Two days before setting off to Sunnybrook, I'd been standing in my bedroom packing my suitcase, debating whether I should bring my good shoes or an old pair. My good shoes were leather ankle boots and I wore them everywhere. My old shoes were a pair of red Converse that had patterns scribbled all over the front in black biro. They had holes in the soles and the laces were frayed, but they were comfortable to wear. For this reason (and because my leather ankle boots cost way too much to get damaged on a school trip) Mum made me take the Converse. I'd also opted to take one of my favourite jumpers with me, simply to impress Thomas. It was red, so at least it matched my shoes.

However, that afternoon I quickly realised colour co-ordinating your outfits didn't matter so much when you were about to embark upon Sunnybrook's toughest obstacle course with a boy who apparently had no fear of mud or dirt of any sort. I also learnt that it wasn't the greatest idea to wear canvas shoes with holes in the soles, especially not when they were the only pair of shoes you'd bought with you to last the entire trip.

Put it this way: we got dirty and wet.

We woke up bright and early (actually, scrap that—there was nothing bright about the situation, for the simple fact that it was early and we'd had hardly any sleep after everything that had happened with Ben and Hayley during the night) to meet the rest of the group downstairs in the dining hall. Hayley handed out little bags that contained our orienteering equipment during breakfast, and when everyone had eaten she took us outside to where the fields were and set us off on our first activity: map-reading skills. It was the most boring task ever. We all had to walk around in our pairs, finding different areas on the map and noting down the colour of the little wooden sign waiting for us in each spot. Thomas and I spent the majority of the time talking and avoiding all contact with Lizzie and Ben. We found five colours altogether, and didn't win the prize.

When it was all over, we headed back to the main building to collect lunch, and it was then that Hayley ordered us to change into our 'scruffy clothes'. Knowing that I was going to be paired with Thomas again, I decided against doing so (besides, my other jumper was all dirty from being worn over the past two days and I really didn't want him to be able to smell me before he saw me...ick). I chose to wear my red jumper instead, with jeans and my Converse with holey soles. I scraped my hair back into a ponytail and met the others down by the entrance to the youth centre.

"Okay, everybody," Hayley shouted out to the group, "it's just begun to rain so I'm warning you now, you're going to get muddy out there. But I don't want any complaints. Think about it—you could be stuck in a classroom back at school right now, having to sit through a boring Maths lesson, or something." Sure. Because that would have been so much worse... I raised my eyebrows at Thomas and he laughed beside me.

It took us about ten minutes to walk to the obstacle course. It was nestled by woodland, and I stepped in about five deep puddles on the way, so by the time we arrived my feet were already soaked through. The rain was coming down hard, and it fell through the leaves of the trees in big splotches, wetting my clothes and causing my hair to hang in clumps around my head. I wasn't too interested in how I looked, though—I was far too busy enjoying the fact Lizzie was struggling to keep up the Miss Perfect act. Her mascara had run beneath her eyes and her blonde hair stuck to her head in the most unattractive way, so that her eyes seemed to bulge out of her face and her body looked out of proportion. I noticed how Thomas didn't take a second glance at her.

That said, I didn't notice Thomas taking a second glance at anybody today. Other than speaking to me, he seemed uninterested in socialising with anyone else. Not that I minded; I liked having his attention. I'd also been finding it so much easier to hold a conversation with him after the past few days, which just made the whole situation much better.

As Hayley called out the instructions to each of us, Thomas and I went and stood in place at the beginning of the obstacle course. In front of us were a selection of logs, all different shapes and sizes, sticking up from the ground in a pathway. Hayley explained that we needed to use our initiative to get around the course, and that we'd be timed. Two pairs would be going around at the same time, and the winning team would be the ones with the fastest time who had done everything on the course correctly. We weren't allowed to skip obstacles. Everything had to be completed, and there would be members of staff dotted around at random intervals to observe us so that they could make sure we weren't cheating.

"Right," Hayley called out, "first up we'll have Megan and Daniel on the course nearest to me, and Rachel and Callum on the course over there."

We watched as the two pairs lined up at the beginning of each course, looking back to Hayley for her permission to go. She counted down from three, her face all red with excitement, and the groups braced themselves to set off. As Hayley shouted, "Go!" both team suddenly rushed to climb on top of the wooden logs. Megan and Daniel ended up jumping for the same log at the same time, and fell back onto the floor. Megan was laughing but Daniel looked a little less pleased. Over on the other side, Rachel and Callum had already crossed the logs and were now moving onto the climbing wall. I watched as they clipped themselves to the safety equipment and began the ascent, grabbing hold of the footholds and making the whole process look pretty easy.

