Chapter 14
THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY YOUR LOCAL FARMERS’ MARKET
DEAN
Welcome, campers, it’s good to see you all! Well, those of you who survived the first challenge, that is. Natural selection took four of your fellow competitors out last episode—womp womp—but are you strong enough to face Mother Nature today?
It’s my pleasure to introduce you to the second challenge: Survival of the Skillest.
For this adventure, you’ll set off into the woods and demonstrate your wilderness survival skills to earn points and see which of you will make it to the next round, and which of you will be—
“Alright, alright, cut,” Garrett interrupts himself. “My voice cracked. We have to start over.”
The other contestants and I groan as Garrett restarts his spiel for what must be the twelfth time, trying again for the perfect take.
It’s apparently not the next one, or the one after that either, as he stops again with a shake of his head.
One of the assistants manning the tall fill light sidles over to the left two inches, which pleases him.
I knew that reality television was more scripted than they showed, but seeing it for myself is removing some of the magic.
Growing up sucks. So does having Garrett as a host.
We’re back on the studio’s private plot of forest for today’s challenge, in a clearing about a mile away from where the buses parked. The area is nearly the same size as camp and suspiciously tidy, absent of any overgrown brush or shrubs.
Seyoon, standing next to me, notices as well. She gestures for me to bend down so she can whisper in my ear, pointing at the neatly clipped blades of grass beneath our feet. “Look at this. They had somebody come by with a lawnmower. I can’t believe them. They have no respect for nature.”
After Garrett’s blasé response last time, it’s clear he and the network have no ethical qualms about damaging the forest for a sixty-minute episode.
I eye one of the nearby trees, where a camera has been jammed into a hollow in the trunk, likely evicting some poor squirrel from their home. My stomach sinks.
Yeah. Less magical by the second.
I’m about to reply, when my attention catches on Siddharth a few yards away, who’s looking at me and Seyoon.
I wonder if I mistook his perfectly windswept black hair for movement, but nope; he was waving.
As soon as our eyes meet, Siddharth points at me and Seyoon, then turns around and wraps his arms around himself, rubbing his hands up and down his back in a crude making-out gesture.
Adin, next to him, waggles his thick brows and gives an exaggerated thumbs-up.
I purse my lips and look away, face burning. Nice. Classy. I’m glad Seyoon didn’t notice.
Garrett finally wraps up, so we move on to filming the next scene, where we repeat the conversation from yesterday about teaming up.
Like before, Seyoon and I raise our hands.
Afterward, a production assistant comes around and hands each of us a pack with supplies inside—except for me and Seyoon, and Vendredi and Beck, who each share one.
Since we’ve already heard Garrett explain today’s objectives in his many takes, Blake spares us and tells us we can start.
This challenge is a nice change of pace from Mountain Marathon.
I think the idea is to set us all loose in the same area and see what happens.
It’s like the infinite monkey theorem: Eight teenagers doing mildly dangerous activities for what feels like an eternity will almost surely produce something entertaining, right?
Seyoon picks a spot for us in the open clearing to set up camp, with about fifteen feet between us and the next camper.
She dumps out the bag of supplies: a rope, tarp, compass, headlamp, roll of bandage, weather blanket, utility knife, some protein bars, and water.
There’s also a list of tasks and the number of points we can earn for each one, from first aid, whittling, knot-tying, and water purification, all the way to foraging, building a shelter, and starting a fire.
“Perfect, I know how to do all of this,” Seyoon says, skimming the list.
“Where should we start, Scoutmaster?” I reply. She eyes me over the top of the list, and I smile. See? I’m ready to be a team player.
Surprisingly, she wants to forage first, while the others are scrambling to build a shelter.
“We’ll get all the good stuff before they can,” she explains as she leads us out of the clearing and to one of the other film zones.
The producers want to make us look more spread out than we really are, like we’ve actually been dropped into the middle of the woods with nothing but a pack to survive.
In reality, the team of cameras and crew positioned behind trees form a clear boundary of where we can and can’t go.
Plus, we’ve passed four fire extinguishers already.
It’s relieving to know that no matter how bad I screw up, I won’t set the whole forest on fire.
The second film zone is an untarnished plot of land, not carefully cultivated like the main clearing.
Mossy vegetation covers most of the ground.
Slivers of reddish-brown mulch are visible through tangles of flora, twisting over roots and up trunks.
The foliage above blankets us in shade, but all the trees keep the air moist and my forehead beaded with sweat.
“Remind me where we should be looking?” I ask.
Seyoon crouches down next to an overgrowth of plants and starts sifting through it, pushing the leaves to the side. “Mushrooms grow best in dark, shady spots on the forest floor. Usually near… Oh! I see some. Hand me the knife, would you?”
I fish it out of our pack and pass it over, kneeling beside her to get a better look.
Golden mushroom gills peek out underneath a chunk of moss, surprisingly clean from debris.
Seyoon unsheathes the utility knife and goes to grab the cap of the mushroom—only for it to slip easily out of the ground.
We both blink. She swipes some dirt away in the same area, revealing three more chanterelles buried in a loose bunch, stems cut neatly and laying on their sides.
“Is that normal?” I ask.
