by W. C. Mack
No matter what Patrick said, I couldn’t help feeling that MVP of a women’s tournament wasn’t as cool as MVP of the NHL.
And a couple of gold medals didn’t change the fact that Katie Gunnar was a girl.
Chapter Three
When I’d finished getting ready, I headed for the rink with the rest of the guys. They were loud and rowdy, ready for the best week of their lives.
I tried not to be jealous, but it was impossible.
“This is going to be awesome,” Chris Fullerton said. “I can’t wait to show Holbrook my moves.”
“Forget it,” Kenny said, laughing. “He’s gonna be too busy checking out mine.”
“We’ll see,” Chris laughed, giving him a punch on the shoulder.
Normally, I would have been right in there, telling Kenny he was going to be blinded by my brilliance on the ice or something like that. I would have been elbowing Chris and shoulder-checking Colin as we turned the corner to the rink.
But this wasn’t normal. It felt weird, not being part of the excitement, not saying anything.
When we turned the corner, I saw Jeremy Simpson and Curtis Blank, who were both Cougars benchwarmers, walking in front of me. Just like me, they were wearing their regular practice jerseys.
“Are you guys on Gunnar’s team?” I asked, edging past Kenny and the guys to catch up.
It would be cool to have a few of us Cougars on the team. And even better? If it was just Patrick, me and the benchwarmers, I’d be the star player, for sure.
“Nope,” Curtis said, shaking his head.
“Me neither,” Jeremy said. “But my sister is.”
What?
I froze and Colin smashed into me, almost knocking me over.
“Geez, Nugget. What’s your deal?” he asked, pushing past me.
I still couldn’t move.
Jeremy’s sister would be on my team?
Patrick had stopped when I did and he was giving me a questioning look. But I couldn’t speak.
I’d been so busy worrying about being on Katie Gunnar’s team, I hadn’t thought about who my teammates could be, other than the Port Alberni guys.
I definitely hadn’t considered the possibility of girls.
Seriously? Girls?
“Jeremy’s sister?” I mumbled.
Patrick nodded. “Her name’s Tonia, I think. She’s on the —”
Before he could say another word, we were at the edge of the rink, where we could see the swarm of dark blue helmets on the far side of the ice. There were ponytails hanging out of some of them and curls sticking out of the others.
“Cutter Bay Blizzard,” I finished for him, through gritted teeth.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I was going to be playing with a bunch of junior high girls who probably cared more about nail polish than pucks.
“There’s Katie!” Patrick said, pointing to the far goal. “Come on, Nugget.”
He grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the rink.
Even the familiar sound of my blades scraping the ice wasn’t enough to make me feel better. Hockey had always been the highlight of my whole life, but I had the sinking feeling that was about to change.
Patrick let go of me and raced toward the girls’ side.
I took my time following him and noticed that if I squinted, the Blizzard’s blue helmets and jerseys looked like a dark cloud.
And I was going to be stuck in the middle of it.
I glanced toward the opposite net and saw the Cougars gathering around a guy who had to be Holbrook. He didn’t look as big as he probably was, because Bosko, the gorilla, was standing right next to him.
Great.
They’d probably end up being best friends by the end of the week.
So Bosko and I shared right wing on the Cougars and we shared time with a Math textbook, but we wouldn’t be sharing Danny Holbrook.
Nuts.
What if Bosko turned into an even better player than he already was? What if he started getting more game minutes than me?
It wasn’t fair.
I looked at the rest of the guys on the other side of the rink and sighed.
Along with Bosko, Holbrook’s team was made up of the rest of us Cougars, a couple of guys I didn’t recognize and three girls.
They all wore Holbrook jerseys and it actually hurt to look at all of that blue and green, so I turned away to focus on my own team. I skated past centre ice, slowing down as I got closer to the dark cloud.
At least there were a few guys in the mix. Patrick was leaning on his stick and talking to Katie Gunnar while two of the Watson triplets passed a puck back and forth between them. I glanced back at Holbrook’s team and saw the other Watson talking to Kenny. How did they get split up? When I turned back to our side, I saw the Cougars’ third benchwarmer, Tim Shaw, sitting on our bench.
The last two guys on the bench were from Port Alberni and even though we’d played them a million times, I didn’t know their names.
I was pretty sure that was about to change.
So, including me, we had seven guys and nine girls.
Which meant we were already outnumbered.
A whistle sounded and I turned to see that Katie Gunnar was the one blowing it.
“Come on over,” she called, waving her glove in the air.
“Here goes nothing,” I muttered, as I skated toward her team.
By the time me and the rest of the guys had joined them, the Blizzard’s chatter had turned into giggling.
Lots of giggling.
One girl with a blond ponytail turned to look at me, then whispered to two of her teammates. They all started giggling even louder.
I glanced at the Watsons, who shrugged.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Who knows?” one said.
The girls looked at me again and giggled even louder.
I poked the blonde in the back with my stick and asked again, “What’s so funny?”
She turned and grinned at me. “You’re cute.”
And they all shrieked with laughter.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
“I don’t know, Nugget,” the other Watson said. “Maybe you are cute, and you just never knew it.”
“Very funny,” I said, giving him a jab to the ribs with the butt of my stick.
“Wow. Cute and tough,” he said, laughing.
“Okay, everybody, let’s get started,” Katie Gunnar said over the racket.
