Chapter 9
COLTON
“I still can’t believe it. I should never have let our backpacks out of my sight,” Missy grounds out for the hundredth time since this morning.
“I can’t believe we were ranked sixth out of seven teams in America’s votes today,” I grumble, still dumbfounded by the results that were posted just over an hour ago.
Missy mumbles a strand of finely crafted Southern sayings, highlighting her frustrations, and I’m half tempted to borrow them. After the sabotage this morning and now the ranking, I can’t think of a worse way to start off this show.
Missy unties the sweat-soaked bandana from her neck and refolds it as we sit, waiting in our teal airplane seats for the first Black Box Meeting of the season to start.
Our seats, along with the other teams’, sit atop a large circular platform.
It’s on this platform that we’ll have the Black Box Meetings and the occasional team interviews with Niall.
Fortunately for us, the platform is just a five-minute walk from the airplane bunk room and the beach we now call base camp.
“How in the Sam Hill did they get under our beds without us noticing?” Now that her bandana is refolded lengthwise, Missy reties it around her neck and yanks a little too hard, making her sputter and cough.
She flaps her arms, resembling a pigeon that’s choked on a cheese puff in a parking lot.
As an act of goodwill, I tell myself that I will not remember this moment for future ammo, but it’s sorted and filed in my brain before I can blink.
“Whoa, careful, Miss. Don’t want our team to forfeit on grounds of death by bandana.”
She looks at me the way I can only imagine a drenched cat looks at the rain. But as I watch her unsuccessfully pick at the knot at her neck, I flick off her fingers and do it myself.
“There, you’re free.” I pull the knot from her throat and drop the bandana in her lap.
“Thanks,” she says, speaking at a decibel only a mouse could hear.
Just then, we both look to stage left as Legend and Silver strut onto the set like well-fed peacocks.
Well-fed peacocks that had happily stolen our food and supplies, leaving us with only our personal belongings, the items in the hygiene kit we’d already used, and, to Missy’s great relief, her lucky seashell.
They took everything else—even the coloring book.
Once we realized our belongings had been stolen this morning, it didn’t take long to spot the culprits.
Team Fuschia had been lying on the beach.
Silver’s head was tilted toward the sun, lounging in her pink-and-black bathing suit while wearing the exact pair of sunglasses we’d collected from the first Mayday Challenge.
Next to her, Legend was holding our coloring book, resting his back against their newly stuffed team backpacks, guarding them from any sticky hands.
Apparently, Legend and Silver weren’t about to make the same mistake we did.
Catching us gawking, Legend had held up the coloring book for us to see, which featured several cartoon planes colored in with a fuchsia-pink crayon. I don’t even remember the last time I used a coloring book, but knowing our book was in his clutches made me want to wrestle him for it.
There was no subtlety to their actions. They wanted us—and America—to know how clever they had been in managing to come in first last night and get food and supplies. We had played right into their trap.
To my humiliation, Missy and I had spent the better part of the morning taking turns attempting to climb palm trees to get coconuts.
Much easier said than done. In fact, we didn’t get it done.
My arms were so tired from last night’s row and Missy’s hands were sore from her many slivers that we’d both settled for finding a fallen coconut. A coconut. As in one.
I’d walked out of the jungle with our little baby fruit in hand and a newfound appreciation for nomads.
I’d never worked so hard in my life just to find subpar food.
The coconut was crunchy and woody and refused to go down my throat.
Despite the fact that I’d eaten it at noon, I’d been chewing on resilient little bits all day.
I had no clue how Missy and I were going to survive two and a half weeks on coconuts.
We watch Team Fuchsia sit in their seats as if they are thrones and Legend and Silver are the sovereigns of the Black Box Meeting. I clench my hands, willing my frustration not to show.
I find that after a few steadying breaths, I start to feel more grounded.
Keeping my positive momentum going, I move on from Legend and Silver, determined to focus on something less aggravating.
I look at my surroundings and notice that the sun is just starting to set, casting brilliant hues of orange, yellow, and pink across the sky.
With another deep breath, I inhale the ever-present scent of salty sea air mixed with tropical flowers, and I would love nothing more than to bottle the aroma and save it for years to come.
