As the sun dropped lower into the late afternoon sky, Dawn channeled the "power of golden hour" to read Zoey and Staci's auras. Sitting on tree stumps at the campfire pit, Dawn sat cross-legged and peered at both girls.
The psychic pressed her hands to her ears. "What a cacophonic aura," she groaned. "It's drowning out every other aura! Your rich family history…it gives you a creative, but chaotic energy."
Staci nodded proudly.
Dawn then turned and stared at Zoey, who started to blush. Narrowing her eyes, Dawn leaned forward.
"And I can barely make out an aura from you, but it's very inviting. Like the spiritual embodiment of a shrinking violet…I can tell friends have been few and far between in your life."
Zoey gasped.
"Are you shocked that she knows so much about you?" Staci guessed. "I felt the same way, but look at that long, flowing hair! 'Elven spirit medium' is written all over her! I would know; my Aunt Amy writes bestselling supernatural fiction for a living."
Zoey shook her head. "No! I'm more surprised that everything you've been saying about your relatives is true!"
Staci shrugged. "Why wouldn't it be? My Great-Great Uncle Melvin started the Canadian Cub Scouts, and its motto is 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet', which means 'Honesty is the best policy.'"
"...I'm pretty sure that's just fake Latin placeholder text on document templates," Zoey said, confused. "I see it all the time when I start a fresh page of fanfiction."
"Ooh, you write fanfiction too? I love writing stories about my relatives' amazing feats!"
"Yeah! Only I write it about fictional characters, not dead ancestors…I'm surprised you write fanfiction. Most kids in my town just make the L-gesture on their foreheads and laugh me out of the lunchroom when I tell them that."
"Those people are jerks! Your school should have everyone listen to my Great-Great-Great Grandma Leslie's anti-bullying regiment."
During this whole exchange, Dawn had taken a second look at Staci's aura. Beneath the distracting flashes of loud neon and ostentatious pink hid a solid, but ordinary, rose-colored aura emitting from her mouthy cabinmate.
"You have the aura of someone who's hiding something!" she said abruptly. Zoey and Staci stopped talking and looked at her. "Your true aura holds something much simpler than what initially appeared."
"What do you mean? I would never lie about Great-Great Uncle Melvin who…," she looked at Zoey's concerned face.
"Who…," Staci's eyes darted to Dawn's stoic, yet intense gaze.
"...Who was a cattle shepherd in Saskatchewan…" Normally bouncy, Staci's face drooped.
Zoey placed a hand on Staci's shoulder. "There's nothing wrong with your great uncle herding cows–"
"Bison."
"-bison. Your Great-Aunt Millie's invention of shoestring potatoes is still…"
Her voice trailed off.
"Fry cook at a chain restaurant," Staci gave a lopsided frown. At the ridiculousness of the exaggerations, Zoey giggled, then caught herself.
"Oh! I'm so sorry, I–"
Staci chuckled, too, and Zoey soon followed suit.
"Well, not everything I told you guys is fake! I really do have great-uncles who created cool stuff, like the metal piece in clothesline pins."
"So why lie about everything else?"
"I'm not lying! I'm creatively embellishing. When my Grandma Ruby went senile, she lost almost all of our family heirlooms and keepsakes in the attic. It's way more fun to fill in the missing pieces." Staci straightened her hair bow. "Obviously, I'm going to do something amazingthat'll land me in the history books. I'm just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks!"
"Hmm," Zoey smiled mischievously. "I wonder which relative stories you've told are truths and which are lies."
"Hmph," Staci stood up and smiled. Starting to walk off, she called behind Zoey, "If only you knew my Great-Great-Great-Great Grandpa Garfield. Lie detector tests? You can thank him for that!"
"Wait!" Zoey stood up and ran to catch up with her. "If only I had a lie detector…that's it! Dawn!" She called behind her. Seeing no one but herself and Staci at the campfire fit, as if Dawn had vanished, Zoey turned around with a bewildered expression. Turning around to see Dawn to no avail, Staci gave the same expression. Equally weirded out by their fae friend and surprised by their bond, Zoey and Staci walked back to their cabin, Now that she had found a friend, Zoey eagerly kept up with a conversation about Team Edward vs. Team Jacob just as much as Staci–an impressive feat coming from the girl whose second-cousin-twice-removed invented shipping wars.
