffs.

"Did Duncan's parole officer send a care package?" Heather said mockingly, but the joke was on her. Chris would handcuff each of us to a partner, or in one case, two other people. Then we'd compete in three challenges. Winning team got invincibility.

Chris chose the teams straight off. First, he placed one cuff on Leshawna's wrist and connected the other one to Duncan. Then he cuffed Heather and Owen together. I looked warily from Gwen to Geoff. I wouldn't mind being cuffed to either, but for a whole challenge? And I knew for a fact that Geoff got on Gwen's nerves because he was always smiling and being friendly. He didn't annoy me so much – in fact, happy people did annoy me, but Geoff was impossible not to like after being on a team with him – but if Gwen and I were cuffed to him for a whole challenge...well, I wasn't sure what would happen.

Chris had us cuffed in a line, with Geoff in the middle and Gwen and I either side. The challenge was called the Tri-Armed Triathalon. "Although, you three, you get an extra arm," he added to my team. "Since you have an extra person and just having three arms would make it unfair because you'd have a harder time."

Because it was a Triathalon, there were three challenges. Chris told us that there was a Wimp Key, which we'd be offered before each challenge. But if we took it, we'd automatically be eliminated from the competition as a whole, along with our partner/teammates.

The first challenge was an eating challenge. One person would feed a platter of food to the other. Chris gave my group the choice of whether there were two feeders or eaters. But because Gwen refused to make up her mind (I got the feeling she was trying to annoy Geoff), I couldn't decide. Because Geoff was in the middle, he had to do one and Gwen and I would both do the other.

"Gwen, decide already!" I snapped. "If you're trying to be frustrating, congratulations, you succeeded. Either decide, or let me or Geoff decide."

I knew she hadn't been trying to irritate me in particular, but that outburst shut her up. When she saw the platter, she immediately decided that we'd feed and Geoff would eat. Owen was obviously going to do the eating for his team, and Leshawna and Duncan arm-wrestled for eating, and Duncan cheated and won.

Gwen and I would've had an easier time with Geoff if he hadn't kept interrupting to tell us how wonderful the food was, saying "You've gotta try this quiche" or "cheesecake's delish!"

"Focus!" I said sternly.

"I am not here to try the food." Gwen scowled. "This is a contest!"

Eventually, Heather just smashed the tray into Owen's face, and he'd eaten everything that got into his mouth. They won the first challenge easily. Heather even gave Owen a hug. "All right, Owen! Way to go! You are one champion eater! What a team!" Owen looked a bit unnerved and even afraid. That I could get. Someone as sweet and innocent as Owen would be terrified of Heather, especially if she suddenly started being nice.

The second challenge began with canoeing to Boney Island. Owen tried to get Heather to agree to use the Wimp key, but she wouldn't. Duncan and Leshawna had another argument about who got to go in front. As for us, Gwen and I sat in the front while Geoff babbled on about some prank he and his friends played one time. He didn't shut up until Gwen yelled at him.

"Whoa. Harshness."

"Oh, I know." Gwen snapped. "I'm the harsh weird scary goth girl who's being all mean and snappish as usual."

"Chill! I didn't say that!"

I gave a sigh. "Guys, can't you please try to get along? Gwen, we know you're doing this on purpose. Geoff, take this seriously for once. I mean come on, you're annoying me, and I was on a team with you for four weeks. I'm used to it. If I wasn't, I'd probably be ready to kill you about now, so imagine how it must be."

Geoff was a bit subdued then, but when we got to the next part of the challenge, he'd recovered from Gwen's outburst.

It turned out the little tiki doll that Beth had promised to take back to Boney Island had been found flushed down the septic tank in bits. Now, each of us had to bring the piece back, and this time, one person had to piggyback the other – or other two, in our case.

Geoff quickly let Gwen and I on, while Owen bent down a little for Heather, and Duncan made some remark about Leshawna's weight.

Geoff brought us to a beach. "Oh, wow. Scope all the beauteousness here!"

"Wait, are we lost?" Gwen asked. "There is no beach on this map."

"Nah, I remembered it from our last trip." Geoff said, pulling a camera out of his pocket and snapping pictures. However, Gwen threw the camera into the water after he took a picture of her, and finally, all three of us ended up talking about what was going on.

Gwen was sick of Geoff being all happy and nice, convinced he was only doing it for the team. "I wasn't pretending!" he protested. "I really like you."

"Yeah, and if we went to the same high school, you'd probably invite me to all your wild parties, too."

"I totally would!" Geoff said. "But I didn't think you'd want to go."

"Why not?" Gwen challenged. "I'm not cool enough?"

"No! You just seem like...I dunno, it's not your thing. You'd probably think parties were pretty stupid anyway."

Gwen hesitated. "Well, I wouldn't know. I've never been to one."

I couldn't help gasping at that. "Gwen, seriously? Even I've been to a few parties. And yeah, they were stupid, but they could be fun, too."

