Chapter Three: The Flock Separates

"Come on, Goldie!" Julie exhorted her fellow goalie. "I'm starving!"

Underneath the paper hat he wore at his family's deli, Greg Goldberg rolled his brown eyes. When Casey had laid down the law back at Mickey's, part of him was happy to have stolen Charlie's thunder. After all, Goldberg's would be the new Duck hangout, not Mickey's.

And if there was one Duck who was even more Duck than Charlie Conway, it was Greg Goldberg: the hero of the JV/Varsity game who scored the lone goal. With this change in hangout for the Ducks, Goldberg felt he was finally in the position to receive his long overdue recognition as the team's most valuable player. He was tired of being 'chopped liver,' after all.

But his teammates in general – and one blonde goalie in particular – had a way of making the king feel like a servant in his own castle. This he simply could not abide.

"Look, Cat Lady…I know you like seein' me move and all, but take it easy. You might make Banksie over there jealous."

"Ooooh," came a faux-shocked chorus from the Ducks.

Julie blushed and looked down at the table in the booth that she was sharing with Adam. Ever since they had begun frequenting Goldberg's, Adam had replaced Scooter as her public 'boyfriend.' This would have bothered her a lot less if Adam had taken it upon himself to act as more than just a friend during this final stretch of summer vacation. Though they had grown undeniably closer, Adam remained impossibly far away to Julie.

He was close enough to sense her discomfort, however, so he leapt to her defense.

"Go on, Goldie," Adam began with a malevolent smile. "Give the people what they want. Shake that thang!"

Coming from someone as straight-laced and prim as Adam Banks, the word 'thang' was riotously funny to others. As the Ducks began laughing, Goldberg saw that the only way to bring this spectacle to an end was to 'give the people what they wanted' quickly, then forget about it.

As Averman began humming a racy tune, Goldberg set the plates he had been carrying down on the counter and began to shimmy. Then, after a minute or so, he began to gyrate while folding his arms.

"That's not a real dance!" Charlie protested. "That's the Macarena!"

Sensing that his teammates were laughing with him rather than at him, Goldberg felt confident enough to stop.

"So it is," he agreed, returning to his work.

With the show complete, the Ducks returned to their meals and conversations. Julie, who had been sitting next to Adam in a booth, grasped his hand beneath the table. The boy thought he was going to faint at the sustained contact.

"Thank you for that, Adam," she offered in a voice just above a whisper.

"F-f-for what?"

He honestly had no idea.

"For getting Goldberg off my back just now."

"Oh, that," Adam replied with an awkward snort. "Don't mention it."

She didn't mention it. But she continued to hold his hand while they sat next to each other in silence. In that moment, Adam felt completely and blissfully alone with the girl of his dreams – the girl whose summer glow was impossible to miss in her white tank top and stone-washed denim shorts; the girl whose emerald eyes were as big and as beautiful of the forests of Maine; the girl whose cool confidence on the ice and in the classroom was complemented by a warm generosity of spirit everywhere else.

His long fingers gave her soft, silky hand a firm squeeze.

She responded by leaning in and resting her head on his shoulder.

"Hope you don't mind. I'm a little tired."

"Not at all."

"Oh, hey guys!"

Julie sat up straight and withdrew her hand from Adam's grasp as Connie joined them in the booth with Guy in tow.

"Did we miss anything good?" Connie asked.

"Just a little shimmy from Goldie," Adam replied.

Guy snapped his fingers with an exaggerated frown.

"Oh, darn."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Connie exclaimed. "Language, Mr. Germaine."

The group laughed at Connie's mock-prudishness, but Julie did so only with considerable effort. After that first day at Mickey's and the gallery, she had never been alone with Adam. Here she was, back in the Twin Cities, surrounded by her fellow Ducks – exactly where she wanted to be during those dreary months back in Bangor.

During that lonely stint back home, Julie figured that she would have it made if only she could be surrounded by Ducks. Having now gotten her wish, she realized that she wanted to be with one of them above all others.

