Okay, I know you all hate this one, so I hope I can make it more tolerable. Now, my flatulence fun facts: Mostly, you will not notice them from yourself or anyone else. Everyone does multiple times a day. It's just that certain foods and beverages can make them more noticeable, louder, or cause an unpleasant odour. Foods high in fibre, especially if you don't eat them often, cause excessive gas because it tends to sit for a long time before it gets digested. And because I want to get through this as painlessly as possible, I'm going to only make them loud, not noxious. Thanks for reviewing, OmniIBIBUltraInstinctGodzilla and iwashere01.

Our breakfast the next day was a mound of beans, for some reason. I mean, I liked baked beans occasionally at home for a snack, or in a hotdog with fries (I ate plant-based hotdogs), but the way Chef made them, I could only pick at them, eating one at a time.

Julia was putting hers on Instagram, of course. "Be grateful for every meal," she preached to her followers. "#GiveThanks."

Of course, then she barely ate any of the beans because the hockey bros started talking to her about diarrhoea and she lost her appetite.

"Hypocrite," I whispered to Emz and Bowie. "Grateful for every meal – unless someone starts talking to you about gross stuff." I pushed my bowl away. "That said, I'm not finishing mine." Now I addressed everyone at the table. "If anyone wants my leftovers, take 'em. I've only had half."

Wayne raised a hand. "Pass it here, Tanz!" I slid it down to him, but before he could eat any (Julia's untouched bowl was also being eyed by him and Raj), Chris' voice blared through the intercom.

"Attention, campers! Be at the beach on the far side of the island in ten minutes for today's challenge!"

All Chris said was that the challenge was a race from one side of the island to the other. Well, and he told off Damien and Priya for whispering to each other.

"Blah, blah, blah, we know there's a catch," MK announced. "Just tell us how we're gonna die." Well, she was probably right. This game was never this straightforward.

And just because Chris said. "Just because there's never not been a catch in this game doesn't mean there'll always be a catch", it didn't mean there was no catch like Ripper thought.

Chris just said we had to do it as silently as possible…right before noisy gas started erupting from most of us. Yep, there was a reason we were given beans for breakfast. It made flatulence noisy. The air was still breathable in most cases (Ripper obviously being one of the few exceptions), but hearing the noises coming from everyone was embarrassing for all of us. Emz let out a particularly loud, long one while trying to tell off the rest of us. Most of us had to block our ears. And then another one which actually blew her skirt out for a second.

"Wow, that's some real power there, Emma!" Ripper said, actually smiling genuinely. "More than just a pretty face."

Emz looked disgusted, so I stepped in. "She's not interested, Ripper, so leave her alone," I told him straight out. "And she was already more than a pretty face, no matter what Chef feeds us."

One of mine came out right then, and Ripper leered at me. "Huh. Are you jealous, Tansy? I can appreciate your attempts, too."

I gave him my sweet I-hate-you smile. "No, my bodily emissions are to flirt with the skunk that lives somewhere else on the island. Not."

It turned out the reason we had to try and be quiet is because Chris had somehow had raptors brought back to life, and they couldn't hear footsteps, but anything louder would be dangerous. Not to mention they might just use their eyes.

Of course, I was sticking with Emz and Bowie, and a raptor decided to chase us first.

"Things will be fine if we just stick together!" Bowie said, panicked but still trying to think rationally.

"Agreed!" Emz said…just before Bowie tripped and Emz didn't even notice. And I was too scared to attract other raptors by calling after her.

I helped Bowie up myself. "She must not have heard it," I muttered, but I got a grateful look from Bowie. Up to this point, I'd felt like we were friends, but more because we both liked Emz and tried to get along for her. We'd found a few things in common, but again, we'd never really hung out alone, at least, not for more than a few minutes. So I guess the one good thing that came out of the day's challenge was that I felt like I had created a bond with Bowie that was independent of the bonds we had with Emz. I'd seen him fall and stayed behind, and she hadn't.

We caught up again eventually. Bowie and I were hiding from a passing raptor in a bush, when we heard a roar, a squeal of "Gotta hide!", and then Emz basically jumped right on top of me.

"I thought I'd lost you two!" Emz said, sounding surprised and a bit concerned.
"You mean, when you ran away?" Bowie said in an accusing tone.

"I thought you were right behind me!" Emz protested. Then she suddenly lunged at us both in a group hug, which we both joined in as soon as we realized that's what was happening.

We ended up splitting up again, because Emz couldn't keep her emissions quiet. Bowie and I were able to hold back a lot better and stuck together.

That's how we both saw it. We were hiding in some bushes, checking for a safe time to come out, when we saw one of our teammates.

Julia was walking along by herself. Since she hadn't eaten the beans, she'd probably been fine. But then she stepped on a twig, snapping it, and a raptor was onto her immediately.

And then it was Julia who snapped, the way she had with me a few days ago. "Mouthwash!" she screamed at the dinosaur. "Ever heard of it?" I didn't memorize all of what she was saying, but she got pretty creative with her insults. She was telling the raptor that its breath was disgusting, its teeth were too yellow, its skin was dry, it had bags under its eyes, its arms were tiny and its toenails needed a serious pedicure, and then said that she didn't wonder that they went extinct, "Because nobody would want to get with that!" She actually made it run away. It sounded like it was crying.

