Disclaimer: No matter what the voices inside your head are telling you, I DO NOT own anything you recognize! Except for Claire, she is a creation of my mind.
Chapter One
"Claire… Claire, sweetie, it's time to get up." I rolled over and groaned. My mom sighed. I could tell she had opened her mouth to say something, but Charlie stepped in.
"Mom, go on downstairs. I'll get her up." I nearly groaned again. Charlie would probably torture me to get me to wake up.
"Claire, c'mon," he said as he sat down on the edge of my bed. "If you wanna make it to your new school on time, you'd better get up now." I sighed, and sat up. He had a point. I shooed the already dressed Charlie out of our shared bedroom and quickly changed. I brushed my wavy, almost waist length auburn hair, smoothed out my dark green long-sleeved t-shirt and ran down the stairs, a pair of socks in my hand. I quickly ate the breakfast that my mom had set out for me and ran into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I pulled on my socks, and then slipped on my black and white Nike sneakers. I pulled an oversized hoodie, which went down to mid-thigh over my black skinny jeans, and grabbed my backpack.
"Woah. Never thought I'd see you get ready for school in under ten minutes," I heard Charlie mutter. I rolled my hazel eyes at him, and he crossed his identical ones at me. Then, as if on cue, we stuck our tongues out at each other at the same time. This lasted for all of five seconds before we both burst out laughing. Mom came into the room and smiled as she herded us into the car. She dropped me off at my new school first, and I suddenly got a rush of nerves. It was a private school that I had made it into on an academic scholarship, and it was in the neighboring city of Edina, Minnesota. Which meant that if I knew anyone, they would be a Hawk. Charlie squeezed my hand.
"You'll be okay, Claire. You're amazing! Who wouldn't like you?" I smiled gratefully at my brother and gave him and my mom a small wave. I climbed out of the car and made my way to the office, where I received my locker number and combination along with my schedule. I dumped my bag in my locker, and made my way to my first period class, science, in which I was seated next to a very familiar person. I took my seat, and my new lab partner grabbed my schedule.
"Well, Conway, looks like we have every class together." He smirked at me. I gave him an annoyed look, but after a few seconds I smiled as we got to work. I couldn't stay mad at Adam; I wasn't allowed to. Hockey rivalries aside, if we want to win our next competition, our dance classes have to go well. If there's anything we've learned that isn't related to dance over the last few years, it's that classes never go well if one of us is mad at the other.
The day flew by, and soon enough my mom was dropping me off at the pond for practice. I quickly laced my skates, clumsily pulled my gloves on and grabbed my stick, skating towards Connie as fast as physically possible. My best (and only) female friend whipped her head around just in time to move out of my way; if she hadn't moved, Connie Moreau wouldn't have been standing. She chuckled as she skated over to me.
"Hey, Speedster," she used my nickname. As a team, we had given each other nicknames. Connie was often called 'The Velvet Hammer', and Charlie was known as 'Spazway'. I lucked out and got 'Speedster' simply from being the fastest skater on the team. I don't understand how that's possible, considering I'm just as clumsy as Charlie, but I assume it has something to do with needing to move quickly for dance.
"How was your first day?" Connie continued. I shook my head at her question, which meant that I'd tell her later. I didn't want the whole team knowing I was terrorized by the Hawks, bar Adam, throughout a majority of my classes. Connie just nodded and skated off to talk to Guy Germaine, and I made my way over to my brother and the rest of the team. Les Averman, Jesse and Terry Hall, Greg Goldberg, Dave Karp, Peter Mark. Add my brother, Connie, Guy and myself into the mix, and you have a handful. As we were screwing around, a limo pulled onto the ice. A man stepped out and the team skated towards him. Jesse, the self-proclaimed leader in these situations, made sure he was in the front. I instinctively kept Charlie somewhat behind me, and we were both glad that no one commented on it.
"Yo dude, you obviously in the wrong hood. This is my dominion," here Jesse paused, "and it's a drug-free zone, you understand? We ain't buyin' nothin'. Now, I'm feelin' generous today, so I'mma let you get your sorry vanilla booty outta here before we be usin' your eyeballs as hockey pucks!" And the entire team started laughing. Except for me - I had started snickering at Jesse's use of the term 'sorry vanilla booty'. The man stayed stone faced.
"Thanks, bro. But I'm not going home 'til I take care of business." And with that he reached into his coat suspiciously.
"He's got a gun. Stand back," Averman said quietly as we all began to back up. As we moved, we muttered to each other to move back and keep moving. I made sure Charlie was almost completely behind me. The man's hand started to emerge from the depths of his jacket, and in it he held…
A folded piece of paper. Charlie and I both haved a sigh of relief, and the team shuffled forward again.
"District 5 Pee-Wee hockey team," the man started, "I'm Gordon Bombay. I'm the new coach." At his words, the team started laughing,and comments were being made about it being a joke and such. Finally, Jesse stopped laughing enough to say something competent.
"Yeah, right,"the boy scoffed.
"'Fraid so, dude. I got the roster right here. Averman, Les. Conway, Charlie. Conway, Claire. Germaine, Guy."
"Jeez, he is the coach," Guy said pretty loudly.
"Now here's the long and the short of it," Bombay was back to talking. "I hate hockey and I don't like kids."
"What's this supposed to be, a pep talk?" Peter asked sarcastically. I elbowed his shoulder, and he glared up at me in annoyance. I just grinned smugly; he's the only person I've ever known to be shorter than me.
"Look. I'm sure this'll be a real bonding experience. Maybe one day, one of you will even write a book about it in jail." This comment caused some protests and some sniggers from the team.
"Real funny," Peter muttered.
"Is there a goalie?" The jerk we had for a new coach asked.
