I Don’t Wanna Be Famous
A Total Drama SI story
Disclaimer: Total Drama belongs to Fresh TV Inc. I’m simply borrowing it to tell some stories.
Author’s Notes: So, for added mystery (or whatever) I had most of the Boney Island events seen only from Heather’s POV rather than Jason’s. Did I do a good job getting the events across despite the limited POV or did I royally screw it up? You be the judge! Also lots of introspection in this chapter.
Chapter 8: The Secret of Boney Island
The day after the Phobia Factor challenge Jason absconded into the woods shortly after breakfast. Heather, seeing this, wasted no time.
Following Jason’s manipulation of Owen effectively winning the Killer Bass the last challenge, Heather had become convinced once and for all that Jason was the biggest threat she would face on Total Drama Island. And now that he had started to openly manipulate her teammates, it was time to strike back. And what better time than when Jason wasn’t even in the camp?
“So, Lindsay,” Heather said smoothly as she sat in the girls’ side of the Gophers’ cabin, alone but for her fellow alliance member, “do you understand what I need you to do?”
“Um, I think so,” the blonde said uncertainly. “You want me to talk to Tyler and ask him everything he knows about Jason.”
“That’s right.”
“Buuut…. I thought I wasn’t supposed to talk to Tyler?”
“Oh, right. That.” Heather cleared her throat, then said, “The situation has… changed.”
Lindsay shot her a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“I will allow you to talk to Tyler from now on.”
That got the blonde’s attention. “Really?!”
“Under one condition: you have to do everything I tell you to.”
“Okay!”
“Good. Now, for starters, I need you to find out everything Tyler knows about Jason. Once you do that, come find me. Then I need you to-”
“I will! Bye!”
“Lindsay! I wasn’t do- Ugh, whatever.”
Indeed, the blonde had rushed out the door before Heather could even finish her sentence.
Now, for the next step… Time to find Owen.
She found the overweight boy just as he exited the main lodge, no doubt having stayed behind after breakfast to beg Chef Hatchet for scraps.
Shaking her head at the boy’s seemingly insatiable appetite, Heather made a beeline toward him.
“Hey. Owen.”
“Oh, hey, Heather,” Owen said, turning to her. To her disgust, she saw a piece of… something… still stuck to his cheek. “What’s up?”
Burying the urge to rant at the boy for his atrocious table manners, she instead gave him a stiff smile. “Hi. I was wondering about something.”
“About what?”
“Come with me.”
“Um, okay. Where are we going?”
Somewhere people can’t see me alone with you. “Somewhere we can talk in private.”
“Oh, okay.”
Heather led Owen around behind the main lodge. It wasn’t exactly a hidden-away place, but it faced away from the rest of the camp and nobody was currently using the beach on that side, so with a bit of luck nobody would see them… or worse, overhear them.
“Now, then,” Heather said, stopping abruptly and turning to face the boy. “I want to know everything Jason has said to you. Ever.”
Owen blinked.
I spent my time in the woods, just wandering aimlessly to and fro at random. Well, not exactly; although I did not have any particular destination in mind, I wasn’t just wandering back and forth. Rather, I started along the main path away from the camp, then after a while wandered onto a nice-looking animal trail, which I followed until I once again reached a human-made path, which I followed until I saw another nice animal trail… Well, you get the idea.
Look, it wasn’t technically random, so there.
I had brought my backpack, of course, with all my things inside. If I ended up getting lost, I could just make camp in a nice spot and spend the night. Chris had assured me there wouldn’t be another challenge until the day after tomorrow, so I had plenty of time. Besides, the island couldn’t be that big; even if I got totally lost, as long as I didn’t cross the lake, I should get back to camp just by random chance within a day or two. Plus I could always just follow the coastline.
Now, as for why I was out here in the first place…
I felt embarrassed. Horribly, terribly embarrassed. Going up on stage and singing had been bad enough, but everyone liked it and wouldn’t shut up about it. Trent had even asked me if I wanted to jam with him. How the hell was I supposed to jam? I could sing a bit, but I didn’t play an instrument and I sucked at improv. A rapper, I was not. Hell, I couldn’t even read a music sheet; I had no formal training whatsoever.
