Last Family Standing

by Jennifer AlLee

  Problem is, I’m not the only one on the island who feels that way. I may not have known them long, but it’s been long enough to know this: nobody is going down without a fight.

  14

  Our first night is miserable.

  One conspicuously missing item in the crates is flint. Despite the fact that we all give the rubbing-two-sticks-together approach a try, the closest we get to fire is a few puffs of smoke and some hot wood. It makes me feel a little better that the Singletons, as Layla has started calling the other teams, don’t do any better. But having no fire is bad on many levels. There’s no way to cook the beans or rice. There’s no warmth and no light. In the end, we fumble our way into the shelter cold, hungry, and ready for the day to be over. Then the rain comes, just as predicted. And while our raised shelter keeps us from lying in water, it doesn’t do a thing to protect us from the holes that show up in our palm frond roof.

  Now it’s morning. We’re cold, wet, exhausted, and facing a terrifying reality.

  There is no coffee.

  Across the camp, Trevor stamps out of his shelter. “This is ridiculous. How can they expect us to live in these conditions?”

  His wife, who I finally found out is Wendy, runs after him. “It’s not so bad, Honey. Besides, even if we had coffee, we don’t have a fire to brew it over.”

  “Not helping!” He growls and disappears around the trees, with Wendy right behind.

  Meanwhile, back in our shelter, I’m the only woman awake. Now that the rain is over and the roof has stopped dripping, the rest finally fell asleep. Sal and Malcolm are already leaning over the so-far-incorrectly-named fire pit, attempting to spark a flame by magnifying the sunlight through the lens of Sal’s glasses.

  Hunkering down between them, I squint at the pile of kindling they’ve assembled. “Any luck?”

  “Tons,” says Malcolm. “All of it bad.”

  “While you conquer fire, I’m going to see if I can find something edible in the jungle.”

  Sal waves one hand without looking away from his task. “If you find a Starbuck’s, I’ll make you the Island Queen.”

  Laughing, I stand up and go to the crook of the tree where we put the machetes to keep them semi-dry. I grab one, start to walk away, then stop. Something isn’t right. I go back to the tree.

  “There are only three machetes.” Really, I was talking to myself, but the guys overhear and a second later are standing next to me.

  “How did they sneak over here and grab the machete without anybody noticing?” Sal glares over at the Singletons.

  “All the rain last night would have covered the noise.” Malcolm looks at the ground. “And washed away any footprints. I really don’t care how they did it. I want to know who did it.”

  After the scene last night, Bob is the obvious suspect, and the men look like they’re about ready to go over there and tear into him. But the last thing we need is to start day two with a fistfight.

  “Guys, why don’t we let it go?”

  They look at me like I’ve announced I’m defecting to the other side. “You can’t be serious,” Malcolm says.

  “Yes, I am.” I sigh and cross my arms tightly over my chest. “Look, if we only had one machete and it had gone missing, I’d be right there with you. But we still have three.”

  Sal frowns. “And that gives him the right to take one?”

  “No, of course not. But it gives us the opportunity to stay out of a confrontation. We’ve got more important things to deal with than fighting over a big knife.”

  They don’t say anything at first. Then Sal snorts and moves back to the fire pit. “He’s probably broken it by now anyway, trying to chop his way into a boulder.”

  “Thank you,” I say to Malcolm.

  He shakes his head. “I’m not promising I won’t say something eventually, but for now, I’ll leave it alone. Happy hunting.”

  Malcolm joins Sal. One of the girls rolls over in the shelter. I have a sudden desire to be alone, so before they all wake up and want to know what I’m doing, I hustle my way into the jungle, with my own personal cameraman hot on my trail.

  ***

  “I found bananas!”

  Stumbling out of the jungle, my prize held aloft, I expect to be received back with hurrahs like a hero. Instead, Jess storms up to me, hands on her hips, eyes narrowed in a glare.

  “Where have you been?”