"Uh, only for a little while. I'm, uh, moving back to Philly." Goldberg spoke up.
"Thank you for sharing that," Bombay said, almost sarcastically. Goldberg nodded.
"No problem," He replied.
"Alright. Get out on the ice, let me see what you can do," Bombay directed us.
"Uh, just so you know, we really suck," Averman said as he went up to the coach.
"Hey. I'll decide who sucks around here." The coach shot back. We got into teams for a scrimmage, and Peter and Jesse took the face off. They ended up falling on top of each other, and the rest of us ended up in a pile on the ice with them when we tried to dig out the puck.
"They really suck," I heard coach say to himself.
We finally picked ourselves up and got into a stopped in the middle of the ice and started commentating.
"The Pete-meister, Mr Rabble-rouser, passin' the puck over to Jesse-rooney, the enforcer. Ouch, that hurt," he said as Karp fell in front of him. Someone jumped over poor Dave, and Les continued. "Oh, it's the Connie-meister -" there he was interrupted as Connie skated up to him and elbowed him in the chest, effectively knocking him onto the ice. "The Velvet Hammer," Les halfheartedly commented as he lay sprawled on his back on the ice. I joined Connie, and we skated over to Bombay.
"Hi, coach. I'm Connie, and this is Claire," here she motioned to me. "Do you play?" She asked.
"No," he snapped, too quickly for it to have been a genuine response. "So what's our record anyway?" He asked us. Connie and I shared a look.
"0 and 9. One was pretty close though, we only lost by five. And we almost scored a goal, too." Connie said quickly. That was when everyone else skated up to us.
"So what do we do now, coach?" Jesse asked, pretty rudely.
"What did your old coach have you do?" Bombay asked us.
"He just yelled a lot."Charlie told him. There were murmurs of agreement throughout the team.
"Yeah, that's how he hurt his arm," Terry said.
"His arm?" Coach questioned.
"Yeah, one minute he's yelling at us, 'You little bastards, learn how to play, oh you suck, ah skate you little bas-'" here Peter made gasping sounds, clutched his chest and fell backwards onto the ice.
"Heart attack. Great." Bombay muttered. He sighed. "Alright, look, I gotta make a phone call. Keep scrimmaging. You, you, you, you and you,"he pointed to Jesse, Connie, Guy, Peter and Averman,"against you five." Which meant Goldberg, Charlie, Terry, Karp and I.
"Ah, hey, we got names, y'know," Goldberg commented.
"I'm sure you do. And I bet they're very nice names. I might even learn 'em. For now, I'll be in my office. Oh, and if you need anything, fax me." He laughed to himself as he turned around and climbed back into the limo.
"Sheesh, what a jerk," Peter remarked as we all skated away to scrimmage.
"Where are they finding these coaches anyways?" Averman asked Connie and I as the three of us made our way over slightly behind the others. "They wanna impress small kids, right? Shouldn't they check his qualifications or somethin'?" At this point, we've made it over to the rest of the team. I split off and join Karp back on defense. We scrimmage for a bi, and I let myself get absorbed in the game. When I'm playing hockey, or when I'm dancing, I can just escape the world and let my instincts take over. I shut out the world around me and only pay attention to what's important, whether that be the music playing behind me, my partner, or my teammates and the opposing players. We really only played for about two minutes before jumping onto the limo, determined to disturb the new coach. The boys were making faces on the windows and Connie and I were beating the windows they weren't on. The entire team was making an effort to rock the vehicle, and we could hear Bomba and the driver yelling from inside. Eventually we opened the doors and piled in, and stupid questions were being asked and answered.
"We want a ride!" Connie started. I smirked and the whole team joined in, for once me included.
"We want a ride, hey! We want a ride, hey! We want a ride, hey!" We chanted until eventually we heard Bombay.
"Take 'em for a spin,anything!" We all cheered at his declaration, and the driver started to drive us in circles on the ice. Too soon, a foul smell reached all of our noses.
"GOLDBERG!" We all yelled, me included.
"It wasn't me, alright!" The boy in question protested. That did not help cease the comments, however.
"Oh, man, it's our mom," Charlie said as he saw our mom walking in front of the limo waving her hand. "She looks pissed!" And with that, Bombay shoved my brother down. I shoved him backwards with a glare, but he shrugged it off. Mom walked over and opened up the door of the limo.
"Alright, out. Everybody, out of the car right now." She said. We all reluctantly spilled out of the car and skated off of the ie to take off our skates. Bombay stepped out and she dragged im away by his jacket collar. "Are you out of your mind? What were you thinking, putting that car on the ice?" She practically scolde Bombay as Charlie and I climbed out of the vehicle. "My kids were in that car!"
"Lady, lady, relax!" Bombay tried.
"One crack in the ice, that's all it would take. One. Crack." Mom kept going.
"The ice is not gonna crack."
"Who the hell do you think you are?"
"I'm Gordon Bombay, the new hockey coach."
"The new coach? They send you over here to coach the team and you endanger their lives!" That was all I stuck arounds for; I made my way over to my twin and threw off my gloves so I could untie my skates.
"Charlie, Claire, let's go!" We heard not long after. Charlie sighed.
"Sorry our mom ruined it, guys." He said to the team. He turned to the coach. "Coach, gonna be at the game tomorrow?" He asked. Bombay sighed.
"By order of the state of Minnesota, yeah." I gave him a small smile, and Charlie and I hurried over to our mom.
That night as I lay in bed, I hoped and wished that our loss tomorrow wouldn't be too bad.
A/N: So I watched this movie about half an hour or so ago, and I figured I'd get this up here. It'll probably take a bit to get other chapters up, but (if anyone's even reading) I'd love to know what you think so far. I'm also trying to get something other than the prologue up, so yeah.