CHAPTER SIX
"Rise and shine, kiddos. Up and at 'em." Allison voice crackled over a PA system none of them had noticed the day before, shattering into the deep slumber of eight tired teenagers. "Mess hall in ten."
There was a muffled clump, like a microphone being put down before it was turned off, and silence reigned over the dormitories again. The sun was barely up and it was a struggle for any of them to convince themselves to follow suit- except for Li, who bounced out of bed and to her feet in one smooth movement, threw on the clothes she'd worn yesterday and then abandoned on the floor the previous night, and continued her whirlwind path out the dorm's door. After Li's exit, anything else was going to look sleepy.
With a solid twenty seconds to spare, the last couple of stragglers- Hex, dragging his feet behind a yawning Paulo- came down the stairs, arrived in the mess hall and plonked themselves onto one of the benches. The kitchen serving area had been abandoned that morning in favour an assortment of boxed cereals spread across the table before them along with bowls, spoons and a couple of cartons of milk.
Allison let them assemble their breakfasts and start to tuck in before taking up her position from the previous day's lunch on the end of the table, facing the kids. Before she got into things, she narrowed in on Hex. "How's your nose?" she asked him.
"Fine," he grunted, but he was eating very gingerly and there was the faint whisper of a purple tinge across the bridge that meant he wasn't going to be forgetting about the incident any time soon.
"I know the issues yesterday were accidents, but I can't emphasis enough how important it is for you guys to think things through before doing them and make sure that the choices you reach are sensible options. There is one of me." She clapped a hand to her chest to emphasis her point. "Eight of you. Okay? I'm one adult in charge of eight teenagers; the odds aren't favourable and I need you guys to all help me out by being mature and sensible. I haven't got the luxury of being able to treat you like kids. I'm trusting you all, giving you all responsibility, treating you like adults- you need to all act like adults, too. We have some really cool and fun adventures planned for the next couple of weeks, and we can't do those if I can't trust you to follow the rules and conduct yourselves in a mature and considerate way."
Murmurs of assent followed and Allison seemed content, for the time being, that she wasn't going to have anyone mucking up or being an idiot. Time would tell whether she was right- or, if she was, how long it would last- but for the mean time she'd have to trust that she could trust them, cross her fingers and hope for the best.
"What're we doing today?" Li asked. She'd already finished breakfast, practically inhaling her bowl of cornflakes.
Allison smiled at her eagerness; judging from some of the other kids' expressions, Li really was starting to rub them the wrong way with her seemingly endless supply of enthusiastic energy, but she found the girl's attitude to be delightfully infectious. It was near to impossible to not get caught up in her zest. "Team building," Allison said.
"Why do I have a sinking feeling in my stomach?"
"I have no idea, Amber. It can't be about what we're doing this morning." She winked. "It's far too fun."
"Yeah, not helping. I assume 'team building' means we'll be working in teams?"
Allison nodded. "Pairs, to be exact. Winning team get out of lunch and dinner duty- prep and clean up."
"Can we choose our partner?" Li and Paulo were already eyeing each other, a fact that didn't escape Allison.
"Absolutely not," she said, putting an end to their scheming. "We'll use a random generator."
"Random generator?" Paulo repeated, slightly mystified.
Allison produced an Akubra from under the bench and showed them the equal strips of folded up paper nestled inside the upturned hat.
"Ah."
"Think of this as an opportunity to get to know each other better," she added as none of them looked particularly thrilled at the ensuing selection process.
"We do know each other," Justin said.
"Work together, then. I don't want to hear any more complaining," she added firmly as several of the other teens went to add their own comments. "This is how we're choosing teams. Deal with it."
There were four people sitting down the bench to her right. She got up and went around to stand behind Li who needed no invitation to dive her hand into the hat, fish around and pull out the name she'd picked.
"Justin," Li announced.
The Aussie boy looked at the little bouncing ball of energy dubiously, questioning their chances of winning and her ability to stay focused, but none the less got up and went to slip onto the bench next to her. He was already a bit sour over the fact that Allison had cleared him as 'fit and fighting' to participate in the day's activities, his leg looking already a considerable amount better than it had the previous day and his limp almost gone (provided no one was looking, or he wasn't aware that they were).
Stella drew Ruby, and Alex pulled Paulo's name out of the hat, leaving Hex looking up at Allison and the offered hat, questioning the point.
He eyed the hat with distaste. "This is not a sanctioned random generator."
"Just draw a name."
