Kristen POV:
The next day we left for the chill zone and when we got there Geoff was the first to grab a tip.
"Cool we're flying to the arctic circle," he read.
"Awesome circles are my favourite shape dude," Brody exclaimed. I looked at Marnie as she giggled at Brody's enthusiasm. I grabbed a tip for us as well, and began to read it.
"We have to get there by Cessna. And it's two or three teams per flight. And as an added bonus there are more boomerangs in play now," I finished reading.
Confessional: The Daredevils:
"This is perfect! Both of us have been to the arctic circle to go scuba diving! So yeah, we've got this," Marnie smile folding her arms.
"Agreed, I mean as long as nothing bad happens we really have a proper chance at actually winning!" I said.
End Confessional
After we'd finished reading the tip we ran past the Haters in the direction of the airport.
"Good luck guys," Brody smiled.
"Yeah, rock it!" Geoff cheered.
"Do your best!" Marnie smiled at them. They gave us odd looks as we passed and reached the airport quickly. Hurrying we got on a plane, which then took off with us. In addition we had the Surfers and the Dater/Haters and got changed into winter clothes on our way there. I put a grey beanie over Marnie's head as we touched down in the Arctic Circle. Once our plane came to a halt Brody took a tip and so did I.
"Oh, it's a botch-or-watch," Brody began.
"You two rode the bull in Alberta so this one is on us," I finished as Brody handed Geoff his tip and I continued to read mine.
"Find a ring hidden somewhere in the snow," I read.
"And toss one onto a narwhal, ha-ha, Narwhal, ha-ha," Geoff laughed, liking how the sound of narwhal was similar to gnarly.
"So what's a narwhal?" Brody asked.
"It's basically a whale with a horn, but interestingly enough it's a tusk," Marnie explained.
"Oh, so it's a water unicorn," Brody smiled.
"Sure, it's a water unicorn," Marnie giggled. After reading the tips we got to the right location with the Daters and the Surfers. Ryan found himself the first ring and tried throwing it but the narwhal he threw at ducked out of the way so Ryan missed his first shot. Meanwhile Geoff and I were frantically searching for rings and digging through snow dunes.
"Woo-hoo-hoo! Awesome searching dudes," Brody cheered.
"You the man and you the woman!" Marnie cheered. Before suddenly an Inuit popped out from underneath the snow.
"Um, you the man too," Marnie said as he high-fived her.
Confessional: The Daredevils & The Surfers:
"This is horrible," Geoff said.
"We haven't even found a single ring yet," I added.
"Yeah, guys don't stress you've got this," Marnie smiled
"No worries compadre's ha-ha," Brody laughed. "I mean usually we're the ones letting you down, this is a nice change," he added.
"Well that's true," Geoff said, as Brody glared slightly. "Ha, I guess I'm pulling a Marnie-Brody," Geoff laughed. Brody and Marnie both looked a little saddened at this sentence. Although, I felt a little bad but I wasn't the one who said this.
End confessional
As we continued our search, Ryan ringed a narwhal before it went back underwater, both of them then argued before leaving. While Marnie was comforting a depressed-looking Brody, I reached into the snow and managed to find two rings.
"Here, Geoff," I said, giving one of them to him. He smiled and ran toward the water.
"We found rings!" he cheered, as he threw his ring, but because there wasn't a narwhal anywhere, he just threw it into the water.
"Whoa, dude wait until you see a water unicorn," Brody said.
"Oh, right, right, ha-ha sorry," Geoff said. I spotted a narwhal and threw my ring but I came up just short. Groaning I turned back and I started to search through the snow for more rings. But tension was rising quickly, and more teams were arriving. I found and then grabbed more and more rings from the snow but missed each and every one of them. Geoff then ran up clutching around nine rings and he threw them all at the narwhal, but all of them missed, shocking even the narwhal. Then, Ennui walked up to the edge of the ice, and held his ring out, a narwhal popped out of the water and the tusk went into the inside the ring. Ennui then dropped the ring onto the tusk. They walked away and left the rest of us in disbelief. In any case, I was still missing my ring throws but they were just continuing to miss.
"If only I had taken basketball lessons instead of gymnastic ones," I thought to myself, throwing another ring but once again I came up just short as it hit the narwhal in the face. Owen also managed to ring a narwhal, and we had now gone from second to tied for fourth. I found another ring and squared up with Geoff. At this point the narwhals were laughing at us and our misfortune. Then the two of us threw our rings, mine went into the water, but he accidentally hit one of the cameramen.
Confessional: Brody, Marnie and the Inuit:
"Man, this is so intense we were in first and second, but now two teams are ahead of us," Brody said.
"Agreed, the only thing worse than botching a botch is watching a botch," Marnie said, groaning. Brody then patted her slightly on the back as they both smiled at each other.
End confessional
"Don't give up, Geoff, you can do this," Brody smiled.
"Yeah, come on Kristen!" Marnie said to me. Geoff and I then both threw our rings. Once again, I missed, but Geoff somehow ringed a baby seal, it jumped out and gave us a confused look. After that we went back to searching again.
"Come on, come on," Geoff said to himself while digging.
"Don't worry Geoff, we can do this," I said, as I also searched through the snow.
"Oh hey, are you four still here?" I looked up and spotted the Ice Dancers and glared slightly.
"Ha! I thought your partners were the weak links on your teams but maybe not," Josee said, I knew she was talking bullshit. But at the same time I was worried I was letting Marnie down. Geoff also looked quite downtrodden, but we gathered more rings and continued to throw, but just continued missing more rings. Okay, this was getting ridiculous.
