Virtue and Vice

"You know what?" Steve Christoff asked the table—or, technically, tables, since the team, celebrating their third victory of the tournament, which would bring them to the final and gold medal game, had jammed together three tables in order to eat together—at large. They were all gathered at the pizzeria in the town square, devouring pies of pepperoni pizza and guzzling glasses of soda.

In fact, it was kind of like being a Pee Wee again, Mark thought, going out for pizza after a win, except the pizza was better. People weren't exaggerating when they claimed New York pizza was the best; the sauce was perfect and offset by just the right ratio of cheese and crust. He was probably going to gain fifty pounds in fat by the end of the week and not even be sorry about the damage inflicted on his arteries.

"We're doing much better in the tournament than I thought we would," Steve plowed on through bites of pizza without giving anyone a chance to respond to his apparently rhetorical question.

"Yeah." Bill Baker leaned forward to help himself to another slice of pizza. Sprinkling an ample amount of garlic powder all over it, he went on, "We've beaten the Swedes, the Canadians, and the Czechs. That's pretty impressive, isn't it?"

"I'll say." Phil Verchota grinned, a droplet of grease falling from his folded piece of pizza onto his paper plate as he transported the slice to his mouth. "The Czechs are favorites for a silver medal—maybe even a gold if they can beat the Soviets who practically have their names carved on the gold medals now—in the Olympics, aren't they?"

"It's not their B team that's a favorite for a silver medal." Rob, spearing with his fork one of the neat squares he had cut his slice of pizza into, rolled his eyes. "We beat their B team, Phil, not the team they'll actually be sending to cream us in the Olympics. There's a difference."

"Could you not be so negative after a win?" Neal piped up, high-pitched and squeaky as ever. "Are you allergic to sunlight or something? Is that why you can never look on the bright side, Mac?"

"Vitamin D deficiency definitely explains why he never sees the glass as half full instead of half empty," put in Dave Christian before Rob could reply, sipping his Coca-Cola.

"The glass isn't half full or half empty." Rob shrugged, poking another square of pizza with his fork. "It's just twice as big as it needs to be, and it's probably going to tip over any second now, but if we're prepared with a stack of napkins, the damage shouldn't be irreparable."

"The optimism in that remark is simply overwhelming," observed OC, all irony, as he chomped into his slice of pizza and came away with a long string of cheese linking his teeth to his piece of pepperoni pizza.

"Watching you eat pizza is as disgusting as seeing a wolf rip apart a sheep." Rob wrinkled his nose and continued in his loftiest tone, "Anyway, I strive for realistic more than optimistic. Look, guys, I'm not saying that we've done poorly this tournament. We haven't. In fact, we've performed much better than we thought we could, but just because we're not as terrible as we feared before this tournament, that doesn't mean we're good enough to be any more than a ludicrously long shot at a bronze medal. Face it, in the Olympic Games, we're—if we play our cards right—no more than dark horse contenders for the bronze."

"What do you think, Buzz?" Eric Strobel wanted to know, pouring peppercorn all over his fourth slice of pizza. "Are we no more than dark horse contenders for the bronze?"

"I don't know about the dark horse bit." Tipping his chair away from the table luxuriously, Buzz gave his warmest smile. "I do know that we're contenders for the bronze at least. In '76, our team would have taken the bronze if we hadn't lost to the West Germans, so that's being a contender for the bronze, isn't it? I don't see why this team can't do just as well, since, if anything, we've got more depth than the '76 team. I mean, we've got Magic on our side now. If that isn't depth, what is?"

Here, Mark took an intense interest in dabbing a non-existent splotch of tomato sauce off his lips with a napkin. Sometimes he did wonder what might have happened if he had been in the 1976 Olympics, but he usually silenced such ruminations by telling himself, as only a senior in high school, he would not truly have been ready to handle the pressure of an Olympics. After all, even four years later, it still remained to be seen whether he was mentally tough enough to perform at his best—as his teammates depended on him to—in the Olympics.

Figuring that, since he had been dragged into this conversation, he might as well contribute to it, Mark commented, "Nobody really expects much from us, because we're an unknown quantity, but the advantage of being an unknown is that people won't realize how good you are until you've shown it to them by beating them. We're also a strong third period team, and I'd take that over being a first period powerhouse any day of the month."

"Me too," agreed Rizzo, beaming. "In baseball, if I have a choice, I always take last licks, and being a strong third period team is like having last licks."

