Club Calypso: Survivor

Week Three

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     "What's that, Mister Froggy? You want some banana?" Doreen Flagg carefully chewed a bite of banana and spit it into the waiting mouth of her pet frog. A few feet away, Marianna Trench and her sister Daniela DeSka made some very convincing retching sounds.
     "'Dori, might I say that that is the singular most disgusting thing I have seen on this island? And that is taking into consideration Mari's ruptured mosquito bite last night," Daniela said, ever the tactful, loving sister.
     "It was a pimple," Mari growled.
     "On your leg?"
     "Okay, it was an ingrown hair." She started picking at the scab. It itched, now that they were talking about it.
     "Some people are trying to eat lunch over here!" UPChuck shouted from his perch on a log on the other side of the fire circle.
     "Yeah, please," Dream Sylvia Driad said, looking green.
     "Hey, I'm not the one mouth-feeding a frog," Daniela snorted delicately. "I'm just eating my banana and commenting on the mouth-feeding."
     "Okay, if you-- all of you-- do not stop doing disgusting things and commenting on it, I am going to... uh..." Dava Guru Jini faltered, wondering what exactly he could do to punish them. They were all on a bug-infested tropical island, after all, and trapped there for six more weeks (or until they got voted off the island). He didn't have his crystal ball, his wand or staff, or any of his Wizardly accoutrements. Not that spells ever went right anyway-- not on the first try.
     "I think we should all just try to remember that we are on a live webcam," Dream said, then shivered violently as she spied Doreen dropping more pre-chewed banana into her frog's mouth. "Doreen! Knock it off!"
     "Huh?" Doreen said, looking up from the beloved amphibian. Apparently, it was a substitute for her sometimes-boyfriend, Frogman. Or whatever their relationship was. "What's everyone looking at me for?"
     "Please stop feeding the frog," Mari begged. She didn't normally beg, but this situation truly called for it. "Please, we can't take it anymore."
     "What?" Doreen asked, confused. "But he's hungry."
     "Honey, he'll feed himself. It's the way of animals," UPChuck said patiently. He gestured to the squirrels, who had claimed him as their king the week before, and were now munching on acorns. "See? The squirrels get their own food. The frog can, too. Besides, I think the banana will give him a tummy-ache. It's not normal food for him."
     "Yeah, and the last thing we need around here is a vomiting frog," Dani said.
     Dream ran for the trees, clutching her stomach. Dava turned two or three distinct shades of green while mulling it over, then took off to a separate part of the jungle from Dream.
     "Daniela," Mari said, shaking her head. She was clearly divided between laughing and joining the others in the woods.
     UPChuck took a deep breath and rolled his eyes to the sky to collect himself. "No more feeding the animals, okay Doreen? And Daniela, one more word out of you..."
     "What?" Daniela said, defiantly chewing a bite of banana with her mouth open. "You gonna beat me up, skinny boy?"
     "Probably not, but I might," Mari butted in. "Now knock it off, butthead."
     "If you weren't my sister, you would so totally be outta here!"
     "Dani, nobody can leave till the next vote-off."
     "Damn stupid island. Damn stupid Inda..." Daniela was off and grumbling, but thankfully she got up and walked down the beach before it could get really irritating.
     Doreen had stopped feeding the frog, but only because the thing had started hopping toward the water, and Dori felt it necessary to save him from the waves.
     Which left Marianna and UPChuck staring at each other over the fire.
     "So, how's your banana?"
     "Finished." Mari tossed her peel into the fire, which was not strong enough at the moment to actually incinerate the peel. Instead it started a slow burn that would probably smell pretty nasty later on. But they'd found the smoke kept the mosquitoes at bay, and after last night's bite rupture episode, Mari definitely wanted to keep the bites to a minimum. "Why the hell am I on this island?"
     "Because you haven't been voted off yet?" UPChuck guessed.
     "Please don't say yet. I need the money."
     "Yeah, to rebuild the club. Hey, if I win, I'll give it to you. We need that club. Layla:) is unbelievably boring without it."
     "Thanks." Mari watched the fire eat away at the banana peel in silence. UPChuck, sensing that Mari was going into another of her thoughtful periods, slipped down to the shore to watch Doreen and make sure she didn't accidentally drown herself chasing after the frog.

