Disclaimer: No, I DO NOT own the Mighty Ducks crew, or anything you recognize, including Oreos. That being said, I do happen to own Claire Conway. She is mine! All mine!
Chapter Two
The next morning I woke earlier than normal. I threw on the somewhat old sweatpants that I wear instead of the hockey pants that I should, and I pulled a t-shirt on before waking up Charlie. I ran downstairs and ate the breakfast that Mom had put together before throwing her a smile and running back to our room, which Charlie was leaving. I brushed my hair and threw it up into a ponytail, and grabbed the sweatshirts that Charlie and I wore instead of jerseys. They were nearly identical, and both had tape across the back with 'Conway' written on it. The only difference was that they were two different colors - Charlie's was a reddish-maroon with yellowish-gold writing, while mine was a dark orange with black writing.
I grabbed my roller blading elbow and knee pads, and went back into the living room, throwing the pads into my bag with my helmet and skates. I tossed Charlie his sweatshirt and pulled on my sneakers. With Mom waiting impatiently by the door, we grabbed our bags and sticks and ran down to the car.
Once we got to the rink, we an into the locker room, pulled on our pads and skates and grabbed our helmets before going to wait for coach on the bench. We watched the Hawks warming up, and I met Adam's eyes. He gave me a miniscule nod, and I gave a small smile in return. Since the Hawks play dirty, and that usually tends to set off the rest of the D-5 kids, Adam and I do our best to keep the other from getting hurt. Today especially; we have dance after the game.
While we're sitting on the bench, two Hawks came up to us. Matthew Larson and Ryan McGill. Of course.
"Hi, girls," Larson taunts the boys. Karp lunges at him, and Terry, Guy and I struggle to hold him back. "Yeah, right Karp. Bye." Larson continues as he and McGill skate away backwards. The boys get Karp under control, and I plop down onto the bench next to Connie.
"Y'know, you never did tell me how yesterday went," she contemplated. I inwardly sighed.
"Cons, not now. We can't afford any distractions. Remind me later," I whispered to her. She just laughs and brushes it off, amused that she had irritated me to the point of talking.
Sometime later, coach finally came down to the bench. The Hawks started up their stupid, irritating chant of 'WIN!'. A single word, over and over again. Their chant was the one thing that could endlessly irritate me with no effort - besides Charlie. But that's not the point.
"Alright guys, gather 'round. C'mon, c'mon!" Bombay got our attention. "Win! Win! Win! Win! " He started chanting. A few voices joined him, but not many. "Yeah, we're fired up," he said as he gave up. Goldberg skated over and got into the goal, and we copied the Hawks. We skated up and, as we passed Goldberg, we hit him in the legs where his pads would have been if he had them. The entire time, Goldberg was making comments that showed either his disapproval or his pain. I went right before Charlie, and I hit him extremely lightly; I could tell he appreciated it. My spaz of a twin, however, hit Goldberg so hard he fell. I looped around to help them out, and I couldn't help but giggle.
"Nice goin', fool!" Goldberg yelled to Charlie as he skated around the net.
"Sorry, man, I didn't mean to do that." Charlie apologized.
"Oh yeah?" The two were talking at the same time, and with the added sound of my laughter I couldn't make out everything being said. Eventually, I calmed down enough to actually skate all the way over to them.
"Sorry, Goldberg. Sorry. Sorry. Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to Goldberg, Sorry Goldberg," Charlie was saying. Simultaneously, Goldberg was complaining of pain and telling Charlie to get off him. So, thinking hard about the situation in front of me, I did the one logical thing.
"Really? You too, Claire?" Goldberg exclaimed as I joined my brother in beating our goalie. Less than twenty seconds later, Charlie and I skated back to the bench so that the game could get started. I heard Mr. Hall yell something - something encouraging, mind you - as I skated towards the center of the ice, and I heard Mom join him. I casually sized up our opponents. McGill was opposite Guy as center, Larson was on the right wing opposite Terry, and Adam was on the left wing opposite Jesse. Peter was back on defense with me, and two of the Hawks' smaller players were our opposition. I skated up to where Guy, Jesse and Terry were gathered around McGill in case it got ugly, and as soon as I made it up there, McGill opened his mouth.
