"What?!" Peter said, looking again. He finally saw Mike, sitting down with his bag and pulling out two roller skates from it.
"Oh," was all Peter could say.
"Well, should we go over and say hi?" Davy asked, smirking.
"No need." Micky said as they watched Mike get his skates on and go around the rink once then make his way over to them.
"Hi," Mike said with a slight smile.
"Is this what you've been doing this whole time?" Micky asked in an almost mocking manner, raising his eyebrows amused. "Wow."
Mike sighed and looked down.
"I knew you'd laugh at me."
"Why would we laugh at you?" Peter asked "Are you any good?"
"I'm alright." Mike said, looking down again.
"He's been getting a lot of money from this, remember," Davy said. "And he was offered for the traveling team."
Peter lit up.
"That's so cool!" He said excitedly. "Are you competing tonight?"
"Uh…yeah," Mike said awkwardly, not taking his eyes off the floor.
"Well, we'll be cheering you on." Micky smiled and patted Mike's good shoulder.
"Thanks guys." Mike said as another guy came skating over to him.
"Hey Nez, who are your friends?" He asked.
"Oh, Davy, Micky, Peter, this is Paul, he's on my team. Paul, these are my friends and band members."
"Hi, nice to meet you guys finally." Paul said, shaking their hands in turn as they introduced themselves.
"Guys, I got to go." Mike said as a guy with a striped shirt came out.
"Okay, good luck." Davy said.
"Please be careful." Peter said worry in his voice.
"Nes here is always careful," Paul said "It's Danny you need to be concerned for."
"Well, tell Danny to be careful as well." Micky said "We'll meet you out by the car when we get done."
"Sounds good." Mike said as he skated away.
The guys watched as he and Paul went off to go warm up and prepare.
"Well, then!" Micky said with a slight laugh. "I never would've thought…"
"We got so worried," Davy added and Peter let out a sigh of relief.
"I'm glad he's found something he likes," Peter smiled at the other two.
Davy sighed, but it wasn't from relief or pleasure.
"I almost destroyed my friendship over roller skating…" he muttered in a low voice. "That sounds ridiculous when I say that out loud."
"Because it is," Peter said quietly, hoping not to cause another argument.
"Can Mike come home now?" Micky asked, smiling.
"Yeah, if he wants to." Davy said as they got out of the rink. They watched as everyone lined up and got into their positions. A whistle blew and a wave of skaters pushed forward.
"Go MIKE!" Peter screamed as Mike knocked into someone to overtake them. Davy winced as Mike got elbowed away and lost his balance and fell on his elbow and rolled.
"Mike!" Peter gasped, having to be held back by Micky to keep him from running up to the rink.
"That's okay, Mike," Micky said. "Just get up, you can do it."
"Come on Mike, walk-skate it off." Davy said. Mike looked up at them and grinned, flashing them a thumbs up. Mike was able to get back onto his feet and continued skating.
"Yes!" Micky said as Mike overtook someone and collided with someone else knocking them down but staying on his feet. A whistle blew and Mike crashed into the wall of the rink and turned to face the referee.
"Ooo, yikes," Micky cringed.
"Did Mike do something wrong?" Peter asked the others, genuinely confused to what was going on. He couldn't hear what the referee was saying to Mike or what Mike was saying back to him. Mike jerked his thumb over his shoulder and then pointed and crossed his arms. The referee said something else to him and Mike frowned but skated off and sat down on the bench with a tight lip frown on his face. Five minutes later he got up and skated back out.
"I guess he got a penalty." Davy said.
"Yeah." Peter said as they watched them line up again. The whistle blew and they watched as Mike took the lead. Another skater came up behind him and pulled on his shirt, sending him falling flat on his back.
"Hey, he cheated!" Micky yelled as other people booed as well. The whistle blew and the referee came out doing a T.
"Is Mike okay?" Peter asked worriedly as he looked at Mike.
"I'm sure he's fine." Davy said as the referee took a megaphone.
"We'll now have a quick fifteen minute break." He said. As soon as he said that Micky, Davy and Peter went down onto the rink and over to Mike.
"Michael, are you okay?" Peter asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Mike said "That no good son of a-" he started to say but stopped himself as he looked at Peter.
"Yeah, we saw." Micky said trying to hold back a grin as Paul and two other guys came up.
"Hey Nez, how are you feelin'?" A guy asked.
"Oh I'm just peachy." Mike said.