Now calm, I watch as more teams step onto the platform.
The set we’re on now is similar to the set we’d been on for the opening interviews.
There is a firepit in the center and fourteen airplane seats in the various team colors surround it in a crescent shape, except this time, the airplane seats we sit on are all beat up.
Some have chunks of padding ripped out of them and others have springs exposed, making them look like they really had been part of an airplane that had crash-landed on the island.
And just like back at the beach, another airplane wing stands tall and imposing on set.
It’s the sister-wing to the one at base camp, with its identical rectangular screen in the center, with a clock and each of our team names.
But as opposed to this morning, this time, each of our teams is ranked for all to see.
“Hello!” Missy chirps. Her eyes light up as she sees Bill and Maria, the two tennis players from Team Amber, step onto the set and approach us.
Since there’s a lot of downtime on the show between challenges and Black Box Meetings, we are all given ample opportunity to get to know other teams, plan strategies, and form alliances.
But since the show is all an immaculate head game, I find myself approaching every team with caution, especially after Legend and Silver’s theft this morning.
But then there are Bill and Maria. Earlier today, they’d found me and Missy struggling to open our coconut with a sharp rock with no success.
They took pity and let us borrow the machete they got from one of the crates they’d opened last night.
Missy had instantly taken to them. And despite my reservations, Bill and Maria have a genuineness about them that makes it hard to think they are going to slash our mattresses when we aren’t looking.
“How are you, Hermosa?” Maria asks, leaning down to encircle Missy in a fervent hug. Missy responds with an equally welcoming embrace, as if they didn’t just see each other on the beach ten minutes ago.
Bill extends his hand toward me, forgoing the awkwardness of hugging a mere stranger, something Maria and Missy seem to have no issue with. I shake Bill’s hand with a firm grip just as Maria and Missy break apart.
“Are you ready for tonight’s Black Box Meeting?” Maria asks, her words colored with a Hispanic accent.
“I think so. I’m just grateful Colton and I didn’t come in last in America’s votes,” Missy says.
“Me too. I thought I’d be seeing my abuela early with the way my heart was pounding when they posted the results.” Maria points to the airplane wing displaying our rankings.
Missy laughs nervously, as if she is seeing the results for the first time again. “You and I both. Though I was surprised to see Team Violet come in last.”
All four of us flick our eyes over to Juliet and Carolyn, Team Violet, who, for the first time since arriving on the show, are not cracking jokes or even smiling. They look sick and stiff.
A little over an hour ago, when Niall had come to the beachside base camp to inform us that America’s votes had been posted, everyone fled to the screen on the big beach wing.
To our amazement, Team Violet came in last, which means they have to participate in the Black Box Elimination tonight with Team Peach.
Despite the relief of not seeing Team Teal at the very bottom of the wing’s screen, we were still one team away from having to be in the Black Box Elimination tonight.
I can only imagine what Dad thought when he saw the results.
Probably that he was right and that I can’t win without him or his guidance.
I try to block the barrage of overwhelming thoughts about my future and my career that demand access to my brain. Instead, I tell myself that the next Mayday Challenge will be different. And that when America votes again, it will be us at the top of the leaderboard. But my doubts linger.
“I thought it would be Heart-Pooper and The Tear-Jerk who’d rank last,” Maria says, leaning in toward us so that the two buff males from Team Ruby, who’ve decided to forgo their T-shirts since reaching the island, won’t hear.
Though they likely wouldn’t have heard regardless, since both of them are currently flirting very loudly with Silver.
“No, you hoped it was Heartbreaker and Tearjerker,” Bill says.
Maria swats his chest. “Okay, I did. I hoped they’d be the ones to go.”
Missy and I both laugh.
“Contestants, please take your seats,” Shannon’s microphoned voice calls from somewhere behind the cameras.
“Honey, that’s our cue,” Bill says, motioning to their amber-colored chairs. Now that America has voted, our seats are placed by ranking, which means Bill and Maria’s chairs are on the opposite end of the half circle from us.
“We’d better sit down,” Maria says to her husband before turning back to Missy. “But tonight, we’ll dissect every little piece of the Black Box Meeting, yes?”