She gives me a flat look. “Sure. In the produce aisle of a grocery store.”
“Ah.”
Even though everything we’re foraging today has been neatly planted by some underpaid intern who made a run to the closest farmers’ market, we still give it our all, spending a good part of the afternoon pilfering through bushes and dirt for hidden pockets of berries and mushrooms. It’s three points for every handful of berries and five for mushrooms, so we gather as much as we can hold and bring it back to the clearing.
Then it’s on to knot-tying and whittling.
We earn the points without struggle because Seyoon’s leading us and I’m not fighting her every step of the way.
Even when I slip the rope into the wrong loop for the third time, she explains the steps in detail again without a hint of frustration or exhaustion in her voice.
I steal a glance at her while we begin setting up our shelter, quietly grateful.
“Did you really learn this stuff in Girl Scouts?” I ask. “Because Meredith didn’t know all of this.”
“Some of it, sure,” she hums. “But I also just spent a lot of time outdoors camping with my family. We’re from Portland, after all.”
I start unfolding the other end of the tarp. “Your dad taught you, then?”
She laughs bitterly. “Nope. My mom and aunts, when they would come to visit. My dad never wanted to join us.”
Seyoon messes with the tarp more aggressively now, glaring at the creases as if enough ruffling will flatten them out. I watch her, fiddling with my knuckles.
“Explains how your mom got third in Forest Feud,” I say. “Can’t get that far in the game unless you really know what you’re doing out here.”
That eases the vein bulging in her neck. Some of my anxiety unfurls, too.
“Yeah,” says Seyoon. “She sure does. But she’s amazing at everything.”
“You must take after her.”
Seyoon stiffens, clenching the tarp and undoing her precious work of smoothing it out.
Oh God. Her bewildered, flustered stare makes me want to rip the tarp from her hands and wrap it around my face until I pass out.
But I don’t. I look away, then back up for as long as I can stand it, offering a small smile.
“Is that another compliment, Dean?” she asks once she’s shaken off her surprise, a teasing lilt to her voice.
“Don’t think too hard about it.”
“Who knew Mr. Brick Wall could be so sweet?” A smile plays at the corner of her mouth. “Hand me one of those rocks so I can stake this corner of the tarp down. Unless you want to go on about how wonderful and smart I am?”
I roll my eyes. “Maybe another time.”
But I forgot the first rule of reality television: When the going is good, the producers will throw something in to fuck it all up.
In this case, that something is Carter. I see Blake whisper something to him, and then he’s crossing the glade to approach us.
“I’m glad I skipped out on this ‘team.’” Carter says, inspecting our setup. “Looks like only one of you is doing the heavy lifting here. Didn’t take you for a pillow princess, Dean.”
CONFESSION TAPE—Beck McLaughlin, Contestant
What’s a pillow princess? Someone who naps a lot? Sounds nice.
Heat creeps up my neck. Vendredi and Beck are set up maybe fifteen feet away—close enough to overhear, apparently, because they start giggling. I glance over at Blake. She’s directing three camera techs not-so-subtly positioned in the surrounding trees to get a better angle of us.
My brain scrambles for some kind of retort that will make for a good sound bite, but the familiar sensation of Seyoon’s eyes on me reminds me I’ve yet to earn the second chance I was given.
“Seyoon’s been a great guide,” I say, plainly and honestly. “I’m lucky she’s willing to help me out so much.”
Carter’s eyebrow quirks up, his perpetually sleepy gaze now mildly interested. He seems surprised I didn’t take the bait. I’m shocked I didn’t either.
Then a pine cone smacks him in his forehead.
“My hand slipped,” Seyoon says. “I was aiming for your mouth.”
Carter’s face turns pink. “You—” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Neutral again, Carter lifts his nose and says, “You’d think with two heads, you would have gotten a fire started by now. Maybe Seyoon’s not as good of a wilderness guide as you thought.”
Both Seyoon and I look over to Carter’s area, where there’s a crackling fire. He’s the only person to get one going so far.
She stands up and steps over me to get in Carter’s face. “Quit talking about me like I’m not here. But since you came for a pissing contest, Dean here is just about to get our fire started. On his own.”
“Is he?” Carter deadpans.
Am I?!
Seyoon gives me a pointed look over her shoulder, one that clearly says Play along and don’t let this asswipe make a fool of us. I learned my lesson the last time I didn’t back her up against Carter.
I stand, towering over him. “Yeah, I am.”
From where she is, Vendredi throws the two stones she had been banging against each other to try and form a spark. “Well, shit, if you’re giving a demonstration, I want to watch.”
“Me too,” Beck’s quick to say.
That’s apparently Adin and Siddharth’s invitation to fully approach. Even Aeneas, who had been lingering at the farthest edge of the clearing, comes to join the group gathering around our campsite.
Seyoon, who thrives in social situations that would kill a lesser being (me), singsongs, “Come one, come all! Witness the incredibly talented Dean Parker start a fire with his own bare hands in just under a minute—”
“Stop that,” I hiss at her.
“Alright, no time constraints, but he will do it.” She turns to me with an affirming smile on her face. “You can.”
The only thing I can is no can do.