AN: God bless Britain, I never expected to get this done in this duration of time. Perhaps now that I'm really getting into it, I'm going back to my normal routine when I wrote Painful Revelations! I was practically uploading about three times a week! Anyway, never mind, enjoy the chapter! :)

Chapter 14 - The Trials Commence

It did not take long at all for me and Gracie to fully click and find ourselves wrapped up into different conversations about different things. In a way, I sort of agreed with Gracie when she said to me that she was expecting to meet a campmate but they were going to be really rude and unwelcoming. However, after finally getting used to Gracie and finally finding out that she was trustworthy, I slowly began to relax and let her talk to me in a calm fashion without feeling like I was put in a hot spot (well, I was literally due to the boiling weather).

Sometimes, I found it quite difficult to make proper eye contact with people, particularly with people I didn't know very well, however, with Gracie, thankfully, she was so approachable and kind that I could trust her, and therefore I could give her every last piece of attention I had in me. That wasn't all, though. Feeling the need to give Gracie eye contact allowed me to see something that immediately lit up my system with a sense of muted joy and happiness. Gracie was beautiful. Whenever I kept looking into her eyes, I didn't know what it was, but I couldn't help but smile…and then I didn't seem to stop, which was a real pain because I didn't want Gracie to think I was weird. Even if I was, I didn't want her to think so.

To be honest, I was actually quite surprised that my brain managed to function properly and my heart had managed to express certain emotions, especially for Gracie. This was due to the fact that the abhorrent, persistent hot weather was suffocating me and I thought I could actually feel beads of sweat running down my arms. I could tell that Gracie was struggling as well because she exclaimed, "Gosh, it's so hot!" Then she proceeded to take off her blouse, revealing her shoulders, her vest top, and the heart shaped necklace resting on her chest. I didn't want to appear as a pervert, but I was staring at Gracie's chest, not her actual chest, that would be weird, but without realising, I was staring at her necklace.

I thought that it was beautiful, being fully wrapped around her neck like one of those elasticated, fabricated bands that women sometimes wore round their necks with pendants dangling about a centimetre below. It…it looked so fitting and lovely against her teal hair and her periwinkle blue vest top. Oh my… I just had to speak up.

"I like your necklace." I said, grinning.

"Oh, thanks!" Gracie fiddled with the pendant before smiling back. "I got it last year for my birthday."

"That's cool! Who gave it to you?" I asked, starting to become increasingly interested, but to my least expectancy, Gracie's face instantly dropped. During the few moments we had been talking to each other, her sad aura that I spoke about had all but disappeared for good (I had hoped), but instead, it had come straight back.

"Um… I… can't remember." she said. "It…it must've looked so beautiful that I completely forgot."

I suppose Gracie was trying to make me believe her, but if I was being honest, she looked a lot more sad than disappointed about the fact that she had forgotten who gave her one of her birthday presents. "Oh. That's a shame." I remarked, but before I could say anything more, we both looked to our right and we saw yet another jeep driving our way. For a moment, I thought that the weather and the atmosphere had actually made me lose the plot. What the hell is going on today? I thought, however, my quiet thinking was drowned as the jeep pulled up next to us, then there was an interval where the driver turned around and handed some sort of box with a wire attached to it to the passenger in the back seat.

Finally, the driver opened up the back door and a boy stepped out of it, who I guessed was another contestant. He swept back his orange and yellow hair, staring down at the ground moodily and for a moment, due to seeing the look on that boy's face upon first sight, I thought he was going to be one of those impolite boys Gracie had spoken of before, however, when he glanced up from the floor, then at me and Gracie, his face broke out into a smile. He smiled, walked over to us and greeted us politely.

"Hi, take it you're another I'm A Koopa contestant?" I asked him.

"Yeah." the boy replied. He chuckled nervously. "I've got to say, from what I've seen from your smiley faces, I think I'm going to kind of like it in the jungle." He held out his hand. "I'm Jack Marigold."

"Ludwig Dimitrov." I replied, taking his hand and shaking it.

"Gracie Snowdrop." Gracie said, doing the exact same as me.

Wow. Gracie Snowdrop. What a beautiful, charming name. Just from listening to that name, it was as if a fire of positivity and affection had started in my heart and I felt like grinning so much my face would ache, but I somehow managed to hold it back. Just then, the driver called Jack over to the boot of the jeep and after a while, he beckoned for me and Gracie to come over.

"We're not going to Camp just yet." Jack told us. "But we are going to at some point, but before that, we have to do a trial to earn stars for our first dinner."

I understood perfectly. After all, I had watched this show many times and it made sense because at the end of the day, it was all about benefiting ourselves rather than the presenters giving us all the credit. In addition, it would also give me a sense of achievement that I had earned dinner for my campmates. The driver also said that we had to drive to where the props for the trial were situated and I sat in the backseat with Jack whilst Gracie sat at the front. It felt like such a long journey when really, according to the sat nav, it was ten minutes of non-stop driving in a straight line.