Adam was about to speak when his pager chirped.

Retrieving the device from his pocket and studying the phone number, he let out a worried sigh.

"Excuse me guys, I need to make a phone call."

He slid out of the booth and made for a payphone. Although he had one of those new-fangled cell phones, he disliked the bulk and the weight of it, so he rarely carried it. Given how small the pager was, Adam had no excuse but to carry it, and find a payphone.

It's not like payphones are going anywhere, he thought as he approached the lone AT&T phone that was lined against the far wall of the deli. After sliding in a quarter, pounding in his home number and waiting for a few minutes, the voice of Charlotte Banks came on the line.

"Hey…I mean hello, Mother. It's Adam. Is there something wrong?"

"Nothing too dramatic, just a slight change of plans," she replied. "Your father will be picking you up from that…delicatessen…in a few minutes. Be ready. Bye, darling!"

Adam knew that it was best not to make Philip come inside to look for him, so he suggested to Julie that they wait outside on a bench. While seated, the goalie didn't leave any space between them, but the forward didn't read too much into this. She was tired after all. Eager to get his mind on something other than those long, sun-kissed legs that seemed to mock his 'Friend Zone' status, Adam spoke up.

"So…you all ready for move-in day tomorrow?"

Julie nodded.

"I can't believe how fast these two weeks have blown by."

"Me neither."

He couldn't help thinking that he had allowed his time with Julie to go to waste, and that his dithering had landed him in the dreaded Friend Zone – a desolate and inhospitable land from which there is no escape. Now he was looking forward to the start of school, despite all the hazards of academics and a potential war between the hockey teams. At least there was the possibility – however remote – of other girls and the chance of getting Julie off his mind.

The pair of overachieving Ducks continued to make small talk when a shiny hunter green Range Rover pulled up to the sidewalk. As the driver's window rolled down, Philip Banks stuck his balding head out.

"Well? Are you two just going to sit there and admire my good looks, or are you going to get in?"

Julie giggled as she stood up, while a stunned Adam lingered for a second or two.

Did Dad just make a funny?

Adam was definitely ready for school to begin. This summer only seemed to be getting weirder and weirder.

Though Julie had the jump on him, Adam shot up and closed the distance in time to open the back door for her and usher her in like a gentleman – earning himself an approving nod from his father in the rearview mirror.

"Bought yourself a new toy, Dad?" Adam asked after going round to the passenger side and taking his seat next to Julie in the back.

"For now, anyway," Philip replied. "A brand new '97. I got a deal on it because the '98s are coming out next month. This'll be your birthday and Christmas present if you make the Dean's list this autumn and lead your team in scoring."

Adam's eyes widened at the news. Given that his birthday was December 20th, his father had always used it as an excuse to combine birthday and Christmas gifts; though they were never anything as nice as a brand new luxury SUV. But then, he had never turned 16 before either.

He's gotta be joking.

"No joke," Philip replied, reading his son's thoughts. "Straight-A's and lead-scoring, and this puppy is yours. If you fall short in either then it's mine. Deal?"

"Deal!"

Finally, a bit of summer weirdness that's good!


With move-in day out of the way, returning members of the Varsity and JV hockey teams met at Eden Hall Arena with several aspiring walk-ons the Sunday morning before the start of classes. The arena's furnace had kicked-on just minutes before the hockey players had hit the ice, creating a chilly fog with a foreboding ambience.

Scanning the ice, Adam looked for the two walk-ons that he had been dreading all summer long.

No familiar faces. That's a relief.

"Hey, Judas," came a nasally voice from behind.

Adam spun around to see the sardonic blue-gray eyes of Jake McGill. The sandy-haired ex-Hawk had a natural expression that made it look like he was always enjoying a laugh at some poor sucker's expense.

"Now, now," came a deeper voice that Adam recognized as belonging to Paul Larson. "Play nicely, Jake."

