Surrendering
Chapter 6: Strange Behavior
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January 20th (Later)
Yeay. We won the game. Not thanks to me, but whatever.
I got checked into the board four times before the game was over. I’m used to it. My knee is starting to hurt, though. I hate my knees. They always cause me trouble when I least need it.
I limped up to my room with the intention to keep it cool for a while. Well, that didn’t last long.
“Cee?”
It was Charlie’s voice. He had been calling me ‘Cee’ ever since our little fall out in class. Well, it was better then ‘Ice-princess’ anyway...
“What?” I asked when I finally opened the door.
“Detention?” he said, more like a statement then a question.
Right, I had to be in detention for the next two hours. I could hardly move. Maybe I should quit hockey and take up something less demanding instead? Like chess or drama? But you need a brain for that. I have none.
“Coming,” I mumbled. Two hours with Captain Annoying. Sigh.
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It was the misfortunate Ms. MacKay who got the honor of looking after us during detention. I like her; she’s firm, but a little wimpy. For a teacher, that’s the perfect combination.
Charlie kept bugging me during our punishment.
We were supposed to write an essay on our ‘least favorite word’. God, what a stupid assignment...
There’s one word I’ve hated for a long time now. It’s the word they diagnosed my disease with a couple of years ago. I can’t remember what it is, but I know how much I hate it when I hear it. Maybe I can’t remember it because I have suppressed this certain word?
It’s funny about being a teenager. You’re miserable and un-happy up until you turn twenty. Well, maybe not all the time, but at some point during your teenage years you have those periodically moments when everything just goes wrong.
You either already have something to be un-happy about which you can’t deal with it, or you think it’s something wrong with you, because everybody else are different (un-happy) and you’re not. So you seek up something to be un-happy about instead.
I belong to both categories. I always have something to be un-happy about, and if I’m for some reason are satisfied with my life, I destroy that part and find something to make myself un-happy with again. That’s how I got my eating disorders.
“How do you spell ‘mischievous’?” Charlie woke me up from my thoughts.
“Your least favorite word is ‘mischievous’?” I asked.
“No, I haven’t gotten to that part yet,” Charlie answered with a smile.
“It’s m-i-s-c-h-i-e-v-o-u-s,” I rambled. That’s the one thing, besides language, I’m good at in school. I can tell the spelling of words without having to think twice. It drove my brothers nuts when I did that. They are all airheads. Well, two of them, anyway...
“Again, and this time slower,” Charlie told me. Fine, don’t appreciate my ability to spell words rapidly. Be that way.
I told him again, and he wrote down the word on his paper. “Now, spell ‘miscellaneous’,” he teased me.
“M-i-s-c-e-l-l-a-n-e-o-u-s,” I said quickly. “Need help spelling ‘nitwit’ too? It’s n-i-t-w...”
“No, I don’t,” Charlie interrupted. “What’s your essay about?”
“I don’t know yet,” I confessed. “I can’t think of a word that’s my ‘least favorite’.”
Charlie leaned over my desk to see what I had been writing. I quickly hid the paper in my lap. I had only written one sentence, and it had the words ‘Fred’, ‘wife’, ‘marriage’ and ‘love’ in it. I hate to admit it, but I think I’m all girly inside anyway, no matter how hard I try to fight it.
“Watcha been writin’?” he asked me in a ‘mischievous’ way. Yeah, I have to start expand my vocabulary.
“Nothin’,” I answered. “Mind your own business.”
Charlie chuckled. “Just let me see it, it can’t be THAT bad, can it?”
Well, of course it can’t be THAT bad, but I’m not going to let him win anyway. Charlie grabbed my arm and tickled me. Man, I hate being tickled. I tried to shove him away, but he’s so much stronger then I am.
“Charlie, Cecilia, could you try and concentrate on the assignment?” Ms. MacKay shouted over the noise. I tried to behave, I really did. Well, not so much, but I tried, and that’s the main thing, right?
“Cecilia is being ‘mischievous’,” Charlie said with a childish ‘I’m telling Mommy’ voice. He seemed very amused with the situation.
“Charlie is being a jerk,” I growled and leaned towards him so I could steal his essay instead. He winced and pushed me backwards. Ouch, ever heard of whiplash?
“Cecilia is stealing my essay!” Charlie shouted way too loud. This was really getting out of hand. I wanted to behave, buuut... It’s so much more fun to behave like a baby, then to behave like your own age, isn’t it?
“This is the last warning. If you don’t behave, I’m putting you on kitchen-duty instead,” Ms. MacKay threatened.
We both went back to our essays. I rather die then get stuck with kitchen-duty. We kept quiet for almost half an hour. I still hadn’t begun writing on my essay. It was so hard to come up with a subject. It bugged me that Charlie had been writing non-stop on his paper ever since Ms. MacKay told us to hush. What could he be writing?
“Charlie?” I whispered. Ms. MacKay looked up from her book, but she didn’t say anything. “Charlie?”
“Yeah?” he answered. “What’s up?”
I had no idea; I was just sick and tired of pretending to write. Maybe this was an excellent opportunity to bond with him? No.
“Nothing.” God, I’m stupid. Why can’t I be braver? Why do I always have to be so insecure?
Charlie rolled his eyes at me. I guess he thought I was teasing him.