"So is that what she did to you?" Bowie whispered to me in the middle of it.

"She was kinder and didn't say as much," I whispered back. "I mean, she didn't say anything about my hair or teeth or nails. She just said I was clingy and a baby and all the other things I told you before."

It was good to have someone else see the real Julia. As soon as she came closer to our bush, Bowie waylaid her. "You were rough on that dinosaur!" he commented.

"Oh!" Julia looked anxious. "You saw that?"

"We both did," I informed her. "I'm not the police, though. I'm not going to go around telling the other Frogs that you talked a raptor to tears. But it means you don't have to pretend around us."

"Because now we know your true colours are vicious and brutal," Bowie finished for me.

Julia's eyes burned. Huh, violet fire instead of purple rain. "If either of you tell anyone…"

"Don't worry," Bowie held up a hand. "Secret's safe. Just never dissect me like that. I'm an ugly crier."

"And since you already did it to me once," I chimed in, "And I promised not to tattle, I'm not broadcasting it either, like I said."

As it was, the three of us were almost last for our team, but it didn't matter. Chase and Zee had already arrived for their team, but everyone else on the Trout team showed up after MK, the last member of our team, arrived. So we'd won again.

I went to talk to Damien just before the elimination. I was still wearing the button he'd given me. "I wanted to say goodbye, since I saw the girls were wearing your buttons," I said. "I'm glad you're getting what you want."

Damien shook his head, grinning. "I changed my mind. Didn't you see the mess hall blow up? A raptor went for us when we were hiding there. I got the idea to feed it a tonne of leftover beans, and it was kind of close to an open gas flame, so…" he left the rest unsaid, but I got it.

"Major explosion that kept it from going for you," I finished. "And half the team was with you, so you rescued them?"

"Yep," Damien said proudly. "After that, I figured I could survive anything. Including the next challenge, and as many as I can until I reach the million bucks."

I laughed. "I wouldn't be sure about that, since I'm planning on winning the million myself. But, um, you did tell the team that you don't want them to vote for you after all, right?"

Damien paused, and as he did, a look of horror crossed his face. "I didn't even think about doing that! Tanz, you're a lifesaver!" He gave me a very brief hug and then ran to his cabin. I watched him leave for a moment. Even though I'd shared a group hug with my friends earlier that day, something had been different about that one. Or at least, it had felt different to me.

And sure enough, when Emz and I were sitting on our cabin steps again and watched the pudgy figure trudging down the dock, I was pleased to see my friend was still here. And in his place, Priya had finished her beef with Mr Human-Shielder and taken out Ripper. Well, I liked everyone else on that team apart from Chase, so seeing the schoolyard bully getting taken out was good for me.

"Not a shock," I remarked. "Damien doesn't want to go home anymore, he told me. I made sure he told his teammates before they started voting for him."

"Well, I guess I'd rather have Ripper go home,' Emz said, slowly, "But…"

"I know," I reminded her. "You wish it was Chase going. But I think he was friendly with Ripper, so that weakens him at least."

"Not with Zee," Emz said darkly. "You know what he did today? Apparently they were together in the challenge, then Chase abandoned him. When Zee got back, Chase started crying and saying he'd never been so sorry about anything, and Zee just…forgave him, like it was nothing! How can he be sorry for that when he's not sorry about cutting my brakes?!"

"I could ask him for you, if you like," I offered. Nobly, because I didn't want to talk to Chase. "I mean, did he do anything that dangerous to you before?"

Emz shrugged. "Not without warning me first," she said ."But it wasn't the first time he annoyed me. I've already told you about some of the crap he did to me. I don't know how we didn't break up earlier." She took a deep breath. "OK. Sorry. Going back to ignoring him."

We watched the rest of the Trout walk past us. It was too dark to see their faces, but I could see their silhouettes. Tiny Priya in front, although to be fair, she only looked tiny because she was next to plumpish Millie and tall, lanky Zee. Damien was walking just behind, his posture straight and confident. Chase lagged behind a bit. His posture looked sort of miserable. Maybe he hadn't voted for Ripper.

Then I looked back at Emz. She'd noticed his posture and was grinning. Finally, we went back into the cabin. That was the show over for another night.

I originally had more in this chapter, but I decided to put it in the rest day. And the first change in eliminations has happened! I suppose it was easy to see coming, though, since Tansy and Damien have been friends for a while and I want to keep writing them. I rushed the challenge a little, but it was in favour of capitalizing on the good parts, because while the challenge was dull and used gross-out humour, it wasn't all bad. Julia roasting the Raptor and MK recording it and posting it, as well as confirmation from MK that Millie voted Lauren out last elimination and that Julia hates everyone. And that little exchange between Raj and Bowie at the end. Also, Primien ship tease – I had hoped for them in the second season, but we know what happened there – no follow-up in favour of another pairing. And finally, the reason I went for Ripper. Well, I think he overstayed his welcome in canon and I wished he went here. So he did.