Adam craned his neck –an unfamiliar sensation for him – to look up at the former Hawk defenseman. Larson, formerly the shortest member of their little trio, had shot up past his fellow Hawk alumni and was easily the tallest and strongest of the boys in black. His obsidian eyes looked as dead as ever, but he was affecting friendliness in his tone of voice.

"I think I ran into you a couple weeks ago, Adam – at Mickey's. Too bad you couldn't stay and chat. You seemed to be in an awful hurry."

Adam fixed a cold gaze onto his former Hawk teammate.

"You were with that pretty little blonde number over there," Larson continued, indicating Julie with his head. "Is she single?"

"You stay the hell away from her," Adam snarled, grabbing the defenseman by his black shirt and drawing back a clenched fist.

A small group had started to crowd around the pair in anticipation of a fight.

But before Adam could take a swing, a whistle pierced the air.

"Hey! Knock it off!" Coach Orion barked.

Adam released his grip at once.

The hockey coaches – Varsity's Ron Wilson, and JV's Ted Orion – had arrived, indicating that tryouts were about to start. Wilson, still donning his red and black Warriors coaching gear, had the air of a Napoleon Bonaparte on ice; and he had noted Adam's apparent aggression with approval.

Standing tall and erect –in sharp contrast to his stocky Varsity opposite – Orion still looked like he could play professional hockey. His naturally stern countenance belied a heart of gold, and he was already on alert to prevent Wilson from letting things get out of hand.

"Alright, ladies," Wilson began, prompting Orion to elbow him and indicate the presence of Connie and Julie with his head. It looked like the old Varsity coach's macho speech needed to be modified. Not that he had any intention of ever allowing a girl onto his team.

"Excuse me," he corrected himself with a coffee-stained smile. "Ladies, and gentlemen…"

Adam had heard this spiel before. Eden Hall Academy boasted the strongest high school hockey program in the Midwest. The Varsity squad was perennial state champions (excepting the 'fluke' that was last year's underperformance). Over a dozen current and former NHL players had skated on this ice. To be an Eden Hall Warrior…check that…Eden Hall Mighty Duck, it wasn't enough to be 'good.'

Only the 'great' should bother trying out.

"Anybody who can't handle that can back out right now," Wilson announced. "No need to waste our time or yours."

The Varsity coach stared ahead at the group of hockey players, trying to tease out any sissies. But the players had all remained perfectly still.

"Confident group," he declared. "Let's hope for your sake it's justified," he added before raising his whistle to his lips. "Laps! Go!"

At the sound of the whistle, the players moved to the perimeter of the ice and began doing a prodigious –but undefined – number of laps. These laps weren't merely for warm-ups; they were a means of weeding out the poorly-conditioned.

Five aspiring walk-ons had to fall out, and Goldberg felt like his heart was about to explode when the coach's whistle mercifully sounded.

"Alright, suicides! Let's go, move it!"

"So much for the breather," Goldberg mused bitterly while getting into position.

The whistle sounded again, and the gassed players sprinted across the width of the ice. More walk-ons fell out and eliminated themselves from further consideration. Larson and McGill, along with four others remained standing. All of the returning Varsity and JV players had survived the cardio onslaught, though Goldberg and Varsity's Brian Cole were beginning to look purple.

Then came the skills drills. The orange cones set up for directional skating seemed like a cruel joke to the winded players, who were expected to zigzag and remain upright on legs that had been reduced to rubber.

But the players soldiered on with no fallouts, continuing through stickhandling and blocking drills. McGill leveled Connie with a ferocious shoulder check, drawing the approval of Wilson and the ire of Orion.

"This is not a contact drill!" The JV coach protested.

"All drills are contact drills," Wilson fired back. "This is hockey goddammit! If you all want hugs and compliments, go out for soccer!"

Dwayne was about to help Connie to her feet when Guy pushed him away.

"I got this, Cowboy. But thanks."

Larson quietly observed this exchange and filed it away for future reference.

Wilson blew his whistle.

"Alright, scoring drills!"

There was an audible sigh of relief from the skaters, as things were finally about to get easier.

