DWAYNE'S POV

Things sure are strange today.

Julie and Goldberg seem to have stopped their bickering over who should be the number one goalie and have become friends again.

Guy stormed off in a huff at breakfast and hasn't been seen since.

Portman keeps staring at Julie and gets annoyed when she doesn't acknowledge him. I think she's not speaking to him for some reason that no one but her knows.

Russ is still complaining about losing our 'toast tower'. You know he does have a point. That thing was the darn biggest tower of toast I've ever seen.

Charlie and Adam are bickering over who started the all-out food war.

Technically it was Russ who started the 'friendly' fight but it was Charlie and Adam that turned it into a war.

Luis and Fulton have seemed to buddy up and it looks like they're planning revenge on Charlie and Adam.

Uh-oh.

Dean Buckley should have known better than to leave the Ducks unsupervised with buckets of soapy water and sponges.

Perhaps his 'shrinking sphincter' is acting up again.

"WHAT WAS THAT FOR!" Charlie's voice screamed through the cafeteria.

I looked up from the table I was scrubbin' and had to laugh.

Fulton and Luis had dumped a bucket of water over Charlie and Adam's heads respectively and whilst Charlie was mad, Adam looked horrified that his nice pristine white polo shirt was now a nice shade of brown. Not to mention it was wet too.

Charlie sent me a death glare and that made me laugh even harder. Portman took my cue and also burst out laughing.

Slowly one by one the Ducks started laughing, including Charlie and Adam.

"I bet Geeger wishes he were here to see this" Goldberg suddenly spoke.

"Geeger can kiss my ass for all I care" Connie replied from her spot next to Averman.

That's the strangest thing of all today; Connie and Averman are now an official couple.

"Connie remember what you promised" Charlie started.

"I know, I know" Connie rolled her eyes.

Her and Averman had taken the back corner and whenever they thought no one was looking they'd sneak in a kiss or two.

It was kinda sweet really.

There was this one time during the Goodwill Games that I wished she'd kiss me after I'd saved her from the big Iceland goon Sandersen but I had to settle with a grin and a friendly 'thank you' hug.

Oh well, I'll just have to find another pretty filly then.

"Kenny you missed a spot" Fulton ever-so-helpfully pointed out to an annoyed looking Ken.

"So clean it up then" Ken replied smartly.

"You're so lucky you're my little bash bro" Fulton warned and Ken rolled his eyes.

So now clean-up duty was starting to wear a little thin with everybody.

Just as well the Dean stuck his head in the door to tell us we could leave to attend hockey practice but we had to report to him first thing after school tomorrow.

Thank God it wasn't before school.

"Coach Orion is going to kill us" Russ appeared at my side as I threw my sponge into a bucket.

"I know I'm guessin its gonna be laps for all us" I replied dreading it already.

"Tell me about it Cowboy" Russ replied.

"I thought I just did" I responded wondering why he was chuckling.

"Oh Cowboy you're killing me" he exclaimed with a laugh.

If I were killing him why would he be laughing? Sometimes I really didn't understand what Russ meant.

I didn't query Russ' strangeness any further because Orion was standing at the locker room door and he didn't look happy.

"Do I have to even ask why my team was on clean-up duty?" he glared at Charlie.

"Sorry coach, just a little food fight that got out of hand" Charlie replied and he seemed to shrink a few inches.

"Just a little food fight? JUST a little food fight? You wasted almost a weeks worth of food, wasted Dean Buckley's time, you're now wasting my time and your little food fight has cost you valuable homework time. Don't for a second think I'm going to let the B rule slide because you've been too busy cleaning up the school to do your homework. I don't want anything below a B. I don't care if I have to bench the entire team. Do you understand me?" Coach Orion was turning a nasty shade of red.

"YES COACH ORION SIR!" Averman screeched. Oh boy doesn't that guy ever learn?

Coach Orion said nothing but glared at him.

"Get your gear on. We're doing laps and I don't want to hear any complaints" Orion barked and entered the locker room heading straight for his office.

Well that put a slight damper on everyone's moods. They reminded me of the bulls back home when they were in a bad mood. One wrong movement would send them off into a frenzy and I sure as hell didn't want to be in the firing line so I changed into my gear as quickly as possible.

We should know by now that Coach Orion means business. If anyone thought we'd only be doing a few measly laps then they were sorely mistaken. And I mean that literally. Coach made us run laps for the entire two hours and to top it all of he decided to call another practice to make up for this one at 5am tomorrow morning.

My legs were hurting much more than they ever had during shearing season back on the farm. I don't think I was the only one either, when we got back to the locker room Connie had pretty much collapsed on Averman and Averman looked ready to fall to the floor.

I still can't get my head around this whole Connie and Averman thing. Looking at them now made me think of how different he was to Guy.

Now Guy and Connie made sense, even if they hadn't have been together when I first met them. They have this little 'aura' around them.

Connie and Averman on the other hand just don't seem to have that same 'aura'. But you know what, if they're happy then I'm happy for them.

If Averman can get a girl like that then maybe there's hope for the rest of us.