The bell rang, signaling that it was time for lunch. Sunny quickly hurried to his and his friends' table before any of them arrived. JJ invited him to sit with him and the others to talk about their first day of practice, but Sunny declined. Hockey practice was the last thing he wanted on his mind.

He was happy that he made the team, and so were Aubrey and his mom, but he was stressed about the practices. Alec told him that things were only going to get harder and he didn't like that. He thought making the team was going to be the hardest thing he would have to do and not what came after it. That really affected him negatively for the rest of the day.

Mari made plans for them to hang out with their friends, but he was too focused and worried by what Alec said he couldn't enjoy the day. He almost wished he had recital practice so he had something else to focus on, but he wasn't that desperate. No amount of stress and worry that he felt would make him wish for his hands to be cramping while being berated by his sister.

Then there was the dream he had. He was playing hockey and Mari came out of nowhere and yelled at him about how he wasted her time and how worthless he was for not being able to perform a simple song. Then his friends showed up and teamed up with his sister and chastised him about how he was a bad friend and that they only hung out with him because he was Mari's brother. It ended when he was left alone to stew in his own misery.

He believed that his dream was going to come true if he continued to play hockey and not take the recital practices seriously. He was ready to quit, but Aubrey was quick to comfort him before he did anything rash. She told him that she would always support him no matter what happened. It made him happy to know that he wouldn't be alone.

Speaking of not being alone, his friends started to show up. Basil took a seat across from Sunny and took out the vegetarian lunch his grandma made for him. Sunny thought it was weird his best friend was a vegetarian, seeing that he loves plants, he thought Basil would limit the amount of vegetables that he ate. However, he still ate dairy and eggs so he wasn't a full-on plant eater.

Then Kel took his spot next to Basil. On most days he would have lunch prepared by his brother but today was the rare day when he didn't. However, he didn't mind buying lunch from school because he had a bottomless pit for a stomach.

Finally, Aubrey took her spot next to Sunny. She was carrying a paper bag, but he knew it was empty. He handed her half his peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some of his chips under the table and she put it in her bag. They always did this so it looked like she had lunch to eat.

Sunny hated that they had to do this for her to have something to eat, but she always told him not to worry. She always said she didn't mind and enjoyed sharing a meal with him. He tried to not let it bother him and respect her wishes but he wished there was something he could do other than giving her half his lunch.

"So, Basil, did you get permission?" Aubrey asked, taking Sunny out of his thoughts.

He remembered Basil telling the group something yesterday, but he couldn't remember what it was. He remembered his friends congratulating him, and he even patted his shoulder to show his support, but he couldn't for the life of him remember what Basil told them. It didn't matter though because his best friend was smiling and nodding his head so he clearly got what he wanted.

"Yeah. The teacher was happy someone had a camera."

"That's great! I hope you'll take a lot of pictures of me and the team," Kel said and Basil nodded.

"If they let me then I'll take as many as I can," Basil answered and Kel cheered.

Sunny still didn't know what was going on, but he was glad to see his friends happy. He heard someone coming up behind him and the joy that Kel was feeling was replaced by annoyance. Sunny turned and saw Mikhael holding a sandwich bag.

"What do you want, Mikhael?" Kel rudely asked and Mikhael scoffed.

"I'm just delivering something, Kelsey," Mikhael said, and Kel glared at him.

The two had a rivalry going on and Sunny didn't know when or how it started. He thought it happened when Mikhael learned Kel's full name but Aubrey told him that they had been feuding before then. It was weird because Kel was one of the friendliest people that you could ever meet, so he never understood why Mikhael would annoy him whenever they were around each other.

"What is it?" Kel coarsely asked and Mikhael glared at him. It went on for a minute before Mikhael huffed and tossed the bag on the table. He then turned to leave and started waving his arm.

"My mom wanted to give you some cookies to congratulate you for making the team. You can have them if you want or not. I don't care."

The group watched Mikhael leave before turning their attention to the bag in the center of the table. Some of the cookies broke from the landing, but none of them minded. Kel was quick to grab a whole one and he studied it. It was a normal sugar cookie but it was covered in a black frosting.

"It was nice of Mrs. Baker to make you some cookies, Kel," Basil said as Kel took a bite. He shrugged after he finished it as everyone else grabbed a cookie before he could eat them all.

"They're delicious, but I'm confused about something," Kel said as he picked up another whole cookie. "Usually when the Bakers make sugar cookies they use frosting to make some kind of design, but these are just covered in black frosting. If these were to congratulate me for making the basketball team then wouldn't these be designed to look like basketballs?"

