Right, let's continue! Thanks for reviewing, Bloody-Asphode11 (I mentioned him in an earlier chapter in reference to Princess Stephanie's singing) and TheProtecterOfHim.

Late into the next flight, our team started thinking about alliances. DJ was on his own. Maybe we could add him to our team. Izzy didn't join in the discussion, since she was asleep, but the rest of us were listening.

"I don't know what to say to him." Owen murmured. "I've always been the alliance-ee, not the alliancer."

"It's like asking a girl out, only she's a guy." Noah whispered back.

Owen seemed to get that. Seconds later, his way of asking DJ to be in an alliance was to ask "You wanna go for hotdogs with my buddy Noah? He said your legs are nice." Then he whistled. DJ blinked in confusion.

"Yeah, because that's exactly what I told him to say." Noah deadpanned, and I burst out laughing.

"Sorry, DJ. " I said between giggles. "Noah meant to say something else, but Owen just got it wrong."

"One cannot blunder into an alliance, friends." Alejandro finally spoke up.

Tyler shot a glare at DJ. "Why couldn't you lose so Lindsay could still be here?"

"Anger also doesn't help."

DJ scowled. "Listen, I'm sorry, I tried, okay? But you only have to put up with me for one more day."

"Going somewhere, DJ?" Alejandro asked him.

"I'm losing the next challenge!"

"What?" the voice came from above as one of the luggage compartments opened and out fell Heather.

Alejandro got a little smirk on his face as Heather got to her feet. "What have we here? Doing a little spying, are we?"

"I just...dropped my pen!" Heather said quickly, holding up her paper pad and pen. "See? No scheming, just scribbling." She tore a page out of her notebook. "Owen, I am issuing you a ticket for fashion crimes. Your socks reek!"

"Oh, am I wearing socks?" Owen asked. "I can't even see my feet!"

I gagged. "You better be. I swear, you're like my dad sometimes, except with hair and a lack of love for beer."

We landed in the water. Most of us floated, but DJ was struggling. Luckily, Heather had taken a First Class cushion with her, and she threw it to him, before trying to ask him to join an alliance. Nice try, but no go for the poor guy.

Chris was on a boat himself, and came up, speaking in a strange accent.

"What with the who now?" Cody asked.

Sierra gave a huge gasp. "It must be Newfoundland!"

I frowned. "I still don't get the accent, though. Newfoundland is a Canadian province. That sounds Scottish."

But it must've been normal, since Chris was actually from Newfoundland. We had to go to our team's boat and row to the island, oh, and DJ, since he was the only member left of Team Victory, got a motor.

Team Amazon started talking while my team headed for the boat. Alejandro got in first. "Excellent work, my little porpoises." he said, helping the rest of us in. I raised an eyebrow at him as he held out a hand to me, and he just smiled back, knowing why I was looking that way. It was good to get out of the water.

However, Owen wasn't getting anywhere, so after helping everyone else in, Alejandro addressed our only female teammate besides me. "Izzy, the fishing net, if you please."

Izzy cast the net and pulled Owen in immediately. "You're quite the catch, Big O! Welcome to my cruise!"

"What about DJ?" Owen asked.

"Patience, my friend." Alejandro said calmly. "Patience." I wondered what he was planning.

And then, the doubts crept in. I kept forgetting that our team leader wasn't the most trustworthy person on the show. I liked him, a lot. But I wasn't sure what was going on. Yes, I'd seen him flirting with most of the Team Victory girls in the first few episodes, from helping Bridgette up when she'd fallen, to complimenting Leshawna in fluent Japanese. But apart from what he'd said to Harold, he didn't seem villainous. Just...focused. But if he was as villainous as Heather – worse, even – should I even be trying to be friends with him?
Screw it! We had to work together anyway, and I quite liked him right now. He hadn't done enough to make me think of him as a villain. I pushed the doubts away. I was going to be friendly with him, and I was going to win this season!

