Life's Full of Little Surprises

ZELINIA- You seem really anxious to find about the Scooter thing, this makes me happier then you could think possible. I promise that you will find out soon enough what was happening. As for Adam/Dani antics, well, let's just say they will be interesting.

CandieBabie30- You really want me to update? Well, if you insist, then I guess I shall. Glad you like.

PrincessH- YEA, you loved! I do believe the many thanks are for Tammy/Fulton (go Tammy/Fulton!). I'm sorry that you couldn't review my last chapter, the same thing has happened to me before and I got really annoying after a while. But you could review this one, so thats always good. Of course I wouldn't mind if you put my story on your Tammy/Fulton community, feel free to do so.

(-------)

All of the players went back to classes, while the coaches went to their offices, Rick Reily left to go back to his collage dorm, and Dean Buckley went to a meeting with the alumni. By lunch, an hour later, almost everyone in school knew that the teams had met the Figure Skaters, and that one of them was Dean Portman's twin sister. Over the course of the day Dean had about a dozen guys come up to him and ask what she was like and what type of guy she was most interested in. He soon came to the conclusion that these people were complete idiots; who in their right mind asked a girls brother what type of guy she was interested in. Needless to say, he merely walked away when Dani came up.

As was promised, the Figure Skating Team was off of the ice (which had been smoothed out) by the Varsities hockey practice, which was held at 3:45 to 5:45. Their practice was the same as it had always been; drills, conditioning, plays. It was the kind of things that showed a love for winning, not a love for hockey.

Coach Wilson had a thing for promptness, so he was always starting practice at exactly 3:45 and ending at exactly 5:45. This was good for the Ducks, who's practice started at 6:00 and went to 8:00.

Today, practice was different for the Ducks. For one, Scooter decided to stay and watch in the bleachers. Secondly, Dani walked out from a room on the far end of rink that used to be a play room, so it had a blackboard, that was being used as a classroom.

"Mind if I sit here?" She asked Scooter as she dropped her bag next to him. He shook his head no, and she sat down while pulling out a large book, 'PreCalculus', and opened it.

"PreCal? Aren't you 15?" Scooter asked her as he looked at the complicated problem on the pad of paper on her lap.

"Yes, but I'm really good at math." Scooter looked shocked, "I comes with having a teacher for a dad. I hate math, but I am good at it. Sure, I think History and English are better and more fun to learn; but I'm good at math and science too." With that she started to complete her math home work, followed by Biology, and History.

"You sure work fast." Scooter said as she started on writing a poem for English.

"Comes with the territory of being a Figure Skater. Late practices make you finish you homework before you get to them, so that you can actual taste the luxury of sleep that night." Then Scooter asked her about her team members and their homework schedules. "Well, Gia's 28, so she doesn't have school. Tammy understand more about math and science then me, and Tommy is about the same. Apperantly, they can only do sports, yes even the Olympics, if they get all A's. It's a rule their parents set up a long time ago." She finished her poem and stowed it away in her bag. Coach Orion told the team that practice was over and to not forget to clean out the locker room in 15 minutes.

"What are your school hours like?" He asked.

"Well, was start at 7:00 and got to 11:00. Then we have lunch from 11:00 to 11:30. At 11:35 we start practicing, we stop at 3:35 so you guys can practice. We have more schooling from 4:00 to 6:00. On the weekends we practice from 7:30 to 4:00."

Scooter looked at the girl in front of him. She was tiny and smart, but he could tell that she could be a firecracker when she wanted to. Her attitude matched her brother's. It was apperant to him that Dean was very protective of her, this was defiantly going to be an interesting year. He was soon pulled from his thoughts by a voice yelling, "HEY, Freak!"

Dani yelled back, as if she was always called 'freak', "What Loser?" Scooter looked around to see the Ducks walking up the stairs to leave. Adam had that far away kind of look that suggested her was somehow mesmerized by something, 'Or someone. Now this is really going to be interesting.' Scooter told himself.

Dean and the team stopped him front of the, "Truth or Dare?" This caught everyone off guard. He was asking Dani this, as though they always randomly asked truth or dare. In all honesty, they did. It was their special way of communicating that they really wanted to know something.

Dani smiled and let out a small laugh through her nose; not a snort, per say, but a very cute kind of laugh. Little did anyone know, Adam had to lock his knees so that he wouldn't melt at the sight of her smile. Then she finally said, "Truth." This was always the answer she and Dean gave.

"Okay," He already had his question, and Dani knew what he was going to ask, "You know that that whole thing about 'flow' today was a load of bullshit." Dani nodded, surprising the whole group around her, "So I want to know, why did you move Scooter over, away from his team."

Everyone was now interested in the proceeding's. Dani gave another little smile; Adam had to lean against the chair to the left of him. "Because Rick Reily is gayer then the Fab Five, and he has his eye set on a former teammate that just happens to play goalie." The aftermath of this statement was quite entertaining. Julie gaged on the water she was drinking, Scooter gapped at her and looked like he was going to faint, Dean was wide-eyed, most of the Ducks were laughing, except the ones that had the vision of Rick and Scooter in their minds, they just shuttered.

"I shared a room with that guy last year!" Scooter exclaimed when he finally got his voice back. "How do you know that he's gay and interested in me!" Scooter now looked utterly petrified.

Dani laughed and licked her lips, Adam looked down at the floor, "I can tell because human behavior is a hobby of mine. Just think of it this way; you must have something working for you, attracting both sided of the tracks." Scooter raised his eyebrows, "Don't say anything bad about the gay community, I have friends who are gay. And that side-of-the-tracks comment in their wording, not mine."

What's the worst thing I could say,

"Things are better if I stayed"

So long, and goodnight

So loooooong, and goodnight.