Setting that particular problem aside…
It was going to be on TV. Sure, it wasn’t in “my” world, but at least for the time being I was stuck in this one… and just thinking about millions of people watching me onstage, hearing me sing… it made me shudder and want to punch and punch and punch until there was nothing left to punch.
Seriously, what the hell was wrong with all those people who wanted fame above all? Fucking brain-damaged morons, the lot of them.
… Well, figuratively speaking, anyway. I was just giving voice- er, thought, to my frustrations. And speaking of frustrations…
I punched a tree. Not as hard as I could have, but hard enough, and it shuddered under the impact, a few leaves and even a couple acorns raining down around me.
Then, because it was a cartoon, a squirrel fell out of the tree while letting out the tiniest little horrified scream. On reflex I reached out and caught the tiny woodland creature before it could hit the ground. The squirrel stood up on my palm, wiped imaginary sweat from its forehead while it let out a sigh of relief. It then looked up at me and gave a grateful salute before jumping off me and back onto the tree, which it quickly climbed until it disappeared from sight in the canopy above.
… Okay, then.
As light as it was, I doubted the squirrel would have been hurt even if it had hit the ground instead of my hand. Shaking my head, I took a moment to adjust my backpack and continued on.
Though I might have saved some time by continuing to punch trees, my frustrations were slowly draining away just by being alone in the woods. Plus I didn’t want to cause any more unintentional accidents involving cute woodland creatures.
Right at the moment, though, just thinking about going back and facing my fellow campers filled me with dread tinged by embarrassment. Ever since coming to this island, I had found my emotions, always strong, strangely… amplified.
It was little more than a suspicion on my part, but I found one explanation to be likelier than any other: along with a teenage body, I had been “gifted” with teenage hormones. Hence why my emotions ran rampant within me even more than usual, and I yearned so for the calming influence of the forest.
This is gonna be a long walk…
It was. I spent two nights in the woods, each time making camp in a nice, isolated spot before continuing on. I fished a bit, but most of my diet consisted of berries and the contraband snacks I had stowed away in my backpack. Not the healthiest diet, I’ll admit, but I needed to get rid of them one way or another anyhow.
When I returned to camp, I found Chris standing by his lonesome next to a map propped up on an easel while the campers were all busy on the beach behind him. Including Beth, who I noticed had a long section of toilet paper stuck to her shoe.
“Yo! I’m here!” I called out as I approached. “What did I miss?”
Chris turned to me. “Oh, you’re still alive? We were taking bets you got eaten by a bear.”
“Oh, ha ha,” I deadpanned. “What’s the challenge?”
Chris flicked a thumb over his shoulder toward the beach.
“Canoes,” he answered simply. “Better hurry if you wanna pick a paddle partner.”
“Oh, cool. I like canoeing.” Hurrying past the host, I jogged toward the beach. “Yo! Guys! Don’t start without me!”
“Jason? You’re alive?!” Duncan asked in a surprised but elated voice, while behind him several of the other campers echoed the sentiment.
“Yeah, Chris already did that one,” I said, rolling my eyes at them. In the background, I heard Heather curse loudly. Maybe she dropped something? “So who’s paddling with who, here? Is anyone free?”
“I don’t have a partner,” Harold said.
“How about you, Duncan?” I asked quickly. “You free?”
“Uh, I guess so?” he said uncertainly, glancing to the side. Following his gaze, I saw Courtney pairing up with Eva.
Oh, right. Duncan had a thing for Courtney, didn’t he? It wasn’t as flat-out obvious as Geoff’s crush on Bridgette, but there had been some signs here and there. Still, if Courtney was pairing up with Eva…
“Guess you are,” I said simply. “Come on, let’s rock this canoeing thing.”
“Alright, fine,” Duncan said with a sigh.
