~ VARSITY! ~ (Charlie)
"Are you almost ready?" Charlie stood at the doorway of his dorm room. He glared at his roommate, Adam Banks, impatiently. "Come on Banksie, what's taking you so long? I do believe that as the roommate of the captain, you have been told thoroughly that it is important to be on time for practices, most especially the first practice, which starts in five minutes?"

"Mmhm…" Adam responded absently, still scribbling furiously away on a pad of paper.

"Come on! Linda is coming to do an article about the new hockey teams." Charlie rolled his eyes. "You of all people should know how badly it would reflect on the Varsity team if the captain and star player were late on the first practice." Not to mention that Charlie wanted to impress his ex-girlfriend. He and Linda had broken up at the end of freshman year, and Charlie had only dated around since then, and he found himself wistfully thinking of Linda once more.

"All right, I'm done." Adam leaned back. He tore out the pad of paper, folded it up, and stuffed it into an envelope, already addressed and stamped. "I just need to drop this off on the way." Adam told Charlie. He slung his gym bag over his shoulder and the two headed out for the hockey rink.

Charlie took the envelope from Adam. It was addressed to his parents. "Man, you're writing to your parents already?"

"Yeah. They like to be informed." Adam shrugged.

Charlie stared at Adam incredulously. "Dude, you're way responsible." By the time that Adam dropped his letter off, Charlie and Adam were approximately ten minutes late to the first official practice of the Eden Hall Varsity team. Charlie was not surprised to see that his ex-girlfriend, Linda Chavez, was already in the stands, with her pen and notebook. Linda was always punctual. For the year that she had dated Charlie, she'd never kept him waiting on dates. Often, it would be her that had to wait around for Charlie to show up.

"Well, if it isn't Mr. You-Guys-Have-to-Show-Up-On-Time-or-You're-in-Big-Doo-Doo." Julie Gaffney said with her hands on her hips as Charlie and Adam skated out onto the ice in practice gear.

"That's a nice way to greet your captain, Cat." Charlie responded. "Could've at least said you missed me over the summer. That goes for the rest of you, too." Charlie said to all the members of the team who did not reside in Minnesota.

"Aw, don't mind Julie; I missed ya, Charlie." Dwayne grinned, then he held out the lasso he had in his hand. "Say, how 'bout our favorite warm-up game?"

"Thanks, Dwayne, and excellent suggestion." Charlie nodded. "Get your camera ready, Linda!" Charlie called out to the stands. Linda waved at him and held up her camera. "Let's go Dwayne!" Charlie skated away. The regular game of Cowboy ensued, with Dwayne swinging his lasso high over his head, looping every Duck on the ice that he could. Charlie was pleased that he was one of the last people to get lassoed. Of course, Louis Mendoza was the last to be lassoed, he always was now that he had fully mastered his skating techniques. He put on quite a show that practice, expertly dodging and avoiding Dwayne's lasso for a full minute before Dwayne managed to catch him.

"Excellent skating, Mendoza. I'll be very surprised if the Olympics committee isn't on us this year to cast you as a speed skater." Coach Orion skated out onto the ice then. It was tradition that Orion stood by and allowed the Ducks to warm up on their own. "And that was some excellent lasso-work, Robertson."

"Thanks Coach." Dwayne and Louis both grinned appreciatively.

"I see that MOST of you have been practicing skating over the summer." Coach Orion looked at Goldberg witheringly. At this the entire team gave in to snickers. Goldberg was no fan of skating, hence his being a goalie, and avoided being on wheels or blades at all costs. Coach Orion seemed even more determined to make his goalie skate ever since Goldberg's miraculous goal at the big JV vs. Varsity showdown three years ago. Charlie knew for a fact that Goldberg hadn't done any kind of training in skating since he left Eden Hall and escaped Coach Orion's watchful eye.

"You better give it up Coach," Guy said. "You'll never get Goldberg to skate during off-season."

"There's still hope…now, number off in two's, and let's do some scrimmaging. Let me see how much you've all put off practicing in the summer, also lets me get a rough estimate of how long it'll take us to get back in shape again." Coach Orion blew his whistle.

The Ducks, after numbering off, skated out to the ice. It was a furious scrimmage. Charlie played his best, for he had trained in the off-season, for once. The training definitely paid off. Charlie stole the puck easily away from Guy, who had a dazed looked about him. Guy was one of the team members that would not train unless Charlie personally went to his house and knocked at the door. Charlie spied Goldberg, fidgeting in the goal. Then, before Charlie could comprehend what had happened, Adam was sailing by, going the other way, with the puck in his control. Adam, on the other hand, always trained, and he trained even more vigorously than Charlie.