"Vanderbilt, in the net! Everyone else, line-up alphabetically. Averman…"

The players began to fall-in as Wilson read out the roll.

Once the players were in place, Wilson dropped a puck a few yards in front of Averman and blew his whistle.

Standing just inside of the blue line, the Varsity coach scowled as one of JV's more mediocre players got the puck past his starting goalie. Scooter, a once-dominant goalie, had been a bit jumpy ever since he had given up that goal to Goldberg during the previous year's JV/Varsity scrimmage. Though Wilson's squad had made the state playoffs that year, they fell short of the championship – and his antsy goalie had been a major factor in that disappointing result.

The entire line had taken shots at Scooter, with the senior goalie managing to stop just over half of them.

"Parker!" Wilson barked at Cam Parker, a returning junior. "In the net!"

The drill resumed with Varsity's backup goalie in the net. Parker's performance was by no means lockdown, but it was good enough to give Wilson a ray of hope for his team's chances.

"Alright, everybody! Count off in two's. We'll finish with a scrimmage."

"Uh, Coach?" Orion asked. "Don't you want to see what Gaffney and Goldberg can do?"

Wilson flashed a contemptuous look at the pair of JV goalies.

"That won't be necessary, Ted. I'll let you keep those two," he then turned toward the remaining players. "Count off!"

As the players began counting off, Larson seized Ken Wu rather violently and planted the diminutive forward between McGill and himself – thus ensuring that Larson and McGill would be paired together.

"One's with me, Two's with Coach Orion," Wilson instructed.

The pair of coaches hastily assembled their lines, and at the drop of the puck, war began. McGill and the returning Varsity players proved to be the most violent, though Fulton and Larson got into a near-brawl after the latter hooked the long-time Duck.

The former Hawk had no qualms about driving his fist into Fulton's face. It sounded fun, actually. But the presence of Dean Portman by Fulton's side deterred him. The two Duck defensemen seemed awfully loyal to one another – more information that Larson filed away for further reference.

Play resumed, and as Connie drove the puck toward Scooter, McGill barreled into her again.

"Nice, toughness McGill, nice toughness!" Wilson roared his approval from the bench as Connie struggled to return to her feet.

It was obvious which team the former Hawk would end up on.

Guy gave McGill a violent shove.

"Hey, same team man!" McGill replied with his hands up. "Same team!"

"Take it easy, man," Adam warned Guy, pulling the blond forward away from McGill.

Though in all honesty, Adam thought he would do a 'Happy Gilmore' and use his skate to stab anybody who tried to hurt Julie.

Play resumed, with Julie giving up her only goal to Adam while Scooter gave up 8, much to the consternation of Coach Wilson. But the Varsity coach was confident that his goalie could be coached and trained back into his previous dominance. After four brutal hours, the players who had remained standing were dismissed and instructed to check outside the coaches' office for roster postings the next morning.

As the exhausted and battered hockey players made their way to the locker room, Adam felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Not only would the Ducks not remain intact, but Larson and McGill were going to end up somewhere.

Looking around at his longtime teammates – who, true to form, had found something to laugh about – Adam feared the worst.


The cold, metallic clank vibrated throughout Adam's body. Someone asked him if he was 'okay' before it all went dark.

He jolted awake.

It had been a long time since he had relived that moment when Jake McGill drove him headfirst into the goalpost. Almost as much time had passed since he last relived the moment during his first practice with the newly-minted Mighty Ducks where he drove Jesse Hall into the boards and nearly injured him – at the behest of his supposed 'friend' Paul Larson. The quiet defenseman always seemed more reliable and loyal than McGill, and had even offered friendship to Adam despite being forced onto separate teams.

But Paul Larson always exacted a price. And in this case, it was the well-being of Jesse and the playoff prospects of the Ducks.

Adam had never forgiven himself for being Larson's pawn all those years ago. And he saw right through the defenseman's occasional friendly overtures. There was no way that Adam would ever allow himself to be taken in again.

