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: Not sure if I gave Eva’s apology scene the right treatment here or not. Also, I might have jumped back and forth between POVs a bit much, here… You be the judge.
Chapter 5: I Really Don’t Wanna Be Famous!
I ended up sleeping close to eighteen hours straight after my collapse at the dodgeball game, waking up with the rising of the sun the following day. I didn’t feel quite 100%, but I was well-rested enough that I no longer felt like my brain was enveloped in fog. After doing my business in the communal bathroom and going for a couple hours’ walk – making sure to stick to routes I’d already used and memorized – I joined the rest of the campers at the main lodge for breakfast. To my dismay, they were rather vocal about my achievements during the final game, and DJ and Geoff even acted out a sort of instant-replay for me. It was embarrassing as hell.
Ugh… “Meteor Smash”… why’d I have to yell that?! Urggggghhh…. Also… I looked up at Geoff, giving him a pleading look, my eyes begging for his words not to be true. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, man! Your hair was standing up all poofy-like. You looked like a dandelion.”
And it’s all going on TV… Fuck me… I groaned and buried my face in my hands. Why didn’t I trim my hair when I had the chance?! Fuck you, Cody, and your stupid electric ball!
Still… it did kinda win us the game…
I glanced over at the Gophers’ table, where our opponents were eating breakfast and chatting, much like we where. There was one person missing, though: Noah, the smartypants.
Apparently the Gophers’ vote had been split between him and Cody, the latter for effectively costing them the game by inadvertently waking me up. In the end, though, Noah got voted off for being consistently useless over the course of every challenge thus far. Or that’s what my teammates told me, anyway.
As for Cody… he had a black eye along with some minor bruises and abrasions, and his chin was covered in bandages. At the very least nothing seemed to be broken as he could speak normally, but I still wondered if maybe I’d overdone it a bit.
And then I saw him trying vainly for sympathy points from Gwen, very obviously exaggerating his injuries and how much pain he was in, even saying something about a “manly sacrifice”. I rolled my eyes.
Never mind, he’s fine.
Later that afternoon, as I was returning from a walk in the woods, I found myself approached by Eva.
“There you are!”
“Here I am,” I said. “Did you want something?”
“Yeah, I…” She looked around, and apparently satisfied that no one else was nearby, quietly said, “I… wanted to…”
“Yes?”
The gym girl swallowed several times. “I…”
“Wait, is this a love confession?” I asked, noting the girl’s nervousness. I was joking, of course; there was no way such a thing would happen to me. Giving her a suspicious look, I added, “You’re not part of the Joketsuzoku, are you?”
Eva, for her part, went bright red at my accusation. “Wha- No, of course not! I was just- Wait, who?”
“Never mind, just joking,” I said, idly noting that in her embarrassment she had stopped whispering. “So what did you want to say to me?”
There was a moment of silence as Eva took a few breaths, probably to calm herself down. “I wanted to… apologize.”
I cocked my head at her. “For what?”
“For losing my temper,” she replied. “When I lost my mp3 player. I… I was out of control. I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “No worries.”
She blinked. “Huh? That’s it?”
“Sure. Apology accepted. Sorry for kicking your ass, by the way.”
Eva opened and closed her mouth several times before speaking. “You… Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Water under the bridge and all that,” I said, shrugging again. After a moment, I added, “You should probably close your mouth before something builds a nest in there.”
She clamped her mouth shut.
“Well, if that’s all, I’ll be on my way,” I said. Letting out a wistful sigh, I added, “There’s a book waiting for me, if you’ll excuse me.”
I could feel Eva’s eyes on my back as I walked into the camp. She was probably confused by how readily I accepted her apology; on the rare occasion that someone apologized to me for their behavior, confusion almost invariably followed, as I wasn’t really the kind of guy for grudges. Well, as long as it wasn’t something really nasty, of course.
And speaking of apologies...
At that moment, I spotted Harold as he exited the communal bathroom.
Eva had just apologized to me. Maybe I ought to pass it on? Getting Harold dunked in the lake had maybe been a little uncalled for, even if I was exhausted and annoyed at the time.
I sighed and made my way over to Harold, greeting him with a “Yo.”
