The day of Hans' funeral was sunny and bright, and it struck Charlie that God – or whoever controlled the weather – had no respect for the dead. Funerals should be cold, nasty, wet affairs to reflect the emotion of the day – and to make anyone who didn't really care for the deceased as miserable as those who did. In short, the whole world should feel as depressed as Charlie, and if that wasn't possible then at least the thirty-odd people surrounding him should. He was convinced that nobody felt the loss of Hans quite so acutely as he did, he may have even been right, nobody else visited Hans after school, Bombay only got in touch with Hans when he was in town – which was less and less as his career took off – and those dumb nieces of his in their traditional Scandinavian dress, Charlie knew they hadn't visited Hans in well over three years. He'd seen photos of them, but none of them were recent.
Fulton had tried to manoeuvre closer to him during the service, but he had carefully kept his mother between them. When Bombay had approached, he had walked away, it was much easier than dealing with whatever happy-crappy advice Bombay had to dish out. Every time you touch the ice, remember it was Hans who taught you to fly? Bull. Pretty words, perfect for a funeral, but not honest words. The Ducks who had joined for the Goodwill Games had barely met him (yet there was Julie, bawling her eyes out as was expected by a girl at a funeral), they had been taught to play by their own coaches. They had been made Ducks by Jan – and where was Jan? Where was he when his brother had needed him? None of the original District 5 team had bothered to show, he had taught them to fly, but they weren't there. The only original Ducks present were now the Eden Hall Warriors. It stank of hypocrisy. Why didn't they just go the whole hog and boycott the funeral? They didn't care about being Ducks, they cared about the game more than the team, so why pretend?
"Charlie?"
Charlie sighed. He thought he'd picked the right time to make his exit while everyone was hugging and exchanging niceties such as 'it was a lovely service' and 'he was a wonderful man'. Obviously one person had noticed the direction he'd left in and followed him. He hadn't thought he'd be found; he'd walked along the river until he found a bridge under which he could sit. It was a little chilly in the shade, which reflected his mood perfectly. The discarded beer bottles and cigarette packets only added to it.
"My mother sent you again, didn't she?"
"Actually, she told me not to bother you, that you'd probably want to be alone." Fulton took a seat next to him.
"So why didn't you do what she said?" Charlie asked.
"If it had been my mother, sure, I'd obey, but yours can be talked around." When that got no response, Fulton sighed, a long-suffering expression on his face. "Because you look like you need a friend, and since I didn't want to make nice with everyone any more than you do, I figured I'd come after you and see if you might actually talk to me." He put his hand on Charlie's arm. "I am your friend, you know. No matter what you say."
"Everything's falling apart." Charlie said.
Fulton, as he had on the last occasion, put his arm around Charlie. "I think it just feels that way."
Charlie shook his head, Fulton didn't get it. How could he, when Charlie didn't either? Everything was falling away, his team wasn't around, Bombay wasn't around and Hans would never be around ever again, but there was something wrong, beyond everything else. He wasn't sure what it was, but the fact that Fulton had come after him twice made him try to verbalise it all. "I just feel so alone, like no matter how hard I cling to everything, it just falls away from me. Like Bombay, when he started playing hockey again, I used to call him all the time, tried to make him show as much interest in my Mom as he once did, but it didn't work. Then when we were at the Goodwill Games, I tried to hold on to him long after he became Captain Blood, he came back, sure, but not because of me. Now the Ducks are gone, despite what I tried, Hans is gone, Adam's gone to another team, Bombay's not even in the same state as us any more."
"My best friend's in another state too." Fulton said gently. "I kinda feel like he bailed on me too – or I did. Then I looked at things from his point of view, and he didn't bail on me at all. Things just got in the way, you know."
"I do see it from Bombay's point of view, but then I see it from mine again and it really hurts. And it's not just that…"
"I know," Fulton nodded. "I think it's everything at once. Everything seems difficult at the moment."