“Hey, you snooze, you lose,” I said, giving the boy a shrug as we both glanced over at the two girls. “Maybe you can catch her on the ride home?”
That perked him up. “Yeah, maybe…”
“So where are we going, anyway?”
“I dunno. Some place called Boney Island.”
“Oh, that sounds awesome!”
A few minutes later we were all in the water and waiting for Chris to give the signal to start. The host stood on the beach, holding a small revolver.
“On your marks. Get set… Paddle!”
A gunshot echoed across the lake, and we were off.
I was plenty used to paddling, and while Duncan wasn’t, he was in good shape and learned quickly. It wasn’t long before we shot comfortably ahead of everyone else.
“Hey, where were you, anyway?” Duncan asked suddenly.
“For the past two days?” I returned. “In the woods, camping.”
“Why?”
“I feel calmer in the woods. It helps with my mood,” I answered earnestly. “Plus I may or may not have gotten lost for part of it.”
“Okay, here’s something I don’t get: How can someone be so used to camping and hiking and have such a terrible sense of direction as you do?”
“How do you think I got used to camping and hiking?” I replied jokingly. “But, nah, I can follow a map just fine, but I don’t really have a sense for direction at all. Plus I get lost in thought and before I know it I’m several kilometers away.”
“That’s messed up, dude.”
“Eh, you get used to it. Or I did, anyway. Speaking of, did Chris give you a map of Boney Island?”
“Nah. He just said to get to Boney Island, then make a two-hour hike to the other side with the canoes, then build a rescue fire. Then we’re supposed to paddle home.”
I gave Duncan an inquisitive look. “That’s it? Sounds simple enough… Too simple, knowing Chris.”
The punk rocker shrugged. “Yeah, he said the island was cursed.”
“What, really?”
“Oh, come on. You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“I dunno, I’ve seen some weird things in my life. Curse or no curse, though, Chris probably put down traps or made sure we’d cross treacherous terrain or something along those lines.”
“Yeah, that sounds like him, alright.”
I cleared my throat. “Oh, and, uh, once we get to the island you’d better do the navigatin’. Just sayin’.”
Duncan smirked. “Already counting on it.”
The first sign we got of Boney Island was the thick fog surrounding it. We could only see a couple tens of meters ahead, and the sun had disappeared behind a growing cloud cover, making it even harder to make out much of anything. The island itself slowly faded into sight behind the fog, revealing not only high cliffs but also jagged rocks surrounding the island itself, making navigation perilous. Once we neared shore the fog cleared up enough that we could see the island proper… and the huge cliff in the middle that was vaguely in the shape of a human skull.
“Holy crap, look at that! That’d be perfect for a villain’s lair!” I exclaimed, pointing at the cliff.
Duncan looked at the cliff, then me. “A what?”
“Uh, I mean, uh, nice rock formation. Yeah.”
“… You’re weird, dude,” he said. Then he smirked. “That’s cool, though. I like skulls, too.”
“Uh, yeah. Cool.”
We reached the beach at speed, driving the canoe into the sand. We jumped out and dragged the canoe inland before turning it over and picking it up to carry it above our heads; Chris hadn’t deigned to provide us with a canoe carriage, so we would have to carry it across the island. It would likely slow us down, but then, depending on the terrain we might not have had much use for it, anyway.
Just as we were getting ready to set off, a ghost-like howl echoed out from further inland. It was probably just the wind blowing through the jagged cliffs, but it certainly set the mood.
“I like this island,” I said, smiling in appreciation.
“You are one weird dude.”
“You said that already.”
“I think it bears repeating.”
I shrugged. “Fair enough.”
And then we were off.
To ensure Jason didn’t try anything else with the boy, Heather had – reluctantly – paired up with Owen for the duration of the challenge. As a result, the trip to Boney Island had been annoying, to say the least, but they still got there at roughly the same time as everybody else.
Everybody except Jason and Duncan, who had pulled way ahead early on. Heather didn’t know what Jason was planning by doing so, but it couldn’t be good, and she resolved herself to look out for traps.