7 P.M. came soon enough, and the kids were less than thrilled to indulge in whatever questionable "dinner" Hatchet would sling onto their plates. But surprisingly, the spaghetti–if you ignored the occasional moving noodle, (or was that a worm?), the meatballs–if you ignored the occasional squeak coming from them, and the tomato sauce–if you ignored the slightly metallic (iron?) taste and deep-dark crimson color, weren't that bad! At the end of dinner, Hatchet pointed to the three campers closest to him to be on dish duty for the night.
"You, you, and you!" He pointed at Mike, Scott, and Brick. The unlucky trio filed into the kitchen as the others got ready for the beach party.
"Cleaning builds character! I want every last one of these dishes scrubbed by the time I get back!"
"Where are you going?" Scott asked.
"The tomato sauce's…secret ingredient needs to be disposed of," Hatchet smiled grimly. "No more questions. Get to it!" Shoving the boys toward an industrial sink that held a soapy sea of dirty dishes, Hatchet opened the kitchen's back door and went outside. There, he started stuffing giant drained mosquito-blood sacs into trash bags.
"Great," Scott said. "The cook left us to do his dirty work.
"That's no way to approach a chore" Brick shook his head. "Do as we're told, and we'll be out of here in no time. Mike, pass me a plate?"
"'Do as you're told'," Scott repeated. "What a great sentiment, Brick. That reminds me–Mike, a word?"
Away in the corner of the kitchen, with Brick whistling about ants marching one-by-one, Scott unfolded the psychologist's note from his pocket and showed it to Mike, whose face turned ashy and pale.
"Look familiar? It turns out you've got a secret. One that doesn't involve the fake family members you made up."
"How did you–"
"I did some snooping. What kind of bunkmate would I be if I didn't make sure the guys I'd be sharing a cabin with weren't nutjobs?"
"Scott, please don't tell anyone about this! I'm not ready, and–"
"Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me, pal. But how long it stays safe depends on how much you don't want everyone else to find out how much of a liar you are."
Mike stared at the dirty tiled floor. "...What do you want?"
"For starters, these dishes have to be done. Then, we'll talk about what else I want, for the rest of the summer."
"Fine."
"Oh, and don't look so down!" Scott sneered. "You look more depressed than my cousin Clyde after I conned him out of his prize hog."
"The same cousin Clyde who got struck by lightning?"
"That was a different Clyde, this one–forget that! All I'm saying is, this could be the start of a very interesting friendship. See ya later, friend!" Sauntering over to Brick, Scott yawned loudly and stretched his arms.
"Boy, am I beat! Brick, Mike was cool enough to offer to take over both our portions of the dishes! You're free for the night."
"I wouldn't expect a more generous offer coming from the Quicksand Comrade, but I really should finish my duty!"
"Oh, come on!" Scott placed his arm around Mike. "He doesn't mind, do you, Mike?"
"No…it's no problem!" Mike took over at the sink. Brick thanked him and the two exited the kitchen and left the mess hall.
Suddenly, the back door burst open and Hatchet, his face and arms swelling with bug bites, barged in. He pointed urgently at Mike.
"Where's my flamethrower, boy? The eggs in those mosquito sacs just hatched, and it ain't lookin' pretty!"
On the beach, the party was starting to come alive. Dawn had cleared most of the trash on the shore, and the ratgulls were mostly steering clear for the night. Near the steps leading down to the beach, a snack bar had been set up, and Chris was simultaneously adding copious amounts of sugar to the fruit-punch bowl and arguing on his cell phone ("I'm telling you: a newbie season on a toxic island! It'd be ratings gold! Forget child endangerment laws– hello? Hello?"). Tiki torches and strobe lights lined the beach, and a makeshift dance-floor and volleyball court, complete with a drooping net, had been drawn in the sand to perfect geometric proportions by B. His helper robot did the Robot on the sandy dance-floor. Brick marched in perfect formation back and forth between the shoreline with a lifeguard whistle, a first aid kit, and a pair of binoculars at the ready. Although he was wearing swim trunks, he kept his same pair of military boots he'd arrived at the island in. In the center of the beach, Lightning and Jo were dashing back and forth between the bonfire pit and the woods, not so secretly competing to see who could collect the most firewood. When the fire was raging and their contest ended in a stalemate, they took their rivalry to the volleyball court. Further inland, Dakota and Anne Maria relaxed on beach chairs and Zoey and Staci designed sandcastles. In the lake, Sam lazed on an inner tube, polishing up attack combos on his Game Guy, and Cameron braved the shallow depths in a life-vest and floaties, terrified to swim yet eager to observe the behavior of mutated freshwater specimens.
