DISCLAIMER: I own Claire. Nothing else.
Chapter 10
At our next game, against the Cardinals, Bombay brought a bunch of footballs onto the ice with us and had us passing them around, switching positions every few throws. I was communicating in the silent way that only I was capable of rather than calling for a pass, and it worked pretty well.
"Every time you get the puck, you're the quarterback," Bombay said to us. "Make eye contact with the receiver. Talk to 'im, let 'im know what's coming. C'mon guys, this isn't a library. Talk to each other!" Not long later, Bombay cleared us away from the net and dumped a bunch of pucks out, having Fulton practice his shot. His shots went to a multitude of places, ranging from the back of the net to over the glass and into the crowd. He even cracked a pane of glass right in front of a man who was watching from there. Bombay gathered us at the bench to give us a pep talk.
"Alright. Let's forget the past. We lost a few games, tough. That was District Five. Now we're the Ducks." There was a collective "Yeah," from all of us, interrupting Bombay slightly. "And the Ducks," he paused after continuing, "are undefeated." There was another collective movement from the team, a cheer of excitement. "Quack. Quack." Bombay started, and eventually we all joined him - minus me. I had made myself a promise, and I was going to do my very best to keep it; I didn't want to have to face any potential consequences of using my voice.
Jesse scored our very first goal of the season that game, with around seven minutes left in the second period. Not long after, Karp took a puck to the head while playing defense. A few of us, me included, rushed over, as did Bombay.
"I don't wanna go to school today, mom," Karp groaned out as we got his helmet off.
"Karp, how many fingers am I holding up?" Bombay asked while holding up four fingers.
"He wouldn't know that anyway."
"Shut up, Peter," Bombay muttered to the snarky pipsqueak. "Karp are you okay?"
"Look at this," Charlie muttered as he handed Karp's helmet to Coach. The force of the puck had dented the protective equipment.
"The Karp-ster, usin' his head to stop the puck, Mr. Karpilani," Averman brought his ever-present comedic side to the conversation.
"Let's get you of the ice. C'mon," Bombay said, and he helped Karp get up and back to the bench, where Charlie helped pull the defenseman off of the ice. Bombay put Connie, Terry, Jesse, Gee and Fulton onto the ice where they used one of my favorite plays.
Gee won the faceoff and passed the puck back to Jesse, who gave the puck to Fulton. As he pulled his stick back to take his shot, all of the Cardinals players cleared out of the way - their goalie even cowered in the corner of the net. Fulton backed off of the puck and Connie took it from him before passing it up to Gee, who neatly tucked it into the net. Using the Statue of Liberty play, we had tied our first game as Ducks with no time left on the clock. It looked to be the beginning of something glorious.
The day after that game was the first day of the new session of dance, and Adam and I were psyched. After our DWTS performance, the studio had gotten a lot more publicity and more students were attending this session - enough to have a showcase at the end. But for now, Adam and I were focusing on the current happenings of our classes and the new skills we were learning so that we could start incorporating them into performances. As the weekend crawled to a close, I was actually feeling happy for once.
A/N: I know, my chapters are pretty short (especially this one) and really far between, but I tend to forget that I'm working on this story and I don't know what you guys like/dislike about it. The last review I got was in October. I don't want to beg for reviews, but they're always nice to see. Putting all of that aside, I hope you're liking it so far and I'm planning on trying to update more often.