Club Calypso: Survivor
Week Two
Dream Sylvia Driad awoke to the soft glow of dawn, the sun not yet peeking over the gray hills of mainland Layla:) in the eastern distance. It was a little foggy on the Survivor island, one of the unnamed islands of Sphere Archipelago, but the droplets of water in the air captured the faint light and magnified them, giving the entire beach an ephemeral orange-pink glow. Dream was used to this, having established a routine of waking early to do her calisthenics in private, but she still paused to marvel at the beauty of the area. It was so... natural. Even more so than her home in Foret des Reves, with her tree, because here there were no power lines running underground, leaking energy whose effects on the Foret still hadn't been measured. She'd have to see about moving Shirley out here. Such a nice environment.
Two sleeping bags over, Daniela DeSka stirred. Dream was also used to Daniela getting up early. Dani, aka the Dancin' Queen, would go off into the jungle in a minute, and emerge at Inda Nett's morning wake-up call looking fresh as a rose and happier than a Wal-Mart smiley face at a price-reduction. Dream didn't quite understand it, she'd always thought Daniela was the makeup-and-electricity sort (especially since she'd brought an electric toothbrush), but she seemed to be making do with the island's resources. The effects of being a Girl Sprout, she supposed.
It had certainly helped her and Marianna. Mari Trench had always been pretty good at erecting tents, and she'd managed to make a pretty nice shelter, although they really hadn't needed it yet. The regular morning fog wasn't enough to warrant sleeping inside. They were both good at cooking outdoors, and had gotten pretty creative with bananas over the past week. And Dream had a natural talent for "talking" to trees and animals, so finding food (plant-based food, thank you, most everyone on the island was vegetarian and nobody really wanted to kill anything anyway) hadn't been very difficult.
As Dream thought about island politics and what was for breakfast, she jogged down the beach as far as the coral reef, then stopped to do her calisthenics. They were basic stretching exercises, and a couple gymnastic things just for fun. It was always good to know how to do a backflip, one never knew when it would come in handy. It was also handy that she'd always liked to get up early. She was certain that Uly had been watching her during the mornings last week when she'd done her stretches, and while she liked him, she didn't want to encourage his already over-active imagination.
Stretches done and fog rapidly dissipating, Dream jogged back toward camp.
When she arrived, Daniela had returned to her sleeping bag and was sitting up, doing something with a pile of dried grasses. Pez, her boyfriend, was working on resurrecting last night's fire, but not having much success. There was a pile of bananas and mangoes next to him, indicating that breakfast would probably be roasted bananas and mangoes. Marianna was still asleep, lightly snoring (she'd caught a cold, but then she usually had a cold, so it wasn't life-threatening). Doreen Flagg, whose boyfriend Frogman had been ousted from the island two days ago, was also asleep, but by the look on her face it wasn't a very good dream. On the "boys" side of the camp, Uly and Dava were both up, but barely. Uly had misplaced his glasses again, and Dava had, apparently, misplaced his pants.
"Daniela."
"Huh?" Dani said, glancing over at Dava, sitting up with his sleeping bag wrapped around him from the waist down.
"Did you steal my jeans?"
"No. Why would I do something like that?"
"I don't know. You're always up first, except Dream, but Dream's not capable of pulling a prank," Dava shrugged. "And, last night, we were talking about why I always wear jeans."
"Well, I didn't do it. We're not the same size." Daniela went back to her grass-weaving project.
Dava looked around a while longer. Uly, aka UPChuck, was still looking for his glasses. Dream was helping Pez with the fire. None of them were suspects, anyway. Neither was Doreen. She'd been having a lot of trouble lately. But Marianna...
He'd lost the egg-on-a-spoon race because of her. He knew she'd sent a psychic jolt to him, even though she wasn't supposed to use her psi powers, and that had made him jump. He didn't know whether she knew she'd sent it though, because he'd caught her doing stuff like that before, and discreetly poked around in her mind to find it had been a subconscious act. But on this island, where Inda couldn't tell whether anyone was using Wizard powers... he knew Mari really wanted the prize money, too.