"Come back here Banksie!" Charlie called, then skated off after Adam. But it was too late. Adam weaved expertly through the players, and made a swift goal that not even Julie could stop.

"Excellent Banks! Excellent!" Coach Orion called from the box. "The rest of you need to switch off of granny mode!"

By the end of practice, Charlie was thoroughly exhausted. So were all his fellow teammates, with the exception of Adam, who looked like he could very well carry on for the next twenty-four hours. "Not bad, not bad at all for a first practice." Coach Orion murmured, stroking his chin as the fatigued Ducks sat down on the bench. "We'll have the best high school hockey team in the entire country if things keep improving. Now, I believe you campus celebrities have an interview with an aspiring reporter." Coach Orion gestured to Linda, who was making her way down the stands. "Good day to you." Coach Orion skated off.

Linda climbed into the box and clicked on her tape recorder. "So! This is our old and VERY controversial Junior Varsity hockey team, now promoted to Varsity. What do you guys have to say, now that you are the Varsity?" Linda held out the tape recorder. Charlie, normally the spokesman of the team, found that he was speechless. For some reason, Linda looked very good to him right now, even better than she'd looked when they first met. Her dark hair shone and her brown eyes fairly sparkled.

After a long pause, Guy called out, "We're the Varsity team and we're going to rule the school!" Dean Portman whistled in agreement.

"Have you met any of the Junior Varsity members yet?" Linda asked, staring directly at Charlie. Everyone else waited for his response, too. Charlie opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

It was Adam that saved the day. "No, but I think I can say on behalf of the team that we're all looking forward for a chance to work with our younger counterparts and teach them all we can about hockey." And it was Adam that led the rest of the interview. Linda finally clicked off her tape recorder.

"Well, thank you all for the interview." She stood up and left. Charlie sat, staring at her until she went out of sight.

"Yoo-hoo!" Averman passed his hand over Charlie's face.

That snapped him out of his stupor. "Come on you smelly pigs, let's go to the locker room and wash off." Charlie said, trying to pretend that he hadn't zoned off during the interview. Snickering about Charlie's obvious gawking at Linda, the team skated off the ice. Charlie showered quickly and pulled on his clothes. He and the rest of the boys walked outside.

"Is that the JV team I see?" Louis asked, pointing at a group of skinny boys that were heading their way.

"They're scrawny and they're holding hockey gear, I'd say your chances are pretty good." Fulton shrugged.

"How come I don't like the looks of those monkeys?" Goldberg frowned.

"What monkeys? I thought we weren't allowed to have pets on campus." Julie joined them.

"Goldberg was referring to the JV team." Charlie said, nodding his head toward the group of boys that were coming closer. "Where's Connie?"

"She's still showering and preening. You couldn't have forgotten about her extensive grooming habits, could you, Charlie?" Julie grinned.

"No. I don't think I ever will, either." Charlie rolled his eyes. He and Connie had lived in the same apartment building for most of their lives, and they had been friends long before either of them had ever heard of such a thing as peewee hockey. Charlie had learned long ago that, in order to get Connie ready on time, he had to lie and tell her that she needed to show up fifteen minutes earlier.

"Hey you!" Dean called to the approaching group of boys. "Are you the JV team?"

"Yeah…why else do you think we'd be carrying gym bags that read Eden Hall Junior Varsity Hockey?" A freckle-faced boy said, rolling his eyes. "Let me guess, you're the Varsity? The Eden Hall Mighty Ducks, right?"

"Yeah. You got a problem with that?" Dean narrowed his eyes.

"No…the idea of DUCKS is pretty absurd though." The boy said. His teammates all snickered. "I mean, DUCKS. Have you ever thought about how ridiculous that sounds? I preferred Warrior."

Charlie threw out his arm in order to prevent Dean from getting to the boy. "No," Charlie told Dean firmly. "We can't have friction between the Varsity and JV just yet. Give them a chance. Varsity never gave us a chance when we were JV, right?"

"Yeah, but we weren't half as obnoxious as these PUNKS." Dean said angrily.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that." Charlie laughed, remembering the wise-cracks all of them had enjoyed making at the Varsity. Then he turned to the JV team. "Well, it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I look forward to training with you sometime. Come on, let's go." Charlie walked past the JV team. The freckle-faced boy purposely stood in his way. Charlie couldn't help but shoulder him aside. After all, he WAS captain of the Varsity team, and who told the captain of the JV team that they had the right to be pert to the Varsity team?