"Wally got thrown out." Another guy said.
"Good, he should've gotten thrown out the last time it happened." Mike said.
"This isn't the first time?" Micky asked.
"No," the guy said "I'm sorry, who are you?"
"I'm Micky," Micky said "one of Mikes friends."
"Oh, hey, nice to meet you. I'm Danny."
"You said you play defense" Peter said a hurt tone in his voice.
"I normally do Pete." Mike answered "but that son of a bi–person doesn't know what that means. I have to do that sometimes."
Peter nodded sadly. Sometimes it was the only way to achieve peace.
"Nez, do you think you can still go or should someone fill in for you?" A person asked. Everyone looked and saw a lady, her brown hair pulled back into a point tail and a white medic shirt on.
"I think I can go back out." Mike answered. She nodded.
The group helped Mike back onto his feet and he winced slightly when he was back standing.
"Are you alright?" Peter asked, worriedly.
"Yeah, fine," he sighed. "Just a little sore."
"Okay, you get one more round Nez, then Paul is going out okay?" Danny said.
"I can-" Mike said but Danny held up his hand.
"No Michael, one more round and then you sit out."
"Please?" Peter looked up at Mike with big worried eyes. "Just rest." Mike sighed.
"Fine." He said.
"Good," Danny said "God Mike you need someone to take care of you sometimes you know that? You push yourself too far."
"He's too busy taking care of all of us, most of the time," Micky said, looking at Mike. "He won't often let us take care of him."
"Speaking of which…" Peter started, turning to look at Davy.
"Not now," Davy said to him. "Let's let him finish first. Then we'll talk."
"About what?" Mike asked.
"Nothing that we can't talk about at home." Davy said.
"Just worry about finishing this round, Mike," Micky said with a slight nod.
"Okay." Mike said. The referee came over with a questioning look on his face. Mike nodded and skated over into his position.
"Are you sure he'll be okay?" Peter asked.
"Yeah, he did that before." Danny said "we all get three rounds, if you get hurt bad enough to sit out a round then someone fills in for you and you get docked points."
"What does docked mean?" Peter asked, turning his head to the side.
"Points get taken off your final point tally." Danny said "Depending on what the injury is and who caused it it could be just one person or multiple people."
"What?" Davy said, confused.
"Okay so right now we're at 38 points, we should be higher but Nez just had to argue with the referee," Danny said "if Mike were to sit his last round out we'd go down to 28 points. But if the referee were to decide that it wasn't Mike's fault that he had to sit out then the person who caused it, in this case Wally, would be docked 10 points and we'd be up to 48. Understand?"
"Yeah, I think so." Micky said.
"Wally pulled on Mike's shirt so would that mean that Mike would get these points?" Davy asked.
"Yeah, if the stubborn mule would sit out." Danny said, making Davy and Micky laugh.
"Ah, but you know Nez," Paul sighed with a smile. "Always gotta prove himself and push himself to his limits."
"That sounds like Mike," Micky said with a grin but Peter couldn't laugh or be happy. He was too worried that Mike might end up really hurting himself.
"Peter, right?" Paul asked. Peter nodded "Nez will be fine. Okay, He's one of the best skaters we have." Peter nodded.
"I'm just worried he'll hurt himself really bad."
"Well, that's part of competitive skating." Danny said, "but Nez is good."
"We saw that." Davy said "He looked happy."
"The only other time I saw him that happy was when he was playing his guitar." Micky said.
"Yeah, he mentioned he was in a band." Paul said.
"We're playing at half time." Davy said smiling.
"That's great!" Danny said "the rest of the team has been wanting to go over to his house and hear you play but Nez always said that it wasn't the right time."
"Oh, they're starting." Micky said. This time it took a minute to spot Mike.
"There he is." Davy said pointing.
"GO MIKE!" Micky hollered. Danny looked at him.
"What?" Micky asked.
"Nothing." Danny said "It's just great to see Nez have some people to cheer him on."
"Oh," Micky said "well we would've been here sooner if Mike told us what he was doing."
"I still don't understand why Mike was embarrassed about telling us this." Davy said.
"It's Mike Davy," Micky said "who knows what goes through his mind."
They watched as Mike skated around people weaving in and out, stumbling once or twice and elbowing a few people, even skating backwards a few times, before the referee blew his whistle.
"Great, Jeff is up now." Danny said "but first you three are up." He looked at the other three Monkees.
"It's half time."