"It's okay dude you're doing... great," Brody cried.
"Don't worry Kris you've got this," Marnie said, but there was a slight downtrodden tone in her voice. I knew this was a total low point for me and her. Geoff and I then got ready but unbeknownst to myself and him, when we threw our rings they somehow ended up around the necks of our partners. The two of them looked completely dead inside. Brody then cried a bit into his gloves as Marnie gave him a sympathetic look. Suddenly, Josee ringed her narwhal.
"Yes! Oh hey good luck, I hope you don't lose your best friend or your sisterly bond because you're both so bad at this," Josee said, as she and Jacques drove away on their snowmobile. I glared as Marnie handed me the ring from around her neck. Geoff and I both made an agreement to talk to both Marnie and Brody about what the hell was going on.
"Dudes we're sorry if we ever made you feel bad about botching a challenge," Geoff started.
"But you couldn't disappoint us if you tried," I added.
"And we're both sorry if we're making you feel like you're letting us down," Brody said.
"Because you aren't! No! You couldn't!" Marnie said, emotionally.
"Aw guys, who cares about the ring toss? Now we gotta group hug!" Geoff smiled as we all wrapped each other in a hug. I threw my ring over my back with Geoff doing the same. Hearing a ringing sound I felt Marnie open her eyes.
"Guys, you ringed it!" she smiled, showing us that both of our rings had landed on the same tusk of a narwhal.
"Sweet!" Geoff smiled. Suddenly, Carrie ringed her narwhal as well. They ran as we quickly followed. I let Marnie do the driving, being the faster driver out of the two of us. As we were driving, I saw Geoff and Brody were having a small conversation with each other. Suddenly, we saw them narrowly avoid the baby seal from earlier and they flew off a cliff and into the air and they fell into the snow and went in around a metre deep.
"Marns stop," I said.
"Already on it Kristen," Marnie said, pulling over so we could help them out. As I grabbed onto Geoff's arms I tried to pull him out. And Marnie tried the same with Brody. The seal then jumped into the hole. I cringed as it attacked Geoff and Brody I tried pulling it off but the seal then turned to me and stuck its mouth over my face I felt totally blind as I screamed and tried pulling the seal off. After a while, I pried the seal off and then helped Marnie pull the guys out of the hole. Before the seal attacked me again. Marnie groaned, then she grabbed and threw the seal into the water. Before we ran toward the next area, when getting there I smashed down the Don box and I grabbed the tip.
"It's an all-in, for this all-in challenge we need to work together to saw blocks of snow and assemble them into an igloo. If we get a thumb's up from the judge, it's a foot race to the east until we reach the chill zone," I read. "Marnie grab a saw!" I yelled. The four of us ran in. Marnie began to saw blocks and I began to slowly and steadily assemble our igloo. After a couple minutes we finished our first layer. And then after a little more sawing and much more stacking we were nearing the second layer. Suddenly, Geoff came over and pulled me aside.
"Kris, Marnie and Brody both feel like we're dragging them down; he's apparently really upset about the snowmobile incident. And she's really mad about the baby seal thing," Geoff said.
"What? No! Really?" I asked.
"Yeah, we've just got to kick it into overdrive!" he stated.
"Okay got it!" I said as we hi-fived and walked over to our igloo. I grabbed several blocks Marnie had sawed then I started to stack as fast as possible.
"Kris, what are you doing?" Marnie asked, slightly concerned.
"What do you mean what am I doing? I'm stacking our igloo as fast as I can," I said, reaching layer three and grabbing a new block.
"Go slower! If you go too quickly the igloo will-" she was cut off by the igloo falling on top of itself. "Crumble," Marnie said, defeated. I hung my head in shame. Then we began to rebuild our igloo and thankfully most of the blocks were still intact.
"Marnie, I'm so sorry I'm letting you down," I said.
"Huh?" Marnie said, confused.
"Well I heard Geoff, and he told me you were really mad about the baby seal thing," I said. Marnie gave me a look of both confusion and surprise.
"Kristen, listen to me I could never be disappointed in you for three reasons: one! You are one of the toughest girls I know! Two! I know if I needed someone there for me I know you'd be the first to volunteer! And three! You are the person I admire the most out of everyone I know! Even if you can be a bit of a coward sometimes," Marnie said, I smiled.
"Marnie, that is the nicest thing you've ever said to me," she smiled and then she and I hugged then she must've realised something then she pulled apart before she looked at me before thinking.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"You do have a point though, we need to make these blocks faster. I've got it! You carve and I'll stack!" she said.
"On it!" I said, getting on my hands and knees and carving blocks pushing several of them toward Marnie as she began to carefully stack. Then we heard the Ice Dancers gasp and look over at us and the boys. Then Marnie and I glared at them. My sister smirked as she added the last block to our igloo. When we called over the local she gave us a thumbs up we hugged her and cheered before we left. The Surfers finished right after us. They joined up with us momentarily, and we all smiled at each other. Then we took off running, east just like the tip said. When we looked back we spotted the Ice Dancers. Thankfully we were the first to touch down on the carpet, the boys then touched down right afterwards and stood next to us.
"Wow! First and second place!" Don said. From behind us we heard Brody cry, which was understandable given the day we'd had and all the stress he'd gone through, which I can assume he wasn't used to.
"All I said was first and second place. First and second place are good, what's his problem?" Don asked.
"Sometimes a dude's just gotta cry Don," Geoff explained said, before Brody wrapped him, myself, Marnie, and Don into a hug.
"Help! A little help here?!" Don asked. As I saw a massive blush spread its way across Marnie's face.