It was an awful thing to do, but he had to find his pants. Dava carefully poked into Mari's mind, keeping an eye on her body as he did so. There was a pretty interesting dream going on, involving him, Jens Herrkauf, and some old rock star, but he rushed past that into her recent memory. And found... a suspiciously familiar-looking pair of jeans being sneaked away into the jungle.
"Dream, check this out for me," Dava said, passing off the memory engram to Dream's conscious. Dream wasn't a trained Wizard, because elves and elf-hybrids were ineligible for the Wizardship program under current law (their psi rating being very high), but she knew Mari and Mari's mind better than anyone else on the island (or for that matter, the planet).
"Dava, you're not supposed to... oh." Dream poked through Mari's mind, looking for motivation. "I can't see why, though. Hold on, I'll go get them for you."
Dream and Dava pulled out of Marianna's mind together, and Dream took off into the jungle, the path remaining in her mind. Dava sat, quietly contemplating how he'd get revenge. There were so many possibilities on an island. Nothing malicious, of course, it was just jeans.
Mari stirred, then sat bolt upright before ripping out of her sleeping bag and starting toward the jungle.
"Marianna!" Dava called. She froze, her forward inertia throwing her into an awkward flip.
"Crap, I got sand in my hair." The she looked back. "Oops. You're up. Um, I'll be right-- hey! You were in my mind!" she shouted, jumping back up and stalking over to Dava. With her hair frizzed out, her face lined with indents from the sleeping bag wrinkles and her fingernails, and nothing on but a bikini top and cutoffs, she looked like some kind of weird surf-banshee. "You know that's against the rules! So that's why Jens suddenly turned into a pair of jeans!" Mari stopped abruptly as she realized everyone was looking at her, not to mention learning about her dream. "Oh, to hell with all of you."
"Dream's getting my jeans, thanks," Dava said calmly.
"I'm reporting you," Mari glared.
"And I'll report you for tripping me," he countered.
"What?"
"During the challenge last week. You tripped me. You sent a psychic jolt strong enough to make me jump."
"I did not."
"Now you're lying."
Mari's face twisted up, and suddenly she ran out to the beach and jumped into a conveniently large wave. She went under, and came up a moment later a bit further out to sea. Then she leisurely swam back to the beach, now entirely calm. She wrung out her hair as she walked back up to the camp.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, not bothering to look at Dava as she walked past him.
Dream returned from the jungle and dropped Dava's jeans on his lap. "Thanks, Dream."
"And you," Mari said, turning on Dream.
"Uh-oh."
"I can't believe you let him talk you into that."
"Mari, I couldn't help getting the first memory, he's a Wizard. And as for prying..."
"Dream, that's a really big betrayal. It's about a nine on a scale of ten, ten being stealing a husband I actually care about." Mari, of course, was married to Mac Trench by arrangement, but after five years still hated his guts. Even though he embodied every kind of beauty Mari had ever wanted in a guy-- tall, blond, blue-eyed, intelligent, rich. He just had an off-putting personality quirk: her parents liked him.
"Mari--"
"No. No. I am not listening to either of you anymore. I won't report anyone, since we're stuck on this damn island, but I'm not talking to either of you." Mari started digging around for her other pair of shorts (it's amazing what one can wear in layers), and when she found them, she took off for the jungle to change.
"What's going on?" Doreen asked, sitting up and looking around the camp.
"Hey, everyone!" Inda shouted as his jet-ski roared into the quiet, if not peaceful, scene. "Who's ready for a challenge?"
Pez jumped and spilled water onto the fire he'd just managed to start.
***
Challenge, Week Two: Sandcastle Building
"And once again, Inda comes up with a doozy of a challenge," Mari said, rolling her eyes and claiming her little plastic bucket and shovel. They were hot pink, her trademark color.