"I guess you're right," Basil hummed as he studied the cookie with Kel.

Aubrey gave Sunny a knowing look and Sunny nodded. They knew why the cookies weren't designed like basketballs because they weren't meant for Kel. They were meant for Sunny.

Sunny looked around the room and saw Mikhael handing out some more bags to Alec and the others. He found it touching that someone else supported him and went out of their way to make something for him. Even though Kel would most likely eat them all.

"It probably doesn't matter. I won't turn down free cookies from the Bakers," Kel said and Sunny turned around. He saw that all that was left in the bag were the broken ones. Kel reached for one but Aubrey quickly slapped his hand away.

"Be considerate to the rest of us! Sunny only had one," Aubrey scolded him. Kel waved his hand and had an ashamed look on his face.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Kel said and he slid the bag to Sunny. "You and Basil can have the rest. You can decide if you want to share with Aubrey though."

"What!" Aubrey screeched.

Basil chuckled and Sunny handed him a piece. He then waited until Aubrey calmed down before giving her one as well. He took the last piece and the trio dug in. Sunny could feel his nerves wash away as he enjoyed the moment with his friends.


Sunny put his hockey bag away after changing. The locker room was crowded with his new teammates who were finishing putting on their gear. He couldn't tell much about them with their gear on except that most were taller than him while a few were shorter than him. There was one boy who stood out though.

He was taller than Sunny and had long blond hair. He stood by himself by his locker and only waved whenever anyone talked to him. But the strangest thing about him was that he grabbed a notebook along with his stick after he finished putting on his gear. Sunny thought about going up to him and saying hi but JJ's excited voice put a stop to that plan.

"It's the first day of practice! Let's make it a great one!"

JJ then raced out of the room and everyone took that as a sign to head to the ice. As everyone started filing out Sunny tried looking for the boy but he couldn't find him anywhere. He must've been one of the first people out. Sunny shrugged and followed everyone out knowing that he'll get a chance to talk to him later.

He took to the ice and skated over to Alec and the others. Neither of the coaches was there yet so it gave them the chance to practice their shooting. JJ wasn't in the net, but it was someone else. He couldn't read much from the guy but they had similar gear that JJ had.

"Sunny, this is Liam. He's the team's backup goalie," Alec said and Liam waved at him.

"Hello, and just because I'm the backup doesn't mean I'm bad," Liam told him and Sunny shyly.

"He was our backup last year and he helped us win a few games," Rudy said and Liam waved off what he said.

"I'm glad that you appreciate what I did last year, but what I care about now is helping out where I can. Whether it means giving JJ a break or helping you guys get better," Liam said and Alec patted his back.

"Good, because I believe that Sunny here will be something special and we're gonna need you to help him out," Alec said and Liam looked Sunny over.

Sunny squirmed under his gaze. For some reason Liam made him feel small even though they were the same height. Liam continued to look him over until he let out a belly laugh and mightily nodded his head.

"I'll see what I can do. Let's start with your shooting and move on from there."

Liam took his spot in the net and Sunny skated in front of it. Alec and Rudy wanted to help out and took their spots on the ice. Alec had a pile of pucks and was in the face-off circle to the right of Sunny and Rudy was behind the net and to the left of Sunny with his own pile of pucks. Neither of the two waited for Sunny to be ready as they started passing him some pucks.

Sunny was overwhelmed by the barrage of pucks coming his way but he managed to handle a few. He shot those pucks and a lot of them went into the net. Sunny didn't know if it was because he had gotten better or the talent drop-off between Liam and JJ. There were some shots that he was proud of and there were others that he knew would've been stopped if JJ was in net.

Liam didn't seem to mind though. He encouraged Sunny after every shot and directed him where to shoot next. If Liam was having a bad time he was doing a great job at hiding it.

After a while there was only one puck left. Alec passed it to Sunny and right as he was about to shoot, Rudy skated at him. Taking him by surprise, Rudy easily stole the puck away from Sunny.

"Oh, you need to be ready for that. A defender can come at you from out of nowhere," Rudy said. He then looked into the net and saw how many pucks were in it. "But I gotta say, you did great! I can see why Alec believes in you."

"What can I say, I have a knack for these types of things," Alec said, skating next to Sunny and wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

Sunny didn't know what to say or feel at that moment. He was so used to being chided for his mistakes it almost felt foreign to be praised. It felt nice.

There was a loud whistle and they saw the coaches on center ice. After the tryouts, Sunny knew that this meant to circle around them. He and everyone else circled around the coaches and took a knee.