I imagined what was on the other side of the enormous wall, and found myself swallowing hard at the thought. Exercise wasn't my favourite thing in the entire world. In fact, it wasn't even my second favourite thing...or third...or fourth... You get the picture. I certainly wasn't any good at it, and bad luck seemed to be on the agenda for me, judging by the past three days.

It took the teams five minutes to get around the obstacle course. They appeared behind us, red in the face and out of breath, with mud splatters all over their clothes. They were laughing, which was reassuring—obviously, they hadn't had any near-death experiences back there. They joined the back of the queue and everybody turned to Hayley to find out who the next two teams would be.

"Great work, you guys!" Hayley jumped up and down much too excitedly, clapping her hands. "Next up, we'll have Sophie and Thomas on the course closest to me, and on the other course we'll have Ben and Lizzie!"

I let out a groan. Beside me, Thomas' shoulders slumped. We gave each other a look and reluctantly walked over to the beginning of the course. I could hear Ben sighing as he made his way over to the other course, and Lizzie muttered something under her breath that I didn't quite catch.

"You ready for this?" Thomas asked, giving me a wink as we positioned ourselves near to the logs.

I laughed. "No, but I guess we have no option. We have to beat those two!"

"Too right," Thomas said. He focused his attention on the course and nodded. "And we're going to, Soph. Don't you worry about that."

I smiled and focused on the course, too. From beside us, Hayley counted down from three, and when she shouted, "Go!" my mind suddenly jumped into action and I dove for the logs. Thomas did the same, and he reached over and grabbed my hand as we stepped across them.

"What are you doing?!" I laughed, turning to look at him for a moment.

Thomas laughed, too. "I'm hurrying us up!" he called across. "Just run with me. But look where you're goin—oh my god, Sophie!" As he spoke, my foot slightly missed the log I was about to step on and I fell through onto the ground. My body jolted forwards, but Thomas' hand pulled me back up again. I quickly found my footing and recovered, though the both of us were laughing even more.

"You're so clumsy!" he called across.

I couldn't talk for laughing too much, and all I could think about was the fact he was holding my hand and his skin was warmer than mine and it felt so nice, and my thoughts were running off on a tangent so much that I didn't realise the climbing wall coming up in front of us until Thomas stopped dead suddenly and I bumped into his back.

"Bloody hell, Soph!" he cried, laughing still. "What's going on? Concentrate! You said so yourself, we need to win this thing!" He moved to hook the safety belt around me and then reached for his own. Nodding in the direction of the wall, he gestured for me to climb with him.

Easier said than done...

I climbed the first few footholds fine, but on the fourth one up my shoe slipped and I fell backwards again. I grabbed hold of the wall just in time, so I didn't lose my place, but afterwards I couldn't climb onto the other footholds because the soles of my shoes were too slippery. Above me, Thomas climbed on, completely unaware that I was struggling.

"Thomas!" I called up to him. "I can't climb any further! My shoes are slipping!"

He spun his head around to look at me. "Serious?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. I can't climb any further."

Thomas laughed and shook his head. In an instant, he was climbing back down the wall, moving across so that he was closer to me. "Okay," he said when he was right near me, "I'm sorry if you don't like this, but we need to get you over this damn thing. They're almost at the top and we can't let them beat us. Now, when I say climb, you climb. Okay?"

I didn't get a chance to reply. All of a sudden, Thomas' hand was around my thigh, and he was pushing the back of my leg, right beneath my bum, and calling up to me to "Climb, Sophie! Climb!" Now, this made me laugh because I kept thinking back to that scene in Forrest Gump where Jenny shouts, "Run, Forrest! Run!" and the fact that his hand was basically touching my bum was also amusing, but greater than anything was how his strength had somehow managed to elevate me three footholds higher in just one push, so now we were neck-and-neck with Lizzie and Ben and it felt like I was floating on air.

"Thomas!" I cried out through my laughter. "Keep pushing! Harder!"

"Don't shout out such dirty things!" he called up from beneath me, laughing too. His head was level with my waist and, at hearing this, I burst out into another fit of laughter and swatted at his hair.

"Come on!" I shouted back. "We're almost at the top!"

Again, Thomas pushed me up, and again I burst out laughing, and again his head became level with my waist, and then the whole process was completed twice more until eventually we were at the top of the wall and able to see what was on the other side.

And the moment we saw what we were about to face, I wanted to cry.

Attached to the back of the climbing wall was a large net, which sloped down to the floor. It looked like Thomas and I would have to let ourselves fall into the net and slide down it, and that was a horrible thought because the drop was so high. But that wasn't the worst of my worries. Beyond us lay a large area of swampland, and there were various ropes suspended above it. We were going to have to pull ourselves across using our upper-arm strength, and the only place we'd be able to place our feet was on the small piece of wood attached to the end of each rope.