Meanwhile, in the shed behind the cabins, Mike was doing Scott's laundry.
"And don't forget to hang my jeans up outside on a clothesline," Scott turned around to head to the party.
"Wait," Mike called after him. "Am I done after this? I don't want to miss the party."
Scott made a show out of considering him. "I don't know…my bed sheets look a little stained."
"You haven't even slept in them yet!"
"It'd be best if you washed my bedding after finishing up my clothes. Unless of course, you want me to tell everyone about your secret?"
Mike groaned. "Alright, fine."
"Gee, thanks, Mike! You're a real sap," Scott left.
"Ugh," Mike grumbled. As he hung Scott's jeans up to dry, he gagged.
"Are these…clods of dirt? With chunks taken out of them?" Mike's eyes widened as clumps of chewed dirt spilled out of Scott's pockets.
"If this is what they look like when they're clean…"
"Zoey, here!" Cameron, returning from the lake, stuck a starfish to the top of her sand castle tower.
"Aw, thanks, Cam– sorry! Cameron."
"Was that…a nickname? I've never had one before! And no problem…Zo?"
They both shook their heads at the same time and laughed.
Cameron inspected her work. "16th-century Gothic. Nice."
"I'm a sucker for vampire movies, and I guess I picked up a little something."
"You built an exact replica of Burghausen Castle in Bavaria just from watching movies?"
"Okay, fine. B gave me a blueprint he randomly had in his pocket, and Staci and I just followed it. Speaking of which, where is she?"
Glancing at Staci talking an overwhelmed B's head off, Zoey giggled. "Never mind."
Cameron looked in her direction. "Remind me to pick his architecturally-apt brain later. Have you seen Mike?"
"No, actually! I'm a little worried. He should be done with dish duty by now."
"I'm lying around in this bikini for nothing!" Anne Maria cut in from her beach chair. "It's not even daytime, so I can't even tan."
"No way," Dakota sipped punch from a coconut. "You look hot!"
"'Paris Hilton' hot or 'Snooki' hot?"
"Jersey Shore hot, obvi. I'm more The Simple Life hot, duh."
"Good answer, blondie."
As the two continued discussing the different categories of "hot" in the celebrity world, Zoey and Cameron walked over to the boys' cabin to check on Mike.
"Where are you two going?" Anne Maria asked.
"We're going to see if Mike's okay. He's the only one not here at the party! Scott, have you seen him?"
"Can't talk," the farm boy called from the volleyball court. Currently beating Man-Lady over here." At this insult, Jo spiked the volleyball straight at Scott's nose, which started gushing blood. He yelped, and Brick tackled Scott to the ground to administer "emergency first-aid treatment to an injured comrade".
Rolling her eyes at the incident, Anne Maria got up and turned to Zoey and Cameron. "Well I'm coming with you guys. Mike promised me he'd show up and do that hot 'Vito' accent, and a hot accent's what I'm gonna get!"
Dakota grabbed her arm. "Don't leave me. Geek incoming!" She turned her nose up at an advancing Sam.
Anne Maria pulled her arm away. "You'll be fine." She handed her a can of hairspray. "Use this if he starts getting too creepy."
As the three left, Sam awkwardly sidled up to Dakota and pointed at the now vacant chair next to her. "Uh…is anyone sitting there?"
Dakota sighed. "Unfortunately, no…"
"Cool!" The gamer guy rested in the chair for a second then pointed at the dance-floor. "I-I like your hair! It looks really pretty." He gazed at her long, honey-blonde hair, pinned up by an island-flower hair-clip.
"Are you hitting on me?" Dakota's nose scrunched up. "I have hairspray, and I am not afraid to use it, creep!"
Sam held his hands up. "What? No, no! Sorry…"
Dakota eyed him suspiciously for another moment, then closed her eyes and laid back on her beach chair.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Sam attempted to break it. He pointed at the dance floor.
"...You wanna see my moves?"
"No, thanks. I'm pretty sure one of those freaky seagull-rat-thingies would have better rhythm than you, no offense."
"None taken," Sam's face flushed crimson. "But not to brag: I've mastered every song on Hard Difficulty throughout all nine games in the Just Dance franchise, so…" he puffed out his chest.