"Why bother? There's only one left."
"Hex…"
He sighed, stuck a hand into the hat and made a show of rifling around. "Who shall I choose…" he murmured before extracting his hand with a flourish, flipping his palm over and opening his fingers to reveal the slip of paper he'd snatched up. "I wonder who it could be."
Allison managed to hold in her weary sigh; Li she could cope with, not finding her at all draining, but Hex… He just didn't look like he wanted to be there which, if he'd been telling the truth in his introduction back on the boat, he really didn't. Biting her lip, she briefly considered whether a pair reshuffle would be beneficial- maybe putting Hex with Li would have some of her happy-go-lucky rub off on him? Hex and Amber didn't seem like a duo that would result in harmony, but this was a team building exercise and perhaps that was what was needed.
Amber looked about as thrilled as Hex did. "Seriously?" she asked Allison. "I thought we were meant to be in different teams to yesterday? Can't we swap?"
"I completely agree," Hex said quickly.
Allison just smiled. "Ah, see? You're getting along better all ready."
"That wasn't-"
"No, I don't-"
"Outside," Allison interrupted loudly, dropping the Akubra onto her head and starting for the door. "Come on. We've got tonnes of stuff to get through today."
After a short walk down the beach, around the headland, and up a roughly chopped path through the vegetation, the group emerged in a large clearing. Arranged about the space were several different activities. A high ropes course was the main one, sprawled over almost a third of the clearing, with a flying fox zipping down the side opposite the high ropes, running from a tower down to finish just beside the obstacle-style course that was tucked away into the bottom corner. The closest object set up to them was a climbing wall that could have easily been found in any indoor activity centre, with brightly coloured footholds jutting out from a grey background that was meant to look like rock. Ropes were secured to the top of the wall, trailing down for them to clip their harnesses onto before starting.
Allison led them over the wall, handing out a harness between each pair. "This morning we're putting a focus on trust and co-operation. You'll be moving through a series of challenges that will not only help you develop these important attributes with your partner, but shine a light on how functional the level you currently possess is." She kept herself busy passing out the final couple of harnesses, making sure she didn't look at anyone in particular off the back of that final point.
"We've only got one harness," Ruby pointed out. She looked a bit queasy, deliberately facing away from the wall as though not seeing it somehow made it melt from existence.
"Because only one of you is going up. The other will be the climber's spotter. First, second and third teams up the wall, touching the top, and back down onto the ground again get varying points. Obviously you want to be first."
Ruby visibly relaxed, eagerly handing the harness to Stella. "You keen?"
Stella shrugged, stepping into the harness and busying herself with adjusting it. Around her the other volunteer- or not so much- climbers were doing the same: Alex and Amber suited up with varying degrees of skill while Li made it look like she was just tossing on a pair of shorts- she even took a moment before doing so to ask Alison, "Is the harness compulsory?" The task seemed a straightforward one enough, and compared to the other pieces of equipment around them, the wall looked almost the easiest option. Ruby was just reconsidering whether her move to get Stella to climb was a smart one when Allison emerged from rummaging around in her backpack, waving four strips of heavy black cloth.
"What's this for?" Alex asked, curious, as Allison handed one strip each to the harness-wearing person of the pair.
"Blindfold," Allison answered simply; she laughed at the looks being thrown around the group and at the wall. "You didn't think I'd make it too easy, did you?"
Stella made a face. "Was kind of hoping for not impossible."
"That's why you've got the spotter. They'll guide you up the wall: co-operation and trust," she reiterated.
Amber wasn't the only one shooting a final, wary glance at the wall before her blindfold was secured over her eyes and the world disappeared, but Li was positively buzzing. Before her blindfold was tied in place, she winked at a bemused Justin and told him, "We've soooo got this."
Before he could even start to ask her what sort of communication system they were going to be using, she was up against the wall, poised and ready to go.
"Li-" Justin started but was cut over by Allison's whistle, signalling the start of the race.
Li spidered her way up the wall, reaching the halfway point before any of the others had even got off the ground. It was as if she didn't even have the blindfold on. Justin's jaw dropped, as did Paulo's who promptly forgot about his job guiding his own partner. With a startled yelp, Alex slipped in his quest for the next handhold, lost his footing and fell; his body jerked to a halt, his harness catching him, and he swung there on the end of his rope just above the ground, swearing as his heart pounded furiously in his chest.
"Sorry, amigo." Paulo hurriedly directed his attention back to Alex, who continued to curse under his breath as he regained a purchase on the wall and began the slow climb upwards once more.