***

Challenge, Week Three: Treasure Hunt
     "Hey, gang, it's challenge time!" Inda said cheerily as he bounded off of his jet-ski and onto the island. The jet-ski was the latest addition to Inda's water-based toys, which had grown increasingly expensive and noisy as the money rolled in from advertisers on both the island's web-cam site and the weekly television series/highlight reel.
     "Ooh boy," UPChuck said. "What this week? A chewing gum bubble-blowing contest?"
     "Pin the sleaze on the lounge singer?" Mari chimed in.
     "Pin the-- what?" Inda said, staring at Mari. She shrugged. "Well, anyway. No, actually, in response to requests that the challenges be more challenging, I've looked at the old tapes again and found something very interesting. This week's challenge is..." Inda paused for dramatic effect. "A treasure hunt." Blank stares bounced off Inda's head.
     "This is a joke, right?" Mari asked. "How is this a challenge? We follow a map, or clues, or something, and we get the treasure. And the immunity. Right? How do we get a single winner out of that?"
     "The challenge isn't in finding the treasure, but in getting to it," Inda said, trying to be mysterious.
     "Oh God, it's inside the volcano," Dani groaned.
     "Daniela! You were watching!" Inda accused. "Okay, move it to the safety site," he commanded into his wristwatch.
     "Okay, Dick Tracy?" Dani snorted. "It was a wild guess. You haven't exactly mastered subtlety."
     "Neither have you," Mari grinned.
     "All right, that's enough from both of you for one episode," Inda glared, blushing profusely. "Give us half an hour to change all the clues and the hiding place. And don't move! No sneaking around the island."
     "How about meandering?" Mari asked.
     "Or traipsing?" Daniela chimed.
     Inda glared again and jet-skied back to his yacht.
     "So... who's up for a game of tag?" Dani said, and hit Mari in the arm. "You're it!"

***
     Slightly more than half an hour later, Mari, Dani, and Dream were lying on the sand, exhausted from playing tag. Dream had joined in after Dava and UPChuck started talking politics, and Doreen got wrapped up in her frog-coddling again. While she was in relatively good condition, Dream hadn't realized the DeSka girls played full-contact tackle tag. There was definitely a bruise forming on her thigh when Inda's jet-ski made its way to shore again.
     "Oh good, you've exhausted yourselves," Inda addressed Mari and Dani.
     "Oh good, you haven't lost that charming personality," Mari panted.
     "Here's your first clue." Inda forged on without acknowledging Mari's comment.
     "Where the Heart of Layla:) lies
     Is the first step toward the prize."
     "Oh wow, they rhyme, too," UPChuck said, miming gagging. His flock of squirrels imitated him as best they could.
     "You've only got seven hours of daylight left. Six hours of good light. You might want to start working on the clue."
     "Wait, are we supposed to work together?" Dava asked.
     "Is it even possible to work alone?" Dream said.
     "Oh, you'll eliminate yourselves as you go," Inda shrugged, then turned and left.
     "See, now that's mysterious," Dani said.
     "No, it's not!" Mari said. "It's just damn confusing."
     "Well, let's work together for starters, anyway," Dava said, taking command. "The heart of Layla:)."
     "Well, all of Layla:) is to the east," Dream said.
     "But I don't think there's any way to leave the island," Mari put in. "Being stuck here is sort of the point. So it must be metaphorical."
     "Heart of Layla:)..." UPChuck mused. "I always thought the Club was the heart of Layla:)."
     "No, it's the soul," Mari corrected. She frowned. "It was the soul. But at any rate, it's gone now, and even if it wasn't, it was on the mainland."
     "One of my titles is Heart of Layla:)," Dani said dreamily. "One of the pageants I won last year, when I had running water and a curling iron--"
     "We don't need to hear about your dumb pageants," Mari dismissed her, then stopped short. "Metaphorical-- or pop cultural. Where the Heart of Layla:) lies--"
     "My sleeping bag!" Daniela cried.
     "That's a better clue than I would have given Inda credit for," Dava remarked to UPChuck as the girls (minus Doreen) searched over Daniela's sleeping bag.
     "He must have good writers."
     A cheer went up as Mari spotted a piece of paper stuck inside a tear in the bag's outer shell. She carefully unfolded it and read aloud:
     "You may think this clue is nuts,
     But just give it a chance.
     Watch for details, watch for birds,
     Be glad you're wearing pants."
     "Huh?" Daniela blinked.
     "My thoughts exactly," UPChuck agreed.
     "Watch for details," Doreen repeated. Everyone stared at her, startled. She'd been even quieter than usual since the incident at lunch. "It's the only part of the poem that's informative and direct."
     "True," Mari said, surprised that Doreen had put a thought together-- and a coherent thought, at that. "But what details?"
     "Birds? Pants?" Dream shrugged.
     "Nuts," UPChuck grinned, looking at his squirrels.
     "Nuts?" Dani said. "As in, UPChuck is nuts?"
     "As in acorns-- an oak tree." The squirrels chattered menacingly at Dani.
     "Watch out for birds," Mari nodded. "Birds live in trees."
     "And pants-- you wouldn't climb trees in a dress," Doreen piped up again.
     "I sure wouldn't," Dava cracked. Only UPChuck bothered laughing. "Wow, tough room."
     "Come on. Where do the squirrels get their acorns from, UPChuck?" Dani demanded.
     "Beats me," he shrugged. "Squirrels?" He started chirping and clicking at the squirrels. Mari shivered involuntarily. "They say about a mile northwest of here, as the trees go, but further and winding for humans on foot," UPChuck announced.
     "Peachy," Dani growled. "I hate walking."
     "As the trees go?" Dream asked.
     "They have a network of trees-- a sort of highway made up of branches that are touching or close enough to jump. They actually told me it's exit 78 off of Route 3."
     "Sure. Let's just walk it. I feel safer on the ground," Mari said. She started off into the jungle. With no better plan in mind, everyone else followed.