"I'm feeling rather licked myself after today's game." Abruptly, Rob rose, pushing his chair away from the table. Slipping a bill from his wallet into the center of the table to cover his share of the check, he added, "I'm going to head back to the hotel. See you around."

"Come on, Robbie!" Rizzo protested heartily. "Stick around awhile longer. The pizza and conversation will get you energized in no time, I promise."

"No, thank you." Rob shook his head and turned to leave only to be halted by Rizzo laying a stilling hand on his elbow. "I'm not in the mood for any more pizza or conversation."

"Don't be ridiculous, Mac!" exclaimed Rizzo, who could probably not fathom a time when he would ever have enough socializing or crave some solitude. Mark might get excited at the prospect of an occasional evening spent alone, but the very notion would probably just depress Rizzo immensely. "You can never have enough pizza or conversation. Stay here, and you won't regret it. You'll have a much better time here with us than you ever could by yourself. Life is too short to be anti-social."

"I'm an educated and articulate adult, Rizzo." Treating the BU boy to his iciest glare, Rob yanked his elbow out of Rizzo's grasp. "By now, I know perfectly well what I like or don't like, and what I want or don't want. I'd thank you not to condescend to me by trying to make those determinations for me."

"Okay. Do whatever makes you happy. Whatever you want. Have a party by yourself if that's your definition of fun." Rizzo lifted his palms in surrender."See you at practice tomorrow."

As Rob departed the pizzeria in a gust of wintry air, Silky waved his slice of pizza around emphatically and remarked, "Everyone always says I'm too tightly wound, but he really needs a chill pill slipped into his cereal every morning instead of all that hot sauce."

"He's mellowed with age," pointed out Eric fairly. "Compared to how he was freshman year at the U, he's absolutely easygoing now."

Knowing that, once again, it was his responsibility to calm Rob out of whatever temper he had gotten himself into, Mark removed some money from his wallet to cover his portion of the pizza, slid it onto Rob's bill so that it made a pile, and stood up, explaining, "I'd better babysit Robbie, and make sure that he doesn't get himself into too much trouble. Enjoy yourselves."

Waving in acknowledgment of the farewells called out by his teammates, Mark left the pizzeria and caught up with Rob, who was halfway across the square.

"You didn't have to go with me," Rob said as Mark joined him.

"I know." Mark nodded, and then arched an inquisitive eyebrow. "What was that about?"

"I can't get my hopes up for a medal, Magic." Rob rubbed his gloves together fervently. "I could fight for one if I had to, but I couldn't get my hopes up for one, because what would it do to me if I dared to dream of getting one, and that dream didn't come true?"

"It would just inspire you to fight harder in whatever your next competition was, so maybe, like all cynics, you should stop being an optimist afraid of yourself." Mark clapped his roommate on the shoulder, and then found his gaze drawn to the sleigh and reindeer in the middle of the square. "Our clue in the locker room today was 'sleigh ride.'"

"Yeah, the word puzzles are getting lamer by the day." Rob's sharp brown eyes fixed on the sled as well. "Do you reckon we should check out Santa's sleigh while it's parked here in the middle of Lake Placid?"

"It might be a good place to search for our tree," answered Mark, grateful that the sled wasn't crawling with overjoyed children today. "We are a bit old for climbing up into Santa's sleigh, though, aren't we?"

"You can say that again with more conviction," Rob muttered. "If anyone from my hometown heard about me getting on Santa's sleigh, I'd be strung out to die on the grapevine. I'd probably never be able to show my face in town again without being laughed out of the place, especially around the holiday season, because that would just remind everyone of my shameful sleigh misadventure. That means you'll have to be the one to investigate the sled, Mark."

"I'm older than you, and I act more maturely than you do." Mark shook his head. "If one of us is going on the sleigh, it's you, Rob, because not only are you younger, but you act it."

"That doesn't matter," Rob countered, chin lifting. "What makes a difference is how old you look. You look younger than me. Most of the time, you appear to be about thirteen, but I bet if you put in a solid effort, you could pass for a ten-year-old going through an awkward growth spurt. It is definitely at least marginally socially acceptable for a ten-year-old to explore Santa's sleigh."

"I'll do it for our Christmas tree," Mark conceded after a moment's careful consideration. "Not for you, and if you ever mention this to anyone, I'll ferret out your most embarrassing secret and hijack a radio station to broadcast it on."