At last, I spied an anomaly with the environment we were in. We suddenly stopped at the side of the road and as I stared out of the window, I noticed what looked like crates and three different coloured cylinder bins sat nestled in the few patches of dead grass, but what did I know? They could've been completely different things.

"Right, we're here." the driver eventually said, and with that, we all got out of the car and gathered round to look at the props. "Jack, I gave you a box with three microphones in it, do you know where it is?"

Jack fiddled around in his pocket before pulling out the small box. "Here it is. I'll just clip them on and then we can start the trial." He picked up the three microphones out of the box and clipped one onto his shirt, one to mine, and one to Gracie's. It was not long after that when we heard a voice I instantly recognised. Mark's voice was coming out of another small box the driver was holding and I guessed that Mark could probably hear or even see where we were, which I had absolutely no idea how.

"Good afternoon contestants!" he said. "Welcome to your first trial of your time on the show! What we have in front of you are two hell holes and three old fashioned rubbish bins with all kinds of gunk in them. The red one contains fermented seaweed, the blue one contains fish guts and the yellow one contains raw offal. Jack, you're in charge of the rubbish bins. In order to do your bit, you have to try and get the wooden stars out of the bins using only your mouth."

In between the intervals in which Mark was talking, Jack whispered, "I have to get my face in there?!"

"Ludwig and Gracie," Mark carried on. "You're in charge of the hell holes. There are two stars in each hell hole, as well as other critters. Ludwig, you will only be putting your hands in the holes in order to get the stars out and Gracie, you will be putting your head into the hole on the right and you have to spin the stars off of the bolts with your tongue. You will all be working together against the clock and if you fail to retrieve all seven stars, then your first dinner in Camp will not be too pleasant. You have five minutes, your time starts now!"

Me and Gracie rushed over to the two hell holes and without a second thought as to what might be in there, I stuck my hands in them and felt around for any stars, but to my horror, I didn't feel any wood so much as little gritty pieces of dirt and then thousands of tiny nips. Actually, they weren't even nips, they were more like having small pieces of my flesh being bitten off.

"Ow!" I exclaimed. "What the hell is that?"

"There are green ants in there." Mark replied from the small box. "And also, you have cockroaches in there too, but don't worry. Just completely block them out and feel around some more." I did just that and at last, I found what felt like a piece of wood. I felt all around it to see if it had five sides and yes. It was definitely a star. Instantly, I pulled it out of the hole. Now I only had one more to find, but at this point, I could hardly concentrate because I heard Gracie let out a shriek from her hell hole.

"Are you okay in there, Gracie?" I asked, which was a pretty stupid question, but what I really meant was what was in there that was making her panic?

"Oh my god, there's spiders!" she cried. "Get off me!"

"It's okay." I said. "Just completely ignore the fact that they're there and try and think of something happy to take your mind off it." I carried on feeling around for my second and last star, the cockroaches and ants biting me all the while, and at last, thankfully, the last star found its way into my hand and I pulled that and my other hand out of the holes. "I did it!" I exclaimed. "Gracie, how are you doing?"

"I've already got the first star!" she replied. I could see it there on the ground just behind her and I had to say, I was proud she had done this well. "Hold on!" she shouted. "I've got the second one!" and the next thing I knew, Gracie had thrown her star into the air and she wriggled her head out of her hell hole. "Oh, thank the lord! We both did it!" she exclaimed, but it was only then when I realised who was missing.

We both turned around and Jack had his face buried in the yellow bin… and the offal. It looked as if he was really struggling to make it through the trial. Yes, he had already retrieved two stars, but now he was really straining to make it through this last little push, so I decided to give him some support.

"Come on Jack! This is your last push! Your last star! You can do it!" I supported him.

"You have one minute remaining, Jack!" Mark said. "You can do it!"

Jack lifted his head out of the foul contents and let out a groan of effort before shoving it back down into the liquid again. It took him a few attempts and at last, he reappeared with a wooden star between his teeth. He spat it down onto the floor and yelled, "I'm done!" Then a klaxon sounded from the small box that signified the clock stopping and that the trial was over.

"Yes, Jack!" Gracie cried. "You did it!"

Jack didn't reply, instead, he whipped his goggles off that he had been obliged to wear, revealing the clean space around his eyes and the rest of his face was covered in seaweed and blood. He put a hand over his mouth, ran over to a large tuft of dead grass and retched.

"Oh dear…" I muttered, half to Gracie, who nodded in agreement. "He really didn't like that."

However, Jack must've heard me because he straightened up and slurred, "Don't worry, I'm okay." He walked back over to us and attempted to wipe all the gunk off his face, which made us both laugh because it did not work in the slightest.

The driver laughed as well and made his way over to us. "Don't worry, I'll get that washed off for you." and within a few minutes, Jack's face was all clean and after that, a sense of nerves and excitement wiped over my system because since the trial was over now, it was probably time to go to Camp, and it certainly was. Me, Jack and Gracie all bundled into the jeep, talking and celebrating the beginning of the biggest experience of our youthful lives.