Charlie sighed, frustrated with his inability to get to the bottom of the problem. There was far more that he hadn't verbalised. To start with there was his insecurities about hockey which had resulted in his recent attitude. He felt like he had to remain captain of the Ducks. Bombay had given him the C, but now Bombay wasn't here and Charlie felt that he had to prove to Orion that he was the Captain, maybe he wasn't the best player, but he could lead them. Had Bombay been playing favourites when he made Charlie captain? Charlie didn't know, and it made him all the more volatile around his new coach and even his old friends.
Then there was that illusive something else. It was a kind of lagging feeling in his stomach, the sinking sensation that he'd forgotten something important, but had no idea what it was. With his current list of woes, it perhaps wasn't surprising that he'd forgotten something, but this was more of a feeling that he had never known what it was. He sighed again, he couldn't even pinpoint the feeling inside of him, his brain couldn't begin describe it, so how could he talk about it to Fulton?
Charlie rested his head on Fulton's shoulder, his forehead was resting on Fulton's neck, maybe it wasn't comfortable for Fulton, but he didn't seem to mind, so Charlie stayed that way.
"Charlie," Fulton broke into his thoughts. "What can I do to help you? I worry about you."
Charlie shrugged. He felt like nobody could help him. He just wanted to go back a few years to that amazing feeling he had when the Ducks won the Pee Wee Championship, the fantastic feeling that his team, a bunch of rag-tag losers, had just trounced the Hawks good and proper, then turning around and seeing Bombay kiss his mom. He wanted that feeling back.
"Why don't I set up a game of schoolyard puck tomorrow? Just the Ducks – we'll get Banksie back, it'll be like old times."
Charlie felt hot tears burning his eyes. Nothing would make it like old times again. Hans was dead, Mom had married Alan, Bombay was a big important guy with no time for his old team, the Ducks were JV Warriors and Adam wasn't a Duck or a JV Warrior. Too much had gone to get that old feeling back.
Fulton turned to face Charlie, his eyes full of concern. "I don't know if it will make you feel better, but I promise that no matter what, I'm not going to leave you. We'll always be friends. I'm not going anywhere."
Fulton squeezed Charlie's shoulder, inadvertently pulling him a little closer. Charlie looked up at Fulton, they were close enough for him to feel Fulton's breath on his lips, and suddenly that illusive thing suddenly snapped into focus. There was absolute clarity. He moved closer and pressed his lips to Fulton's. Fulton flinched backwards initially, but then moved back towards Charlie, dropping his shoulder and turning slightly giving him easier access to Charlie's mouth. For a few seconds. Before he broke away again.
Charlie didn't know what happened after that. One moment Fulton was there, kissing him, the next he was walking away, muttering something about seeing Charlie at school.
Charlie watched his retreating figure sadly. Another name to add to the long list of people he had lost.
Fulton found Terri lurking outside his dorm room when he got back to Eden Hall. "I wasn't going to be here when you got back," she explained. "I was just going to leave cookies and go."
He realised she was holding a package of Oreos, he blinked at it a few times, thinking of the way McGill called Terry, Guy and Jesse the Oreo line.
"You know, just in case you hadn't eaten, like the other day." She continued. On getting no response, she pressed them into his hand. "You probably want to be by yourself, which is why I wasn't going to be here." She gave him a quick nervous smile, then started off down the hall.
Fulton blinked a few more times, his head far too full of thoughts. "Terri, wait."
She obediently came to a sudden stop and turned to face him.
"I don't want to be by myself."
"Ok then."
He let her into his room, Luis, his roommate, was still out. Fulton supposed the wake would go on for some time. He put the cookies on the bed, and was suddenly aware of the silence. He moved to his CDs to find something to fill the silence. Terri took his hand as he reached for Illusions I. "I'll find some music. No November Rain for you. Any decent music was written with actual emotions in mind, what you really need is some senseless dirge that just fills the space. Believe me. When my mum died I spent ages listening to The Living Years, it ripped me to pieces until my friend actually burned the tape."