"That's a wonderful display of ten-year-old feistiness. So glad you're getting into character so well." His expression almost radiant with amusement, Rob snatched a scarlet Santa hat with faux fur at the bottom from the side of the sled and dumped it unceremoniously on Mark's head. "Now you're properly in costume, too. Get up on that sleigh and awe us all with your performance of a gleeful child pretending to be Santa. I'll be over on a bench pretending I've never met you if you need me."

With a jaunty wave, Rob drifted off to sit on a bench on the far end of the square, folding his legs and staring down the street away from the sled of Mark's imminent humiliation.

Deciding that there was no profit in waiting to make a fool of himself, Mark took a bracing, deep breath, and, doing his best approximation of an eager ten-year-old, clambered into the sleigh. Trying to act as if he simply could not contain his youthful excitement at being in what must be Santa's sled, he stretched over the seat and rummaged through the stack of presents—really, by the weight of them, nothing more than wrapped and empty cardboard boxes—but discovered no Christmas tree.

Feeling as if every eye of each person passing through the square with arms heavy with shopping bags was fixated on him, Mark tore off the Santa hat, wedged it on the side of the sleigh, and hopped out of the sled. His cheeks flaming like bonfires, he hurried over to collapse on the bench beside Rob, murmuring, "That sleigh just took me on another journey to a dead end."

"Don't worry, Magic." Rob's teeth flashed in a smile. "I have an idea where to go next."

"Oh, really?" Mark's forehead knotted as Rob hauled him upright. "Where?"

"There's a self-storage place just down the road." As he spoke, Rob tugged Mark down the sidewalk.

"What does that have to do with a sled, a manger, or evergreen branches?" Mark frowned.

"May I do the thinking please?" scoffed Rob. Without waiting for a response, he continued acerbically, "You can't see the forest for the trees, Mark. It doesn't make sense to just focus on the clues when they aren't coming together in a way that makes sense. Either Rizzo and Silky are moving the tree around every day, or else they're storing it in one place that has absolutely nothing to do with the clues. If the latter is the case, they could easily have rented some self-storage space to hide the tree in."

"Even assuming your theory is correct, how does that help us?" Mark pointed out, not entirely swayed by his friend's logic. "We don't know the number of the space they might have rented, nor do we have the key for the lock. I hate to be the voice of reason who rains on your parade, but the front desk won't provide us with that information, either. They'll just give us a lecture about client confidentiality."

"I won't be able to find out what space they rented or persuade the front desk to give us a copy of the key, but I will be able to charm the clerk into telling us whether Rizzo and Silky rented a space here. That will let us know whether we really need to go on these wild goose chases for our tree." Rob gave a smug smirk. "You just have to be nice to people, Magic, and confidentiality quickly becomes much less of a barrier."

"Are you implying I'm not nice?" Mark nudged Rob in the ribs. "If you are, I have to remind you that only yesterday you were extolling the benefits of threats of violence in drawing important information out of people."

"What a gross misrepresentation of my statement." Rob gasped with exaggerated indignation. "Obviously I was referring to the benefit of torture in interrogating one's enemies, but I wasn't discussing how to question innocent bystanders. It goes without saying that innocent bystanders must be treated with the utmost respect and sensitivity."

Before Mark could answer this assertion, they had reached the self-storage facility, which Rob sauntered into, Mark trailing at his heels.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen." The woman behind the desk, who had been recording data in a register, glanced up from her work to greet them with a grin. She was a middle-aged lady who bore an uncanny resemblance to a marshmallow: plump, soft, and powdered. "May I be of assistance?"

"I hope so." Bestowing on the clerk the broadest beam that he seemed to reserve just for strangers, Rob stepped up to the counter with Mark beside him. "My friend and I came here as part of the Olympic hockey team for the tournament, and we got to thinking that we had some belongings we could leave here until February instead of dragging all over the country with us."

"Customers find our premises very spacious and secure," the woman behind the desk assured them. "Our prices are very reasonable. Whatever your storage needs are, I'm confident we'll be able to meet them."

"Me too." Rob's eyes expanded earnestly. "One of my friends came here, and he was really impressed with his experience, going on about how it was the best self-storage place he'd ever been in until he was practically blue in the face. That's what made me choose to come here for my self-storage needs. Advertisements can lie, because only during election season when opponents are lampooning each other in the media is there any truth in advertizing, but I can trust a friend to be honest and concerned about my needs when he makes a recommendation."