***

     "I still want to know how Inda got that clue into my sleeping bag without my noticing." Daniela had kept up a steady stream of complaints and color commentary on the hike to the oak tree. This was at least the third time she'd mentioned the "Great Sleeping Bag Mystery". Mari found herself unbelievably glad to see a change in foliage from jungle-type to forest-type. Everyone else seemed relieved, too, except Doreen, who kept her usual vacant look. Even the squirrels, it seemed, were increasing their hyper chatter.
     "Look, Daniela," Mari said. "Acorns on the ground. We're almost there."
     "Ugh. Thank goodness, my knees are about ready to buckle."
     "Maybe if you'd worn sensible shoes..." Dava grumbled, uncharacteristically. He usually found Daniela tolerable, if not entertaining. Grumbling was generally reserved for either Marianna, or Dani's other sister Pandora (who was currently pursuing a graduate degree in Liberal Arts at Newshregsburg University).
     Suddenly, their destination loomed up out of nowhere. The oak tree's branches were in miraculous full green. It was late fall in Calypso Beach, and while the weather was still warm, normal trees had already turned and lost their leaves in preparation for the mild winter. But somehow, it didn't surprise the Survivors one bit that the out-of-place oak tree on Inda's island, like the man-made volcano, was acting abnormally.
     "Does this island have a name?" Mari asked randomly.
     "Not that I know of," Dream shrugged.
     "Hell?" suggested UPChuck. Everyone else just looked mystified.
     "I was just wondering what kind of island has a tree that forgets to lose its leaves," Mari said, gazing up at the very green, acorn-laden, squirrel-inhabited tree.
     "A freak island," Daniela said. She grabbed a low branch and tugged to test its strength. "Let's climb."
     "You guys go ahead," Doreen said, looking fearfully up at the tree. Her frog hiccuped.
     "But Doreen, if you quit now, you won't have a chance at the prize," Dream tried to explain.
     "Don't care. Don't like trees. Mister Froggy is scared of heights." Doreen pursed her lips in what everyone supposed was a resolved look for her. They'd rarely seen one before, so it was an educated guess, but it seemed to be confirmed when Doreen sat down on the forest floor and refused to budge.
     "Well, thanks for helping us figure out the clue to get here, anyway," Mari said. To the others she whispered, "Do you think she'll be okay here, alone, till we can come back for her?"
     Dava searched the trees briefly before saying, "Inda's likely got cameras all over here, and someone should come by to get her soon. He may be a bit crazy to set this up, but not cruel."
     "No, not cruel," Dani agreed. "Especially not to Doreen."
     "Well, you've both spent more time with him than I have, anyway," Mari conceded. "Shall we climb?"

