Chapter 11: A Quirky Idea

"Well… after that disturbance… time to focus!" Nichelle said determined as she hopped into her basket. Halfway through her descent, Axel looked down eagerly.

"This is going better than I thought…" she said pleasantly surprised. Ripper, however, was not as satisfied as her. He wanted to end this game soon.

"Maybe… but this is taking too long, we need a bigger lead. I have a wicked idea!" Ripper punched his fist into his palm, a hungry gleam in his eyes.

Ripper confessional: *puts hand to head* Time for big brain mode! When I was in the sixth grade, I got put in my school's gifted program for my answer to the train trolley problem! True, I did end up deciding to blow the train up before it reached the people but my mom and the school all thought it was a brilliant idea!

Turns out you can only get into the program if you're academically gifted or if you have an IQ below 100. So… yeah! Time to show this team how academically gifted I really am! *grins*

Ripper clapped his hands and looked around at his team. "Who says we have to go down one at a time? Why not put two people in a basket? As long as we follow the 10 pound rule we won't fall and die!"

Millie who had been silent all challenge to the point where she almost considered herself an NPC finally spoke up. "WHAT?! NO! That's crazy!" she said looking at Ripper incredulously.

Chase however seemed to agree with Ripper.

"I'm down with that, this is so boring," he nodded. It was time to spice things up.

"I'm sorry but I don't trust you guys to not mess things up. If you want to do that, at least wait until I'm down there!" Millie insisted. She had a bad feeling trying to shake up the success formula would not work. Why fix what wasn't broken? They were going down just fine! Nichelle had just stepped out safely.

"Quit being such a wuss, you can trust us Millie," Ripper said roughly. "How else are we going to win the challenge? If we keep sending people down one at a time and the other team does the same, it'll literally be a tie. We need to do something different."

"I'm with Ripper. Hit em hard, hit em fast," Wayne added.

Millie stared around horrified at the boys. Now she was outnumbered 3-1!

"B-but still! What if something goes wrong? Those baskets don't look like they were meant for two people!" Millie whimpered. Why was nobody hearing her out? Millie felt she had every right to feel concerned about this reckless strategy but unfortunately for her, her words were falling on deaf ears.

Millie confessional: *groans* I can't believe I actually have to stand up for myself now. Priya would've backed me 100%!

Instinctively, everybody turned their heads to their leader. Julia blinked.

Julia confessional: Ugh, what a spot I'm in! If I give them the green light to put two people in and something goes wrong I'll probably be in the bottom two with Ripper and I'm not guaranteed to have Wayne or Millie's vote. If all goes well and we finish faster, Ripper looks like a genius and the others might gravitate towards him as leader…

Julia bit her lip as she struggled to come up with a decision. Finally, she came up with something.

"Let's do it! But if this plan fails we all agree to vote Ripper," Julia said quickly. She always needed to provide herself with a safety net.

Ripper rubbed his hands eagerly.

"GREAT! LET'S GET DOWN THERE EVERYONE! Wait… WHAT?!" He turned and stared thunderstruck at Julia who was suppressing a smile. How could she throw her first pick under the bus like that?!

Even with Julia's word, Millie still objected.

"I don't know… the thing is the bricks are small and carry a lot of weight. You guys are really bulky and I don't see how you're all gonna fit into a basket."

Wayne did not view this as problem for he had already come up with something.

"We'll have to ride each other! Chase buddy, get on top of me!" He bent his knees prepared to piggy-back Chase.

"WAIT UNTIL I'M DOWN THERE FIRST BEFORE DOING ANYTHING!" Millie protested, her voice tremoring greatly.

"WELL THEN MOVE! WE'RE WASTING TIME!" Ripper roared.

After 13 bricks had been placed in one basket, Millie leaped into the other basket and headed down. As her head disappeared from the Panthers' view, Julia turned to Ripper urgently. "Ripper, this better work. I'm trusting you," she said, her brow furrowed.

Just then, Chris chose to turn on his megaphone.

"Attention campers, it seems some of you have decided to get a little creative with this challenge and proposed multiple campers going down together. It's a good idea but this challenge has one unnegotiable rule: Only one person at a time can go down!"

"Well there goes that genius idea," Julia said slightly relieved. It seemed the plan would have to be scrapped. She looked below and saw Millie about to hit the ground.

Julia, Wayne, Chase and Axel removed 12 bricks, leaving one brick in the basket. As Millie hopped out, the basket with the single brick descended as usual bringing Millie's empty basket up for Julia to go next.

"Alright then stick to the original plan," Julia said assertively as she watched her basket rise up slowly. "I'm next! Don't kill me!"

"How much do you weigh?" Ripper asked bluntly.

"As if I would ever tell you that," Julia snorted. "Axel, girl come here." Julia motioned Axel to come over. Julia whispered something into Axel's ear and she nodded.

Axel began the process of placing two bricks into a basket each time it came up until –

"1…2…3…," Ripper counted. "…10…11…12… So you're at least 120 pounds!"

"Congrats, you can count," Julia rolled her eyes. "Weirdo, why are you even interested in how much I weigh?"

"I don't know, I'm just curious! That's not against the law, is it?!" Ripper retorted.

Julia shrugged before she hopped in. Now there were only four Panthers left who had to go. They were halfway done and so far nobody had died.

"MK, it's your turn," Bowie said urgently, trying to ignore the descending Julia. That was four Panthers who had left the tower. Meanwhile, the Orangutans still only had Scary Girl and Emma on the ground. They were so behind. "How many bricks will we need?" he asked.

"I'm 107 pounds," MK shrugged.

"Then the other basket needs 10 bricks! Let's go!" Damien roared as he dumped one brick into a basket to send it down.

"Wow, you're really fired up!" Priya giggled as she dumped two more bricks into the other basket to bring the basket on the ground back up.

"I want to win this time," Damien winked. He dumped two more bricks into the ascending basket with a single brick. Now that it weighed 30 pounds, it fell to the ground and brought the basket with two bricks back up.

Finally, after a minute the Orangutans sent a basket with 10 bricks down. When the basket with 9 bricks arrived to the top, they removed all the bricks which allowed MK to hop in. Now MK was descending to the ground while the basket with 10 bricks was coming back up…

"Damn, this is a pretty intense challenge. Did your parents ever lock you up in a tower and give you a challenge like this? Any tips?" Damien chuckled, looking over at Priya.

Priya laughed because this was one of the rare challenges her parents had not actually prepared her for. "The only reason they never gave me anything like this was because they never saw Rapunzel," she giggled upon seeing Damien's face.

Damien confessional: So they finally missed one eh? Ain't gonna lie I didn't really prepare for something like this either… *looks at papers nervously* Is my list just garbage?! WHY AM I NOT PREPARED FOR ANYTHING!? *shuffles papers agitated*

As MK got closer and closer to the ground, the Orangutans removed the 10 bricks. MK wobbled out of her basket.

"Oh, you're up next," Damien said. "How many bricks do we need for you?"

"I'm 118 pounds," Priya winked.

"11 bricks then? Aight," Damien nodded.

After another round of baskets going up and down, Priya was finally ready to go.

"You good Priya?" Damien said kindly as he helped Priya into her basket.

"Yeah, thanks! See you at the bottom!" She waved cheerfully to Damien and the rest of her team as she headed towards Scary Girl, Emma and MK.