"I think we did have one of your teammates in here a few days ago." The lady chuckled. "He was a very talkative young man, but he only wanted to rent the space for a week to put his Christmas tree in. I thought that a little odd, of course, because who wants to lock up a Christmas tree during the holiday season? That's normally the time other customers drop in to take their holiday decorations out of storage, you know. Then again, I'm not a journalist trained to ask the tough questions. I'm just a clerk who knows it's my job to make the customer happy because the customer is always right."

"Our teammate is a bit weird." As Rob threw back his head and laughed as if this were simply the funniest joke in history, Mark saw a distinctly triumphant gleam in his eyes. "Sometimes he even eats fettuccine for breakfast, if you'll believe it, and we know it's fettuccine, ma'am, because he's always ready to spend an hour explaining to us the difference between spaghetti and fettuccine."

"How informative," murmured the woman dryly.

"Yep." Rob grabbed two brochures from a mound on the counter and rifled through them with a rustling of glossy pages. "Speaking of information, do these pamphlets tell us all about the different spaces offered here?"

"Oh, yes." The lady bobbed her head in affirmation. "You'll find information on all our excellent deals in there."

"Splendid." Rob nodded and began to drift away from the desk. "My friend and I will just look through these brochures tonight and return tomorrow once we know what kind of space best suits our needs. Thank you for your time. You've been extremely helpful."

As he and Mark made their way toward the exit, Rob gestured at one of the offers in the brochure and asked for the benefit of the woman behind the counter, "Mark, do you think that the standard package would have enough square footage for us?"

"I don't know." Mark scratched his forehead as they reached the door, which Rob pulled open for him. "Would there be enough room for our television? That's a deal breaker. We'll have to measure the television to see if we'll need the deluxe package."

As soon as the door had shut behind them with a tinkle of a silver bell, Rob observed in a highly satisfied fashion, "That was a productive stop. Now we know that Rizzo and Silky rented a space to store our stolen Christmas tree."

"We have no proof it was Rizzo or Silky who took the tree." Mark shook his head as they resumed their path down the sidewalk, heading back to the hotel.

"You're the type of fool I'd use as a blueprint to build an idiot." Peeved, Rob rolled his eyes. "Was your brain taking a leave of absence when that lady told us that a talkative teammate of ours rented a space to store a Christmas tree? Who would the talkative teammate be except Rizzo, genius?"

"Any number of people." Mark sighed. "Mac, you kept up a steady stream of words in that shop, so if that woman was describing you to one of our teammates, she'd probably refer to you as talkative, too. Besides, almost anyone can act talkative even if they're not. I mean, you saw me pull that off when I took Rizzo's key in the locker room."

"Next you'll be trying to convince me that Pav was the talkative teammate the lady spoke of." Rob snorted. "That's the final illogical extension of your absurd premise."

"If I were you, which, fortunately, I'm not, I wouldn't underestimate quiet people, Robbie," warned Mark, blue eyes narrowing. "Pav is a skilled hunter, so I bet he would know how to throw us off his scent in a situation like this."

"As if Pav would exchange two words with a stranger even if they were the last people alive after a nuclear fallout." Rob sniggered "Honestly, the only thing that would have provided more condemning evidence against Rizzo and Silky is if the woman had specifically stated that our talkative teammate was accompanied by a slow one."

"Silky isn't as stupid as everyone says. He attended BU." Mark shook his head in admonishment. "That's not a school for intellectual slouches."

"I didn't say Silky was dumb." Rob tilted his nose in the air haughtily. "I just said he was slow. That means that he arrives at the correct answer but about an hour after someone quick as lightning like me."

"Your modesty is striking, that's for certain." Mark's mouth quirked upward wryly, as they reached the hotel and entered the heated sanctuary of the lobby.

"I know. It's one of my nine thousand most admirable attributes, but enough about me." Rob waved a dismissive hand while they threaded their way through the plush furniture to the elevator bank. "What did you think of the lady in the shop? Was she a looker?"

"Why don't you tell me?" Mark teased, pushing the down arrow when they came to the elevator bank at the end of the lobby. "You were the one chatting her up, not me. I was just standing back, listening to you love birds singing your sweet mating songs."

