Pernicious

Chapter 8: The Third Challenge

Chapter 8

A lot of booing came from the crowd, probably because they didn’t want their average score to get any worse.  

Professor Reboredo continued, "All who participated in the Bandeira Curso will need to attend the Dining Hall tonight at seven O'Clock sharp to await further instruction.” He paused, “There are no exceptions, everyone must participate. ”

A terrible feeling came over me, the nurse specifically told me that I should continue to rest my body. Now they are forcing me to participate in the next challenge. It’s do or die out here. Either I could participate in the third challenge, and win the Grand Qualifier, or I could just give up and all this work would be for nothing. Addie and Melissa hung out with me the rest of the day. At ten to seven, Addie, Carter, Melissa, and I started to walk to the dining hall.

Once everyone arrived, Professor Reboredo explained the third challenge.

"Congratulations, you have all reached the final challenge. Today I will partner each of you off with one other person. In this challenge I will assign you a room to work together in to make your own challenge for the other contestants,” Professor Reboredo pulled out list. “Aaron Jones, you will be with Ella Martin. Carter Hayes, you will be with Addison Phillips. Logan Thomas, you will be with Mason Hudson. Ashley Richards, you will be with Melissa Johnson. Amanda Collins, you will be with Nathan Hernandez. Taylor Hemmingway, you will be with Blake Woodson. Paige Roberts, you will be with Jesse Stinson. Would you all please go find your partner? There will be another Professor waiting in Massimo Dutti Coffee Shop, to give you further instruction. Good luck.”

I went to go find my partner. A boy that was tall and muscular walked up to me. “Are you Taylor?”

“Yes, I take it you are Blake?” I replied. He nodded.

The first thing I noticed about Blake was his bright blue eyes. Its’ color looked as if I was swimming in an ocean in Hawaii.  He had feathery chestnut-brown hair that was just long enough that it wasn’t shaggy. His skin was a golden-tan tone. I just couldn’t help but stare at him. He looked like an Abercrombie model.

Once we all found our partners we all started to made our way to the bus. I was consulting with Blake about what we were going to do for our challenge. When all of a sudden that irritating boy named Nathaniel rudely interrupted our discussion.

“Don’t you guys’ just love it here? I’m Nathaniel by the way, Nathaniel Hernandez. Some people call be Nathan, but call me Nathaniel. Did you know that I once had a caterpillar named after myself, Nathaniel.... Until he died, sadly, my other caterpillar named Bruce lived much longer, but eventually died. Did you know that average garden caterpillar has two hundred forty-eight muscles in its head? That reminds me have you ever heard that beetles taste like apples and worms like fried bacon? Oooh I just hate bugs. Did you know that a cockroach can live several weeks with their head cut off?” Nathan continued to rant on and on about useless facts, until Blake kindly stepped in and finally told him to be quiet.

We drove a few miles on our way to Algarve. We were approaching the city limits of Algarve when the bus driver said. “You’re going to have to walk from here.”

We all grudgingly got off the bus. Then Nathan complained. “Well how do you think we are going to get to there now?”

Everyone ignored him. The bus drove away and we were left stranded, possibly miles away from Algarve.

“Is anyone from the Institute of Portugal?” l asked.

“I am.” A girl answered, “My name is Ashley.”

“Well do you think you could show us the way to the Massimo Dutti Coffee Shop?” Blake said.

“Yeah we are about,” She looked into the distance. “two miles away. If we go now we could be there by 7:30.”