  What kind of question is that? We’re on an island. There are only so many places I could go. “I went to look for food.”

  “You look like you’ve been wrestling a cat.”

  I look down at the scratches on my arms and legs. “Climbing a tree is harder than it looks. I slid a few times.”

  “You need to be more careful.” Jess takes the machete from me, as if I might accidentally chop off my foot while we talk. “It would be terrible if anything happened to you now.”

  A warm glow spreads from my neck to my toes. She cares about my well-being.

  She obviously noticed my silly grin and realizes how I interpreted her words, because she rushes to set me straight. “If you break a leg or something, you’ll be off the show, and I won’t stand a chance at winning.”

  Silly me.

  Before I can wallow in my misery, Gracie bounds up to me. “Bananas. Cool!” She takes them from me and I follow her over to our still-fireless fire pit.

  Layla wrinkles her nose. “They’re kinda green.”

  “They were the best I could find.” Truth is, they were the only ones I could get to, and that had been iffy for a while. “Once we get the fire situation figured out, I can come up with different ways to cook things. For now, anything we eat has to be raw.”

  Layla’s eyes are wide. “Please tell me you’re a chef.”

  “I’m a chef.”

  “Woo hoo!”

  The prospect that I might just be able to prepare bananas and coconuts in unique ways sends Layla hurrying from person to person, sharing the news. For the most part, the hearers look impressed.

  It seems my island-cred just went up a little.

  “Has anybody noticed something missing?” Jess asks.

  Sal nods. “Yeah, we discovered the machete this morning.”

  “No, not that. That.” She points across the beach. “Where are the Singletons?”

  Not in their camp of single-occupancy shelters. Uh oh. “Shouldn’t we have gotten mail today?”

  Simultaneously we break into a run. Evelyn is the first to reach the pail. When she looks inside, she mutters and pulls out a curled piece of paper. “They didn’t bother telling us about this.” Without waiting to be asked, she reads aloud.

  “You’ve made it through your first night. Now it’s time for your first competition. If you win, tonight could be your first comfortable night on the island.”

  “They can’t start the challenge without us, can they?” Jasmine’s hands are clasped together in front of her, and she looks about ready to crumble.

  Malcolm offers her a consoling rub on the back. “I’m sure they won’t do anything until we get there. This is just a way for the other teams to get under our skins. But we’re not going to let them.” He looks us over. “Everybody ready?”

  A chorus of “Yes!” is his answer. Then we race-walk to the challenge area.

  It doesn’t take us long to reach the right spot, but by the time we do, most of us are huffing and puffing. I seriously hope this challenge doesn’t involve running.

  “Nice you could finally join us.” A perturbed Rick Wolff sits in a director’s chair beneath a shade umbrella. He makes a point of looking down at his watch.

  Sal waves at Rick. “Would have been here sooner, but we were never informed there was mail.” Then he zeroes in on Bob. “But we still managed to get here, even without a map.”

  Bob takes a step toward Sal, but Rick stands up and gets in front of him. “Is that true? You didn’t share the mail?”

  “Hey, don’t blame me.” Bob waves a finger at Trevor.
“It was his idea.”

  “Way to roll over and play dead,” Trevor says. “I just suggested it, kinda like a joke, you know? But then everyone else wanted to do it.”

  Now that Trevor has given them all up, the Singletons begin yelling at each other. Rick calls for order several times, but they completely ignore him. Finally, he pulls a chrome whistle from the pocket of his khaki shirt and puts it to his lips.

  Not only does the shrill blast get their attention, it scares some birds out of the trees. Instinctively, I duck at the same time I look up to verify they really are birds. When I look at Rick, he’s smiling at me, but he immediately pulls his attention back to the Singletons.

  “Apparently, there’s some confusion about the purpose of pail mail. It’s to give information to everyone at camp. There aren’t a lot of rules in the game, but this is one of them. If it happens again, there will be consequences.” He pauses long enough to slowly look down the line, making eye contact with every contestant. Then he claps his hands together and grins. “Let’s get to it.”