Daniela squealed in delight as she picked up her yellow bucket and shovel. Her bucket even had those square dents in it so she could make real-looking turrets.
"Inda, seriously, look at those tapes again and find new challenges," UPChuck said. "More... challenging challenges. Please." His bucket was the regular kind, like Mari's but red. Everyone had a different color bucket and shovel: Dava had the same shade of blue as his hair, Dream had green, Doreen had purple, and Pez had orange. Dava's bucket was of the pointed-bottom variety, for a different kind of turret, and Dream's was square. Inda had apparently bought them on sale from Wesson's Drug Store in downtown Layla:).
"Okay, rules are, no smashing down other peoples' castles, and if you choose to use things found on the beach to decorate, whoever touches it first gets it. Not who saw it first, because we can't verify that without a mind-probe, and that's illegal." Mari, Dava, and Dream exchanged two and a half glances. Apparently Inda had been watching the morning's conflict. "Other than things found on the beach or in the jungle, you can also use your personal items-- but you can't use anyone else's personal items. Judging will be by a panel from the Newshregsburg Natural Art Gallery. The prize is calamine lotion. You have till noon. Go."
Everyone staked out a plot of sand. Marianna started her castle by sitting down in the shallows and slopping bottom-sand into her bucket. She took her time. This wasn't a race, it was an art project. It could even be fun. But she would really love that calamine lotion, even more than the rum she was still rationing. Damn mosquitoes.
Doreen started with beachcombing. She had an idea of what she wanted to do, but she needed to collect shells, driftwood, and other things first.
Pez, UPChuck, and Dava stood around for a moment, looking at each other. Art? They were guys! Manly men! They didn't do art! Then Pez caught sight of Daniela, scratching a mosquito bite while carefully mixing sand and water. He had to at least try, in case Daniela's castle didn't win! UPChuck saw Dream, already digging a moat. She didn't have any mosquito bites, but he could at least impress her with his artistic abilities... if he had any. He hadn't bothered with sand castles since he was ten years old or so.
Dava didn't have any pretty girl to impress, but since Inda was staring at him in a not-entirely-friendly manner, he found himself shoveling up wet sand at the water's edge. What a waste of talent, he thought.
***
Marianna stepped back, looking at her castle. It was six feet high, taller than Mari herself, at the central tower. Her bucketfuls of wet sand had been a good start, but she'd ended up filling in a lot in the base to have a support for the five towers, multiple turrets, and the cathedral in the back. All that sea glass had been a lucky find, used for the cathedral's stained glass windows. The unexpected obsidian (from Inda's volcano, now called Mount Marina after his and Doreen's daughter) had made beautiful paving stones for the inner courtyard, as well. The stables were filled with snails, kelp flags waved from the tops of towers and turrets, and a chip of wood from the kindling pile was a working drawbridge thanks to some quick work with braided sea grasses. The moat was a foot deep and six inches wide, filled with water that had welled up from its bottom. A jellyfish served as moat monster.
That last bit had been a victory. Mari had never been able to approach a jellyfish without being stung. Therefore, she usually ran away from them. But this time, she'd snuck up behind the brainless bastard, and scooped him into her bucket without harm. She'd thankfully waited until he was safe in the moat before doing a victory dance.
Doreen had built an impressive palace complex, low to the ground but covering about ten feet square. She'd disappeared inland for a while and returned with a bucket full of water-lilies, which now adorned the tops of upturned buckets of sand (the outbuildings). The center of the complex was a mosaic of broken seashells in a spiral pattern. And in an ornately shaped sand throne sat a frog.
UPChuck's castle was coming along nicely with five minutes left until noon (as Inda so helpfully called out from his chaise longue). A gang of squirrels, who had somehow found their way to a tropical island where they should not have been living, were working under UPChuck's direction, scurrying around shaping sand bricks and collecting acorns (another thing that wasn't supposed to be on the island). UPChuck himself was not doing much work at all, other than fashioning a squirrel-sized crown out of an acorn top.