"Your lips are just begging my fists to make them twice as thick as they are now," grumbled Rob, as the elevator arrived with a ding. They waited as a knot of beleaguered-looking and besuited businessmen exited, striding briskly toward a conference room off the lobby, and then boarded. As he pressed the button for their floor and the doors clanged behind them, Rob added, "I thought she was fatter than the Pillsbury Doughboy. If she sat in a car, she would probably crush it faster than a Dixie cup in a trash compactor."

"Now, that's just rude." Mark shot his roommate a mildly reproving glance, as the elevator hurtled them toward their level. "She can't control her appearance, so she doesn't need to be mocked mercilessly for it."

"People can control their weights." Defiantly, Rob's lips thinned. "Mark, people only end up with more blubber than a killer whale if they are lazy and never exercise."

"Her job isn't to be an athlete or a model." Mark shrugged, torn between amusement and aggravation at his sophisticated friend's surprising shallowness, as the elevator reached their floor with a heralding ding. "She doesn't need to be judged by her fitness or her beauty."

"Why so defensive?" taunted Rob, as they walked down the hallway to their room. "Does she remind you of someone you love? Lovely Leslie, perhaps?"

Mark, about to pull his key out of his pocket to unlock their door, froze. He felt something inside of him finally snap. He had at last had enough of ignoring Rob's overt and subtle gibes at his fiancée. The time for being patient was over; the moment for setting boundaries had arrived with a bang.

"That—" Whirling around to glower at Rob, Mark paused between every word to give it due emphasis—"is what gets you into trouble every single time. That snide mouth you stubbornly refuse to keep shut."

"I don't know what you mean." Shaping his eyebrows into question marks, Rob twisted around Mark, unlocked their door, and sauntered inside. "You'll have to explain again without the dramatic pauses."

"Fine." With a satisfyingly firm noise, Mark closed the door behind him as he joined Rob in their room. "What I mean is simple, but I'll humor you by clarifying the obvious. I respect you and your fiancée by not taking cracks at her all the time, so I expect you to treat Leslie and me with the same courtesy."

"Mark, if you were any more serious, you'd be at perpetual risk of apoplexy," snapped Rob, plainly affronted. "It was a joke, you moron."

"You see, Mac, the funny and little known thing about jokes is that people are supposed to laugh at them." Mark folded his arms across his chest. "If you're the only person who thinks what you said is a real knee-slapper, and it was calculated to offend your audience as much as possible, it's not called telling a joke. It's called being a jerk. I'd appreciate it if you stopped being a jerk.'

"Don't blame me because you're too dumb to appreciate a good joke when you're told one," Rob volleyed back.

"I've said my piece." His jaw tightening, Mark decided that it was time to use a quiet person's ultimate weapon: the silent treatment. Most people found talking to a resolutely unresponsive person about as pleasant and natural as making love to a cold corpse, so it typically wasn't very long before the being on the receiving end of the silent treatment capitulated to whatever Mark's conditions were. He doubted that Rob would be the exception to this rule. Rob was undoubtedly determined as rust, but he engaged in more battles than Mark, so he had less willpower to devote to each fight. Likewise, while Rob valued quiet time every evening for his reading and planning, he also liked being able to look up and strike up a conversation in the midst of these pursuits. The realization that he couldn't do that would probably drive him crazy swifter than solitary confinement would a prisoner. "You can be silent and wrong, or you can be right and apologize, but I won't be speaking to you again until you do the right thing and apologize."

"I'm your line mate," sputtered Rob. "You can't refuse to talk to me in practice tomorrow."

Doubting very much that Rob would be able to hold out that long, Mark merely crossed the room, scooped his copy of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy off the desk, and reclined against his pillows to read, opening to the page he had bent down to save his place.

"The silent treatment is for five-year-olds." Nothing if not persistent, Rob tried again to goad Mark into a retort. "You're being such an immature roommate, you know, Mark. I mean, if you've got a problem, we can discuss it like grown-ups, but we can't do that if you refuse to use words like a big boy."

Mentally noting the irony that Rob suddenly wanted to have a mature discussion when he had been all obstinate insolence a moment ago, Mark flipped a page and continued with his reading.

Exhaling with the gale force of a northeaster, Rob walked over to the desk and sank into its seat. Engrossed in his book, Mark could hear the faint sounds of his roommate's pen dancing across paper.

"Magic." Rob's voice broke through the strokes of his pen and the crinkle of Mark turning a page less than five minutes later. "After today's game, you're still the lead scorer by over fifteen points."