  Now that the scolding is over, I have a chance to take in the challenge area. It’s about the size of a football field. Stationary cameras are set up all around the perimeter, and about half a dozen steady-cam operators are taking directions from a petite woman sporting the biggest pair of headphones I’ve ever seen. In the middle of all the commotion is the play area. It’s filled with poles of different colors, and each pole has a bag tied to it.

  Jess sidles up beside me. “What do you think?”

  I look over at her and wonder if she realizes our shoulders are touching. Be cool, Monica. Just a simple strategy session. “The colors have to mean something.”

  She nods. “There are eight different colors on the poles.”

  “And three poles of each color.”

  It doesn’t take long for us to figure it out. The poles are arranged so that no two like colors are beside each other. We’ll need to go to the poles with whatever color we’re assigned and untie the bag from each one. What we don’t know is what’s in the bags and what we have to do with it.

  I lean so close to Jess’s ear that her hair tickles my nose. “Memorize it.”

  “What?”

  “Try to memorize the course.”

  I saw a lot of different challenges during my week of cramming with Jules. And if this challenge is the kind I think it is, memorizing it will give us an edge. I want to tell this to the others in our alliance, but we probably don’t have much time. So Jess and I stay where we are, burning the course into our minds.

  Sure enough, just a few minutes later, a production assistant directs us all to one side and has a rep for each team draw a colored ball out of a box. Jess draws an orange ball, which is now our official team color.

  She wrinkles her nose and hands me one of the orange bandanas the PA gave her. “The worst color possible.”

  “Not really.” I motion toward the course with my chin. Several of the colors, particularly yellow and green, tend to blend into the background. Orange is probably the easiest of them all to spot.

  Jess gets my point, because her nose relaxes and she almost smiles.

  Once all the rocks have been picked and bandanas handed out, the PA has us stand on mats that match our team colors. Then Rick stands in front of us and off to the side, next to a big lump of something covered in burlap. Here it comes. He’s going to start talking in his TV host voice. It has a very specific cadence, and I’ve noticed he slips into it whenever the cameras are nearby. It’s not as warm and casual as the way he talked at my house or on the plane or in the jungle, but it’s effective for the purpose it suits.

  After some general exposition for the home viewing audience, he gets down to the rules of the challenge. I’d been right. Each team has to get to all three of their poles and remove the bags. The bags contain puzzle pieces. After the team has all three bags, they start working on their puzzle. The first team to finish is the winner.

  “Ready to know what your prize is?”

  We make the appropriate, affirmative shouts to his rhetorical question. Then he pulls a burlap cover from the lump beside him.

  “Everything you need to make life a little more comfortable. A tarp, rope, hammer, and nails. And most important . . .”

  Please be flint. Please be flint.

  He holds it up. “Flint.”

  I can’t help myself. I shriek and clap and jump up and down, just like most of the other women. Amazing what one cold, hungry night can do to you.

  Rick grins. “Before we start, there’s one other twist you need to know.”

  Darn. I should have known the challenge was too straightforward.

  “Only one member of each team will retrieve their bags from the poles. And they’ll be wearing one of these.” He pulls a black eye mask from one of the roomy pockets of his cargo shorts. “The other team member will be the caller, positioned on the perimeter of the course. The caller guides the blindfolded person by shouting directions at them.”

  Amidst the groans and fist pumps and smack talk, Jess bumps her shoulder against mine in what I take as a silent version of “atta girl.” Memorizing the course had been a good idea, in theory, but there was no way to tell where we’d start from, or if the blindfold would go on before or after we were positioned at the course.

  “This challenge requires clear communication between the caller and the seeker. It’s a true test of how you work together as a team.” Rick puts one hand in his front pocket, then looks down at the fat, black watch on his other wrist. “You have five minutes to strategize. Starting now.”

  The chatter begins, and Jess turns to me. “Are you better at yelling directions, or at following them?”

