And…the usual disclaimer: Disney owns the Mighty Ducks. The name, the characters, Orion, the Varsity players, and Linda are not mine. However, I do own any characters you don't recognize…i.e. Ken's parents, Ken's grandfather, Elaine, Brian, Sky, Tony, Sonja, etc.
Annie918 – thanks so much for the review; I'm thrilled you like it. I was starting to get a little discouraged, I hadn't had reviews in a couple chapters. I kept writing because that's what I do; but I was debating posting anymore. So thanks for the great review.
This is a short chapter; I know. But I've got the next one almost finished, so I'll try to post that within a couple days.
And I'm always interested in hearing what you guys think of this. If you like it, tell me! If you hate, great!, tell me why!
Ken awoke to Adam shaking him, calling his name.
"Ken. Ken. Ken!"
"What?" he mumbled tiredly.
"My alarm never went off." Adam said frantically, pulling on a shoe with one hand and grabbing his backpack with the other. "School starts in twenty minutes!"
"Geez…" Ken mutter, pulling himself out of bed, surprised. Last night was the first night in many he hadn't been haunted by that dream. And he hadn't woken up early, unable to sleep. Maybe he was finally getting over everything. Maybe he could finally go back to being Ken the hockey player, instead of Ken the former figure skater in his mind. Ken smiled to himself and got his butt in gear, realizing he only had eighteen minutes to get to class.
After school that day, Ken and Averman were in Ken's room, working on a presentation for Latin; Adam was studying Spanish, and Guy, who like Averman was staying for their study session later, was working on his French homework. It was actually quite amusing to hear them muttering three different languages. None of them had really learned enough to carry on conversations, but they easily picked up insults and curses and found frequent uses for them.
Ken was arguing with Averman over the Latin word for cheese, when they heard a 'snap' behind them.
"Son of a…" muttered Guy, holding the two remaining pieces of his pencil, which had split down the middle.
"Whoa, Guy. Got some pent up anger there, buddy?" Averman joked, staring at the pencil.
"What did you do?" Adam asked, trying to suppress a grin. Guy shrugged and chucked one piece of the pencil into the trashcan by Adam's desk.
"Got a pencil I can borrow?" He asked the room in general.
"There's some in my top desk drawer." Ken answered. "Just no more pencil abuse, alright?" He laughed and ducked as the other piece of pencil came flying his way. "And while you're there, can you toss me my eraser?" he added, frowning at the paper in front of him. "Averman's been writing this down all wrong."
"What?" Averman snatched the paper back and stared at it. "No I haven't. 'Caseus' is cheese and 'haedus' is goat. 'Cheese comes from goats.' What's wrong with that?"
"Too many things." Ken muttered to himself. "Hey Guy, my eraser?" He reminded impatiently. No answer. Ken turned around.
Guy was sitting on Ken's desk chair, a small pile of papers in his hands. He looked up from reading the top one and Ken realized they were the newspaper clippings he had taken from home. The ones about the Olympics. Ken sighed; he should have put those somewhere else; what was he thinking? He had the nosiest friends in the world.
"What's up Guy?" Adam asked from his spot on his bed. Guy didn't answer, but looked at Ken questioningly.
Ken sighed again and got to his feet. He walked over to his desk and took the articles from Guy. He leaned against the wall, reading and rereading the headline to the top article, Olympic Skater Disappointed With Performance; Future In Jeopardy.
"Ken?"
Ken looked up and saw the three guys staring at him expectantly. He sat down on his bed, wondering how to handle this. He wasn't sure how they were going to take this.
The problem wasn't his friends. They were all great guys, and girls. That wasn't the problem. The problem was none of the Ducks understood losing. Sure they had lost a couple games here and there in their six year existence, sure they'd gotten they're butts kicked by the Hawks and the Iceland team and the Varsity Warriors. But somehow or another, whether it was meant to happen or not, the Ducks always came back and won it when it counted. They didn't understand what it was like to lose horribly, to perform so terribly that you didn't even recognize that as yourself. They didn't understand what it was like to embarrass yourself in front of thousands of people; to humiliate yourself, your country, your family, your coach, everyone connected with you. They could never understand.
"Ken?" Adam repeated, starting to look worried.
"It's just like I told you, Adam." Ken waved the article around. "I skated pretty badly and ended up hurting my ankle pretty badly as well. So during my time off I decided my life needed something else besides 4 am practices and stressful competitions. So I became a Duck. It's ancient history." He ended, getting up and sticking the articles back on his desk. He'd move them later.
"But that article says you took tenth." Guy said.
"So?" Ken asked, wondering what his point was.
"I guess we always just assumed you had kicked butt at the Olympics…" Guy trailed off.
"Well, you can't always win it all." Ken said, giving them a moment to think about that. Then he took his seat on the floor, saying, "First off Averman, you've got that sentence saying cheese is made in goats."