As for Boney Island itself, it was… somewhat imposing. The giant cliff in the shape of a skull had obviously been altered for the show, and Chris’s talk of a curse was of course nonsense, but…
Well, Heather would never admit it out loud, but the place gave her the creeps from the moment she stepped onto the beach.
And it only got worse as they – meaning the Gophers – ventured inland; there were sticks poking out of the ground with animal skulls stuck on top all along the path, as though to warn that intruders were not welcome. Clearly, Chris had gone above and beyond to make the place creepy.
Or maybe this is all Jason’s doing? I wouldn’t put it past him to try and rile us up… Tyler did say Jason and Duncan concocted that ridiculous ghost story to scare everyone on the Bass…
Yes, using Lindsay to gather information from Tyler while Jason was away had borne fruit; Heather had received a detailed – if somewhat incoherent – account of everything Jason had done since coming onto the island. There were a lot of blank spaces, of course, either because Tyler hadn’t been present or because he’d been too dumb to understand what had really been going on. Connecting the dots, Heather realized that Jason had been callously manipulating the people around him from day one. She wasn’t judging him, of course, as she had done much the same… but she had been surprised at the sheer scope of the boy’s manipulative ability; with a few choice words here and there he changed people’s minds or distracted them from what they were doing so he could exploit them. And very subtly, too; it took someone like Heather to spot what was really going on.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, his physical capabilities were among the highest of all the campers. Yes, Jason was indeed a foe on a different level from anyone else on Total Drama Island… but already, Heather was laying the groundwork for a plan to-
“Monster beavers?!”
Heather blinked, then, snapped out of her thoughts by the sudden exclamation from one of her teammates. She turned to look where everyone else already was, and indeed there appeared to be a number of bear-sized beavers with tusks lying scattered around the path in front of a felled tree.
“Oh, come on,” she said, rolling her eyes. “They’re not moving at all. Obviously, Chris just made some kind of stuffed animals to scare us. It’s all props.”
“I dunno, I think they’re breathing,” Trent interjected.
“Yes, and I don’t want to risk it even if they are props,” Justin, who had paddle-partnered with the singer, agreed. “What if one of those tusks cuts my face? I have a modeling career to think about, you know.”
Heather internally groaned. Justin was a fine specimen of a man… physically. Mentally, he was more like a child. A dim-witted child obsessed with its own looks, at that. The only reason she’d acted to keep him around was because Jason found him annoying for some reason.
… Come to think of it, she could kind of see why. Listening to him talk was almost as bad as listening to Lindsay.
“Hey, does it look to anyone else like they were. I dunno, beaten up?” Owen ventured uncertainly. “I mean, a lot of them have bumps on their heads… and that one has a broken tusk. And that one over there is missing a lot of fur.”
“What could possibly beat up a bunch of monster beavers, though?” Trent asked thoughtfully.
“Maybe they beat each other up?” Lindsay suggested, earning her a nod from her partner, Beth. “Ohhh, or maybe they were playing catch and they-”
“Shut up, Lindsay,” Heather said flatly before the blonde could devolve into another idiotic rant.
“Hey, uh, I think that one’s waking up,” Leshawna said suddenly. She adjusted her grip on her and Gwen’s canoe slightly as they two girls stepped back, away from the beavers.
Indeed, one of the beavers was starting to stir. As the campers watched, their eyes wide, the creature rose up from its prone position on the ground. Its gaze swept over its downed kin before landing on the campers. The instant it did so, the beaver let out a scared whine, turned tail and ran off into the bushes.
The Gophers blinked.
“What just happened?” Gwen asked.
“Maybe it saw your face and got scared,” Heather volunteered with a smirk.
“Shut up, Heather,” Gwen shot back irritably.
“You shut up, Weird Goth Girl,” Heather retorted, her voice equally as irritated, even as inwardly she smiled; Gwen was getting testier by the day, and it was only a matter of time until she would do something that would rob the last bit of respect she had from the rest of the team.