  That’s a loaded question. In my line of work, I am forever issuing orders: to wait staff, to sous-chefs, to prep cooks. Owning my own business makes it even more important that everyone who works for me does their job quickly and correctly. Still, Jess isn’t my employee, she’s my daughter. The daughter I’ve just met. I can’t stomach the idea of screaming orders at her.

  “I’m better at listening,” I say.

  “Cool. I can scream like nobody’s business.”

  Great.

  Ten minutes later, we’re all in position. There are four platforms on either side of the course. The callers stand on them, and the seekers stand in front of them on the edge of the course. Our blindfolds are adjusted.

  “Ready?” Rick calls out.

  As ready as I’m going to get.

  “Go!”

  It’s pandemonium. I take one step forward and, even though I was standing right in front of the course before the blindfold went on, my mind goes completely blank. All the callers are yelling, and I can’t distinguish Jess’s voice. Hands out, I take another step and run into someone.

  “Watch it!” Bob’s voice yells.

  Frustration takes over, and I yell back. “I’m blindfolded. I can’t watch anything!”

  “Monica!”

  Finally, I hear my name. I turn my head toward the sound of her voice. “Where do I go?”

  “Take three steps forward. Then turn left.”

  Got it. One step. Another step. One more—“Ouch!”

  I collide with another body. The impact spins me sideways and knocks me off my feet.

  “Oh no! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Who did I just run into?”

  That’s Gracie. I struggle to stand and turn in what I think is her direction. “It’s Monica.”

  “Man, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

  Before I can answer, I hear Sal bellowing. “Gracie! This isn’t a cocktail party. Get moving!”

  “Good luck,” I say. Then, since I have no idea where Jess is now, I tilt my head back and yell into the sky. “What now?”

  Jess gets me back on track. I make it to our first pole, but not without running into three other people, and having my foot stepped on so hard, I’m pretty sure the toenail will fall off. I feel around the pole until I find the bag
, and then discover how hard it is to untie a knot when you can’t see it. When I finally get it free, Jess guides me back to her and I toss the bag up on the platform. From the grunt, I may have hit her with it, but if I did, she doesn’t say so. She just sends me back out into the fray.

  The entire time, Rick is making like he’s on ESPN, commenting on our progress, who’s ahead and who’s falling behind. Mostly, I’ve tried to ignore him in order to concentrate on Jess, but now he gets my attention.

  “Wendy’s doing a great job guiding Trevor. He’s got his second bag and is heading out for the last one.”

  No. If I can’t win, it needs to be someone in my alliance, not one of the Singletons. “Jess!” I yell. “Let’s go!”

  The girl wasn’t kidding when she said she was a good screamer, although I doubt she’ll have much of a voice left by the time this is over. Getting to the second pole takes much less time than the first one, as does untying the knot. In fact, I’m feeling a little smug when I get back to the platform.

  “Trevor’s still fumbling with the last bag,” Jess says quickly.

  “Be my eyes, Jess. Let’s win this.”

  I push myself, moving faster than I thought I could. Now that I can pick her voice out of the cacophony, I’m much more secure. We’re going to do this.

  “Dad, stop!”

  “Mom, stop!”

  Mom? I turn my head, even though I’m still moving forward. Did she just call me—

  A solid body mass barrels into me with such force that I turn in a complete circle. Stumbling, I throw out my hands, desperate to break my fall. And I do, only it’s not with my hands. It’s with my face.

  My forehead makes contact with something hard. Light explodes in my eyes, which isn’t right, since I’m still wearing a blindfold. Next thing I know, I’m on my back, and Rick is shouting.

  “Everybody stop! Stand where you are and don’t remove your blindfolds.”

  Stand where you are. But I’m lying down. Should I stand? I want to raise my hand to ask, but it’s so heavy, I just give up. Lying down is good. I’ll stay here.

  There’s a commotion beside me, people kneeling, talking. Something goes around my upper arm and squeezes. I sure hope a python isn’t eating my arm.