"The Living Years?" He asked, sitting down on the bed.
Terri found some bland-but-popular-sounding music, and put it on at a low volume. It wasn't his music, and it didn't sound like Luis' taste either. Then again, Fulton reflected, what he didn't know about Luis could just about fit into the state of Texas.
"I think we should save that conversation for another day." She sat on the edge of the bed. "Budge up a little." She put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him back to lean against her chest. He wondered how ridiculous they must look, she was not just short, but proportionately small, whereas he was tall and, as his mother put it, still growing by the minute. An image from a movie he had watched with Portman popped into mind, the Great Child and the Dire Mother from Thirteen Ghosts. Without the blood and gore, it was probably how they looked. He let out a sharp laugh.
"What?" Terri asked.
"Just my thoughts."
She didn't reply, but her hand crept into his hair and began combing it with her fingers. It was nice, relaxing. It felt good to be held like this, he didn't feel obligated to talk either, which was also nice. He felt tired from the amount of talking and comforting he had done over the past few days, it was good to be able to just shut down. He hoped that Charlie had been – Charlie!
For a few minutes he had been able to shut his mind down and not think of that bizarre kiss with Charlie. Strangely, he could rationalise the fact that he kissed Charlie back with more ease than the fact that Charlie had kissed him at all. He was fourteen, his emotions were all over the place, he had kissed back simply because it was his first kiss and he hadn't really been expecting it. It had caught him unaware… but then, that hadn't been his first reaction. His first reaction had been to jerk back, to kiss back had been his second reaction. He shook his head, trying to clear the thoughts in there and Terri giggled.
"What?" He asked, distractedly.
"Nothing, it just tickled." She continued stroking his hair, and it soothed him once more, he felt a rush of warmth for Terri, who had taken a few minutes out of her life to see that he was ok. Maybe that's all it had been with Charlie. Charlie had felt the same grateful feelings towards him, simply because he had made the effort to check on Charlie's well-being. Tomorrow would probably be awkward, but it would be fine. There were no feelings involved in the kiss, or at least, none that were personal. They had both been overwhelmed by their situations, and somehow they had kissed. If it had been himself and Portman, they might well have ended up beating the tar out of each other. Things like that just happened at times of stress. Fulton relaxed again, throwing his arm around Terri's midsection, feeling his eyes closing.
Tomorrow would be fine.
Fulton awoke to strong sunlight pouring through his window. He rubbed his eyes and groaned.
"Hey, man." Luis said. He was already dressed, his hair still wet from the shower, or maybe just from the amount of gel on it, and sitting at the computer. "You were dead to the world, so I figured I'd let you sleep."
Fulton groaned again and propped himself up on an elbow. "What time is it?"
"It's a little after ten."
Fulton flumped back on the pillows. "I need at least another two hours."
"You do that. Try not to snore though, you're wrecking my concentration."
"Mendoza, it's Saturday morning, what in the hell are you doing that requires concentration?"
"It's called math, dude. You know, that subject with all those little things that aren't letters."
"Obviously you've not progressed to algebra then." Fulton replied rather smugly. Witty put-downs weren't his thing, especially before lunchtime.
"I'm more into the extra-curricular activities on offer at Eden Hall." Luis replied easily. "Speaking of, your girlfriend said she'll be on campus all weekend if you need her, she's in room 217. She's grounded apparently."
"Do you mean Terri?" Fulton asked, deciding that if Luis was talking, then sleep wasn't an option and he might as well get up.
"Purple hair, blue eyes, about yay high?" Luis held his hand up at desk level.
"That's the one." Fulton had noticed that Luis had referred to Terri as his girlfriend, but didn't bother to correct him. First of all, denial only asked for more ribbing (Connie and Guy had been teased mercilessly until they finally admitted they were dating, then everyone got bored), second of all, Luis probably wouldn't believe him. If he had come back to the dorm and found a girl lying on a bed with Luis, he wouldn't believe him if he said it was innocent either. And finally, Fulton thought that maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if the Ducks did think he had a girlfriend.