“Hey, back off, Heather,” Trent spoke up, then. “Give Gwen a break.”
“I don’t need you to fight my battles for me, Trent,” Gwen snapped angrily, prompting the boy to take a step back in surprise.
He lowered his head in shame. “I’m sorry…”
Heather smirked. Ever since Trent had accidentally left Gwen buried on the beach during the Phobia Factor challenge, relations between the two had been frosty, to say the least. Perfect.
“Gwen, c’mon,” Leshawna said pleadingly.
“What, Leshawna?” Gwen asked heatedly, only to quickly deflate when she saw the black girl’s sad frown. “Sorry… I, I guess I went a little far…”
Heather internally frowned. Leshawna was being a calming influence on Gwen, slowing down the latter’s spiral into mental chaos. Perhaps it was time to get the black girl voted off…?
“Uh, guys? I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but I think the rest of the beavers are waking up,” Beth spoke up.
“Alright, let’s go back and pick another path,” Heather said quickly. Not that she was afraid, mind you; it was simply the more expedient option.
There was a chorus of agreements. The decision made, the Gophers went back to a fork in the road they’d passed earlier and picked another path.
Now, where was I? Oh, yes.
Unbeknownst to Jason, Heather had already begun laying the groundwork for a plan to not only counter his machinations, but to get him kicked off the island entirely. Manipulating Tyler through Lindsay was only the first step; the next was-
“Holy moley!”
Now what? Heather wondered irritably. She looked up ahead and blinked.
Their new path lead through a big puddle, and on either side of the puddle were what looked like large bird nests. While this would have been somewhat alarming in and of itself, as Heather knew birds could be quite protective of their nests, what was far more alarming in this case was the frankly ridiculous number of feathers strewn all over the place. Something had happened here, and it obviously involved the birds who built the nests. Strangely, however, the birds themselves were nowhere to be seen. Had they fought and then chased after some sort of intruder?
“Something tells me we should hurry up,” Trent said, to widespread agreement.
“Yes, that’s… probably not a bad idea,” Heather had to agree. If the nest size was any indication, the birds were big, and it would probably be best not to be there when they returned.
So the Gophers hurried on. It was mere minutes later that they ran into trouble yet again.
“Guys, uh, don’t wanna panic here, but I’m shrinking!” Trent called out. In truth, however, he wasn’t shrinking so much as sinking.
“Is that quicksand?” Owen asked, indicating the slightly different hue of sand that Trent had stepped onto right before he began to sink into the ground.
“Uh, a little help, here?” Trent asked. He had already sunk down to his chest.
“Quick! Does anyone have any rope?!” Owen asked, looking around wildly.
Heather rolled her eyes. “Just hold the canoe over the quicksand, you dolt,” she said, giving the canoe a smack for emphasis.
“Oh, yeah!” Owen exclaimed and, with a grace belying his size, he swung the canoe around over his head and put one end above the quicksand. Trent, who was down to his neck at that point, reached out and grabbed one of the bars inside the canoe with both hands. Owen then backed up and with a mighty heave pulled him out.
“Thanks, man,” the singer said earnestly as he got back on his feet. “You’re a lifesaver.”
Owen giggled, abashed. “It was Heather’s idea.”
“Oh, yeah,” Trent said. He turned to Heather, scratching at the back of his neck. “Uh, thanks, Heather.”
Heather blinked and looked around. Seeing the impressed and even grateful expressions on her teammates’ faces, she found herself momentarily taken aback. “Oh. Um, no problem.” After a moment, she added, “Well, what are you waiting for? The beach should be just up ahead.”
She hurried onward, idly wondering at the strange feeling evoked by her teammates’ gratitude.
It felt… strange. Unfamiliar, but… not in a bad way.
Weird.
The Gophers ended up reaching the beach minutes before the Bass did, under the watchful eye of Chris looking down on them from his personal helicopter hovering above the beach. Under Heather’s guidance, the Gophers immediately set to start a fire… which was easier said than done, as no one on their team had much experience with such things. Still, Heather, together with Leshawna, did her best, and eventually got a small fire going… mere minutes ahead of the Bass. Who, Heather noted, were still missing a few people.