"You don't seem like the kind of guy to be into those sort of…active games."
"Mom bought Just Dance and Wii Fit for me after I got Nintendo thumb."
"Nintendo thumb?"
"It's a repeated stress injury you get when you make too many repeated thumb movements on your controller," he flexed his fingers. "Yeah, gaming's pretty hardcore."
"I seriously doubt that." Just then, Lady Gaga's Just Dance started playing on the DJ's turntables, manned by the architect (and apparently now, sound engineer) B.
"Speak of the devil," Dakota thought to herself for a second. Then, turning to Sam, looked at him expectantly. "Well? Let's see what you've got."
"As you wish!" Sam hurried to the dance-floor.
In Dakota's mind, watching Sam dance would either be Canada's Got Talent good or America's Funniest Home Videos bad. She was strangely interested to find out which one.
Cameron knocked on the door to the boys' cabin. "Hello? Mike?"
"My hands are full! The door's unlocked," his voice came from inside.
Gingerly opening the door, Cameron stepped inside to see Mike with a large laundry basket full of bedding. Mike teeter-tottered with the basket.
"What are you doing? The Beach Bash Bonfire Bonanza has started!" Cameron said.
"What four-eyes said," Anne Maria stepped into the cabin. "So bring your butt over. That biker brute character of yours, Vito, oughta bring the real fire!"
"Can't! Busy! Scott needs me to do all his laundry, and–"
"Why are you doing all this for Scott?" Zoey furrowed her brow. "It's the first day, has he even slept in his bed yet?"
"Probably not. But you guys should go on without me and have fun!"
"It won't be a real party without the guy who saved us from certain death today," Zoey smiled.
Mike smiled back at her. "I guess these sheets could wait. I could pop in for a bit and– doh!" As he was setting the basket down, the sheets fell over and lay strewn across the entire cabin floor.
"Dagnabbit!" Chester grumbled. "These darn laundry hampers are nothing but a hindrance! Back in my day, we carried our dirty sheets with our bare hands! All these modern gizmos and gadgets–"
"-It's just a basket, Chester," Cameron reassured him.
"-Are bringing the new generation laziness on a silver platter!"
Zoey and Anne Maria stared at each other, then back at Chester.
"Uh, Mike, what's with the hunchback?" Anne Maria stared at him. "Your spine looks more crooked than Zoey's flower over here."
"Hey!" Zoey said.
"Sorry, Red, it's been bugging me all day." Anne Maria straightened Zoey's hair-flower.
"Thanks. Mike? Is everything okay?"
Throwing the sheets back onto Scott's bed, Mike turned to her. "Why wouldn't everything be okay?"
"Chester," Cameron whispered to him. Mike winced.
"And why'd you call him 'Chester'?" Zoey asked. "What's going on?"
With both campers' expectant eyes on him, Mike sighed. "I need to tell you guys something…"
"You're not…all sketched out by me, are you?" Mike looked at Zoey.
"No way! I've never met someone with DID before…it's so cool!"
"Cool?"
"I mean, unless you think your DID is uncool, in which case–"
Mike laughed. "No, no! I've come to accept it. Them. Me and my alters have an understanding, we're cool."
"Cool!"
"Cool…"
Mike and Zoey rested their eyes on each other for a few moments before the sound of Anne Maria's nail-filer broke their silence.
"So Vito's…not a permanent thing?"
"'Fraid not. Only when my shirt's removed."
Anne Maria's eyes sparkled. "So…?"
"I'm not taking off my shirt."
"Ugh. Fine, fine. But blackmail, huh? I knew that Scott was slimy. What kinda dope looks at you like you've got two heads when you ask him for some hair gel?"
Cameron shook his head. "I can't believe he'd do something like that."
"What do I do? My secret's as good as out if I don't do whatever he says," Mike said.
"Well, when you think about it," Zoey thought aloud, "You, me, Cam, Anne Maria, and Scott all know about your DID, right?"
"Chris and Chef know too," Mike said. "My parents wrote it on the 'Accommodations' section of the camp paperwork we filled out. Chris pulled me aside before lunch and told me to let him know if I needed anything. Pretty sure he's just trying not to catch another news scandal."
"Still," Zoey said, "that was surprisingly…decent of him. But if Chris and Chef know too, that makes 7 people at this camp so far."
"7/15, or roughly 47%," Cameron calculated, "of the island knows."