Part of him hated himself for having these thoughts, but what if a Duck had seen the kiss? He knew it meant nothing, Charlie (probably) knew it meant nothing, but anyone who witnessed it might not. And if it did come up in conversation, Fulton would feel very much like denying that he and Charlie had a habit of locking lips – which would lead to teasing. And this was one thing that Fulton would certainly not nod and smile along with for the sake of peace and quiet.
Rather than keep thinking these strange thoughts, Fulton thought a subject change was in order. "Do you wanna play some hockey today? I think Charlie would really like to just play for the sake of playing with the Ducks. All of them, we'll get Banksie in on it too."
Luis looked up at the ceiling. "Thank you, Lord. I knew you were listening to my prayers." He switched his gaze back to Fulton. "Anything to get out of math. It sucks."
"Well, since you're so eager to get away from your homework, you go round up the Ducks while I take a nice long shower." Fulton said.
The game was fun, Adam thought, but it still wasn't right. Bombay looked like he was having the time of his life, but then, that's what he did. He walked in when there was a problem, gave some stupid advice and walked away happy that it was all resolved. He was never there for the aftermath, when the Ducks themselves picked up the pieces and actually dealt and moved on from whatever crisis had just gone by. Bombay wasn't even the one who arranged this little get-together, it had been Fulton's idea.
There was a weirdness in the group, and it wasn't just about Adam, though he did notice a certain sense of unease from the rest of the Ducks. I made Varsity, he wanted to scream, it's just a damned team. I haven't grown horns and started sacrificing virgins to Beelzebub! But that wasn't all that was wrong. Charlie was quite obviously still depressed, although he was managing to smile. Not that that meant anything. Charlie had smiled a heck of a lot at his mother's wedding to Alan. Every picture showed a sunny grin on Conway's face, it didn't change the fact that he'd consumed half the contents of the free bar at the reception and Fulton had spent the whole evening looking after him when he got sick.
And there was another thing: what was up with Fulton? He and Charlie, who usually stuck together, had barely said two words to each other the whole time. Fulton had accidentally knocked Charlie over at one point, stopped, offered his hand, then appeared to think better of it and skated off.
Adam had a few bitter theories that Charlie had pissed Fulton off just one time too many and Fulton was having a hard time breaking his habit of baby-stepping Charlie through every goddamned emotion in his life. If that was the case, Adam was happy about it. It was about time that Charlie found out that the C Bombay had given him did not stand for Centre of the Universe. Adam could think of plenty of C-words that it might well stand for, but was too well-mannered to voice his thoughts.
Adam knocked Charlie to the ground, stole the puck and easily shot it into the trash can that was serving as the goal. There was some cheering, but nobody bothered to give him a celebratory hug or back-slap the way they did when anyone else scored. Not that he was bitter.
He just wished Portman was around. Portman might look like a goon, sound like a goon and act like a goon, but he wasn't one. Acting was all it really was, Adam had come to realise. What Portman really did was distract whoever was around him. He made himself offensive so nobody would ask about his life, he made himself noisy and irritating so that nobody beat the crap out of each other when they were stressed – they would beat the crap out of Portman himself. The weird thing was, nobody else seemed to notice, not even Fulton. Portman had known how dejected everyone had felt when Bombay transformed himself into Captain Blood, so suggested they train, then started a fight with Julie over a stupid remark she made. It was only after the event that Adam noticed it had been Portman's idea, and yet he had told Julie that he didn't need the conditioning. Portman understood people, it was as simple as that.
Maybe with Portman here this crazy situation could be resolved. Or maybe it would just be a further distraction. Adam realised he didn't care either way, just a change would be nice.