At precisely one minute to noon, a boat full of NNAG board members landed near the coral reef and the judges disembarked.
Dava dripped one more wizard's tower onto his Gothic-revival castle. (This was done by allowing very wet sand to trickle randomly through his fingers to make a ragged, skinny tower, in case you didn't know what a wizard or witch's tower is.) Daniela cautiously added one last shell to the dance hall of her castle. Dream brushed the sand from one of the saplings she'd planted around her simple castle. Pez carved one last perfect curve into the miniature statue of Daniela in front of his castle.
"Time!" Inda called. "Gather 'round, it's time to introduce the judges."
The contestants lined up, Mari poking unhappily at her sunburn. The judges also lined up, putting on their best snooty faces and looking down their noses at everyone else.
"Everyone knows Karina Brono, the stage actress and diva, who is on the Gallery's board of directors," Inda began, gesturing to said diva. "This is Mitzi Poue, gardening champion, sculptress, and Gallery founder." Mitzi was an aging blonde with pince-nez glasses. "Sir Elmer MacBeech, wood-carving expert and member of the Gallery's board of directors," whom Dream glared at, receiving a glare in return-- apparently they had met before-- "And finally, Philippa Oden-Dron, a botanist who also teaches flower arranging at the Gallery's weekend seminars." Of all the judges, Philippa was the least snobby-acting. In fact, she looked downright uncomfortable at being among Karina, Mitzi, and Sir Elmer. She was dressed in sensible clothing, as well, which certainly made her stand out among the glitz of the others.
"Okay, judges, start your judging!"
***
"While I liked Mr. DeSpencer's sand-sculpting technique, his choice of Miss DeSka as model, to be entirely honest, frightened me," Mitzi Poue sniffed. "As did Miss Flagg and Mr. Chuck's choice of animal themes. Those squirrels are much too sentient for my liking. Please do not allow them to migrate back to the mainland."
Pez sighed sadly, while Daniela, Doreen, and UPChuck began plotting their revenge on Mitzi. UPChuck's revenge plan involved migrating the squirrels to Mitzi's manicured back lawn.
"I adore Mr. Jini's accurate Gothic castle, and Ms. Trench's Medieval castle is its only rival in an historic competition. However, for sheer artistic quality and creativity with materials, Miss DeSka's dance-fantasy castle wins my vote. I'm sorry, Miss Driad, but I've never had much taste for minimalism."
Daniela belayed her revenge planning and beamed at Mitzi, the other judges, Inda, and her competitors.
"Okay, one for Daniela," Inda announced. "Sir Elmer?"
"The squirrels' song-and-dance routine rather entertained me, but I'm going to have to vote for the frog castle. The mosaic is absolutely stunning."
"One for Doreen. Karina?"
"I like Marianna's, even though it's got snails in it. The cathedral is really cool."
"One for Marianna. Miss Oden-Dron?"
Philippa pondered a moment more. "While as a botanist I love the use of living trees in Miss Driad's post-modern castle, it is a bit too minimalist for me. Spending so much time among flowers, I do tend toward the lush. Which puts me between the dance castle and the Medieval. And the dance castle is much more fun, so my vote is for Miss DeSka."
"So, Daniela wins immunity, and more importantly, the calamine lotion!" Inda pulled the pink bottle out of a cargo-pants pocket and handed it over to Daniela, who promptly engaged in a victory dance.
"Ooh, the itching will be gone, the itching will be gone!" she sang. "Hi-ho the derry-oh, the itching will be gone!"
Marianna shook her head, only mildly bummed that she hadn't won the calamine. Maybe Dream would find an aloe plant. Then she remembered she wasn't speaking to Dream and got really bummed. Okay, new plan-- maybe she'd get lucky and get voted off the damn island. Sure, it would eliminate her chance at rebuilding her club, but was a little dance-and-drinks club really that important? Was it?