“Yes?” he asked, giving me a weird searching look.
I was about to just flat out tell him about the dock thing and apologize when I noticed two of the Gopher girls, Heather and Lindsay, walk by. Not wanting onlookers, and also thinking it might be best if the other team knew as little as possible about our team’s internal affairs, I wracked my brain for a different subject.
“So, Harold,” I said aloud, making sure the girls could hear me, “I heard you had an ant farm. That true?”
“Red ant farm, thank you very much,” he replied matter-of-factly and crossed his arms. “And yes.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Heather roll her eyes and continue on, Lindsay following beside her, though they were still within earshot. “Cool. Myrmica or Solenopsis?”
Harold’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open as his arms fell limply to his sides. He stood there, shaking and staring at me for several uncomfortable moments before he got his jaw back in working order.
“You know about ants?!”
“Uh… a little?” I just made a huge mistake, didn’t I?
Harold put his hands on my shoulders and started to draw back a long, wheezing breath.
Yup, I definitely did.
“AntsaremazingandreallyinterestingandtheyhavesomanycoolthingstheydoandIhavealways-”
Fuck me.
Hearing Jason and Harold launch into a conversation about ants – of all things – Heather had an idea; not only did Jason have his back toward the cabin, but by the sound of things Harold would keep him occupied for a long while… and the Bass’ cabin had no one in it, either, as Geoff and DJ had just exited it. It was the perfect opportunity to do some reconnaissance… if she could get in and out before anybody else showed up.
“Hey, Lindsay,” Heather said, turning to her not-too-bright minion. “I need you to do something. Follow me.”
“Do what?” Lindsay asked as they walked up to the Bass’ cabin.
“Watch the door,” Heather said, opening the door to step inside. “And if you see Jason or anyone else coming, warn me.”
Lindsay saluted. “Okay.”
Heather closed the door behind her and looked around. Eight beds, six of them occupied… and they all had a bunch of junk strewn over them. All except one.
What is he, a neat freak? Heather idly wondered as she beheld the lone backpack lying on one of the top bunks. She recognized it as Jason’s easily, as he’d been the only camper with a forest green, military-style backpack. She reached up and dragged the backpack off the bed and onto the floor with a thud, finding it heavier than she expected.
After looking around at the windows once just to make sure no one had heard that, Heather started digging through the backpack, unzipping compartment after compartment and reaching inside to rummage around.
Clothes, toilet paper, toilet bag, sleeping bag… Is that a tent? Huh. Oh, here we go.
She pulled out a rather heavy plastic bag and unfolded it, revealing a number of books inside.
The Art of War? Figures he’d be a military freak with that get-up. What else… The Prince? What is that, some kind of fairy tale? The Chao Te Ching? Principia Discordia? Zen Without Zen Masters? What is with these titles?
Continuing to look through the books, eventually, Heather found what she was looking for.
Jackpot!
Aside from the strangely-titled books, there were two pocket notebooks. Opening one, what struck Heather first of all was the absolutely atrocious handwriting; the text was crabbed and far from uniform, though thankfully still readable for the most part. It contained what appeared to be quotes, or perhaps sayings; since there were no attributions, she couldn’t be sure, but that was the impression she got.
Some were arguably profound:
He who is wise does not blather, while he who blathers usually has something to hide.
While others were just bizarre:
Grasshopper always wrong in argument with chicken.
Shaking her head, Heather replaced the notebook inside the backpack and instead picked up the other, which had the same crabbed handwriting within. Rifling through the pages, she found that there were several devoted to the different campers, though sadly the actual information was rather sparse, consisting of little more than names and brief notes:
Gwen: Goth girl
Courtney: Hispanic girl (seems nice)
Heather: Tall Asian chick
JeffGeoff: Cowboy guy (surfer?)
DJ: Black guy (afraid of bugs) (Jamaica?)
Duncan: Punk rocker (delinquent?)
LindseyLindsay: “Insert blonde joke here” (likes Tyler)
Bridgette: Surfer girl
Trent: Guitar guy
Tyler: Clumsy jock (likes Lindsay)
Harold: Asthmatic Shaggy
Eva: Gym girl (Eastern Europe?)
