Chapter 43 Needle in a Haystack
Needle in a Haystack
“Today is the Seventh Adventure,” Yumi says, looking between me and the camera. “And we’re leaving in first place.”
I nod, smiling. “No better time than the semifinals.”
“As superfans, would you say that this is the most important time in the game to have an advantage?” Aliona asks as she swats away a dragonfly.
“As superfans, we’d have to say that, beside the final three, this is the most important challenge to have an advantage on.
” The semifinal has an individual challenge and a team challenge, but the final has two team challenges, and they’re usually significantly more demanding.
“But we’re hoping to have a first place advantage going into the final three, as well,” I declare cockily.
“Tell me your reads on the other three teams going into this Adventure. What advantages do you think you have over them?”
I let Yumi field this, the most boring of all possible lines of questioning. She’ll dodge badmouthing Clyde and Cora and Bee and Logan better than I ever could. While she talks for the millionth time about what a threat KC and Gabriel are, I take in the view behind Aliona.
Anyone watching us from home might be forgiven for thinking we’re in a tropical rainforest. A giant waterfall cascades down a fern-coated sheer drop, lush greenery fracturing it into hundreds of airy, glittering streams that land in a deep pool.
Tall, full trees drape over the pool’s edge.
Shifting light shines through the breaks in the canopy above us, illuminating the mossy rocks that ring the water.
There’s a mantle of mist over the area, making each inhale crisp and sweet.
It’s enchanting, but it’s fake. Not fake like pretending to be sick to miss a test you forgot to study for, but fake like The Adventureverse.
Fake like Heavyweights. Fake like me and Yumi.
The thunder of the waterfall, the Venus flytraps in the globe-shaped terrariums, the miniature rainbows arcing through the water—these things are all happening.
But they’re contrived. They were created, and planned, and put here to be looked at.
The Cloud Forest is essentially a greenhouse. For all of its grandeur, it could not exist outside this place.
Mandatory Individual Challenge: The beautiful island nation of Singapore is famous for its cleanliness, which is maintained by strict anti-littering laws that task criminals with cleaning up garbage.
Today, Adventurers will proceed by car to Siloso Beach, where they will see a marked-off section of beach with trash littering the sand.
Four pieces of garbage have an Adventureverse logo emblazoned on the bottom, one for each team.
Once a team member finds a logo, they may present it to the Ministry of Environment officer to receive their next clue.
NOTE: This challenge must be performed by the team member who has not yet performed a second Individual Challenge. No exceptions.
All the blood drains from my face.
I don’t know how we managed to get this entire show so wrong. We were so focused on keeping Yumi away from heights that we neglected to keep me away from the Needle in the Haystack. I thought the lupines were close enough that they’d have mercy on us.
I should’ve known The Adventureverse would never choose mercy over Good TV.
There are easily hundreds of pieces of debris scattered across the sand. The marked section is so large that I can’t even see the boundary on the other side. Yumi looks helpless as I stare at her in abject horror. We were wrong. We were so game-endingly wrong for putting me on this challenge.
At least we’re the first ones here, so I’m three times more likely to find the logo first, right? If that’s incorrect, I don’t want to know.
I try to move in a grid pattern, but the garbage is unending.
Milk jugs and shoe soles and coolers blend together as I examine them and place them back in the sand.
Despite each piece of litter being different, it’s impossible to keep track of what I’ve actually picked up and what I’ve just seen out of the corner of my eye.
With each item of trash, each passing minute, my heart sinks further.
After about thirty minutes in hell, KC crashes through the trees, ducking under the neon tape cordon. “Ayo! They’re still here,” he whoops.
Behind him, Gabriel hollers in acknowledgment and joins Yumi on the sit-out bench in the shade. I mouth Sorry to her, and she waves it off.
Having squandered our lead, I close my eyes and pray that I contract a terminal case of patience. There’s nothing I can do besides put my head down and keep going.
“I don’t suppose you’ll want to tell me what area you’ve already covered?” KC asks, not looking up as he examines a crushed soda can.
Shaking my head, I admit, “I couldn’t if I wanted to, dude.”
I watch him read the hopelessness in my expression, his downturned eyes wrinkling with pity. “Buck up, Noelle. We got this.” He pats me on the back, then returns to his search.
The sun is merciless, but the humidity is worse.
Sweat drenches my hair, drips into my eyes, pours down my back to the point that I feel like I’ve been dipped in the ocean.
But I tell myself to push through. I pick up garbage.
I put it down. I tell myself this is luck.
