No I in Team

Watch out!”

“You watch out!”

“I’m trying to let you go first. So GO!”

“Calm down.”

“YOU calm down!”

I guess you could say it wasn’t going so great. The rain kind of stunk, but then again, so did we. At least we got a shower out of it.

When we finally got to the checkpoint, it was just an old campground. There was a fire circle made out of rocks, and in the middle of that, someone had left three cans of baked beans, which I guess were better than the oatmeal, or at least better than nothing.

There was a note with the cans too. It was all wet and runny, but we could still read it.

Over our heads, there was another note, hanging on a string, on a branch, way up high. I guess we had to figure out how to get it down.

“One thing at a time,” Thea said. “First we need a fire for those beans.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen,” D.J. said. “Hello? IT’S RAINING!!”

He turned around in a circle and yelled that last part a couple times. To make sure Fish and Pittman heard him, I guess. It was weird, knowing they were out there somewhere, stalking us. Like wolves. Or zombies. Or wolf-zombies.

“Can we just eat the beans and go?” Burp said.

“Dude, we have to make a fire. It says so right here,” Diego said. “I’m not blowing this now.”

“Me either,” Thea said. Veronica was nodding. None of us wanted to ignore any of Fish’s instructions, just in case.

“There’s got to be some wood we can burn around here,” Diego said. After the first thunderstorm, Pittman and Fish had shown us how to find dry logs under evergreens and pull dead branches off trees with a rope.

“Yeah, but we still need something for tinder,” D.J. said. “Wet birch bark’s not going to cut it. Not out here IN THE RAIN!!!”

“Yeah, yeah, they heard you the first ten times,” Burp said.

“Shut up, Burp.”

“No, YOU shut up.”

“BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP!”

It was Fish’s voice. It came from somewhere behind me, but I swear when we turned to look, there wasn’t anybody there.

Before anyone could say anything else, Carmen spoke up.

“We can use Rafe’s notebook,” she said, pointing at me.

“What notebook?” Thea said, whirling around.

“The one he’s been writing in all this week.”

“Not writing. Drawing,” I said as everyone gathered closer.

“Writing, drawing, it all burns the same,” Carmen said. She was looking right at me now. It was like her eyes had a message for me, and the message was: GOTCHA. She hadn’t forgotten what had gone down, and I guess she’d been waiting to make her move.

“No way,” I said. “It’s my notebook.”

“Just some blank pages,” Diego said. “Not all of it.”

“I don’t have any blank pages,” I said. I was already drawing on the back of everything I had.

But now it wasn’t just Carmen looking at me like a creep. Everyone was. They all wanted that notebook now.

And here’s the thing. Maybe Carmen was evil, and mean, and crazy, and dangerous. But she was also right. We needed that fire, and I couldn’t think of any other way to do it.

I mean, it wasn’t like I’d forget those comics. I could always redraw them. But it was like Carmen getting in the last word. Or the last punch. Whatever you want to call that, it felt a whole lot like losing.

So while everyone looked for dry logs, and started making a little fire shelter, and got out the frying pan and can opener from D.J.’s pack, I started figuring out which Loozer comics had to go.

Once everything was set up, I used the flint and fire starter from D.J.’s pack to get a spark going. It took a while, but then the paper started to burn.

“Yes!” Thea shouted.

Watching that fire was like the definition of mixed feelings for me—like Jeanne Galletta telling me I’m the second-coolest guy in school.

“Thanks, Rafe,” Burp said.

“Yeah, dude. We totally appreciate it,” Diego said as he huddled closer to the flames to warm up. I’d gone from Weak Link to Fire Savior, just like that.

Maybe it didn’t feel the way I thought it would, but it did get us one big step closer to home. And for right then, that was all that counted.