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.
Jessi – When I took AP English in school, I had this sadistic teacher who required that all assignments be on her desk before the bell rang that day…any time afterward and you were docked a whole letter grade…I kinda imagine Willis to be a bit like her. Psycho teacher…. And I'm writing Averman based on one of my friends from high school…highly entertaining, cause I'm thinking about his personality and thinking "oh, yeah…I forgot about the time he did…" great stuff. So I'm sure he'll have several more good parts in this.
Gina – glad you liked it and I promise…more Adam is coming!
Tino – Isn't is funny how just one fic can change your whole perception of a character. The great thing about the Duck is that, with the exception of Charlie and a bit with Banksie, you never learn very much about the characters, so you can create them almost however you like. Fun stuff.
Kaila – Again, I'm glad you like and I'm glad that this story stands out a bit. It does seem like there are a lot of almost duplicate stories out there; it makes you appreciate the unusual ones.
Ahhh…room to breathe! Finals are over and I miraculously managed to pass o-chem (yay!) and I'm out of my stupid house, away from my stupid roommates. So, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and a Happy New Year and I hope 2004 is a good year for everyone.
I know this seems really short, but (!) I posted two chapters. Mainly because I realized how pathetically short this one was and I couldn't bring myself to post something that lame, so I wrote another chapter. They're both short, but together they make it a bit longer. Happy reading!
After his second two hour practice session of the day, Ken was exhausted and ready to call it a day. However, he still had a study session to make it through before the day was over. Since all the other Ducks had gone to the movie and Ken felt a bit like a dork sitting alone, he ate dinner with Sky.
"Words cannot express how much I don't want to study tonight." He told her, trying not to fall asleep in his spaghetti.
"I know." Sky agreed, taking a bite of chocolate pudding. "It's insane how much they're assigning us all at the same time. I mean, a paper due in English today, a math test tomorrow, history test next Tuesday…do they want us all to drop out before our sophomore year?"
Ken grinned. "Hopefully our math test won't be too bad. It's only over one chapter."
"True. But who really cares about parabolas and ellipses?" Sky exclaimed, waiving a spoonful of pudding around. "Okay, enough school. How's skating going?"
Sky was one of the few students at Eden Hall besides the Ducks that knew about Ken's skating. While Ken was a member of the brilliant JV hockey team, he was also a lowly freshman. Most of the Eden Hall students didn't care one way or another, but certain members of the Varsity team, still smarting from their loss to the Ducks, seemed to be on a quest to find anything and everything to humiliate them with. When Cole found out that Averman was an obsessive Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan, he let it loose to the whole school. However, Averman didn't really care; he was proud of being a "MSTie", as he put it and apparently with the help of Cole's story, managed to recruit people for a MST3K fan club. The look on Cole and Riley's faces when they found this out was priceless; the Ducks had laughed over that for a good couple weeks, but now Riley and Cole had made it obvious that there were after something a little more damaging than a TV show obsession. So Ken kept his skating between him and his closest friends.
It wasn't that he was terrified of the entire student body of Eden Hall finding out that he was a figure skater. A lot of them knew he had been at one time and they left him alone about it. But Ken could just imagine the questions coming at him if people found out. "What are your plans, Ken?" "Are you going back to the Olympics?" Most people just didn't understand doing something as competitive as figure skating just for fun.
"It's going pretty well. I like having my grandfather here; he's been able to help me out a lot. I'm improving a lot faster than I thought I would."
"I should hope so." Sky grinned at him. "With all that time you spend on the ice."
Ken shrugged and grinned back. "It's not that much really." He said, ignoring the look for disbelief Sky gave him. "Two hours Monday, Wednesday, Friday; four hours Tuesday and Thursday and a couple hours over the weekend." Ken laughed as Sky rolled her eyes.
"It's really not that much." He insisted. "When I was doing serious training when I was younger, I was on the ice over six hours a day, at least six days a week. That's how a lot of us serious skaters trained."
"And you were, what, ten?" Sky asked.
Ken shrugged. When he was ten, he was the Junior National Champion and had years of serious training under his belt. He glanced at his watch. "We'd better get going. It's nearly seven." Sky nodded, they returned their trays to the kitchen and headed back to the freshman dorm to study.