It’s not skill. I just have to keep going until I get lucky.
Bee arrives, looking fresh and perky, her (dry, for now) silvery blond hair shining in the sun. “Thought you guys would’ve been long gone by now,” Logan says when I walk dejectedly to the bench for my water bottle.
Yumi uncaps it and hands it to me. The water is past warm, hot enough to steep tea in, but at least she’s managed to refill it somehow. I nod my thanks without acknowledging Logan. Let Gabriel and Yumi explain this torture—I have garbage to look at.
I barely notice Clyde and Cora arriving, a full two hours after Yumi and I got here this morning. All I know is that I’ve lost my will to live. Frustration wraps its hands around my neck and chokes me.
It’s hard to tell if anyone is making progress, but the other three teams seem to be in much better spirits than I am.
KC’s and Gabriel’s laughter carries over the sound of the waves, and I sincerely miss Team Kendycane.
At least I could root against them. But even when Team Football is being annoying, I still like them.
I comfort myself with refrains of At least no one else has found it. Until they do.
“Let’s go!” KC bellows, his voice a deep rumble of thunder across the dark cloud of my mood.
“Yeah, baby!” Gabriel is at his partner’s side before I even notice him running over. He takes the half-broken portable speaker from KC and hoists it above his head, kissing it like the Stanley Cup. The gold Adventureverse emblem catches the light in the process.
They sprint off, hollering about how KC’s got that dog in him, and something in me dies. But I keep going, though it feels futile. The sand is my enemy. It shifts beneath my feet with each step I take, trickling into my sneakers as my exhausted muscles struggle to keep me upright.
Cora finds a logo as we enter the third hour of the challenge. Clyde’s infuriating “Finally” makes me want to scream.
I start to second-guess myself, question whether my vision is narrowed by blinders.
I know I already picked up that discarded life vest, but what if the logo was on it and I didn’t register it?
I picture the show playing the doofus clown music, highlighting a piece of garbage I’ve walked past one hundred times, one I’ve even held in my hands.
It’s a very specific kind of torture, the kind Greek gods would have loved implementing.
A dramatic irony, the knowledge that no matter how many times Tantalus reaches for the fruit above him, it will always pull away. I will never find this logo.
The final blow to my morale comes when Bee quietly strolls over, emblazoned piece of garbage in hand.
“Hey, uh…” She cocks her head. “You want…help?”
It’s so silent, even the waves seem to hold their breath.
I don’t know when Bee and Logan completed the challenge; they didn’t celebrate like the other two teams did.
We are so pathetic that the villains of the season are offering us help.
So pathetic that they didn’t make a single noise as they pushed us off the winner’s pedestal.
I look to Yumi for permission, but she just shrugs, leaving it up to me.
As much as I would love a chance to stay in the game, at the end of the day accepting this type of help at the final four is something any self-respecting superfan would judge harshly from the comfort of a pillow fort.
If Yumi and I won, it would be so deeply contested that the social media harassment would make it almost not worth it.
For two million, I’m sure I could withstand the bullying, but I love this game and respect this game so much that I just can’t take the help.
I shake my head at Bee. “Thanks, though.”
She smiles like she understands, handing me the deflated soccer ball she found. “Look at it, at least. So you know what to search for.”
I’m thankful for the gesture, but it doesn’t really help me. Still, I turn it over, examining the gold ADV logo that mimics a wax seal before giving it back to her. She claps a hand on my arm, then takes off running toward a waiting Logan, and they both disappear down the beach.
At first, my search resumes with a frenzied intensity, every muscle in my body tense and focused.
Some delusional part of me thinks that we could still be in this.
Maybe it’s a non-elimination leg, despite The Adventureverse never doing non-elims at the final four.
Maybe one of the teams is having a monumentally bad time at the group challenge.
But I know, just below the surface, that we’ve lost. At the end of today, JSP is going to tell us that our adventure has come to an end.
On my knees, my skin rubbed raw by each individual grain of sand, I look to Yumi, frustrated tears in my eyes. “I don’t know what to do,” I say, my voice sore and broken.
She shakes her head, ducking under the tape and approaching with her palms outturned like a saint. “Come take a break.”
“But I—” I break off, gazing helplessly at the remaining stretch of garbage, looking just as daunting as it did when we first arrived to Siloso Beach three hours ago.
“There’s no glory in suffering,” she says, tucking her hands into her pockets. When she reaches me, she leans down next to my ear and whispers, “Besides, you’re tilted.”