“Why did I get to be the captain?” I asked. Great, I’d managed to say something without sounding icy. Charlie smiled at me.
“I dunno. Because you’re a good leader?” he guessed.
“Nah, seriously.”
Charlie shrugged and went back to his paper. “If you don’t know, how should I know?”
“Why am I in the first line then?” I continued. He must know something; he’s the freaking captain of the team.
“Who said you were?” Charlie asked.
I could easily have been mistaken for a question mark at that point, because that’s how confused I was. I wasn’t in the first line?
“Uhm, Muck told me that...” I began, but Charlie interrupted me.
“You really should try and listen when people is talking,” he said. I knew that, but why?
“You think I’m captain because I’m the best player of the team? I’m not. Guess what my nick-name was when I was younger?”
I don’t know? Idiot?
“It was Spazway,” he told me. I snorted.
“I’ve improved!” he exclaimed when I tried to hide my smile. “Anyway, I was assigned as captain because I’m a good leader, right?”
“How should I know, I’ve only known you for two weeks,” I answered.
“Well, you just have to take my word for it.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. Right at that moment I could’ve done anything for a nap. “So, you guys have been playing together since you were children?” I asked, just to keep the conversation going.
“Yeah, we were nine players to begin with, back when we were District 5. When Bombay made us the Ducks, four other people joined us. After we won our first State Championship, we had five dropouts. After that we’ve been eight players.”
“Did you have Bombay as coach before you became the Ducks?” I asked.
“No, we had someone else. We drove him crazy and gave him a heart attack. We weren’t especially good at the game. Bombay coached us for the next couple of years, until last year.”
“What happened?”
“He tried out for the Minnehaha Waves. The minors, you know. He dumped us off at some stupid school were we played as the Warriors, and our new coach broke us up, putting Adam in the varsity.”
“So, why is Bombay coaching us now?”
“He hurt his leg in a game, so he had to stop playing. He moved back to Minneapolis and began sharpening skates. Well, you know what happens after that,” he concluded.
“I do?”
“Yeah, he was assigned to be the coach for Team USA in the Junior Goodwill Games.”
“So, you’re not rich?” I asked. It was a stupid statement, why’d I say that?
“No!” he laughed. “Why did you think that?”
“Well, Travis said that Dmitri had told him that you had been attending a private school before you came here, so I just assumed...”
“Never assume,” Charlie said. “We were at Eden Hall because we had been given scholarships, but we left when we got these scholarships instead. They were happy to get rid of us, so they didn’t think twice for letting us out of our contracts. We attended Eden Hall for one term, and then we came here to play for the Junior Goodwill Games.”
“Sounds complicated,” I told him. “I’m confused. Your coach left you at your last school, but came back when he hurt himself playing in the minors. After that you all got to represent USA in the JGG. Why?”
“I can’t know everything, can I? Coach Bombay selected his team, and we’re it. Is that explanation good enough for you? Why are you here?”
“Much forced me,” I explained. “That’s my story, and it’s a lot shorter then yours. Now, tell me again which line-up I’m in.”
“In the second line.”
“But Muck said...”
“Coach Bombay explained this at our first practice. Didn’t you pay attention?”
No, I’d been busy trying to choke Nish for tripping me into the door.
“We’re divided into four line-ups.”
“Why can’t we just be as a normal hockey-team with three line-ups?”
“We’re too many. Instead of considering three forwards as one line, a complete line-up is when we have three forwards, two defensemen and a goalie. That makes four line-ups, with one goalie in every line. It’s kind of confusing, but it’s how the lines are divided in Russia. Not like that has anything to do with us, I’m just trying to explain. You get it?”
“No, not at all. I know Muck said I was in the first line.”
“He can’t have told you that, because Adam, Guy, Connie, Erik and Russ are in the first line. We’re the second line-up. Sarah, Dmitri, Ken, Portman and Fulton are in the third line and Jesse, Luis, Averman, Dwayne and Derek are the fourth. I thought you knew this?”
I’ve honestly never been as confused as I was at that point. I know that Muck had told me that I was in the first line, but now I wasn’t? Not so surprising maybe, since I apparently suck at the game, but why did Muck have to confuse me like that? One had to be a genius to figure this out. Although I got the part of having five people in one line, that’s how we used to play sometimes back in Sweden too.
So, I’d been right. I wasn’t good enough to be in the first line-up. I’d been right about Adam too. He was good enough for the first line. He was in the first line.
“No,” I said firmly. “Muck SAID that I was in the first line-up.”
“Maybe he made a mistake. People do that, you know. What exactly did he say, then?”
“I asked him what line I was in and he told me that I was in the first runner-up line. And then he’d smile at me.”
Charlie began to laugh. “He was joking, Cecilia. First runner-up means you’re on second place. He was probably just trying to lighten your mood, that crazy bastard. Didn’t you know that?”
“Uhm, no,” I answered, feeling humiliated. How the hell was I supposed to know that?
“Well, now you do. The next time you’re the first runner-up in a competition, remember to leave the gold medal to the winner, okay?”
I need to bring a note-pad for our next practice. This obviously required more then just the ability to play. You needed to be smart as well.
I’m screwed.
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Author’s Notes: The time frame is different then from the movies. D3 happened before D2. (I’m re-writing history here.)
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