“Hey, fishies,” Heather called out. “Aren’t you missing a few fish?”
Just then, there came a series of crashes from inside the woods, and soon after Duncan and Jason fairly rushed onto the beach, much to Heather’s chagrin. Their canoe looked considerably more beat-up than when they had set off from Wawanakwa, for some reason, but still looked to be whole.
“I love this island!” Jason exclaimed as the boys put the canoe down. Jason had a few scratches and abrasions here and there, but overall looked to be just fine.
“I hate this island!” Duncan, on the other hand, looked like he’d been through hell; his hair was disheveled, his clothes were torn, he had a black eye, and he had bruises, cuts and abrasions everywhere. After dropping the canoe he went down on one knee, seemingly exhausted. “Oh… Oh, God… the things I’ve seen! The beavers… The birds!”
“Birds?” Courtney asked as she rushed to the boy’s side to help him stand. “What’s so bad about birds?”
“They had teeth!”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“So, I see you guys got started without us, huh?” Jason asked, strolling along to the Bass’ fire. “Nice going, guys.”
As Heather watched, the boy engaged in conversation with his fellow Bass. Soon after he went back into the woods only to return a few minutes later, carrying an armful of fresh fir branches. He unceremoniously started putting them onto the Bass’ fire, in the process causing a billowing pillar of thick smoke to rise into the sky. A gust of wind blew smoke in her direction, and Heather coughed and waved her hand in front of her face as she trudged angrily over to the Bass’ fire.
“Hey, what do you think you are doing?” she asked testily between coughs.
“It’s daytime,” Jason said simply, as if that explained everything. When Heather quirked an unamused eyebrow at him, he continued, “Smoke is more visible than light in daytime. Since this is a signal fire, lots of smoke is way better. Look at that pillar: it’s gonna be visible from way, way off.”
“Oh, that’s awesome,” Harold commented while the rest of the Bass cheered. Heather looked up and blanched, then, realizing that Jason was right.
At that moment, Chris’s voice rang out via loudspeaker from his helicopter, above. “Jason has a point, and so do the Killer Bass! The Bass win the fire-building challenge! It’s time to get your butts back to Wawanakwa, campers!”
“DAMN IT!” Heather cursed loudly. In mere minutes after arriving, Jason had not only closed the Gophers’ lead, but passed them by completely! She turned to the Gophers. “Everyone get in the canoes! We’re not losing another challenge! Move, move, move!”
“Yo, Courtney,” I called out, turning to where she was tending to Duncan. “How about you go with Duncan on the way back? I think he’s still a bit winded from the hike.”
Courtney looked up. “Huh? Oh, I can do that. But what about-”
“I’ll go with Eva,” I said, flicking my thumb over at the gym girl. I looked over at her. “That okay with you?”
“Uh, um, sure. Yeah, that’s okay with me,” she stuttered out in surprise.
“Hey, make sure to win this thing,” Duncan said to me, then.
I gave the guy a thumbs-up. “No worries, we’ve got this. Come on, Eva, let’s take my canoe.”
Both teams hurried and got into their canoes. For winning the fire-building challenge, Chris let the Bass – us, that was – get a five-minute head start… which really wasn’t much under the circumstances. Like, given the distance we had to paddle it probably wouldn’t make any discernible difference whatsoever.
Oh, well.
At the least, Eva was a better paddler than Duncan, and so the trip back to Wawanakwa went even quicker than the one to Boney Island. For us, anyway; while the others soon disappeared from view behind the other islands dotting the lake, before then I could look back and see the Gophers were quick to catch up to the slower paddlers on our team.
Still, the challenge was to make it back first to Wawanakwa, so with the lead that Eva and I had we were guaranteed to succeed. Indeed, once we reached the island – long before anyone else – we dragged the canoe ashore and high-fived to celebrate our victory. As we did Chris walked up to us, having taken his helicopter back to the island ahead of us.