Oh geez, it was.
***
Inda's Narration, Week Two: Daniela has surprised everyone, including herself perhaps, by sharing the calamine lotion. I think it's the first time I've ever seen Daniela and Marianna getting along. Then they told some goofy stories about when they were kids and had chicken pox. It was a pretty nice evening until Pez tripped over a log and spilled half the calamine. The kid has gotten amazingly uncoordinated over the past week. I hope it's not some kind of inner-ear imbalance or tropical flu or something he could sue me for. Anyway...
The issue with Marianna and Dava's pants has been resolved. Dream found an aloe plant, superceding the need for the calamine that Pez spilled, and in the rush of people thanking Dream, Marianna forgave her for prying. Then, in some mind-twisting thing that is entirely beyond my comprehension, Dream convinced Mari to forgive Dava for prying. Something to do with something that happened in high school. I don't know what; I ran with the popular crowd back then.
UPChuck has been spending excessive amounts of time with the squirrels since taming them. Frankly, I'm frightened. But there is nothing in the rules about getting help from squirrels. We never really expected any sentient squirrels to show up on a tropical island. Doreen's new pet frog is not sentient, but it creeps me out just the same that she lets it sleep near her head. At least it seems to cheer her up, and as long as it's riding on her head, she'll help out with whatever Mari assigns her.
***
Voting, Week Two:
Inda was running out of creative ways to wake up the contestants without getting beaned by a host of coconut shells. Today, he was trying music.
"Go!" cried a disembodied Beach Boy. "I'm gonna wake you up early 'cause I'm gonna take a ride with you!"
"We're goin' down to the Honda shop, I'll tell ya what we're gonna do," chimed in Mari, bounding out of her sleeping bag for the first time in two weeks. With a smile on her face, even.
Everyone else groaned, rolled over, and grabbed their coconuts. Inda ducked.
Mari got pounded.
"Augh! Come on! You know the words, sing along!" The entertainer in Mari tried to keep going in the face of adversity. "And hey, it's voting day!"
"Fine, steal my thunder," Inda sniffed. "Come on, we've got a hike ahead!"
"No more hiking," Daniela whined as she emerged from the jungle.
Dream bounded up the beach. "Okay, I'm all warmed up!" She recieved more than a couple dirty looks at that. And a croak from Doreen's frog. However, UPChuck's squirrels gathered around her expectantly. "Hello, little squirrels," Dream smiled down at them. She patted one on the head. UPChuck looked on jealously.
"Ohhh-kay," Inda said, backing away. "You guys know where the path is, so just get there by sundown."
"Hold up a minute, Inda," Dava said sleepily. "I feel a desperate need for adult conversation." Mari picked up one of the conveniently-available coconuts and lobbed it at Dava, missing by a wide margin. Pitching had never been one of her strong points. "Like I said," Dava rolled his eyes.
"Sure," Inda agreed, then leaned up against a palm tree to wait for Dava.
Pez, meanwhile, had slipped quietly out of his sleeping bag and made his way to the shore. He liked to start his days with a swim. This time, he tripped on a rise in the sand and landed in the shallows with a noisy splash. The squirrels chittered in worry, and even Daniela looked up in mild concern.
Mari, her maternal instinct for some reason surfacing at this moment, rushed over and picked up the wet, sandy Dani-slave. "You okay, kid?"
"Yeah," Pez said, spitting sand. "I guess I just lost my balance. I'll be fine."
"Okay. Be careful getting up the volcano. You've been having a run of bad luck lately."
"I know," he shrugged. "It happens."
"Well... okay." Mari backed off. He was obviously embarrassed and didn't want any more attention focused on him. She sidled over to Dream and whispered, "Poor kid, he probably should be back on the mainland, with ambulances and emergency rooms."