"What's this, the Oreo line?" He asked in a snobbish way. I rolled my eyes and tried not to laugh as I held Jesse back; we tended to call the three of them 'The Oreo Line' anyway. Jesse calmed down as the ref came over, and I skated back to position.
The ref dropped the puck, and McGill claimed possession and instantly passed it over to Adam. I skated backwards before making a move, nearly taking the puck from him. But Adam made a fancy move, skated around me and shot as Goldberg cowered on the ground. I sighed as I heard the siren; it was going to be a long game.
The entire game went pretty much like this: a face off at the center, Hawks take possession, and score, roughing us up a bit along the way. Until Charlie finally got the puck. I was on the bench at the time, and I perked up immediately, having faith in my brother.
"Alright." I heard coach say excitedly.
"It's Spazway," Karp shot down his enthusiasm. "He'll screw up." I watched as Charlie skated down the ice. He came up right in front of the goalie and raised his stick. He swung his arms forward and…
WOOSH.
Charlie swung his stick right over the puck, catching nothing but air and propelling himself forward, sliding across the ice and into the boards. As he got up, Adam knocked him back down - I'm assuming on his coach's orders. I wouldn't hold it against him, though.
As Charlie skated back to the bench dejectedly, I gave him a short side-hug since I was skating back into the game. I heard coach make a snide comment, but I didn't really catch what he said.
The rest of the game went miserably, and the Hawks beat us 17-0. Needless to say, coach was not pleased. Once the Hawks left their bench, he turned to the team. The bickering ended as the harsh tone of his voice reached our ears.
"Hey, SHUT UP!" We all turned to look at our irate coach. "You guys stink. I thought we came here to play hockey."
"Y'know, I knew we forgot something" Peter commented, making the entire team laugh.
"Oh, you think it's funny? You think losing is funny?" Coach asked.
"Not at first, but once you get the hang of it," Averman trailed off.
"We're the ones out there gettin' our butts kicked!" Jesse said, all of a sudden very defensive.
"Yah, it's not like you coach us or anything," Terry backed up his brother. "At least we try."
I stopped listening after this, more concerned with the amount of time coach was taking than with what he was saying. Adam and I have a dance competition in two weeks, and we still need to perfect our routine. So we scheduled a practice for after the game, and it was getting closer and closer to the time that Mom wanted to leave by.
Finally coach stood and left, following Jesse's dramatic exit, and I skated off of the ice and hurried into the locker room. I hastily pulled off my pads and unlaced my skates, sloppily retying them before shoving everything into my bag. I pulled on my sneakers and ran out to meet Mom. We waited about five minutes for Charlie, and then we were on our way to the studio.
A/N: Okay, so I'm going to apologize now for being terrible at updating, because I know that as time progresses it'll get worse. I'm taking a summer class four days of the week, so that'll eat up time, but it isn't in session for much longer. On top of that, in about a week I'm going to Boston for two nights and three days with my school's history department, so that'll put a hold on updates as well. Also, Pokémon Go. That's all I'm going to say. But here's the first game and, it sucked. So stay tuned for an installment of pure, unstructured creativity in the form of a chapter not based on the move. Ciao for now!
Reviewers:
So this is where I am going to be responding to my reviewers!
texaskid: Honestly, when I saw that I had a review, I was ecstatic. I freaked out when I saw it was you! I've read some of your stories, and they're amazing. The words were somehow lost in the copy & paste process, but worry not! They have been found and returned to their place in the story. Thank you for pointing this out, as I don't think I would've caught it otherwise. As for where the story will go, only time will tell. And I'm honestly excited to see where this is going to go as well.