***

     A hot-air balloon floated serenely amid the tree-tops, a pink confection in the green canopy. Mari squealed with delight when she saw it. "Pink!"
     "Cripes," Dani muttered. "I guess the clue is in there?"
     "Yeah," Dream said, reaching into the basket as she balanced precariously on a branch. "Did everyone get up here okay? Should I read?"
     "Go ahead," puffed UPChuck, the last to reach the top.
     Dream cleared her throat delicately:
     "The balloon is a part of the clue;
     The shape, and the color is too.
     But what is above
     Will be moved to below
     And protected with friends from the zoo."
     "They get worse," UPChuck sighed. "Limericks."
     "What next, a sonnet?" Mari groaned.
     "What shape is the balloon?" Dani asked. "It just looks balloon-shaped to me. How can that be part of the clue?"
     "Who knows?" Dava shrugged, almost losing his balance. "Let's focus on the color. What's pink on this island?"
     "Calamine lotion!" Dani laughed.
     "The last pink I remember is my bucket from the sandcastle contest last week," Mari recalled. "I doubt that's it."
     "Something in nature that's pink," Dream thought aloud.
     "Wait-- go back to the sandcastles," UPChuck started. "Doreen's water lilies-- weren't some of them pink?"
     "Oh! Now I see it," Dani cried, craning her neck skyward. "The balloon is shaped sorta like an unopened lily. It's hard to see from underneath, but it's there."
     "So what about 'what is above will be moved to below'?" Dream re-read the clue.
     "Sky is above-- blue," Mari explained. "So blue-- water-- below the lily. That's the pond."
     "Gotcha," Dream nodded. "Friends from the zoo?"
     "Who cares? Let's find the pond!" Daniela said, clambering into the basket. "Does anyone know how to fly one of these things?"

***

     "This pond is less blue than it is green," Mari said, eyeing it warily.
     "And it smells funny." Daniela wrinkled her nose delicately. "Where's the next clue?"
     "Not in the pond, I hope," Mari sighed. She'd gotten a bit nauseated by the bumpy balloon ride (Dava knew the technical stuff of flying one, but had no practical experience), and if she had to go in that smelly algae...
     "Here it is," Dava said, plucking a piece of paper off a tree.
     "You've probably gotten sick of leaves
     So why not try a rock that breathes?"
     "Back to couplets, I see."
     "UPChuck!" Mari yelled and threw a lilypad at him (and a good handful of damp algae, too). "We already know you were an English major. Just hush up already, wouldja?"
     UPChuck glared at Mari, but wisely kept his mouth shut as he cleaned his face of pond scum. It's like having Frogman on my head, he thought, then shivered.
     Everyone else was already discussing the clue. "Rocks that breathe?" Dani was asking.
     "Not a rock," Mari said. "Something that looks like a rock, but is alive."
     "Coral," Dream said. "There's a coral reef not far from our camp."
     Everyone nodded, glad they wouldn't have to spend much longer discussing this. It was less than an hour till sunset, and the mosquitoes would be out soon. Getting this "treasure" hunt over with would be a blessing. Even though nobody knew what the treasure was.
     Mari noticed movement from the pond out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head, she saw two round eyes peeking out from between lilypads. "Um, guys? Remember that part of the last clue that said 'guarded by friends from the zoo'?"
     "Yeah?" Dream asked.
     "Um... I think I found them." An alligator slithered out of the pond and started lumbering toward them. Dani screamed.
     "Shall we take the balloon?" Dava suggested.
     The ladies shoved past Dava and UPChuck, leapt into the balloon, and started undoing the knots anchoring the balloon. The guys barely made it into the basket before Daniela tugged the gas cord and they flew into the sky.