"Yeah," Dream nodded. "He reminds me of that guy you used to date... what's his name..."
"You can't mean Justinian."
"Yeah, that's him."
"Dream. Be serious. Justinian wasn't a klutz. He had death wishes."
"Oh. Right."
"Can you get these dang squirrels away from me, please?!" Mari shrieked as one of said squirrels attempted to climb her leg.
UPChuck chirruped, and the squirrels scampered over to him.
"I never knew Uly could talk to squirrels," Dream said, an odd look on her face. It was either thoughtful or happy, and probably a combination of both.
"Yeah, he's a regular Doctor Dolittle." Mari scuffled over to her sleeping bag and started rummaging for her scrunchie. If she was hiking today, she'd need it.
***
"Reverse alphabetical this week," Inda declared as the sun set. The seven contestants sat in the rough semicircle of the voting area, picking at various scratches, bruises, and blisters obtained while hiking up the volcano. "That means UP-- I mean, Ulysses is first."
"Geez, Inda, we've known each other for two weeks now. You can call me UPChuck like everyone else. Or you can call me--" UPChuck engaged in a strange chattering. "That's what the squirrels call me. It means great white overlord."
"That's great," Inda said, smiling politely. "Go vote."
At the table, UPChuck scratched briefly on his paper before looking into the camera and saying, "Pez has got to go. He's been killing the fire constantly, which takes forever to start up again. He spilled the calamine. He's burned dinner twice. And I think he kicked one of the squirrels. Besides, he serves no purpose here except to run errands for Daniela. She should have to use squirrels like the rest of us."
"Pez."
"Marianna was really nice to me today. And Daniela's got immunity. I like the other girls, too. UPChuck and the squirrels are really creepy, but I'm even more scared of Dava and that mind-reading thing he can do. Wizards in general scare me. Even Daniela. Anyway, I vote for Dava."
"Marianna."
"I feel really sorry for Pez. Like I told Dream earlier-- and I know that convo wasn't secret-- he belongs where there are emergency rooms. I hope he has a nice break from Daniela."
"Dream."
"Mari's right, one more night here and Pez will probably need stitches. Besides, he's the one I'm least attached to."
"Doreen."
"Well... I voted for Pez last time, so I guess I'll vote for him again. I still like everyone else too much to vote for them."
"Dava."
"UPChuck scares me, but Pez is dangerous to the group. I *think* the squirrels are harmless, anyway. Bye, Pez."
"Daniela."
"Oh my gosh is Pez getting on my nerves lately! The kid has completely lost all motor control! Maybe he's sick. Anyway, he can't stay here anymore. I'm goin' nuts."
Dani popped her voting paper into the bucket, then carried the ballots over to Inda. "Hey Inda, how come we can't vote you off, for waking us up so damn early every day?"
Inda grinned. "Host immunity."
"I bet he got immunizations against the tse-tse flu, too," Mari grumbled.
Dream broke into laughter. "How do you come up with these things?" she gasped. "You're so funny, Mari!"
"I had all day hiking up the stinking volcano to think up one-liners," Mari muttered under her breath. Only the web cams caught it.
"Okay, here's the results!" Inda said, waving the ballots in the air. "Pez... Pez... Pez... Pez... Dava... Pez... Pez."
Pez nodded resignedly. He'd expected this.
"And don't even worry about hiking back down. We're just going to airlift you to Layla:) & Memorial to make sure you don't have any nasty disease affecting your balance and motor skills," Inda declared grandly. "But the rest of you still have to hike."
"Not me!" UPChuck laughed. "The squirrels built me a chaise, and they're going to carry me down!"
"Boy, those squirrels are lucky you're a ninety-pound weakling," Mari quipped. This time even Dava smiled in appreciation. It seemed some of the contestants were already doubting their votes, as a stretcher was lowered from a LifeSaver helicopter and Pez was strapped safely in.