Leshawna: Black girl (attitude?)
Owen: Big guy (good thrower)
Izzy: Redhead
Justin: Damn pretty boy (enemy!)
Katie: Cry-baby (X)
Sadie: Other cry-baby (X)
Cody: Short guy (likes Gwen?) (electro-ball) (definitely likes Gwen)
Noah: Smartypants (likes books) (X)
Beth: Short glasses girl
“Tall Asian chick”? Really? Heather thought, slightly annoyed, only for her annoyance to evaporate a moment later when she had to bite back a snort at the “Insert blonde joke here” line, and then again upon reading “Asthmatic Shaggy”. Funny, but nothing really useful… Although he does seem to have it out for Justin. Maybe I can exploit that somehow?
Before she could take this line of thinking any further, Heather heard Lindsay loudly talking outside. Quickly replacing the notebook and the other books, she put the backpack back in place on the bed and hurried on over to listen by the door.
It sounded like…
Man… I’m glad I got out of that! I mean, ants are interesting, but come on, dude… Time and place. I couldn’t even get the apology in there… Gonna have to try again later.
When I reached the Bass’ cabin, thinking maybe I could finally sit down and read for a bit, I found my way blocked by Lindsay, of all people.
“Can I help you?” I asked when the blonde quite deliberately stepped in front of the door, halting my advance.
“Uh, yes! Yes, Jason, you can!” she said loudly. “Um…”
I rolled my eyes. This should be good. “What?”
“You… Um…”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Out with it.”
“I’m thinking!”
“Well, think faster, then.”
“Hey, that’s really hard to do, you know!”
I groaned. Why was I even humoring this woman? “Do I have to move you myself?”
In response, the blonde struck a very awkward martial arts pose and said, “You can try… but I have martial arts training!”
Back inside the cabin…
What is going on out there? What did Lindsay say?
Heather shook her head.
He’s really going at it! Damn it, Lindsay, get him out of here so I can leave!
“Hahahahahahahahahaha!” I drew back a breath. “Hahahahahahahahahahaha!”
“You know, that’s really starting to feel hurtful.”
I fell to the ground, then, holding onto my sides for dear life as my laughter continued unabated. “Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”
“Like, words hurt, you know?”
“Hahahahahahaha!” I gasped for breath. “Hahahahahahahahahahaha!”
Screw it, I’m taking the window route, Heather decided. Opening up the window, she somewhat clumsily clambered through it to land in a bush outside. Spitting leaves, she rose up and pushed the window shut, then sneaked around toward the front. Peeking out from behind the corner, she saw Jason rolling around on the ground and laughing his head off.
What on Earth did Lindsay say to him?
“Psst, Lindsay!” Heather hissed, waving to get the blonde’s attention.
“Uh, well, I gotta go now,” Lindsay said suddenly. Evidently, she had tired of me laughing at her.
Collecting myself as she walked off, I stood up and took a moment to dust myself off before walking into the cabin. I wasn’t sure what all that had been about, but it sure had been entertaining.
Once inside, I went over to my backpack and pulled out the bag containing my books. I frowned as I opened it up.
That’s weird… I thought I put them in a different order? Eh, whatever.
I selected a book at random and sat down cross-legged on the floor.
Ah, time for some sweet, relaxing Zen…
The next day, I was on my way back from the communal bathroom when a sudden metallic squeal stopped me dead in my tracks. I looked around for a moment before realizing the noise was coming from the old and rusted PA speakers set up on poles around the camp.
“All right, campers, enough beauty sleep,” came Chris’ by now familiar voice over the PA system. I was honestly surprised it was even still functioning, much less being used for the show. “It’s time to show us what you’re made of!”
I sighed. What’ve you got for us this time, huh?
Chris directed us to gather at a small stage and some benches that had been set up the previous day. The benches were divided into two sections, one for each team, and I sat down with my teammates to await the day’s probably idiotic challenge.
After a minute or so, Chris walked onto the stage.
“Welcome to our brand-new, state-of-the-art deluxe outdoor amphitheater!” he greeted us. “Okay, this week’s challenge is a summer camp favorite: a talent contest!”