"If you guys really wanna stick it to that jerk," Anne Maria pointed her nail-filer at Mike, "come clean to everyone! That way he can't dangle it over your head anymore."
Mike, Cameron, and Zoey pondered this idea. Heading out to "even her night tan", Anne Maria left the cabin. She was onto something. If basically half the island knew about Mike's disorder, what harm would the other half knowing do?
Back at the beach, the party was alive as the twinkling stars in the night sky and the licking flames of the tiki torches. Hatchet attempted to dazzle a depressed Chris (whose new-season idea had been staunchly rejected by the producers) with his hibachi knife skills on the outdoor grill. Sam, meanwhile, dazzled Dakota with his impressively terrible dancing. As horrific as his steps were, Dakota couldn't help but see the semblance of rhythm in his movement. Coupled with the embarrassingly high amount of effort he put into the mediocre moves, the heiress found it sort of cute, in a "spastic sea otter" kind of way. Lightning and Jo had settled their score on the volleyball court with another tie of 5 games to 5, and they switched their competitive efforts to swimming the length of the Dock of Shame. Meanwhile, Dawn, B, and Staci were working on a group effort to acclimate a nest of fire ants into their new medieval fortresses of sand. Dawn was coaxing them into the sand castles with her animal-whispering, B was spraying them with a pheromone solution he'd designed earlier in the cabin to soothe the ants' aggression, and Staci was making a path for their move-in while explaining the (possibly?) true story of her third cousin Melanie's invention of insect moving-trucks. Lightning bugs, potential home-buyers, floated around the trio of sandcastle supervisors. With his eyes darting across the beach ("Surveillance never ends!"), Brick was nibbling on a graham cracker at the snack bar. Walking past him to sit next to Dakota again, Anne Maria halted in front of the refreshment stand. Looking Brick up and down, a wave of recognition showered her face.
"Are those rhinestones on the soles of your boots?" the fashionista's jaw dropped.
Brick's cheeks burned. "I must've stepped in a…glitter puddle while on duty!"
"Whatever. They look fierce, though."
"Permission to express my gratitude for your compliment?"
"Uh, sure? Geez, you ROTC squares are so weird."
"Thank you, Anne Maria! I actually…designed them myself."
"Forget about a man in uniform. I love a guy who knows how to spice up his uniform!"
They talked about military boots and boots in general long into the night. One could see the exact moment Dakota's jaw dropped when she saw her divalicious cabin-mate talking to that straight-laced soldier-in-training.
On the steps leading to the beach, Scott whittled away at a seashell. Seeing Mike trotting up to him with a sober expression, Scott smiled, amused. When he saw Zoey and Cameron emerge from behind him, however, the freckle-faced camper raised an eyebrow.
"Reinforcements?" Scott kept looking at his seashell, but the whittling had slowed.
"We know what you've been doing, Scott." Zoey glared at him.
"Y-yeah!" Cameron piped up. Seeing Scott sneer at him, Cameron retreated behind Zoey a bit.
"Show my therapist's note to everyone, don't show it, I don't care," Mike fumed. "But it's messed up to boss me around and threaten to expose something I can't control."
Scott smirked and stood up. "Oh, boohoo. I was just having a little fun. And look who's talking: Do you really think everyone else is going to be happy when they find out they're bunking with more than just your irritating personality?"
"Who cares," Mike stepped forward, inches away from Scott's face. "As if it's some big knock to my integrity that I haven't told these people I've only known for one day about my personal disorder?"
Zoey frowned. "Choosing to blackmail someone you haven't even known for a whole day doesn't paint you in the best light either."
Scott scoffed, but he stepped back. Rolling his eyes, he crumpled up the note in his pocket and threw it on the ground. "Whatever. If you suckers are done with your lecture, I'm leaving. I didn't plan on messing with you for long anyways." He stalked off, but not before a four-clawed crab pinched him on the butt and sent him flailing around on the sand. This time, Hatchet tackled Scott to the ground for emergency first-aid, ripping the crabs off pincer-by-pincer.
He turned to Mike and Zoey. "Thanks, guys." He held out his hand to Cameron.
The genius gasped. He quickly slapped Mike's hand, and vigorously scribbled into a notepad. "First high-five, first buddy, first confrontation with a bully. This day has been extensively riveting!"