***

     "There," Dream pointed. Her finger shook slightly. She wasn't taking this balloon ride very well. "That peach smudge."
     "Peach?" Mari said, raising an eyebrow at Dream.
     "Yes, peach," Dream reiterated.
     "Looks more like coral to me," Mari quipped.
     A hand flew out of nowhere to smack her upside the head.
     "Hey!"
     "Sorry," Dani grinned, looking not at all sorry. "It's my anti-dope reflex."
     Mari smacked Dani. "Sorry, it's my anti-bitch reflex."
     "You two--" Dream snapped. She was cut off as Dava landed the balloon with a bump. "Phew. Dava, you're improving, but until you're a master, I will not ride in a balloon with you again." She clambered out of the basket, held onto the edge for a moment as she regained her balance... then promptly threw up on her own sandals.
     UPChuck (who Mari, at that moment, diplomatically decided to think of as Uly again) was out of the basket in a flash and escorting Dream to the water's edge to rinse her mouth (and the unfortunate footwear). "Um, I think we're going to head back to camp. Good luck with the rest of the treasure hunt," he called over his shoulder.
     "Heheh... now I only have to get rid of you two, and I win!" Daniela crowed.
     "That's really not an attractive verb for you," Marianna sighed. Dava just rolled his eyes. "So... let's search the darn coral for the next clue."
     The trio climbed-- carefully-- over the coral, eyes peeled for the tell-tale flutter of paper. It was not forthcoming.
     "What the--" Dani muttered. "Did somebody lose their Walkman?"
     "What?" Dava said, picking his way past a cranky mussel to where Dani was perched, holding a hunk of black plastic in her hands.
     Mari got there first, and reached over Daniela's shoulder to turn the Walkman over. A sticky label on the back read "Musical Clue". "Great, now it's like Jeopardy," Mari laughed. Jeopardy was her favorite show, because sometimes she actually didn't know the answers and could learn something. Something trivial, of course, but it seemed that most things were, anyway.
     Dani pressed play as Dava came to hover over her other shoulder.
     "Under the sea, under the sea
     The last clue will be there,
     Under the sea there,
     Take it from me!"
     "Gee, I wonder where the last clue is going to be," Dani snorted.
     "I think that's a copyright infringement," Mari and Dava said at the same time. They glared at each other. "Not to mention really, really bad," Mari continued.
     "But where under the sea?" Dani asked. "I mean, it's pretty big."
     Mari cast around, looking for a likely place. The water was generally shallow here, and Inda wouldn't make it that easy. Would he?
     "I hope it's in the shallows," Dava said, looking warily at the water.
     "Why?" Dani asked. She was also looking out at the water, mostly how it was turning orange and pink as the big red sun rapidly sank below the horizon.
     "Because..." Dava took a deep breath. "I can't swim."
     Mari and Dani froze for a moment. They had known Dava for years-- since they were all in middle school, in fact. Almost fifteen years.
     "You can't... swim?" Mari asked, her voice strangled.
     "Are you hydrophobic?" Dani was very confused.
     "No," Dava said, shaking his head sorrowfully. "I just never had time to learn. I was always studying."
     "But... you've lived in Calypso Beach your whole life. Everyone takes swimming lessons at the beach when they're little. Mari was taking surfing lessons when she was seven!"
     "My parents want me to be a lawyer. So I studied." Dava was rapidly turning as pink as the sunset.
     "Well." Mari thought she should be having difficulty being kind, but apparently shock was ruling the day. "Why don't you go back to the camp? You can probably catch up with Dream and Uly if you hurry. We won't say anything."
     "Thanks." Dava nodded, got off the coral, and dashed off down the beach.
     Mari found herself thinking that he still ran like a track star, even after all these years of law school and Wizarding college. "Hmm."
     "What?"
     "Nothing. Shall we dive?"

***

     Back at camp, Doreen was napping quietly with her frog. Dava and Dream were talking quietly near the fire, discussing the clues, how it was weird that Marianna and Daniela kept winning the challenges, and how everyone seemed to be throwing up today. UPChuck was, well, upchucking into the grass at the edge of the camp.
     All in all, it was not a good day for stomachs.

***

     Mari was a little ticked off at Inda. Not only was he making them dive near the coral reef when it was almost dark out, but he hadn't supplied them with diving gear. Not even snorkels or goggles. And a waterproof flashlight would have been a real help.
     Instead, she had to rely on her training as a SCUBA diver and hold her breath for minutes on end as she searched the reef and surrounding ocean floor. Luckily, she had that kind of training, as well as a few months experience as a pearl diver many years ago. She hadn't exactly kept up on all that training, though, and it was tough to stay under for more than a couple minutes at a time. And the salt water, while cleaner and clearer than that at Calypso Point, was stinging her eyes as she searched.
     She surfaced again, gasping for air.
     "Anything yet?" Dani called from the shallows. Of course, Dani had only her swimming experience to aid her, no diving training, and she'd always had trouble keeping her eyes open under water. Mari kept hoping she'd get bored and go away, but she was always there whenever Mari popped up.
     "Nope." She gulped more air. "There's no time limit on this challenge, is there? I'm about to die of asphyxiation, and it's getting harder to see anything between the increasing darkness and the spots in front of my eyes."
     "What, you mean wait till tomorrow morning? Come on, Mari! I don't want to go back to that damn camp without winning!"
     Mari groaned again, feeling her stomach churning. Almost like being on that hot air balloon again. She inhaled, closed her eyes, and dove.
     Under the surface, little tropical fish flitted by. On the ocean's floor, tiny crabs and things scuttled around. There was hardly any seaweed around here, thank goodness. Mari got creeped out by seaweed.
     Her eyes flicked back and forth, not sure what to look for after that "Musical Clue", and especially considering the clue was bound to get wet down here. It had to be wrapped in plastic, right?
     Then, just as she was about to lose her double lung-ful of air-- again-- she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. On the ocean floor, not five feet away, was a plastic bag held down by a bright pink shell. The movement was the plastic, pushed by the currents.
     Sure her lungs would burst, Mari propelled herself toward the shell and bag. She grabbed up both in one hand, and with the other pushed up toward the surface.

