AUTHOR'S NOTES: This and chapter 6 probably could have been one chapter. But like I said, I'm phobic about chapter length.
A NEW TEAM – CHAPTER SEVEN – JUST FINE IN THE DORMS
"You ready?" Goldberg whispered to his partners in crime, Ken and Luis, as they tiptoed over to Dwayne's bed.
"Yeah." Luis held up a can of shaving cream.
"OK, let's do this." Goldberg gently took Dwayne's hand and filled it with shaving cream.
"Ken! His hat." Goldberg said. The small Asian boy reached for Dwayne's cowboy hat and took out the feather. Luis took the feather and tickled Dwayne's fsace with it.
"Harder!" Ken said when Dwayne didn't move.
"No!" Goldberg hissed. "We want him to get shaving creamed, not wake up!"
Portman and Fulton had been lucky enough to be the only two in their room. Or perhaps the rest of the team should have been called lucky. At the moment, they were getting ready for bed.
"Little tuneage to go to sleep by?" Fulton asked, putting a cassette into the stereo between their beds.
"Yeah," Portman agreed.
Fulton gave a sly grin and hit the play button. Loud, heavy-mettle, head-banging music blasted from the stereo.
"Sweet dreams, Dude." Fulton said, climbing into bed.
"Sh!" Goldberg ordered, clamping his hand over Ken's mouth. Dwayne's face was now completely shaving creamed, and the three culprits could barely contain their laughter. Luis grabbed his pillow and tried to use it to stifle his laughing.
"Oh, shoot, he's waking up!" Ken whispered urgently. "Quick, hide!"
But there wasn't enough time. Dwayne's eyes opened and his hand reached up to feel his face. "AHHHH!" He yelled, jumping out of bed at his attackers.
"SHAVING CREAM FIGHT!" Goldberg hollered, spraying the cream at Luis.
"I'll get y'all for this!" Dwayne promised, tackling Ken to the ground.
"What is that noise?" Connie yawned, sitting up in bed.
"Go to sleep, Connie," Julie mumbled from her bed across the room.
"Someone's playing really loud music," Kaley observed from her air mattress on the floor. "And my air mattress needs to be pumped again."
"I wish Coach Bombay were here," Connie said. "Miss MacKay can't go into the boys' dorms."
"Sort of weird, huh?" Kaley asked. "We can have the same locker room as the boys, but we can't go into their dorms."
"Go figure," Julie said. "Why do you think Coach Bombay went off to Malibu?"
"You think he's letting this go to his head?" Connie asked. "I don't want to talk behind his back or anything, but he's talking to the press a lot, more than he's talking to us-" She suddenly stopped. "Oh, Kaley, I'm sorry."
"Nah, don't worry about it." Kaley said. "I've noticed it too. Is that what he did when he first came to you guys?"
"Well, he didn't talk to the press," Connie said. "But all he thought about was winning. It was like, his ultimate goal. He was a major pain in the neck."
"Sure am glad he straightened out before he came to me," Kaley said. "I wouldn't want to live with someone like that."
"We've been doing OK so far," Julie said. "I think we'll be all right in the Iceland game."
"Did you see them?" Connie asked. "They're huge! I mean, all of us put together probably weigh as much as one of their players."
The music stopped, and the three girls let out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness." Julie said.
"Now we should probably go back to sleep," Kaley said. "We have a game tomorrow."
"I can tell you it's great to be here," Gordon told the reporters gathered around him. "The people at Hendrix have been fabulous." He looked at his watch. "And I've got a game against Italy right now, so I'll talk to you right after we win!" He left the mass of cameras and microphones and walked towards the ice.
"Good luck tonight, Coach," a young redhead said.
"Thank you!" Gordon responded.
"Go get 'em, Coach," a black man in a pinstripe suit said.
"Thanks!" Gordon waved to the man. When he turned around, he bumped into a young woman walking through the doorway. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you," he apologized.