Clearly, Rob had been keeping himself busy by updating the log he recorded in his planner of every team member's points, games played, and penalty minutes. Mark supposed that Rob's comment was intended to constitute an indirect apology, and it would have sufficed if Rob had insulted Mark's playing prowess rather than Leslie. Leslie deserved a direct and sincere apology, so Mark let his stony silence speak for him.

"All right." In a blaze of anger, Rob hurled his pen down on the desk. "I'm sorry. Now will you stop acting like you've got a stick shoved up your butt and start talking to me again?"

"That didn't sound very sincere, Rob." Mark studied his roommate sternly over the spine of his novel.

"You didn't ask for a sincere apology." Rob's fingers clenched around the desk chair. "Just for an apology. I gave you one."

"The fact that you would try to make such an inane argument alerts me to your need for more quiet reflection. I'm going to be a generous roommate and provide you with that solitude. Let me know when you're ready to offer an honest apology." With that, Mark buried his nose in his book again.

"I feel like a child with my nose in the corner for timeout," muttered Rob bitterly. "You're so unfair, Mark. You basically moved the goalposts after my shot had sailed into the net, and now you're trying to pretend I didn't score."

When Mark, focused on reading, ignored this, frantic pen scratches echoed from the desk for a couple of minutes. Then Rob said softly, "Listen, Magic. I'm not giving up, and I'm not giving in, since that's not my style, but I've had some time to think, so I'm changing my mind. I'm really sorry for what I said about Leslie. I haven't met her, but I'm sure if you love her, she's a beautiful person on the inside and outside. Oh, and I also would probably punch someone in the face if they insulted my fiancée like I did Leslie, so that's really another reason why I shouldn't have made gibes about her. Anyway, I can't promise that I won't say anything else horrible about your fiancée, because I'm a bit of a jerk, especially to my friends, but I will try to restrain myself in the future, and I hope you can forgive me for being a jerk."

"That's all I needed to hear." Smiling slightly, Mark laid down his book, not caring that splaying it on the bed would damage its spine. "Of course I forgive you, because everyone needs at least one jerk friend. Now, was that apology really so difficult to say?"

"Yes." Ruefully, Rob grinned. "You may not have noticed amid all my virtues, but I'm a bit stubborn. It's not my fault. It's just the McClanahan curse."

"The McClanahan curse?" repeated Mark, sensing that a humorous revelation would be forthcoming from his roommate.

"Yep." Rob nodded. "When Dad was younger, he was smart-mouthed and strong-willed, so his dad yelled at him all the time that he would end up with a child as headstrong as him and serve him right. Well, Dad dodged that bullet with his first two sons, but then he had me, and stubborn should have been my middle name. I got told a fair number of times growing up that I deserved to have a child as stubborn as me, but I know how to avert that catastrophe."

"How?" Mark asked, snickering.

"I'm just going with the virtue name route," explained Rob with the air of a NASA scientist describing astrophysics. "When I insisted that our family call our dog Sassy and she wound up being a total dope, I learned the hard way that if you name a person or animal after a virtue, that person or animal, following the inexorable dictums of Murphy's Law, will inevitably fail to display that virtue. It follows logically, then, that if I name all my children some variation of the word stubborn, the children will all be mild-mannered angels delighted to obey every order."

"Sassy and Stubborn." Mark shook his head. "The shortcoming with your virtue names, Mac, seems to be that you don't know what traits are actually virtues."

"One man's virtue is another man's vice, and a virtue taken too far becomes a vice," Rob observed sagely. Then, after a brief pause, went on more crisply, "Anyway, while you weren't talking to me, I was thinking about how we could convince Silky and Rizzo to return our tree to us. I've written on each of the brochures from the self-storage place that we want our tree back now. I think that we can slip the pamphlets into Rizzo's and Silky's lockers tomorrow. That should persuade them to take us seriously, especially if we tape the bottom of their skates before practice."

Mark sniggered. Wrapping the bottom of a skate with transparent tape caused a teammate to basically do a faceplant the moment they came onto the ice. For that reason, it was a classic locker room prank.

"Nothing says serious like a practical joke," agreed Mark, chuckling.

"You're not going to protest that we don't have proof that Rizzo and Silky are guilty?" Rob gaped at him.

"Nah. Their reaction to the brochures will tell us whether they're innocent or guilty." Mark's chuckle blossomed into a laugh. "I figure a harmless prank never hurt anyone, either. I'm sure Rizzo and Silky would agree if they are the ones who stole our tree."