But after that, Gwen finally had an invitation to one of Geoff's parties after the show ended. "Am I invited?" I asked. "I mean, if I'm still in Canada by then."

"Of course, Steph!" Geoff grinned. "I wouldn't invite just one of you. All my buds on the show are welcome!" That was almost everyone.

Also, we won that part of the challenge, and all three of us let loose together in happiness. Even Gwen cheered up and all three of us started yelling "Woohoo!" We all high-fived, and then it was time to go back and do the third challenge. Each team stood in front of a covered table. Chris finally whipped the cover off, and Owen screamed.

"Relax," Heather told him, "It's just Eva. Ew, two Evas! That is upsetting." On each table, there were wood carvings of everyone who had been kicked off. Our job was to place them in the order of who got kicked off, Ezekiel at the bottom and the second Izzy at the top.

"Time for heads to roll."

Heather and Owen weren't doing anything. Owen drooled over Justin, then Heather remarked that the wood carvings of Lindsay and Beth had as much brainpower than the real two combined (hey, at least Beth stood up to her – that meant she was smart, and after what Lindsay said to her...)

"Okay, I think Katie was voted off fifth." Gwen was saying in our group.

"No, it was Sadie!" Geoff protested.

"Wasn't it Katie? I can never remember!"

"Katie was the stick-thin one!" I spoke up. "It was her voted off first."

"No, Katie was the one who was afraid of bad haircuts..." Geoff said, "Or was that Sadie?"

"Sadie!" I insisted. "Katie goes next."

Meanwhile, Heather had gotten even worse. Owen lost his temper when she started insulting Izzy. Chris teased Duncan when he found that he'd carved a heart with D + C into the back of the carving of Courtney. I gave him a sideways look and he nodded, which meant we'd talk later.

But he and Leshawna actually won the challenge, while Gwen, Geoff and I only got as far as Trent. That meant that all of us were vulnerable that night, but at least we could take the handcuffs off, and we'd had fun.

Duncan and I talked in our clearing. "So does that mean it's Courtney?" I asked.

"Look, Stephie, I like you. I mean that." Duncan said seriously. "But I'll be honest; I'm not good with long-distance relationships. You're from the States, I'm not even allowed out of Canada because of my criminal record. It's basic logic – we can't date."

I shrugged. "I guess I knew that was coming. It's okay. We can still be pen pals after this game is over, right?"

Duncan grinned. "Got no objection to that. Well, e-pals anyway. And if you come back to Canada later on, we can hang out and stuff. But I figured if I want a relationship at all, I should pick Courtney. Besides the distance, you're still my friend, I guess. Courtney either likes me, you know what I mean, or she hates me. So that's how it's going to work."

I smiled. I'd seen it coming. It didn't hurt so much. "Okay, but I've got two requests." I said. "Can I kiss you just one more time? And will you keep calling me Stephie? It makes me feel special when you say it."

Duncan smiled back. "Okay to both of those, Stephie."

That night, Chris gave Leshawna and Duncan, then Heather and Owen their marshmallows quickly. He took longer to give me mine, but he still did it. Gwen stood up. "It's cool. I had a good time."

"What are you doing?!" Chris demanded. "You're wrecking it!" Mainly because Gwen hadn't been voted off. She was given a marshmallow, and then she looked at the rest of the cast. I hadn't voted for Geoff. She hadn't either. But it seemed like everyone else had. "Are you guys all crazy? Geoff is the nicest guy in the world!"

"Yeah, bingo, sister." Duncan grinned.

"As if Heather could defeat nice." agreed Owen.

"The power of nice is huge, and we're not worried about you or your clone in that department, Gwen." Heather smirked, looking from her to me.

But Geoff seemed cool about it, at least. I gave him a hug goodbye on the dock. After all, he'd been a great friend to me. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if he was a little less happy, he'd have the exact personality I'd want in an older sibling.

As for Gwen, she came down to the dock with us, since she'd gotten Geoff's camera back from the shallows of Boney Island. "I'm sorry. There might be just a little of Lake Wawanakwa in it."

Geoff only grinned. "Makes it a better souvenir, right?"

"Right." Gwen smiled shyly. "Bye, Geoff. And thanks." We both turned to go back.

"Wait up!" Geoff quickly put one arm around each of us, and snapped a selfie of our triathalon team (obviously, this blocked my synthetic onyx necklace since his arm looped around so he could still hold the camera, but that was OK.

It was true, voting off the nicest guy on the show was a legit strategy. Now every person on the show was heavily flawed. Leshawna had a terrifying quick temper, Duncan could be really mean, Owen had huge digestion issues, I was focused on strategy and very snarky, Gwen was moody, and Heather...well, how can I put it nicely?

I can't.

Well, we all know what's coming up! Now it's the final six, so...yeah, one person won't be getting their video message.