My eyes bugged out at that. What?!
“Each team has eight hours to pick their three most talented campers,” Chris continued. “These three will represent them in the show tonight. Sing, dance, juggle – anything goes! As long as it’s legal.”
Next to me, Duncan flicked his fingers at the last part.
“You’ll be judged by our resident talent scout, former DJ, VJ and rap legend, Grand Master Chef! Who will show his approval via the Chef-mo-meter. The team that loses will send one camper home tonight. Good luck!”
Wait, wait, wait. He said three campers, right? So I don’t have to do anything. Okay. Good. Breathe.
Going up on stage… was not my favorite thing in the world. Especially if it was going to be broadcast on TV. But yeah, I just had to make sure our team had at least three talented campers and I was in the clear.
I looked over at my teammates and felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Don’t make me go on stage… Seriously.
A while later we of the Killer Bass were all gathered behind our cabin to hold auditions for our most talented members. Which probably wasn’t saying much.
Tyler was one of the first to volunteer, demonstrating his skills with a yo-yo… which turned out to be rather limited, as he soon managed to entangle himself to the point where he couldn’t even walk properly.
Courtney, who had taken on the role of self-appointed talent judge, facepalmed.
“Man, that is weak,” said Chris, who had picked that moment to walk by.
“Next,” Courtney said simply.
Eva came next, walking up in front of us holding what looked like a phone book.
“My greatest talent is my strength,” she said by way of introduction, then held the phone book over her head and tore it in two with a wordless roar.
I crossed my arms as I nodded. “Okay, that’s impressive, but I have a question: Was that the phone book from the main lodge?”
She looked at me. “Yeah. What about it?”
“Do you have another one?”
Eva blinked and then threw the two halves to the ground. “Dammit!”
Courtney sighed. “Next.”
Next came DJ… who surprised us all by showing up in a leotard, holding a ribbon tied to a stick. He demonstrated a short rhythmic gymnastics routine, ending with him doing a forward split, which really surprised me; I didn’t think the guy was that flexible. I clapped politely along with the other campers.
“Fine, sign him up,” Courtney said. “That’s one down. Next.”
“Me!” Bridgette exclaimed. “I can stand on my hands for twenty minutes.”
I blinked and looked at her. “Really?”
“Yeah! Watch this.”
The surfer girl got up on her hands easily enough and started to slowly walk around, but was interrupted by Courtney.
“Okay, that’d be cute if you were a monkey,” she said, clearly unimpressed. “I just don’t think it’s quite what we’re looking for. Next.”
As Bridgette, wearing a sullen look, went back to join the throng Harold stepped forward to take her place. He drew back a wheezing breath, and-
“Next.”
-let it back out in a disappointed sigh.
“Uh, shouldn’t you at least let him try, first?” I half-whispered, half-said to Courtney.
“It’s Harold,” she deadpanned.
“Well, yeah, but-”
“Next.”
Next was Geoff, who pulled out a small skateboard – the kind you used for tricking rather than traveling – and demonstrated a fairly impressive series of skateboard stunts. Nothing spectacular, but definitely enough for the “deluxe amphitheater” that Chris had built for the talent show.
“Well, I guess it’s Geoff, DJ’s ribbon thing and your solo,” Bridgette said, turning to Courtney.
“Solo? What solo?” I asked, looking at the Hispanic girl, who smiled.
“I play the violin,” she said proudly.
“Oh, really? Cool.”
She gave me an inquiring look. “You don’t play an instrument?”
“Nah. I tried learning the guitar years ago but I got bored.”
“Maybe you just needed the right motivation.”
“Heh, maybe.” I looked at DJ and Geoff, then back at Courtney. “Still, looks like we got all three talents for the show.” And I’m not one of ‘em! Huzzah!
“Yeah! I’m gonna be on TV!” Geoff said, his voice brimming with excitement.
“You’re… already on TV, Geoff,” Bridgette deadpanned.
“Oh, yeah,” the cowboy/surfer/skater said, then ran up to the nearest camera and started waving. “Hello out there, dudes!”
I shook my head. Some of my teammates were… well, let’s just call them “special”. Yeah, that was a good word for it.
