Quitters Never Win (But Since When Am I a Winner?)

All right, gear up!” Sergeant Fish told us. “We still have some serious ground to cover.”

Everyone was ticked off and grumbly about the new rule, their empty bellies, and me screwing up the Tower obstacle, but we started putting on our packs anyway.

Everyone except for Arnie.

“Hang on a sec,” he said, crossing his arms. “Are we getting anything to eat or not?”

“Of course you are,” Fish told him. “First thing tomorrow morning. In the meantime, you can chew on that poor performance of yours today.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Arnie said.

“I don’t kid, kid,” Fish told him.

“Oh yeah?” Arnie said, and sat back down. “Well, I’m not going anywhere until I get some food. How do you like that?”

For a second, nobody said a word. It was like one of those Old West movies where the saloon goes dead quiet. The piano stops playing. The poker players put down their marked cards. And every eye in the place lands on the one guy who’s about to get a nice new hole in his skull.

But then Fish said the last thing I expected to hear.

“Maybe you should quit,” he told Arnie in an eerily calm voice that was somehow scarier than his constant yelling.

“Say WHAT?” D.J. said.

“We’re allowed to quit?” Thea asked.

“Sure you are,” Pittman said. “The question is, can you afford to?”

“Well, Arnie? Can you?” Fish said. “Because there’s plenty of food back at base camp. And I’m sure you can explain to your folks and everyone who signed you up for this why you lasted less than an hour out here.”

Arnie was squinting back at Fish so hard, you couldn’t even see his eyeballs. But then he just got up and started putting on his pack without saying a word. Fish had won.

“Yeah, I thought so,” Fish said. “Now, let’s get a move on!”

Meanwhile, my head was spinning in a whole new way. I was still back on the quitting thing.

After my big choke on the Tower, I figured I had a zero percent chance of getting all the way through this thing. How was I supposed to climb a Rocky Mountain when I couldn’t even climb a little tower without my brain going off-line?

Not to mention, none of these kids wanted me around anymore. I was Weak Link: Ruiner of Dinners. And if all the climbing, rafting, and starvation didn’t kill me, that Ten, Twenty, and Out Rule definitely would.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like quitting wasn’t just a good idea anymore. It was the only idea.

I could just see it now.…