It looked like the game was wrapping up, most of the Ducks were sitting on the sidelines guzzling water, so Adam thought it was probably time to make a move back to the dorms. He didn't feel like walking back with the Ducks, today had been weird and it would be nice to get away from the weirdness. Admittedly he would be faced with resentment from Jason Labine, his roommate, but that would be better. These people were meant to be his friends, but they had ditched him the minute he made Varsity – and they didn't seem to realise that Adam was suffering on two counts every time the Ducks pranked Varsity. First he'd get pranked by them along with the rest of Varsity, then Varsity would knock him around a little, as it had been with Larson and McGill, these weren't particularly violent incidents, certainly nothing that would keep him off the ice, but they were unpleasant, and more importantly they were unnecessary. It wasn't Adam's fault he made Varsity, but nobody seemed to care about that. At least with Labine he had never expected any better treatment. The Ducks were supposedly his friends, Labine owed him nothing.
He had made a habit of becoming invisible recently, he had read about it in a book by Philip Pullman, where a character concentrated on making himself seem small and uninteresting just by changing his body language. It seemed to work quite well. If he wasn't wearing his Warrior jacket, Varsity would often overlook him – as would the Ducks. He sat down on the outskirts of the group and removed his skates, he flexed his toes a little and pretended to listen to the general conversation around him. He felt fairly certain that nobody would talk to him, so he could edge out gently. While skating off would get him away quicker, it would also be more noticeable.
He waited until Bombay started with some fantastically hilarious tale from work involving a pair of skis, a misdialled fax, a slightly lost glamour model and Don Tibbles before making his move away from the group. As predicted, nobody noticed. He walked away from the playground in his socks and waited until he was out of sight before putting his skates back on.
"What is it with people sneaking off at the moment?"
Adam turned to face Fulton. He should probably feel something other than anger at Fulton, because at least he had taken the time to push a note through the vents in Adam's locker to tell him about Hans, but at the same time, Fulton had unquestioningly followed Charlie after his little hissy fit (Riley had overheard it all and retold it to Varsity, it was one of the few times Adam had genuinely laughed along with them as Riley mocked Charlie's tone and words), but had not said a word to Adam since he made Varsity.
"I'll go out on a limb and guess that people are avoiding you, Fulton." Adam replied flatly. "It's ok, once you get used to it." He finished lacing his skates and stood up. As he pushed off, Fulton grabbed his arm and dragged him to a halt. "What?" Adam snapped, idly wondering if he hit Fulton would Fulton hit back.
"I thought we could talk." Fulton said.
Adam felt his temper rising, something that was becoming a daily occurrence for him since Charlie had hit him. "Well, Fulton, I know you're not exactly the brightest Duck in the pond, but here's how it works: we both said something out loud. We talked. You're done. Now go back to your little friends and tell them that you tried your hardest to reason with me, but I've gone and got myself an attitude problem. Break it to Charlie gently, I know attitudes are Charlie's signature at the moment."
Whatever response Fulton had died on his lips. Adam gave him a bland smile, shook his arm free and skated off.
In books, when someone said something nasty to an estranged friend they tended to have guilt over it. It had to be a dark victory for them in order to convey a moral message. Adam felt no such guilt, instead he felt rather elated that he had let loose a few things that had been on his mind. Of course, it was only the tip of the iceberg, but it was a start. He was officially through playing nice.
When he got back, Mr Stiles, the dorm supervisor was waiting for him. Adam always thought that Mr Stiles' school guidance councillor hadn't done a brilliant job with him. Given that Mr Stiles was a short, scruffy, unfriendly-looking man, Adam always thought he would be more suited to a different job. Specifically an archivist in a basement of an old (and preferably haunted) library, the kind that featured in horror movies and creeped out the teenagers when they went down there to research local history.
He was a surly man who seemed to exist only to find some kind of rule-breaking and punish the rule-breaker in horrible ways. He never spoke unless it was to reprimand or go sneaking to the Dean about behaviour. He was not the most popular faculty member. However, when he opened his mouth and spoke, Adam almost loved him.
"Get your stuff together, do it quickly and quietly unless you want a detention. You're moving dorms."