"That usually takes a practice or two for you to figure that out, but you all got it right away," Coach B commented. "Anyway, I would like to congratulate you all for making the team! Give yourselves some stick taps for making it this far."

The players did what he asked and filled the rink with the sound of sticks tapping the ice. Coach B allowed them to go for a few seconds before sticking his fist in the air to silence them.

"Now, to those that weren't on the team last year, we were close to winning it all," Coach B said, and Sunny heard Victor grumbling. "We don't want to put any pressure on any of you, but we want to win it all this year."

"It's our job to prepare you for it," Coach I added.

"But it's your first practice today and we want to go easy on you guys. So what we're going to do today is do some skate-arounds and passes, and we're going to do some player introductions too. Speaking of player introductions," Coach B said before signaling over to the bleachers. A woman with shoulder-length blond hair walked onto the ice. She took her place in the center of the circle and the boy who stood out from earlier skated next to her.

"Hello, my name is Eva, and this is my little brother, Wyatt," she said while moving her hands around. It was then Sunny realized why Wyatt kept to himself and only waved whenever anyone tried talking to him. "My little brother is deaf."

Even though Eva was the only one talking it got eerily quiet. Wyatt then started signing and Eva read what he was saying.

"He says that it's nice to meet you all and he hopes that he can be your friend," she translated. A boy on the other side of the rink raised his hand.

"Is he completely deaf? Like he can't understand what I'm saying?" He asked and Wyatt instantly started signing.

"He says that he can't hear what you're saying but he can read lips."

Everyone then started quietly talking with each other. They didn't know how good Wyatt would be if he couldn't hear. Sunny remembered Coach B telling him to communicate with his teammates when he was practicing his faceoffs. If Wyatt couldn't hear him for that then how was he going to play?

The murmurs continued and Sunny could see that it was getting to Eva and Wyatt. Even though she was upset with his violin playing he knew that Mari wouldn't be happy if others were saying stuff about him. He wanted to speak out and tell the others to stop, but he was afraid. He was afraid they would say rude things about him or exile him from the team.

No one stopped talking until Alec stood up. He skated up to Wyatt and took off his helmet so the taller blond could see his lips better. He then stuck out his hand and Eva had tears in her eyes as she covered her mouth.

"My name is Alec and I hope we can become great teammates and better friends."

Wyatt stared at Alec's hand for a second before grasping it with his own. He then signed something and Eva quickly translated it.

"He says he hopes so too."

It was a heartwarming moment that Sunny had no words for. He couldn't believe Alec's bravery to stand up and go against his peers' judgment. That was something that he knew he could never do. He couldn't even stand up to his own sister.

Coach B watched the scene play out before clapping his hands to gain everyone's attention.

"That's what I love to see! That's what I want each and every one of you to be! If we want to win the championship this year then it starts with teamwork!" Coach B cheered. "Look around you. These are the guys that you'll be playing with for the whole season. They are not just your teammates or your friends, but they're your brothers. This team is a family and this family supports each other."

The boys looked at each other and were unsure about what their coach said. For some, they already played with each other and knew they could rely on them. Those players couldn't say the same for the new guys. They don't know how they play or if they could play well to begin with.

"But we can't call ourselves a family if we don't know each other. So what we're gonna do is go around in a circle and introduce ourselves. Stand up, say your name, and something about yourself whether it be your favorite color, food, or a hobby you do," Coach B instructed. He then cleared his throat and stood proudly. "I'll go first. I'm Coach Blanchet and I like to fish."

He then randomly picked a boy and he followed his example. They then went in a circle with each boy saying something interesting about themself. It almost seemed like they were all trying to one-up each other to see who had the weirder interests. One boy said he liked to make melon bouquets.

They moved around the circle quickly though. It was almost Sunny's turn and he was nervous. He didn't feel comfortable speaking in front of everyone and he didn't know what to share. After hearing how one boy liked to beatbox and another liked to sing, he almost felt compelled to share something interesting. He couldn't say his favorite color after what everyone else shared.

But he didn't have enough time to come up with something because it was his turn. He slowly stood up as he felt his legs shake beneath him. He took a deep breath and tried to speak with all the confidence he could muster.

"M-My name is S-Sunny S-Suzuki, a-and I like to d-draw."

He quickly dropped back down to a knee as the next boy went. He thought he was going to be judged but looking at their reactions it appeared that no one cared. It made him feel slightly better to know he wasn't going to be mocked or ridiculed by anyone.

Maybe he overreacted earlier and practices won't be so bad.