Dani picked up her cell phone and put it to her ear, "Hello." The voice on the other end spoke, "Hi Mom. Yeah, I got it finished. I don't know. Hold on a minute." The took the phone from her ear and looked at Dean, "Mom wants to know if you are staying at the Reed's during the weekends?"

"Yeah." He stated simply.

"He is. Okay, I will. Yes, mother dear. Love you too. Bye." Dani closed the phone and put it away.

"What did she want?" Dean asked, sitting down next to her.

"She wanted to know if I had my homework finished and where you were staying over the weekend. Then she said I had to get back to the dorm at a reasonable hour and to tell you that she wants to have a talk." Dean smacked his forehead, "You are completely screwed."

"I noticed Dani. But thanks for the warning." He turned to his friends, "I'll see you guys on Monday. Come on Fulton, we gotta get going." Fulton followed him as he stalked out of the building to catch a bus to the apartment complex that the Reed's live in.

"I have to get going too, or my mom will blow a gasket. See you all later." Scooter was sure no one else noticed, but he could have sworn he saw Dani flash Adam a tiny wink before leaving. 'Well, this should be entertaining.' he told himself as he and the rest of the Ducks left the Rink.

(-------)

Scooter was driving up the road, just out of the Eden Hall campus, when he saw Adam walking up the side of the road to avoid the cars. He drove up next to Adam and rolled down the window, "Adam."

"Scooter."

"Don't you live in Edina?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't Edina an hour's walk from here?"

"I think so."

"Adam, if you haven't noticed, I am trying to get you to ask me for a ride." Adam stopped walking, "The sun." He pointed up the sky, which was turning pink and orange.

"OH, well if you are offering..."

"I am, get in." Adam got into the car and Scooter started up the road again. "Dani is one smart kid." He was going to get this out of Adam one way or another.

"Yeah, I guess." Adam stated, confused by the sudden topic change to Dani.

"Cute too." Adam just stared at him, "I mean, not for me; but you seem to like her."

"I just met her." He wasn't completely lying. He had met her on the bus, but had only gotten her name; he still didn't know that much about her, other then the fact that almost everything she did was somehow attractive.

"I know, but you don't think that you'd like to get to know her?"

"Why are we talking about Dani again?"

"Well, it just seems that you like her, and she just might feel the same." He was trying to get the point across to Adam, without really saying what he had seen Dani do.

"What?"

"Are you blind or something?" He sighed as Adam looked evermore confused, "Okay, let me ask you this; have you ever had a girlfriend before?"

"No."

Scooter's eyes grew to the size of saucers, "Okay. Have you at least kissed a girl before? I really don't care if it was a bet, spin the bottle, or pretending to marry a girl in kindergarten; have you kissed a girl before, not a relative." Adam sunk into his chair, but Scooter got the message. "Oh my god," He whispered to himself as he clasped his hand on the top of his head, "I have a lot of work to do on you."

"What?" Scooter had been whispering, but Adam had heard him.

"Nothing, now out." He was now parked in front of Adam's house.

"Thanks Scooter, but what are you talking about?" Scooter just shook off his comment and drove away; leaving Adam to contemplate what Scooter was thinking, and how it was going to affect his relationship with Dani.

(-------)

Adam had walked into his house and greeted his parents before rushing up to his room to call Charlie, Terry, and Jesse on his private phone line. First he called up Charlie, "Hello."

"Hi, Mrs. Conway. Is Charlie there?"

"One second Adam. Charlie, phone for you!"

The phone was handed over, "Hello?"

"Hey Charlie, it's me. Hold on for a second, okay."

"Three-way with Terry and Jesse?" Charlie asked, knowing that Adam had three way calling on his private phone.

"Yeah." Then he called up Terry and Jesse. Terry picked up and had Jesse join him over the speaker phone. "How was your first week of school, guys." He asked, trying to keep everyone's attention off of him.

"It was school cake-eater, what do you think?" Jesse retorted, "What about prep school?"

Both Charlie and Adam gave groans and said, "About the same."

Then Charlie remembered, "But, our Coach got the Dean to let the U.S Olympic Women's Figure Skating Team stay at the school until the Olympics are over." Terry and Jesse both said 'that's cool' and Charlie went on, "If you can believe this, Tammy Duncan is a member, she actually made it."

"I knew she would do that someday." Jesse said.

"Tommy is with her, but one of the othergirls is our age, and really cute."

Adam laughed, "You have a girlfriend; besides, you don't remember her, do you?"

"What do you mean?" All three of his friends asked.

"She was the girl on the bus, you idiot." He couldn't believe Charlie hadn't recognized Dani that morning.

"Oh yeah. And you said you would never see her again." Charlie joked to take the blunder off of himself, Adam rolled his eyes. The conversation with is friends, then consisted of if he was going to ask Dani out or not, "Yeah, that's really going to happen."

"Why wouldn't it?" Charlie, Terry, and Jesse asked simultaneously.

"If you forgot, Charlie, she's Portman's twin sister!" He ran his hand threw his hair, "The relationship would be flawed by my sudden, but inevitable, death."

"Why would you be killed?" Terry asked.

"Because, it's obvious that Portman is overprotective of her. If I tried to get within ten feet of her, he'd probably be on me like a pack of starving wolves." Then he heard his mother yell from the bottom of the stair to get off the phone, "I have to go guys, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye." Came from all three and Adam hung up. Then his thoughts drifted to Dani; she was pretty, smart, witty, and Scooter hinted she was interested in him. But, honestly, what did Scooter know? How could he have a bit of information like that, and nobody else know? Even if he did, Dean was another problem. The thought of being ripped limb from limb was painful. Every thought that occupied his head stayed their and pushed their way into his dream. He had a rough night.