***

     Daniela was getting bored. Mari just kept diving and surfacing, diving and surfacing, with no results. It also vaguely bothered her that she couldn't do anything about it. The clue was down there, and it wasn't coming up without someone finding it and bringing it. And Mari was a former professional diver, so who better to find it, right? And yet... this inaction was starting to nag at her.
     Mari's head bobbed up again, and she did that "gasping for air" thing.
     "Well?" Dani asked impatiently, hopping up and down.
     "Got. It," Mari panted.
     Dani splashed into the deeper water. "Give it here! What does it say?"
     Mari handed over the bag-- but not the shell. That pink beauty was hers! She floated, exhausted, and let the tide drag her back to shore.
     Daniela read:
     "We're sure you've noticed it's getting dark,
     But the path to the treasure's no walk in the park.
     The prize is a thermos, full of hot java,
     To get it you'll have to watch out for the lava."
     "Oh, for--!" Dani spat out. "He never moved it! It was in the damn volcano all the time. Imagine the time we could have saved. Hey, Mare? I'll see you back at camp."
     "Huh?" Mari said, flipping off of her back and nearly drowning herself as she realized that Daniela was taking off for the volcano without her. "HEY! Wait for... oh, never mind."
     Mari tried to be philosophical. She and Dava were the only ones left on the island that drank coffee, so they'd probably end up with the thermos anyway (mmm, coffee). Dani would only have the immunity for the week-- not like she really needed it, but neither did Mari. She was sure either UPChuck or Doreen would be voted off this week, for sheer weirdness.
     Besides, did she really want to mess around with that volcano?

***

     Daniela hung by a bungee cord over the lip of the volcano. She was head-down, arms extended, reaching for a silver thermos. "INDA, I WILL CREAM YOU FOR THIS!" she shouted as she pulled in her stomach muscles, hoping her harness would slip just enough to give her the last inch she needed.

***

     Inda's Narration, Week Three: Yeah, right, Dani. Professional dancer or no, you're going to have sore abs for the next year!
     Ahem. I've been trying not to editorialize, but I'm starting to regret even having this contest. I knew, God help me, I knew that these people were weird before I put them on this island, but it gets worse and worse by the week. Being stuck together like this brings out the freak in them! How many more weeks? Four? Oh, wonderful...

***

     The next morning, Daniela sat by the fire, munching her usual banana and debating whether she really wanted coffee. Doreen was, again, mouth-feeding Mr. Froggy.
     Everyone else was huddled in their sleeping bags, avoiding the morning fog, and trying to ignore Dani's cheerful humming. They had had a rough night. Dava, Dream, UPChuck, and Mari had all come down with some kind of tropical flu.
     Inda, who had also gotten the disgusting virus, was subdued as he was rowed to shore by a strapping young cameraman. Dani considered flirting with him (the cameraman, not Inda!), then remembered the annoying clause in her contract that said she wasn't allowed near any of the crew.
     "Morning, everyone," Inda muttered. "Due to our recent illness, the voting thing is going to be held right here. You don't even have to get out of your sleeping bags."
     "Do we have to talk to the camera?" Mari mumbled from the depths of misery.
     Inda hesitated, then thought about what she probably looked like under that sleeping bag. After all, he'd seen his own face in the mirror this morning. "No, only if you want to."
     "Thanks."
     "Remember, Daniela has immunity this week." Inda flopped down by the fire to rest while the cameraman handed out scraps of paper and big grease pencils. The Survivors weakly scrawled their votes, then folded the scraps to await collection.
     "Anyone want to comment to the camera?" No response was forthcoming, as Doreen had immediately gone back to her frog, and Daniela was still mad at Inda. He started to read votes. "Okay, one for Doreen... another for Doreen... one for me-- Dani, you can't do that! One for Mari, one for Uly, and one more for Doreen. Okay, frog-girl, we're getting you some counseling."
     Doreen was so wrapped up with the frog, she took no notice.
     "Uh, yeah. Kevin, put her in the boat," Inda directed the cameraman. "Then come back here and carry me over there. I can't seem to move my legs."
     Mari poked her head up out of the sleeping bag just enough to show her eyes. "Keep her away from Frogman, Nett, if you value your life."
     Inda gulped.