I’m just glad I don’t have to go on stage. Eugh, that would have been horrible.
A while later, with our talent scouting over with, the Bass gathered on the stage to prepare and await the beginning of the talent contest.
Geoff was sitting on the edge of the stage, idly playing around with his skateboard, Bridgette and Harold were watching as Duncan and DJ played cards on top of some crates, and to one side Courtney was warming up with her violin by playing a simple, repetitive tune. I didn’t know much about the violin, but I assumed it was some sort of standard warm-up tune.
As for me, I was leaning against the back wall and relaxing with my arms crossed over my chest, listening to Courtney playing. Since I – thankfully – didn’t have anything particular to do, I decided to just take it easy. I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing, feeling my body relax-
“So, can you really stand on your hands for twenty minutes?” Geoff asked suddenly, and I opened my eyes to see him looking up at Bridgette.
“Wanna bet that I can’t?” she asked playfully, holding up a chocolate bar.
“Oh, you’re on!” Geoff said, getting to his feet.
“I’ll take a piece of that action,” Harold chimed in.
“Yeah, that’s like virtually impossible,” DJ commented, looking up from his game with Duncan.
“Ante up,” Bridgette said simply, smiling.
As I watched, Duncan packed up the game, leaving the crates for the campers to put down their various wagers, which ranged from bars of chocolate or candy to money.
“You in, Jason?” Bridgette asked, looking over at me.
“Nah, I’m good,” I said with a shrug. I didn’t have anything to bet, anyhow. “I’ll just enjoy the show.”
“Your loss,” she said cheerfully.
“My, so confident,” I said, giving a slight smirk. I gestured toward the stage. “Stage is all yours.”
Bridgette smiled again and turned to the rest of the Bass, and to Duncan in particular, as he had a watch on his wrist and was preparing to time her. “Okay, twenty minutes, starting… now!”
With those words the surfer girl went feet up and hands down. She started walking around the stage, seemingly in complete control… up until the point she accidentally got her leg entangled in some rope hanging down the side of the stage. She changed directions and did her best to disentangle herself without dropping from her handstand, and eventually succeeded… but in doing so she somehow undid the rope, which in turn sent a spotlight falling down from above.
When I realized said spotlight was going to fall on Courtney, who was obliviously playing the violin still, I fairly bounced off the wall and grabbed her shoulders, pulling her back. Unfortunately, while I reacted quickly enough to get Courtney out of the way, I didn’t manage to pull her back far enough to keep the spotlight from knocking the violin out of her hands before crushing it against the stage.
This… was not good.
I was not good at handling crying women. Or crying people in general, really. Not only did the wailing hurt my ears something fierce, but I had no idea what to do to comfort them without it getting weird. Sure, if it was someone I was close to and knew well that was one thing, but someone I’d only known for a week or two?
Yeah… I was out of my element. Still, I did my best in comforting Courtney as I led her behind the stage, the Hispanic girl cradling her broken violin in her arms with tears streaming down her face.
I knew violins were expensive, of course, but I rather doubted that was the only reason for her tears; in all likelihood she had practiced with the instrument for years and years. Hell, for all I knew it might have been a gift from some dead relative or something equally emotionally vested.
As it was, I did what I could: I sat her down, kept what was hopefully a comforting hand on her back and did my best to keep my mouth shut so I didn’t make things worse as she let it all out.
And then Bridgette walked around the corner. From the look on her face she felt bad about the whole thing and wanted to try and make amends, but the moment Courtney laid eyes on her…
“You! You… killed my violin!”
“I didn’t mean to! There must be something we can do!”
And then she did something even I wasn’t stupid enough to do: she took the violin from Courtney’s hands and tried pushing the pieces together… which only resulted in the whole thing falling apart into even smaller pieces.
Looking away in pain as a fresh wail from Courtney assaulted my ears, I caught sight of Heather and Lindsay hanging out by the Gophers’ cabin. I briefly felt envious of the pair not having to deal with all of… well, this. I internally sighed as I turned my attention back to the crying Courtney and gently stroked her back.
