Hay y'all! I'm back! Sorry for the wait, I had finals this week...

spikeyhairgood – thanks for the review! I'm glad you like it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the original characters and the plot line.

And on with the story!

gnomes

Food and Room Mates

At promptly six o'clock, the doorbell rang. Accompanying the annoying ringing was a chorus of "not me!" and "not getting it!". Conner told the Ducks that they'd better shout it too and quickly. So, with questioning looks, the four Ducks shouted out their own version of the ever so popular saying.

As soon as the words left Adam's mouth, Mac can running into the room. Everyone glanced up at her and motioned to the door.

"But I was on the phone!" she complained, but no one seemed to care.

"Rules are rules." said Evan, while carefully moving a pillow to cover his "package".

With an indignant 'huff' Mac went to answer the door. The rest of the team could here muffled voices and the shuffling of feet from downstairs. After a few moments of silence they heard the door close.

As if something had stung them all in the butt, everyone except the ducks (who had no clue what in the world was going on) sprung out of their seats and ran down the hall like a stampede.

"FOOD!" That one word informed the Ducks as to what was going on. They realized that if they didn't get going they'd be lucky if there was any food left. They exchanged looks and jumped of the couch and began running down the hall, pushing each other as they went.

By the time they had reached the kitchen, everyone else was already chowing down on the food that was delivered. Looking around, the Ducks noticed that there appeared to be about fifteen pizza boxes piled in various locations around the room.

"Help yourselves!" Jamison called out, apparently seeing the confused look on their faces. This statement was not needed in Portman's (he had requested that they not call him Dean earlier that day) case as he was already halfway through his second piece of pizza.

Later that night the Ducks were shown their living arrangements. Room mates were apparently determined by the position one played, after, of course, gender was taken into consideration. So, the three girls shared one room and one shower. The guys were divided into three rooms (a total of three showers).

The four offensive players (Adam, Charlie, Dwayne, and Nolan) shared the first room. When Nolan found out that three other people were about to move into the room, he quickly ran in before shutting the door. Adam, Charlie, and Dwayne could hear the sound of things being thrown around and suddenly the door opened, revealing a slightly clean room.

'Probably more clean than it was a minute ago...' thought Charlie.

The four defensive players (Jamison, Brandon, Portman, and Colton) also shared one room. Their room was relatively clean considering that 3 boys had been living in it for the past week and a half. By 'relatively clean', I mean that there was a partially clear path leading from the door to the center of the room, where it branched off into three smaller paths. Two of the paths led to two sets of bunk beds, and the third led to the bathroom door.

'Just like home...' thought Portman as a small smile appeared on his face.

After finally putting their stuff in their designated rooms, guys joined everyone else in the living room.

"Hey...Wait! If there's thirteen of us, and the three girls share a room, the four offensive players share another room, and the four defensive players share the other, then that's only eleven players! Where do Evan and Conner sleep?" said Adam as he sat there with a perplexed look on his face.

"Well, we're the goalies so we get our own room since we're the only two." explained Conner.

"Man! I knew I should have been a goalie!" exclaimed Portman.

"It's not that cool." started Evan, "When we first got here, there were maybe two or three of us that already knew each other, so we all started hanging out with our room mates. Conner and I were the only ones in the room so, while everyone else on the team was getting to know each other, we were stuck with only each other...and we did not get along! I believe there were some nights when Conner went to stay in Colton's room."

"OK, in my defense, you either wouldn't stop talking or you wouldn't talk at all. And when you did talk it was only about stick-side versus glove-side stopping techniques." stated Conner

"Yeah, well...um...you were really messy?" said Evan, not really sure of his comeback.

"No, that was you." declared Conner.

"Um...yeah, well...um...so where's everyone from?" asked Evan in a last ditch attempt to salvage some of his pride.

"Trying to change the subject, are we?" prodded Conner, knowing that he had won this argument.

"No, I'm just interested in where all our new team mates are from." lied Evan, knowing that he had definitely lost this argument.

"Uh-huh...yeah, sure."

"So where are y'all from?" interjected Dwayne before this could turn into another argument.

"I'm from the small town of Zenda, Kansas, where hockey is life!" said Evan, definitely eager to get off the past subject.

"Soldotna, Alaska." Victoria stated her hometown.

"I hail from Phoenix, Arizona." said Brandon.

"You hail from...what the hell are you on? Anyways, Nolan and I were born and raised in New York, New York, the city that never sleeps! Wait, or is that Vegas?" Meredith exclaimed.

"It's New York, you idiot. Any who, I'm from Reno, Nevada." Mac managed to dis Meredith and tell her hometown in one breath.

"Reno, the wannabe Vegas! Wait, no, I'm not from Reno, I'm from Washington, Pennsylvania. I just did the wannabe thing to piss Mac off." declared Jamison.

"Washington, the wannabe...um...yeah...whatever!" was Mac's lame attempt at a comeback.

"Okay...Moving on from that incredibly horrible comeback, Conner and I are from Fairfax, Virginia." stated Colton. "Where are you guys from, again?"

"Well, Adam and I are from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Dwayne's from Dallas Texas, and Portman's from Chicago, Illinois. But we all play for the Eden Hall Mighty Ducks." explained Charlie, who had assumed the role of introducer.

A moment of silence passed and the room was dead quiet, as though no one knew what to say now.

"So...um...are you guys rea-" started Victoria but she was interrupted by the shrill sound of the phone ringing.

"I'll get it!" exclaimed Brandon, eager to get away from the awkward silence that filled the room.

Once again the room collapsed into silence.

"So, as I was saying, are you guys ready fo-" Victoria tried again, but this time was interrupted by Brandon coming back into the room holding the cordless phone.

"Meredith, it's for you." he said as he tossed the phone at her. She caught it with no problem and got up and left the room.

Victoria waited a couple of seconds as if waiting for something else to interrupt her.

"Areyouguysreadyforpracticetomorrow?" she said said very quickly as though she was afraid that if she took her time, she wouldn't get the question out.

"Um...What?" asked Portman, thoroughly confused.

"Are you guys ready for practice tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I think we are." Charlie once again answered for the rest of them.

Well, that's it for now! Sorry it's so short, I've been busy and tomorrow's my birthday so I'm to excited to type! I'll try to update later, but I might not get to until after the New Year since I'm going home and all my story stuff is on my computer at school.

I hope y'all liked it! Please review!

Ta,

gnomes