To Zoey, Mike held out a hand, then a fist, then held his arm out to put it around her, before quickly placing it back to his side. He rubbed the back of his head and grinned sheepishly. "Thanks. You're a true friend."
She smiled coyly. "No problem."
"Speaking of the truth," Mike walked to Dawn, B, and Staci, nearly done moving in their fire-ant friends. "There's something about me you guys should know…"
Returning to the outdoor grill after removing all the razor-sharp crab claws from Scott's butt ("Walk it off, maggot! Army-strong!"), Hatchet grumbled at the dulled knives, slightly melted after being left on the hot grill-surface.
"Which sandals highlight my calves?" Chris asked, holding up two pairs for his assistant to see.
"The ones on the left," Hatchet said absentmindedly. "I need a volunteer to help me sharpen and clean these knives. They've seen war, and it's gonna take a while to make sure my babies are deadlier than a shower of razors!" He kissed his weapons of war like a mother coaxing its babies.
"Get one of the kids to do it. They've had enough fun for the night," Chris said, still sour from his pitch's rejection.
Overhearing Hatchet's woes, Cameron stepped away from the dance-floor ("Dancing really is both physically and emotionally stimulating!") and walked to the veteran.
"Scott has a whittling knife! It's pretty sharp, and he told me he felt really bad about whining to you over his silly crab injuries, so he'd love to help you, even if it takes all night."
"You don't say, Maggot Boy?"
"I do! Right, Anne Maria?"
Looking up from her debate with Dakota ("Flat hair or poofy hair?"), Anne Maria caught Cameron's wink.
"Oh, yeah! Cam's right about…whatever's he's sayin'."
"Scott!" Hatchet barked. "Get over here right now!"
Groaning while icing himself, Scott trudged over to Hatchet. "What is it?"
"It's come to my attention that you've done a very bad thing, and you'd like to atone for this very bad thing."
Scott gulped and looked at Cameron. Did that shrimp really snitch on him?
"O-okay…"
"Be in the mess hall kitchen in five minutes to pay your dues! Oh, and I wouldn't worry about laying your head on your pillow, you probably won't get the chance to sleep in them tonight."
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me!" Scott glared as Cameron walked away.
"WAS THAT LIP, SON? IT SOUNDED AN AWFUL LOT LIKE LIP!" Hatchet roared in the dirt farmer's face.
"N-no, sir–"
"OH, YES IT WAS! YOU CALLIN' ME A LIAR, SON? I'd like to extend your kitchen duty, then, for the REST OF THE WEEK!"
Chris chuckled. "Dude! Rookie mistake: Keep the snark in your head next time."
Grabbing Scott by the ear, Hatchet dragged him off to a night of boredom and menial labor.
The swimming contest between Lightning and Jo abruptly ended near the finish line when the giant tentacle from earlier emerged and hoisted Jo up by the waist again.
"Oh, come on!" The jockette said.
"Sha-bam!" Lightning laughed as he looked at the misfortune behind him. "Lightning is going for the–"
Another tentacle blasted out of the water, crashing through a piece of the dock, and raised him up too. Knocking both campers into each other, he threw them onto the beach, where they landed on Chris, who crashed into the strobe lights and tiki torches, setting off an electrical fire by the edge of the lake. Startled, Dawn stepped back but tripped over a sandcastle, sending a gaggle of fire-ants flying through the air. Luckily for the fire ants, they landed softly onto B and Sam. Unluckily for B and Sam, the fire ants were riled up, and the two campers scrambled around the dance floor, tripping Mike and Zoey, who crashed into Anne Maria and Dakota's beach chairs, and tripping Cameron too, who grabbed onto the flimsy volleyball net for safety. It fell, and one of the net's poles crashed into the middle of the snack bar, where punch and stale cookies and crackers were strewn across the beach. A nest of nocturnal rat-gulls came out of hiding in the nearby trees and began feasting on the sand goodies. Nesting in Anne Maria's hair, some of the rat-gulls were swatted away by the Jersey girl's hairspray can, and they fluttered away past Scott, who, startled, let go of the bag of melted ice he was numbing his butt with. The melted ice landed in the middle of the beach bonfire, extinguishing the once bright, illuminating flame.
Amidst the darkness, clutter, and chaos, Staci decided that a titillating two-hours-long biography about her Great-Great-Great-Great Grandma Helen, who was famous for inventing uncontrolled party chaos, would be the perfect thing to conclude the campers' first night on the island.
She was wrong.