“You guys know you haven’t won yet, right?” he asked with a chuckle.
His words made me freeze mid-high-five. I turned my head to look at the host. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah, we got here first,” Eva agreed, crossing her arms over her chest. “We won, fair and square. It’s not our fault everyone else is a slowpoke.”
“Nooo, the condition for winning was to be the first team back, not the first team members,” Chris explained. “You need your whole team, brah.”
“Oh, you’re funny now?” Eva asked sarcastically. She lightly punched her fist into her palm. “I can be funny, too.”
“Yeah, purely out of academic interest, you do have good health insurance, right, Chris?” I chimed in darkly as I cracked my knuckles.
The host took a few steps back as we advanced on him, holding his hands up in a soothing gesture. “Whoa, whoa, easy there, campers,” he said quickly. “Your team had a five-minute head start, remember? You can still win!”
We both growled.
“Yeahhh, I’m gonna go wait in my helicopter. Toodles!”
The host ran. Eva and I watched him go then turned to one another.
“This sucks,” she deadpanned.
“Uh-huh. Still, there’s nothing to do but wait, so…” I shrugged.
Eva sighed.
About half an hour later, the other campers began arriving. First was Geoff and DJ, followed in order by Gwen and Leshawna, Trent and Justin, Owen and Heather, Courtney and Duncan, and finally Beth and Lindsay.
Tyler and Harold, however, were nowhere to be seen. Chris declared the Gophers the winners, leaving the rest of us to wait around on the beach.
“Where the hell are Tyler and Harold?” Eva asked angrily.
“I’d like to know, too,” I agreed, feeling my eye twitch slightly with the irritation I’d built up waiting for everyone else. “Why did they cost us the challenge and where are they so I can make them wish they were never born?”
“They had an… accident,” Courtney began by way of explanation.
“Yeah, when they switched paddling sides Tyler’s paddle slipped out of his grip and knocked Harold out cold,” Duncan filled in.
“They fell behind after that,” Courtney continued. “Last we saw of them Tyler was trying to fix a hole he made in the bottom of the canoe while trying to resuscitate Harold.”
I closed my eyes and began to massage my temples. “I see. Excuse me, I need to go hit something.”
I should’ve stayed on Boney Island…
“I’ll be honest: Tyler had it a long time coming,” Jason said as he sat on the confessional, facing the camera. “Basically robbing us of the challenge today was simply the last straw for many of us, or at least for me. I know the guy means well, but he’s just so clumsy, you know?”
He leaned back, crossing his arms.
“No, if we’re gonna have any chance at all of winning this, then Tyler had to go. Sorry, man, but there was no way around it.”
“I don’t know how, but it’s obvious Jason found out about Tyler spying on him and had him voted off,” Heather said as she sat in the confessional, one leg crossed over the other as she regarded the camera. “I’m impressed; he saw a threat and moved immediately to eliminate it in the most efficient way possible. He’s not like the other sheep on the island, oh no, he’s definitely a wolf.”
She smirked, then.
“But so am I. And Tyler wasn’t my only stooge…”
“Aww, I’ll never forget our time together, Taylor,” Lindsay said, smiling at the camera as she sat in the confessional. “Uh, Tyler.”
She blew a kiss toward the camera and waved.
“Bye~!”
“You know, I really like this souvenir I picked up on Boney Island,” Beth said happily as she sat in the confessional. On her lap was a tiny, wooden idol, sort of like a miniature tiki statue. She picked it up, then, holding it up in front of the camera.
“Isn’t it just the coolest?! I bet it’s good luck, since we won today’s challenge!”
Ominous music began playing as the view centered on the idol and faded out.
End Chapter 8
The roster
The Screaming Gophers: Gwen, Trent, Heather, Cody, Lindsay, Beth, Izzy, Owen, Leshawna, Justin, Noah
The Killer Bass: Geoff, Bridgette, DJ, Tyler, Sadie, Katie, Courtney, Jason, Duncan, Eva, and Harold