The other teams were making solid, steady progress. No one was even close to touching Li, who had already slapped a hand against the top of the wall and spent a moment enjoying her victory up top before rappelling back down to the ground again.
Justin met her with a hug as she whipped off her blindfold, elated at her performance. "That was incredible," he said. "I didn't have to do anything! How the hell did you do that?"
"Practice," she said offhandedly, like it was something of an every day occurrence for her, climbing rock faces without seeing where she was going or what she was doing. "That was fun."
'Fun' wasn't the word that Amber or Hex would have used to describe their morning so far. After the bag incident (which, by the way, Amber was a hundred per cent certain wasn't a bloody accident, no matter what Li suggested) she wouldn't have trusted him to hold a seat for her let alone scramble up a climbing wall with only his directions as guidance. Not that he was doing a whole lot of direction giving as it happened anyway.
Like Alex, Amber's quest for a handhold ended in failure and her losing her footing; she swung away from the wall and then back into it and, with no ability to see it coming at her and bracing against it, hit the uneven surface with a winded ooph and, a split second later, a snap down at Hex on the ground below her.
He rolled his eyes, even though she couldn't see him. "If you'd listened-"
"If you'd talked-"
"You might as well just come back down," he said dismissively. "Everyone else is finished."
Despite not wanting to go along with his suggestion, Amber was having absolutely no fun up on the wall and the prospect of struggling through the rest of the task with Hex's piss poor effort from the ground hindering her every move was even less appealing than agreeing with him. As soon as her feet touched the ground she ripped her blindfold off and shot a furious scowl in his direction. He returned the expression and they glowered at each other, the niggling rib of tension and irritation between them intensifying by the second. There was a serious problem there and a little bit of team building wasn't going to fix it; if anything, it was going to make it worse.
Allison didn't seem to notice the dissent in one of her pairs, scribbling on a piece of paper. "Five points to Li and Justin. Three to Ruby and Stella. One for Alex and Paulo. Better luck next round, you two." She directed her last comment with a nod at Amber and Hex. Catching a couple of the kids standing with the harnesses hanging off their arms, wondering where to put them, she added, "Hang onto them. Or better yet, give it to your team mate; they'll need it next."
"Please, Allison, let there not be a blindfold involved in this." Ruby turned away from the high ropes course to face their supervisor, imploring her to see sense. "I'm begging you."
"No, there's no blindfold involved in this round. Don't worry."
The high ropes course was a sprawling affair, with separate sections each interconnected by varying sorts of rope ladders or bridges- or single strands of rope- strung between each supporting tower. Li looked above at the course, a bit gloomy that she had to hand over the harness to Justin and not get a turn on it. Maybe they would get some free time after the team building was done, and she could go for a climb; the possibility restored her usual cheer, and she bounced on the balls of her feet, excited once again for the next task.
"Pick a starting point," Allison said once the spotters from the previous round had suited up. "Separate one each, please. New spotters, wait over there." She pointed off to one side, out of the way, and went from climber to climber, helping them clip themselves up to the safety ropes. "Under no circumstances are you to ever completely unclip yourself from the course. You have two carabineers on your harnesses for a reason; at least one must be holding you to the course at all times. When you get to a section of the course where you have to unclip yourself to secure onto the next section, undo the first clip, secure it to the new part of the course, then repeat with the second clip."
After sorting out everyone about to tackle the high ropes course, she went back to the assembled spotters. Another quick hunt through her backpack and she had four maps in her hand, each decorated with a different coloured series of dots and some blank, black rimmed circles. She handed them out.
"What're these?" Amber asked, already feeling not overly positive about the impending round two. The lack of a blindfold had been a definite plus, but she was getting a sinking feeling that the required attempts at having to communicate hadn't been put to one side. She felt confident that she could direct someone- it was just navigating and map reading, after all, which she did well at- however she had no such confidence in Hex's ability to take said direction.
"You've each got a set course that you need to guide your climber through." Allison turned and looked over at the high ropes. "There are no markers up there, they don't know where they're going, so you're in the driver's seat."
"So how do we win?" Li asked. Priorities.
"First team to pass over all of their markers, therefore completing their course, and putting feet on the ground again."
Li rubbed her hands together. "Excellent. We've still got this, Justin!" she called out to her partner.
He gave her two thumbs up in return, although didn't feel nearly as confident on the inside; he had a seriously tough act to follow and was wishing he'd done the climbing wall now instead of Li.