"Oh, my God." I stared out at the course in disbelief.

Thomas, beside me, let out a low whistle. "Wow..." He turned to me and shook his head. "But we can't think about it, we just have to do it. Look!" He pointed in the direction of Ben and Lizzie. "They're almost over the wall."

Sure enough, as I looked across, Lizzie dropped down over the other side of the wall and slid gracefully along the net until she reached the bottom. Then, Ben began his descent. I turned back to Thomas and nudged his shoulder.

"Okay, go, go, go!" I shouted, hurrying to lift myself over to the other side.

"We'll go down together!" Thomas said, grabbing my hand when I was next to him and pulling me tight against his body. My stomach flipped. "You ready?" he asked.

"Just go!" I shouted, smiling out at the scene before us. The smile was wiped off my face almost immediately, though, when Thomas lunged forwards suddenly and then we were falling down, down, down the net. My stomach twisted and my legs knotted with his. My head ended up wedged beneath his neck and Thomas' arms slipped so that they were grabbing just below my chest instead. I could feel the blush on my cheeks as it all happened, but still I couldn't stop laughing.

"Hurry up!" I called out when we finally came to a halt at the bottom of the net. I stood up and brushed myself down, reaching a hand out to help Thomas up. He was red in the face and laughing too.

"Right, Soph," he ordered, grabbing my hand again and running with me towards the swamp. "You go first. If you fall, I'll grab you up. If I fall, ignore me and carry on. Just make sure you get to the other side before those two!"

I nodded. "Gotcha."

"Good."

Thomas grabbed me around the waist to steady me as I grabbed hold of the first piece of rope and gently placed my foot on the small piece of wood. The whole thing wobbled and, as I lifted my other foot, I moved forwards, crashing into the next rope along. I heard myself scream out, but then suddenly I was catching hold of the second rope and I'd somehow managed to move my feet across. And then I was on the next rope. Then the next. And suddenly I was halfway across the stinky swamp, and Thomas was only two ropes behind me.

"You're doing great, Soph!" he called out, and I got butterflies at hearing his encouragement. "Well done! You're almost there now! Come on!"

Body working on a mixture of exhilaration and the fact that if I stopped I'd fall into the swamp, I carried on jumping between the ropes, checking back over my shoulder every few seconds to make sure Thomas was still behind me. Over on the other side of the swamp I could see Lizzie struggling to keep her balance, and behind her Ben perched precariously on the third rope along, holding on for dear life with a frightened expression on his face. All I could think was that we were going to beat them, and that we were doing so well we might have a shot at winning the entire competition.

Of course, it was becoming a recurring theme that nothing good lasted for long in Sophie Allen's life. I should have known that something would go badly pretty soon.

However, it seemed the bad luck had been shifted onto the shoulders of someone else. As I stepped off the rope onto the other side of the swamp, feeling jubilant and sure that we were going to win, there was an ear-splitting scream and then a noise like a wet towel hitting against some floor tiles. The smile was wiped off my face completely, and as I turned around to see Thomas stepping off the final piece of rope I saw that his attention had been stolen, too.

"Guys, help!" From across the swamp, Ben was clinging desperately onto the rope he was standing on, looking down into the swamp. Lizzie was nowhere to be seen. All that was visible was one brown boot—Lizzie's boot—floating on top of the thick, murky water.

"What happened?" Thomas shouted back.

Ben shook his head. "She just fell in!" he called. "I think she might have hit her head on the way down, or something. I don't know. Please just come and help us! I can't move off this thing! I'll fall in, too!"

Thomas turned back to look at me. I stared at him, eyes wide. I had flashbacks of falling into the swimming pool on the first day, and I could imagine it would feel ten times worse for Lizzie being in a swamp like this one.

Suddenly, all thoughts of winning and getting revenge over Ben and Lizzie were gone. It was obvious from the look on Ben's face and the pitch of Lizzie's scream that this was serious. We were going to have to swallow our pride and help them out, whether we wanted to or not.

"Think you could do that all over again?" Thomas asked me, nodding his head toward the ropes.

I shook my head. "It looks like we have no option." Nudging his shoulder, I set off quickly in the direction of Ben and Lizzie. "Come on, Tom. We need to help them."

Thomas fell into step beside me. "Tom?" he said quietly. I looked at him. His eyes were sparkling and the blush was back on his cheeks. Truthfully, I hadn't realised I'd said it, but it just felt right. I shrugged and smiled. Thomas placed his arms around my waist to help me up onto the ropes and said nothing else.