Coach Orion is fed up when he sees the Little Bash Brother being bullied by Cole and sticks up for him.

Bullies and the Little Bash Brother

Ted knew from watching Team USA on television that Kenny Wu, the third Bath Brother, was the tiniest of the Ducks.

His size alone was very small. But because he was small, he was quick. He and Luis were the fastest skaters the Ducks had to offer. However, one thing that Ted never overlooked was that Ken being the tiniest of the Ducks made him the most underestimated. Because he was the most underestimated, everyone at Eden Hall Academy assumed him to be a pushover. Ted knew (from what Conway and Banks told him) that Cole still got a kick out of stealing Ken's lunch often – apparently, Conway's little horse manure prank didn't completely stop the harassment.

Not that Ted expected it would. Varsity had only upped the harassment after that.

While Ted knew the board members wouldn't do much about the bullying (they probably thought the freshman team was exaggerating it for attention), he remembered the days of dealing with a few bullies himself. He and Gordon had been Hawks together throughout Peewees, at least until Gordon quit. Ted had played for the Eden Hall Varsity team throughout high school, witnessing guys like Patrick Gaudreau, Noah Fitzgerald, and Kevin Larkin push around the freshmen like Simon Gibby, how whenever they got on the school bus, they'd pass this adult pleasure store (that thankfully went out of business long ago). The Varsity players would force the freshmen boys to look out the window at the lingerie store. They would shove weaker kids into lockers and stuff their heads down toilet bowls and trip them. Ted had never approved of the bullying back then; he'd protected who he could, but he still sat with the perps committing the harassment.

In hindsight, it made him just as bad as they were. And he regretted not speaking up like he should've. He knew Gordon felt the same way.

So, when he witnessed Wu come to practice one day with a black eye, he knew he had to do something, especially since the Bash Brothers looked about ready to bust someone's head in for it.

He watched as J.V. practiced after twenty minutes of warm-ups. Surprisingly, Wu was losing his touch, but it shouldn't have come as a surprise. Charlie had told him that Cole and Darrow had slammed Wu into the gym lockers earlier when the guys were all changing for Phys. Ed, how Cole had been making fun of Wu for being "small" in size, pointing this out to anyone who would hear it and showing that Wu wore tighty-whities instead of briefs like the other guys did, asking Wu if his "mommy" still bought underwear for him; the little guy was probably bruised and sore from the contact. Had Fulton or Dean been there, Cole would've gotten two fists shoved up his mouth. Instead, he got an earful of Russ's trash-talking and Luis insulting them in Spanish.

"I'm pretty sure Luis said, 'I slept with your mom,' in Spanish, but Cole did not understand that; good thing, too, 'cause if he knew what Luis said . . . but he's more pissed off than ever," Charlie had explained before practice started.

Ted knew something needed to be done. Those Varsity guys needed to be taught a lesson. And Rick Riley's recent expulsion after the sneaking-Charlie-nut-contaminated-brownies incident didn't seem to send that message. However, he knew the board members and the alumni group wouldn't do anything. They were a bunch of aging pep clubbers who were content with burying their heads in the sand and turning a blind eye to the bullying. It had always been that way. But Ted promised that he wouldn't be one of those staff members who overlooked the problem.

After practice was over, Ted heard a commotion in the hallway.

He was in his office, reviewing his notes from the Ducks' practice, when he heard Cole's roaring laughter and knew something was wrong.

He abandoned his notes and wandered out into the rink's hallway, only to see the opposite of what he'd wanted.

Little Wu, his hair still soaking wet from the showers, was stuffed inside one of the trashcans. He bit his lower lip and tried not to cry while Cole brayed and sniggered at his expense.

"Don't know why you bother washing, wimp. You're nothing but a white trash chink anyway."

"Who are you calling a chink? I'm not even Chinese! I'm Korean, you big goon! And . . . And . . ." Wu tried to come up with some sort of comeback, but he stammered around the words, looking like he was swallowing his own tongue as he blushed furiously. Ted winced. He knew Wu wasn't the wittiest when telling bullies off; that was Averman, Russ, Connie, and Charlie's department, anyhow.

"Why don't you go back to wherever you came from? And take your banana family with you!"

"Don't talk to me like that!"

"Or what? You'll send the Bash Brothers after me? Oooh! I'm shaking in my boots! I should be so scared!" Cole mocked.

"You should be," Ted said coolly, causing Cole to spin his head and look at him. "What's going on here?" he demanded.

"N-Nothing, Coach. We're just kidding around," Cole said weakly.