Chris gave us a few more instructions. The last team to arrive would automatically be the losers of the challenge. The two other teams would compete for First Class. Oh, and we'd get a special reward if we picked up some seafood along the way.

That's why we were so lucky to have Izzy on our team. On Team Amazon, Heather was busy hounding DJ while Gwen struggled to get some kind of fish and Sierra and Cody rowed, with Courtney yelling at them. But with us, Tyler and Noah paddled swiftly, while Izzy and I drew in all kinds of seafood, not just fish. The first thing we got was a lobster! Izzy took it out and said "Hey, Snappy! Welcome to the Izzy cruise! Tell your friends!" It reached its pincers out, but she was ready. "Hey, hey, hey, Snappy!" she said sternly.

Owen wanted to eat the lobster instantly, but Alejandro warned him "don't even think about it" when he asked if anyone had some butter.

A minute later, as Izzy and I drew in gigantic fish, there was the ding-ding of the singing signal.

Alejandro began the song. "We're heading down to Newfoundland, that rocky eastern shore!"

"I'll have the shrimp, mussels, cod and the lobster thermidor!" Owen sang.

"Don't think about food!" I exclaimed in song as Owen practically tap-danced.

Over at Team Amazon's boat, we heard Gwen sing "I can't get a thing to bite, so we better get there first!"

"Row harder, faster, both of you, for the win work up a thirst!" Courtney sang to Cody and Sierra. "Stroke, stroke, stroke!"

"It's a sea shanty, and it's darn catchy!" Heather sang, finally getting DJ's motor to work. "Yes! Come on, DJ, your turn!" I looked over to see DJ smiling, shaking his head.

Oh. He wanted to go home, so he was trying to get disqualified.

"Izzy, you're a nut bar, but you sure can catch a fish!" Tyler sang.

Izzy held up a fish that was bigger than her. "Thanks there, B'y, you're right kind to my partner, he's Irish! And if you want the next drill, he's all yours!"

"Trying our best, Courtney, our arms are getting fried!" Cody and Sierra chorused.

"Courtney, do you see?" Gwen called. I saw her pointing at something ahead.

"Could it be?" Courtney asked. "Steer hard, starboard side!"

"It's a sea shanty, and it's darn catchy!" Heather sang again.

And then DJ sang the last line, not realizing what he was doing ."No you can't catch me, with the sea shanty!"

As a matter of fact, Heather's interference made DJ first on the shore, followed closely by us. Heather was furious when the rest of her team didn't show up, and Chris made her clean all the seafood we'd brought in, plus a bunch of clams.

Our challenge was a relay race, based on what Chris told us was called the Screeching Inn ceremony, which was something people in Newfoundland did to welcome newcomers. DJ would do everything himself, but there were three parts, and our team would divide into two. I was sitting fifth from the left, between Tyler and Alejandro, so I was doing the same thing as Tyler. First, Owen and Izzy would start by drinking a jug of vinegar each. Then, Chris' cousin, Jerd McLean (same annoying smile, about the same height as jinxed Hans Moleman who should have died about twenty-seven times by now) would say something in Newfoundland slang, which Alejandro and Noah would try to translate. Finally, Chris said Tyler and I both had to kiss a cod "like you mean it".

"Ew!" I shuddered. "That is just gross."

"I know. And that's awesome TV." Chris smirked. He set two jugs in front of Izzy and Owen. DJ had disappeared, but just as the two finished, DJ bolted inside, and Heather followed.

"He did it!" she squealed. "DJ drank a jug of vinegar!" She held up a jug. Somehow, she'd tricked him into getting further into the game when he wanted to lose. Yet, he couldn't lose this challenge – Team Amazon had already lost. But I didn't say anything.

Jerd delivered a saying in Newfoundland slang for the relay. The guys who were meant to translate exchanged glances.

"Are those even words?" Noah questioned.

"Are you serious?" Alejandro said.

"Man, that vinegar went right through me!" DJ exclaimed. "I have to use the bathroom!"

