“Rise and shine!” Chase’s voice cried.
Coming out of sleep, I squinted against the sunlight. Chase had showed up on the beach right outside our shelter.
“You all ready for the first reward challenge?” He grinned as we got to our feet.
After we ate breakfast, we boarded the boat and looped around the island to the eastern shore. The water was choppy, making the boat bounce and jerk. Richie looked like he was going to be ill. Diana actually was ill. There goes her share of the rice and beans.
The wind was even stronger on the beach. It felt like it was blowing from every direction.
We walked inland until we reached a small field surrounded by trees. Dangling up high in the trees were ceramic targets of different colors: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. And cameras. Lots of cameras. The targets swayed in the wind.
Chase led us to the edge of the field, where five slingshots rested on a wooden table. In front of the table was a basket full of pebbles. From here, I could see three white lines painted on the ground in the field: one about five yards away from us, another at fifteen yards, and another at thirty.
“Welcome to the first challenge of the second round of Teen Wilderness Masters,” Chase said in a dramatic voice. “It’s time to show us your marksmanship skills. In this challenge, each of you will use a slingshot to shoot the stones in this basket at the targets hanging around the field. Each target you break is worth one point.”
Seems simple enough, I thought.
“You have to shoot from behind the white lines to avoid hitting each other. Once you break your first target, you can go up to the second line, and so on,” Chase continued. “But make sure you match the color of the slingshot’s handle to the color of the targets. If you break someone else’s target, it counts toward their score, not yours! The first person to score three points wins.”
My fingers twitched in anticipation. I used to play with slingshots a lot as a kid. I only shot at objects, like cans or pinecones, but I got pretty good at aiming.
“I’m sure you’re all still pretty hungry,” Chase said, winking at the camera. “The winner of this challenge will be rewarded with a huge breakfast. Plus, a surprise.”
Although I wondered what the surprise could be, I really wanted that food. Even though we’d just eaten, I was still so hungry after hardly having anything to eat these past few days. I glanced down the line at my competition. They all seemed equally eager to get started.
Chase grinned as a gust of wind blew through the playing field. “Good luck, everyone!”
I picked up the slingshot closest to me, the red one, and then grabbed a fistful of the pebbles. I shoved the pebbles into my pocket and headed out to the first painted line. My red target hung from one of the highest branches. Amanda came up beside me, holding the green slingshot. In one quick motion, like a cowboy in a duel, she aimed and fired the pebble at her target. Crack! The target split into two pieces with the sound of a dinner plate breaking.
“Amazing! Amanda has scored the first point of the game!” Chase announced.
Amazing was right. Amanda raced forward to the second line while the rest of us were stunned. Then I shot off my own first stone, which missed by a mile.
By the time I hit my first target, I was in third place—behind Amanda and Richie.
I sprinted to the second line and skidded to a stop next to Richie. My second target was even higher, which meant it was exposed to more wind. Every time my rocks seemed to be getting close to it, the wind blew the target in the opposite direction.
“Oh, come on!” I heard Richie mutter on my left. At least I’m not the only one having trouble.
Amanda was to my right, quiet and concentrating hard. She had her slingshot drawn and was taking her time to aim. She hadn’t fired a second shot at all yet.
Then, she released. Bull’s-eye.
I squinted at my target as it swung back and forth. If I could time my shot right, then the target would swing into the pebble. I drew back and waited, like Amanda, for the perfect shot. Next to me, Richie kept shooting away. Diana scored a point and joined us at the second line. Travis was still stuck trying to hit his first one.
Now! I released. The pebble soared and struck my target.
“Two points to Ethan!” Chase announced.
Richie glared at me as I joined Amanda at the final target.
She stood calmly, waiting again for the right moment. If I didn’t act fast, I was going to lose to her. I reached into my pocket and realized with horror that I was out of pebbles. I’d have to run back to the basket and grab some more. I turned on my heel, ready to race back to the table when—crack!
Too late. The final green target broke.
“Amanda is our winner!” Chase cried.
I slinked back to the starting point to drop off my slingshot. Even if I’d had a pebble in my pocket, I probably didn’t stand a chance against Amanda. But I was still upset. I really wanted that reward.
“Congratulations, Amanda,” Chase said when we had all returned to the table. “You’ve won a breakfast buffet.”
I clapped for her, and so did Diana and Travis. Reluctantly, Richie joined in.
“Now, to reveal the surprise.”
Oh yeah. I’d forgotten about that.
“I hope you’ve made a friend because one of your fellow competitors will be allowed to join you for breakfast. You get to choose!”
I perked up at that. There was only one person in the group who had any sort of closeness to her, and that person was . . . “I pick Ethan,” Amanda said, without any hesitation.
***
Chase took Amanda and me by boat to another tiny, deserted island. On the beach, there was a table covered with pastries, omelets, and fresh fruit. The table had a tablecloth, and there were plates and utensils. For a moment, I felt like I wasn’t on a reality TV show but instead at a fancy tropical restaurant.
Chase told us we couldn’t take any of the food back with us, so I ate as much as possible. I shoveled scrambled eggs into my mouth and washed it down with fresh orange juice. The strawberries were much better than the wild berries I ate with the pig.
As I ate, Amanda sat there in silence. She kept her hands in her lap.
“Aren’t you going to have any?” I asked through a mouthful of croissant.
“No. I didn’t find it myself.”
“But you won it yourself.”
She sighed. “This meal would never appear in the wild.”
“Neither would that competition,” I pointed out. “So you might as well eat up. It’ll give us an advantage in the next challenge.”
“I’d rather win using the skills I already have,” she said stubbornly. “I want to do everything without any special assistance.”
I frowned and went back to eating. Amanda was too headstrong. She wasn’t eating any of the food she needed to regain her strength. She didn’t want to make friends with the others. I agreed that the competition was mostly about skill. But “skill” included teamwork and knowing when to accept help. If she didn’t win the immunity challenge tomorrow, the others would probably vote her off. And, so far, she was the only one who was nice to me. I didn’t want her to go just yet.
***
When Amanda and I walked back into camp, Richie, Travis, and Diana were all sitting around the fire, whispering. They immediately stopped talking when we got there, and they didn’t respond when I waved at them. I let my hand drop down. I guess they’re still upset that Amanda picked me.
That evening, Travis and Richie cooked a fish they caught and shared it with Diana. But not me and Amanda. “It’s only fair,” explained Richie. “You two got food that we didn’t get to eat, so now we have food that you don’t get to eat.”
“It’s not our fault you didn’t get any of the breakfast,” I said.
“Well, we caught this fish,” Richie said.
I looked to Amanda for help, but she just shrugged.
We tried to catch our own fish but had no luck. So I was stuck with rice and beans again, and Amanda ate some berries she’d found.
Now I kind of wished Amanda hadn’t chosen me. Or hadn’t been allowed to choose anyone at all. Because while we were out enjoying our reward, our three competitors had a whole morning to strategize against us.
To form an alliance.
And nothing was tougher to beat than an alliance.