Ted narrowed his eyes. "Yeah, you can see why I don't believe that. You might wanna be careful next time about doing this stuff outside my office." He gestured to his office door before turning his gaze on Wu, whose eyes were bright with tears. "Are you okay?"

Wu nodded, clearly fighting back from crying, but it was no use as a tear ran down his face, and Ted felt a stab of sympathy. The poor little guy didn't deserve this; he was literally harmless and wouldn't hurt a fly off the ice.

"Coach Orion –" Cole tried arguing.

Ted held his hand up, silencing him. "You shut your mouth," he said heatedly. "Now listen here, Cole. And I'm only gonna say this once. Quit picking on my kids. You think this makes you a big shot? You think it's funny? Well, guess what? The day you meet your match, you'll see how Goddamn funny it is when you're the one getting pushed around! Suddenly, you won't be the one laughing." He was surprised at the anger that flooded his tone, but years of watching these stuck-up brats get away with harassing those they thought were scrawny and weak pissed him off to no end; he was tired of seeing people like Cole get away with it because Daddy protected him and kept him in school even though he was still a senior at the age of nineteen-and-a-half.

He could tell Cole was surprised, too, because he instantly clammed his mouth shut. But Ted wasn't about to force Cole into apologizing—if he did, Cole would be doing it not out of guilt but because he was being made to do it, and it wouldn't mean anything. Ted remembered the years when bullies were told by the teacher to apologize to the kids they picked on, but nothing ever got resolved because the bullying just continued. And Ted wasn't about to be that teacher who forced a bully to make things right when it was apparent Cole didn't feel bad for what he did to Wu; if he did feel bad, he would've stopped after Charlie slipped him horse shit.

Ted watched as Cole slipped away before running out of the rink like the wind. Ted watched sympathetically as Wu tried pushing himself out of the trashcan, only to fall flat on his face and tip the garbage can over, spilling the trash over. He winced, walked over, and offered Wu his hand.

"Are you all right?"

Wu nodded, wiping the tears off his face as he took Ted's hand, pulling himself up. "Thanks for getting rid of him."

"You know you can't let that happen again, right?"

Wu glanced up at him, clearly hurt. "I didn't do anything to make it happen. He just went up to me and –!"

"And he targets you because he thinks you're a pushover," Ted said sternly. "He underestimates you because he thinks he can get away with it. And he knows Fulton and Portman aren't around. You can't hide behind them and Russ forever, Ken. You've gotta learn to stick up for yourself."

"But how? Whenever I try to, it just makes him madder. He'll kill me if I report it to someone – not that anything's gonna be done anyway."

Ted sighed hard. He knew that the thought of standing up to bullies like Cole intimidated Wu. But Wu needed to start toughening up now, or something worse could happen. And the last thing Ted would want was to have to visit Wu in the hospital because he got into a fight that he couldn't get out of.

It clicked to Ted that part of why Wu struggled so much was that he didn't know how to protect himself at all. He got intimidated easily by larger people, and he found it easier to run away scared than confront them head-on. It was one of the many things Ted noticed from watching Wu's tapes.

"I saw the tape of you in the Goodwill Games finals," he decided to tell the little Bash Brother. "I saw how Iceland pushed you around a lot. Cole's no different."

"It was different because I had Fulton and Dean there with me." Wu wiped his face again. "It was just easier knowing they were there encouraging me."

"You can't hide behind Dean and Fulton forever," Ted argued. "You've got to learn to protect yourself better."

"But how?"

Ted considered it for a moment and then remembered he had a gym membership that offered martial arts lessons. It clicked in his mind that what Wu needed was a confidence boost and somebody to teach him how to defend himself. "If you're interested," he started saying, "I know a guy. I lift weights with him occasionally, and he teaches taekwondo and kickboxing. I'll see if I can hook you up with a free trial."

"Really?"

"It could help sort out that problem for you. Maybe if you know how to protect yourself, you won't have to worry about Cole messing with you anymore. Trust me. It's better to be prepared than to have to worry about landing in the hospital because you got caught in a fight that you didn't know how to get out of."

Wu seemed to consider this for a moment. Finally, he nodded and said, "Thanks, Coach. I'll take you up on that."

"All right, go on back to your dorm, son. Glad I could be of help." Ted winked at him, watching as Wu gathered his hockey bag up and sprinted out of the rink.

And when Wu got pulled into Dean Buckley's office after he defended himself from Cole shoving him during lunchtime, Ted didn't dare mention that he'd been the one to refer Wu to Master Redlich, who'd begun teaching the little Bash Brother not to take the bullying anymore.