This is going to be a long afternoon…
“Welcome to the very first Camp Wawanakwa Talent Contest,” Chris greeted us later that evening as he stood on stage to present the talent contest. “Where six campers will showcase their mad skills and desperately try not to humiliate themselves.”
And that’s why I’m not on stage, I mused.
“First off from the Screaming Gophers is Justin!”
Oh, come on. What kind of talent could he possibly have? Well, okay; I actually had no idea. I was just being annoyed by the guy’s mere existence, again.
The Gophers not participating in the contest cheered from their section of the stands as Chris left the stage and Justin walked on in his stead. He turned his back toward the audience as a spotlight came on, illuminating his form.
The hell is this supposed to-
That’s when catchy, lighthearted music started streaming from the speakers and Justin began… posing. Like he was at a photo shoot. And judging by how natural it seemed to him, he had probably done quite a few of those.
Urge to kill… rising.
As part of his finale, he sat down on a chair and pulled on a rope… which emptied a bucket of water over him, just like in that one music video from the 90s. Was it Ricky Martin? Or the other guy… Enrique Iglesias? Well, either way, it was obviously an homage… and utterly infuriating. After the water finished pouring over him, Justin straightened, tossing water from his wet hair and delivering a dazzling smile at the audience, to widespread cheering.
I had to physically hold onto my seat to keep myself from grabbing something and throwing it at his perfect, stupid face. I could feel the wood creak beneath my fingers.
Chris joined Justin on the stage, putting a hand on the youth’s shoulder. “Okay, I don’t know what that was, but dang you’ve got some moves, dude!”
Next to the stage, one of Chris’s interns listened to something in his headset, then held up a piece of white cardboard with the number 6 on it. Out of what, though? Chris didn’t mention what the max score was. Since it was Justin getting the score the max was probably closer to ten than a hundred, though.
As Justin walked off the stage, Chris turned to the audience. “First off for the Killer Bass: make some noise for the big guy, DJ!”
DJ’s rhythmic gymnastics routine started off well enough, but soon enough he managed to get his legs entangled in his ribbon and fell flat on his face.
I groaned and facepalmed. Not only did Justin give the Gophers an early lead, but now my team was messing up their acts. This was going horribly. Not that there was much I could do about it, but it still stung.
“Dainty, and yet masculine,” Chris said, once more taking the stage. “Let’s see what Grand Master Chef thinks!”
The intern at the side of the stage listened to his headset, then held up a 2.
“Not much,” Chris deadpanned. While DJ walked off the stage in disgrace, the host continued, “So, with two down and four acts to go, it’s the Screaming Gophers screaming ahead. Next on deck: Trent! Take it away, my bro!”
Trent replaced Chris on stage, sitting himself down on a chair with his guitar in his arms. Unsurprisingly, the resident guitar guy was going to do a musical number.
“This one goes out to someone special here at camp,” he said, then began gently strumming on his guitar and singing.
“They say that we’ve only got summer, and I say that’s really a bummer.
“But we’ll swim in the sun and have lots of fun. It’ll just be the two of us. Nothing to do but just hang…
“So let me say only this: stick around… for just one kiss.”
I hummed thoughtfully as the strumming faded. That was… all right. Nothing special, but not bad. He probably wrote it just for the contest, so for a rush job it was pretty good. As for Grand Master Chef’s score…
My eyes went to the intern, who held up a 5 while Chris strolled onto the stage. Seriously, he got a worse score than Justin?
“Nice work! I’m liking your style, dude. And so does Grand Master Chef!” Chris said. Trent, for his part, grinned and waved at the audience… up until Chris pushed him off-stage. “Alright, quit hogging my light, buddy.” Turning to the audience, he said, “Three down and three to go, and the Killer Bass are totally losing so far. Let’s hear it for Bridgette!”
I sighed. As much as I hated to admit it, Chris was right; DJ messed up, and with Bridgette’s handstand thing replacing Courtney’s violin solo our prospects didn’t look so good. Sure, Geoff’s skateboarding thing was pretty good, but I kinda doubted it could make up for the Gophers’ lead.
By all appearances, we had already lost this. That would make three.