But that didn't mean that the old boys in black couldn't do real damage at Eden Hall.

Deciding that he couldn't fret about the Hawks all day, Adam proceeded to make his bed, shower, and dress – taking care to leave plenty of hot water for his mercurial roommate Charlie – before making his way to the dining hall for breakfast.

After grabbing a couple of sausage patties, some scrambled eggs, and some fresh fruit, Adam approached the JV table. Given that they were two hours behind, he was surprised to see that the California-based Ducks, Russ and Ken, were already up and at the table. Ken had hit a growth spurt, but had remained quite short. He was solidly-built, however, and had retained his figure skater's agility, enabling him to avoid the most punishing hits from tryouts.

Russ, though thickly-built, was beginning to slim down.

"Hey guys," Adam greeted the pair, sitting down across from them.

The two murmured greetings before returning to homework. Though classes would only officially begin in a few hours, Russ had taken it upon himself to get in some extra math practice – as it was the subject that most threatened to sink his GPA below what Orion would allow.

"Russ, look at you hitting the books," Adam spoke up. "Your father would be so proud!"

"You think my trash-talkin' lessons are free, Cake Eater? Kenny has his uses, and one of them is teachin' trig."

"Yeah, you gangly…not observant guy," Ken added, drawing a laugh from Adam.

"Well, it's a good thing you're not paying in cash for those trash-talking lessons, Ken."

Adam ate quietly while Ken explained the functions of sin and cosine to Russ. The preppy forward thought it odd how Dwayne wasn't around. Despite being opposites in every way, Russ and Dwayne were good friends, and the affable cowboy clung to the streetwise LA native to interpret what their peers were saying.

"Morning guys," came a cheery female voice that made Adam's heart leap. Taking her seat next to Adam – and apparently reading his thoughts – she asked where Dwayne was.

"Sleeping it off."

Russ could not hide the bitterness in his voice.

"That jerk really hurt him yesterday," he added.

"Yeah," Julie sighed. "Connie went right to bed as soon as we got back to the dorms. But at least she's up and moving now. She should be here soon."

Right on cue, Connie entered the dining hall hand-in-hand with Guy. The blond forward had sought her out immediately after tryouts and had stayed the night holding her; but the couple did not need to worry about Julie sharing that little tidbit with anyone.

Gradually, more Ducks trickled in. Goldberg, Averman, along with the Bash Brothers Portman and Fulton took their seats. Luis Mendoza was on a break with the gorgeous cheerleader he had stolen from Rick Riley; so the Latino heartthrob was on the prowl, and took a seat with the Beautiful People after acknowledging the Ducks.

Then, a worried Linda arrived with a miserable-looking Charlie.

Oh, great, Adam cursed.

As much as he liked Charlie, Captain Duck could be unbearable when he was in one of his darker moods.

All the Ducks knew that it was best to keep their distance when Charlie was this way, so no one asked what was up. But the Captain did not leave his friends in the dark for long, and he got straight to business.

"The rosters have been posted," he announced glumly.

An ominous silence washed over the group before Charlie continued.

"Fulton, Guy, and Banks are all on Varsity."

What little color Adam had in his face washed out as he absorbed the news. He felt the hand resting on his lap get squeezed by Julie. He looked at her and managed a faint smile that he hoped looked reassuring. Guy looked confused. Having been knocked out of last year's scrimmage by the brutal Varsity squad, he never imagined that he was Varsity material. He absorbed rather than inflicted the blows. Fulton, an imposing defenseman with a devastating slap-shot seemed like a more natural fit, although the gentle giant off the ice was a long way from dirty while on it. The Bash Brother and original Duck looked crestfallen.

"Right, so we lost our three best skaters," Averman attempted to lighten the mood. "Big whoop."

The rest of the group glared at him.

"I'll shut up now."

"Y'all are quieter than an empty prairie," Dwayne drawled as he gingerly made his way to the Ducks table. "What gives?"

"The flock's broken up, Cowboy," Russ informed him. "No more Ducks."