"No, no, it's my fault, I was being clumsy," the woman, whom Gordon guessed was around twenty-five years old, said. She studied him for a moment. "You're Coach Bombay!" She said. "You play well."
"Thank you," Gordon said.
"I mean your team," the woman clarified. "Your team plays well."
"I knew what you meant," Gordon said distractedly. She's beautiful, he thought. Her platinum blond hair disappeared to some unknown length down her back, and her equally light blue eyes seemed to pierce into his very soul. "So, uh, who are you?" He asked, clearing his throat.
"I'm the trainer for the Iceland team," the woman shifted the pile of folders into her left arm and extended her right hand. "My name is Maria-"
Stansson entered the hallway and said something to Maria in Icelandic. She responded, sounding confused, and Stansson spoke more harshly to her. She left, looking offended.
"You certainly have a way with the ladies," Gordon said affably, trying to lighten the mood. When Stansson didn't see the humor, Gordon quickly changed the subject. "We haven't formally met. I'm Gordon Bombay, Coach for Team USA."
"I know you," Stansson said coolly.
"Yeah, but do you know the real me?" Gordon asked, in another lame attempt to drag a laugh out of Stansson.
"You are confident," Stansson observed. "Cocky. American. I like it. It will make our triumph over you more enjoyable."
"Triumph?" Gordon asked. "Whoa, lighten up. We're all just here to-"
"Have a little fun, right." Stansson nodded. "We will, Bombay. We will." He walked off with a satisfied smirk.
Yeesh, Gordon thought. This guy's worse in person than he was in the NHL.
Three periods at the net could really make a goalie tired. But Goldberg was not your usual goalie. He'd blocked every one of Italy's shots with little to no effort.
"Ha! Take that!" Goldberg said as he made a glove save. "Hey, big man, meatballs slowing you down?" He asked the Italian player, who looked rather frustrated. "Hey, how do you say in Italiano…wussy?"
That made the player really mad, and he charged at Goldberg, but the ref blew his whistle and took the player off.
"Goldberg!" Coach Bombay admonished from the box.
"What'd I say?" Goldberg asked innocently.
Who taught these Italians to play hockey? Fulton thought as Connie passed the puck. Well, one more goal won't hurt. He shot the puck through the Italian goalie's legs into the net. The buzzer began counting down.
"Go Fulton!" Connie yelled, giving him a high-five through her glove.
The buzzer finished, and the crowd erupted. Ten to one, Fulton thought. Think we can keep this up for tomorrow night?
Kestle tried to hide a yawn and chalked her hands. She was trying desperately to conceal her sleepiness, as she knew it would earn her nothing but extra conditioning and a lecture from her coach, Jodie Clark.
"Hey, Kestle, heard you were out after curfew last night," Keslte's teammate and best friend, Kathryn Dallings, said.
Busted, Kestle thought. "Where'd you hear that?"
"Meredith," Kathryn said.
"Kathryn, you know Meredith's a gossip magnet," Kestle mounted the uneven bars.
"She also said you were eating ice cream with Dean Portman," Kathryn said.
Kestle dismounted the bars and stopped cold. "That part's true."
"Really?" Kathryn squealed, running under the bar to Keslte. "What's he like?"
"He's nice." Kestle jumped up to the high bar and began her set of ten pull-ups.
"Kestle, this is Dean Portman we're talking about here!" Kathryn said, beginning her set of pull-ups. "All you have to say is 'he's nice'?"
Kestle dismounted. "He's very nice." She said, dropping to the mat and doing twenty push-ups.
"There's gotta be more to the story than this, Kestle." Kathryn began her own set of twenty push-ups.
Kestle stood up, more than a little anxious for this line of questioning to end. "Look, Kathryn, I'm going to the USA/Iceland game tomorrow. Do you want to come with me? There are some tickets left."
"I can't believe you're asking," Kathryn said. "Of course I'll go with you!"