Oh, well, at least it wasn’t three in a row…
Bridgette walked onto stage, having already begun her handstand routine. Within moments, however, something absolutely horrible happened: for whatever reason, she… vomited. To make matters worse, she then projectile vomited, in a way that simply could not happen outside of a cartoon or a bad horror movie.
“I’m hit!” I heard Owen cry out from the Gophers’ stand. “I’m hit!”
Oh, fuck all of this, I decided and promptly scooted over and ducked behind the stands; if someone was projectile vomiting, there was no way I was staying out in the open. Once the… noise… died down I peeked out from behind cover, doing my best to ignore the smells wafting over me.
“Clean-up in aisle three, four, five and six,” Chris said as he – very carefully – walked on-stage, holding his nose. “In the meantime we’ll take a short break to hose the joint down.”
That was probably the best idea I’d ever heard coming out of the host’s mouth.
“Welcome back!” Chris greeted maybe half an hour later, after the interns had cleaned up the stage. “Okay, in a strange turn of events, Bridgette’s chunk-blowing fest registered two thumbs up by Grand Master Chef.”
Great, so that gives us… four points against the Gophers’ eleven? We are so sunk.
“But, it’s not enough to pull ahead of the Screaming Gophers, who hold the lead with Trent’s love song. So, without further delay, here she is for the leaders: Heather!”
With that, Heather walked onto the stage, dressed in a light pink tutu, though one I noted as far less frilly than the one worn by Chef Hatchet during the Awake-a-thon. Suppressing the memory with a shudder, I focused on the Asian girl; it was kinda weird seeing her like that, to be honest. Sure, she had the figure for it, but it still felt… odd.
As music streamed out of the speakers – some tune I didn’t recognize – she danced. Rather well, too; I didn’t know much about ballet, but it was obvious she was well-practiced. Which, of course, was bad news for us.
At the end, the intern held up a 5.
Six, five and five. That makes sixteen. So Geoff needs to get twelve just to make the score even… Is that even possible?
Alas, as it turned out, Geoff didn’t even compete, because he somehow managed to break his board while backstage. Sitting in the audience as I was I wasn’t privy to exactly what was going on back there, but Harold ended up going onstage instead of Geoff.
And he did something I did not expect: beat-boxing. And he did it really fucking well, too, even earning cheers from the Gophers.
And Grand Master Chef awarded him a whopping 9 points – the highest anyone had received in the contest… which unfortunately still wasn’t anywhere near enough to net us the win. The Gophers beat us, sixteen to thirteen.
We lost. Again.
Damn it.
Heather sat in the confessional, still wearing her pink tutu.
“I was planning on doing a reading from Gwen’s diary instead of dancing,” she said matter-of-factly to the camera. “Why? Because she’s crushing on Trent, and by the look of things he’s crushing on her, too. Mutual crushes translate to alliances, and I can’t have that kind of threat lurking behind my back.
“However, with both Eva and Jason still in the competition, the Killer Bass are the bigger threat… for now. So even with our lead, I had to make sure we beat them. And a good thing, too; because of Harold’s weird beat-boxing thing, they would have beaten us if not for me!
“Unfortunately, it seems they voted off Bridgette instead of Eva or Jason… But it’s a start.”
She then held up a black book with a lock on it and smirked at the camera. “And I’ve still got Gwen’s diary. If she gets uppity… I’ll use this to reveal her secrets and crush her.”
“I felt bad voting off Bridgette,” Jason said as he sat in the confessional, his elbows on his thighs and his chin hidden behind his fist, in turn clasped in his other hand.
“I mean, the vomit thing was bad, and she ruined Courtney’s violin, but… she didn’t mean it, you know? It was an accident. Still, there wasn’t really anyone else to vote for. Well, maybe Tyler…”
He sighed and leaned back. “I’m still kinda mad at myself for not doing anything today, but I don’t have the kind of talent you show off on stage. And even if I did, I’m not… I’m not the stage kinda guy. I just hope the next challenge is something I can help out with.
“We’ve lost three times, and frankly, that’s three times too many. I know, I can be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to these things, and I try not to get too emotionally involved, but… I just really hate losing, even if it ain’t my fault.
“I just gotta do something, you know?”
End Chapter 5
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