When there wasn’t much else to distract her attention, which of course was always the case at Camp Virtue, it turned out that Eliza could stay angry for longer than Eloy had previously thought humanly possible. First it was little things. Eliza started going to bed early and skipping Eloy’s regular campfire. Eliza’s calisthenics time changed abruptly, and whenever he adjusted his schedule to meet hers, it would change again. Then, If he needed to tell her something, he would always have to say it twice. Sometimes he would say it the second time and she’d say “what was that?” and he’d be obliged to say it again a third time. Other times, his second attempt to communicate would be met with an icy “Yes, Eloy, I heard you.”
By November, the rift between them was so palpable that the whole group had become chillier along with the weather. Eloy didn’t know if Eliza had said anything to them, but it was clear to him who was taking what side in this quiet fight.
If it had ever been really friendly, Gabriel’s attitude with Eloy had become brusque, and more often than not, Eloy was beginning to suspect he was underselling how much English he had learned in order not to interact with him. Angel seemed grumpier even than usual. At first she focused it on Eliza herself, especially when she ignored Eloy, saying “Eliza, Eloy is speaking to you,” sometimes with a “carajo” for good measure. Overall, though, she interacted with Eliza much more than with Eloy, and everyone knew whom she respected more. Eventually she stopped speaking up, and seemed to accept Eloy’s shunning as the new normal.
Destiny was happy as long as Eloy kept coming up with creative desserts to feed her. Or s’mores. She never got tired of s’mores. One evening she and Eloy were again the only people at the campfire. Angel came to supervise the lighting, but now more often than not left once the fire was started and she had the blowtorch back in her safekeeping. Destiny expertly mashed marshmallows onto a stick until the whole stick was obscured in the mushy white cylinders.
“Destiny, how are you going to roast that?” Eloy chuckled.
“I roast one side, then the other.” Destiny carefully grabbed one end of the stick and then the other to demonstrate.
Eloy grinned approvingly. “Sounds great. Let’s see you try it.”
Destiny nodded and held her marshmallow wand out over the fire. When it was nicely browned, she pulled it back and grabbed the other end. “Ouch!” she withdrew her tiny hand, covered in hot melted marshmallow.
“Try taking those ones off,” Eloy suggested, “and then holding that side to roast the others.”
“No,” Destiny put her hand in her mouth and sucked on it. Then she grabbed the squishy half-melted marshmallows again and held the stick over the fire.
“Eloy, when is your birthday?” Destiny asked.
“Well, let’s see. Eloy tapped his chin thoughtfully, When would I like it to be?”
Destiny rotated her stick as the marshmallows browned on the bottom.
“How about today?” Eloy asked.
Destiny jumped, “Oh no! I don’t have a gift for you! Can you have your birthday tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Eloy laughed, “I don’t mind having been born tomorrow at all.”
“Great,” said Destiny, sliding her marshmallows off her stick into a goopy pile on a black and starred tupperware top. She carefully maneuvered her prize between two graham crackers, then slid in a bar of chocolate.
“Eloy,” Destiny asked, gaping in a marshmallow-chocolate smeared yawn, “what is Hell?”
All the energy went out of Eloy in a rush and he sighed. “Who told you that word, Destiny?”
“Eliza said your god told you we’re being tested and and and it’s a stupid test and and and we’re going to Hell. She says that there’s a secret your god told you that you won’t tell us because you only care about yourself.”
Eloy furrowed his brow, “Do you believe her, Destiny?”
“No. My mommy told me God loves everybody and so everybody goes to Heaven. She said there’s no such thing as Hell.”
“What did Mr. Tiger say?”
“He never wanted to talk about it. He said to focus on this world and then when I came to the next world I would learn what to do about that then.”
Eloy smiled, “That’s very wise of Mr. Tiger. Now you are in the next world, though, so what will you do?”
Destiny thought about that. She took another bite of her s’more. She had completely finished her s’more by the time she spoke again. “It’s the same,” she declared. “I’m just sad everybody’s mad now. Did your god tell you a secret? You can tell me. I pinky swear I won’t tell anyone.”
“I do have a secret,” Eloy grinned. Destiny’s eyes widened.
“My birthday was yesterday.”
“Oh no!” Destiny squealed, “I missed it! No, no, no, make it tomorrow again!”
“Ok, it’s tomorrow. Let’s get to bed so my birthday can come faster.”
“Ha ha, ok”
Eloy poured his bucket of water over the fire and he Destiny headed back to the cabin.
That night, storm clouds brewed. Eloy would rather be sitting outside brooding in the rain, but it was too cold, so he had brought a dinner chair out to the cabin’s roofed porch. He had taken to keeping the guide to virtue folded and on his person at all times, like Angel did with the blowtorch. Now that people suspected, he figured he could count on his room being raided. He hoped again, as he had many times in the last month, that the end of this stupid challenge would come soon, and he could just get to heaven and quickly forget the difficult decisions this bizarre situation forced him to make.
He pulled the guide out again and studied it again for any further hints as to what his strategy should be, but nothing stood out to him besides integrity and humility. “I haven’t lied to anyone,” Eloy mumbled, “I can’t even guess what humility means in a competition with just one winner.”
A sound made Eloy leap from his seat and spin around, shoving the guide behind his back. The door remained shut, rattling in the wind. Eloy gave an exhausted sigh. Every muscle in his body felt tense. He folded his paper up and returned it to his pocket. “Please end soon,” he prayed before returning inside to go to bed.
Samuel Munk 
Sad for Eloy.