"The catch is," Allison continued, earning groans from the teenagers, "that you can't pass your team member over another team's marker. You have to direct them across each of the coloured dots on your map, but not over the black circles."
Four pairs of eyes dropped to their respective maps, studying them.
"If the climber slips off the course- so loses both feet contact- consider yourself disqualified from the round and your climber might as well come back down."
Allison issued a final reminder about the two clip rule, gave the spotters a chance to position themselves wherever they felt was an ideal area on the ground to work from, and blew into her whistle again. The shrill shriek cut through the silence and signalled a myriad of shouted instructions and encouragement as the climbers took off up into the course.
This time around, Amber found herself much more in her element. In the driver's seat, as Allison had said, and with a map spread out on the ground in front of her she felt confident that her part to play in the round was going to go without a hitch. She knew navigating; this was child's play. Or, rather, it would have been if her partner was someone who which she hadn't taken issue with and who could actually hold a dialogue with her that didn't involve snippy remarks, sarcastic comments and quick-fire retorts.
"Left, Hex!" she shouted up at him for the third time.
"Yours or mine?"
"Yours, you idiot. What use would it be basing the path off me when I'm not on the flipping course?"
"Exactly why I asked."
She scowled again, the edges of the map suffering as her fists bunched. "And what the heck is that meant to mean?"
"Have a think. It's good to try something new."
Hex reached a crossover point in the course, a single strand of thick rope stretched out before him to take him from the tower he was standing on to the next one- and to the invisible blue mark that was there. There was a second strand above his head which he assumed was for him to hold onto while he balanced his way across. The safety line was there too and he unclipped one carabineer from the previous line, reaching up to secure it to the second, underestimating just how far away it was. He took half a shuffling step forwards, his toes ghosting over the edge of the platform which in itself wouldn't have been an issue if he hadn't already been leaning quite heavily forwards.
Amber could merely watch, almost directly underneath, as Hex lost his position on the platform, pitching forwards, arms automatically whirling like windmills in an attempt to halt his movement. It was too late, though, and before either of them could blink Hex was spinning on the end of the tether he hadn't yet unclipped, feet dangling and arms hanging by his sides.
"Well done, genius," Amber drawled, slapping her forehead. "Think you can figure out a way down without my help?"
"I'll try."
"Nice to attempt something new, right?" She scrunched the map up and made her way back over to where Allison had based herself as adjudicator.
"Better luck next time," Allison offered again in consolation.
Amber merely raised an eyebrow. Yeah, that was going to happen.
While Li may have blown the competition out of the water when she was up in the air, on the ground she was seriously struggling. Justin's worries about her staying focused on the task immediately at hand came to fruition as Li flitted about underneath him, confusing not only the poor guy stuck up on the course but herself too. With the best of intentions she sent him on a path for their next marker only realising at the last possible second- and far too late to turn him around- that said path crossed directly over another team's target. Allison's whistle blew and Li threw her hands up in the air, smiling despite the mishap.
"Sorry!" she called up to Justin.
"All good. We got half of it done."
"And spectacularly." She grinned as he returned to the ground in front of her, unclipping himself from the safety lines.
He shrugged, screwing his nose up. "Eh, I think you might have to give me some lessons. I like that there's no coral- definitely more my style."
"Any time," she enthused. "You think that's fun, you ought to try it without the harness."
Justin's eyes bulged slightly; who the heck was the bizarre person standing in front of him? "Yeah… Might give that a miss for the time being. Thanks for the offer, though."
The other two teams were having similar, mixed results. Well built Paulo was struggling with the more delicate, dainty nature of the task, despite Alex's decent instructions and constant guidance. He hadn't been setting any records beforehand but, with first place still up for grabs, he took an even more conservative approach. Ruby was inching along at a painfully slow pace, so as long as Paulo and Alex didn't make a silly mistake it was almost a guarantee that the boys would net the five points. There wasn't a time limit and, although the others on the ground did start heckling in an attempt to either throw their concentration or hurry him up, Paulo finished off with a solid effort and returned to Earth without a mistake.
Finally, just two marks from the end, an error from a slightly flustered Stella sent Ruby over another team's mark, earning the whistle from Allison. A relieved Ruby hurried back to earth as fast as she could without giving herself a nervous breakdown, putting Alex and Paulo on the podium solo.
Allison was tallying up the points. "Still anyone's game," she announced after adding the pathetic second round standings to the tally board.