Jerd snapped his fingers. DJ had just translated his saying without even meaning to. When he returned from the bathroom, all he needed was to kiss the cod (I should also add that Alejandro had gone outside briefly – not sure why, but he'd been around the bucket of cod because I heard Chef yelling at him).

"Team Chris Is Really Really Really Really Hot, you better get a move on!" Chris warned us. "Jerd, another saying, please."

"The worst thing you can have in your head is a nar toom." is what I heard.

The boys exchanged glances again. "Okay, I think he said something about Owen's butt." Noah deadpanned.

Jerd gave Chris the McLean smirk. "Kid's as smart as a bag of rocks."

"Oh, I know." Chris agreed, although if he'd looked at Sierra's blogs, he'd have found Noah's personal information pegging him as a child genius. "Alejandro, any guesses?"

Alejandro spoke slowly. "The worst thing you can have in your head is...no teeth?"

Jerd nodded. "And how true." Chris grinned. "Anyway, time for Tyler and Stephanie to pucker up."

I seized hold of the cod, shut my eyes, and tried to remember how it felt to kiss Duncan, back in the summer. Although I'd long given up on anything past friendship, he was better at kissing than anyone I'd kissed in Springfield, heck, in America, so imagining that smoky but sweet taste was enough to make me kiss the cod.

As I kissed, I heard Tyler say "I don't think I can do this. It's a fish!"

"I can't either!" DJ declared. "If I touch it, something bad is going to happen, I know it!"

As I put the cod down, I saw Heather standing next to DJ. She was pointing at something on the cod. "DJ, omigosh, look! It's an Egyptian symbol. Maybe it's a sign. If you kiss this cod, you'll break the curse."

At first, DJ didn't believe her, but Alejandro quickly agreed with Heather. "I'm impartial here." he insisted. "I would like Tyler to kiss the cod so we don't lose, but my real concern is for the animals. Of the world."

While DJ psyched himself up, Alejandro went to Tyler. "Close your eyes. Think of Lindsay." he advised.

Tyler gave a sigh. "Oh, I miss her."

"I know. Close your eyes. If you can't be with the one you love..." And in perfect synchronization, DJ and Tyler were kissing their cod.

I gave a sigh. "My technique was to pretend, too. I guess I should have been the one who said that to Tyler."

As it was, we tied. DJ would come to First Class with us, and we all got to share a chowder supper.

Yes, it was only a reward challenge. Team Amazon came running in the minute the challenge finished, and they were told that no one would be voted off.

As for DJ – well, let's just say that our team had an ally. DJ kept his cod, calling her Irene, and it seemed as if his curse had been broken. Even though Heather had pointed the symbol out to them, he seemed to feel that he owed it to Alejandro. Understandable. I would've picked anyone other than Heather to team up with. Especially after I discovered she'd put Owen's socks in the chowder.

I heard Alejandro in the confessional after finding Owen's socks, and I recognized some of the Spanish he was saying from school. If I remember, the rough English translation was "Wicked witch! Damned incompetents!" I guessed that Heather was the former. And Owen seemed to be one of the latter. But who else? The rest of the team? Me?

I was broken from those thoughts when Alejandro opened the door of the confessional. When he saw me, he managed his usual smile, but for once, it looked forced to me.

I didn't wait to say something tactfully, I just blurted it out. "Do you think I'm a hindrance to winning?"

Alejandro's expression became mildly surprised. "Of course not! Where did you-"

"I could hear what you were saying." I admitted. "And I take Spanish at high school. I figured you were talking about Heather at one point, but you said 'incompetentes', so I guessed you were talking about the rest of the team." I paused. "I could understand that, since you probably are the strongest member of our team."

Alejandro looked me in the eye. "I suppose I do have unfair expectations of our team. I've been brought up to expect nothing but the best from myself, and I feel as if our team isn't reaching our full potential, because we have some...easily distracted teammates. But you're not one of them. You've been completely focused in every challenge since you've joined our team."

I couldn't help the small smile that crept onto my face, before we walked to First Class together.

Stephanie believes it. But will it stay that way?