The girls all quieted down the second she took off her helmet. She had straight brown hair pulled back in a tight braid, and her face was covered with freckles. She wasn’t wearing gobs of makeup, like I expected, but her smile was huge, like she was in the middle of a toothpaste commercial.
That smile was way over the top.
“I’m Katie Gunnar, and first off, I’d like to thank you all for signing up.”
“I didn’t,” I mumbled to myself.
Patrick glanced over his shoulder at me. “Shh.”
“This is going to be a fun week,” Katie continued, “but it’s also going to be a lot of hard work.”
“Yeah, right,” I whispered to Tim, who shot me a dirty look and turned back to the coach.
“As you probably know already, I’m a member of the Canadian Women’s Hockey Team.”
“Woo-hoo!” one of the girls called out and a couple of others cheered.
“Thank you,” Katie said, laughing. “We’ve won gold medals at the last two Olympic Games and I have to tell you that those were two of the proudest moments of my life.”
“Are you wearing your medals now?” one of the Blizzard asked.
Katie laughed. “No.”
“I’d be wearing mine,” she said.
“I hope you get the chance someday,” she said, with an even bigger smile. “Now, let’s go through my list and make sure everyone is here. Cara Vittoli?”
“Here,” a redhead squeaked.
“Tonia
Simpson?”
Jeremy’s sister.
“Here,” a female version of my buddy raised her hand.
As soon as Katie said my name, I raised my hand to let her know I was there and stopped listening. There had to be a way out of this mess.
I looked at Holbrook’s team, lined up against the boards while he talked to them about the kind of stuff I could only imagine.
Man, I wished I was over there.
Especially when I saw him pull a cardboard box out onto the ice. He opened it up and let the guys dig into it. I saw Jeff pull out a handful of tuques, Kenny had a pennant and the rest of the guys were grabbing at either stickers or badges. I was too far away to tell.
I gritted my teeth, wishing I hadn’t even looked, and tried to concentrate on what was happening at my end of the rink.
Katie Gunnar was still taking attendance.
I should have paid more attention, so I’d at least know the names of the Port Alberni guys, but I didn’t really hear anything until she said, “Ashley Bosko.”
I spun around and stared as a stick was waved in the air.
Ashley Bosko?
I knew Eddie had an older brother. After all, Shane was dating Wendy. But a sister? Ashley? I’d never heard of her. I glanced at Tim and Patrick, but neither of them was looking in my direction.
A whistle was blown on the other side of the rink and I watched the guys skate into their positions.
That’s when I realized that the situation was even worse than I’d thought.
Bosko was spending time with Danny Holbrook while I was stuck with his sister.
The whole world had gone totally nuts.
Katie finished going through her list, then she slid a big cardboard box out from behind the net and tore it open.
“I have a little something for you guys,” she said, digging inside.
I waited for her to start pulling out pink jerseys, my stomach in knots over the whole stinkin’ mess.
To my total surprise, she didn’t.
In fact, the jerseys weren’t bad. They were mostly grey, with black sleeves and a bit of light blue here and there. The logo was a puck with blue wings, which was a bit too much like Detroit’s logo for my taste, but pretty cool anyway.
I had to admit, I was impressed.
“I’ve got to tell you,” Katie said, as she passed blond-ponytail a jersey, then gave one to little redhead. “I didn’t realize you’d all be so big.”
I couldn’t help smiling. As the smallest eleven-year-old on my team, at school and probably on the entire planet, I’d never been called a big guy before.
I liked it.
“I ordered mostly mediums, so I’m not sure I have enough jerseys that will fit,” she said, cringing.
What? I might not even get a jersey?
I looked over at the Holbrook team in their blue and green. It wasn’t fair.
Nothing was fair.
I watched Katie hand out jerseys to the rest of the girls first, since most of them were bigger (well, taller) than us.
“I’m really sorry,” she said to the rest of us, when she’d given a couple of the guys the last of the mediums.
I sighed.
“Jonathan?” Katie said.
“Yup.”
“I think a small will work for you,” she said, tossing me a jersey.
I felt my cheeks get warm and knew my face was bright red.
“Thanks a lot,” I mumbled.
My heart sunk when I checked the tag. It was an extra small. And even worse? I knew it would fit.
Katie gave the rest of the guys their jerseys but it was pretty obvious the sizes were way off. When Patrick held his up against his body, it didn’t look like it was long enough to reach his belly button.
So, only me and the Blizzard girls had the matching black and grey.
Just perfect.
“If you could wear those tomorrow, that would be great and in the meantime I’ll put in an express order for the guys.”
For the guys?
If they were the guys, what was I supposed to be?
“So let’s get this camp going,” Katie said. “We’ll warm up first by skating lines and —”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I muttered. We skated lines all the time at practice. Camp was supposed to be fun!
“Is there a problem, Jonathan?” Katie asked.
“No …” Of course there was. “Okay, it’s already bad enough that we have a bunch of girls on the team and —”
“Bad enough?” Katie asked, one eyebrow raised.
“You know what I mean.” I shrugged. “And this is supposed to be camp, not practice. I already know how to skate lines.”
She tilted her head to one side, just like Mum did when she was getting mad.
Uh-oh.
“Then why don’t you show the rest of us?” she said, with a smile that was cooler than the ice I stood on.
“By myself?” I asked.
“I’ll do it too,” the red-haired girl offered, then turned to look me over, from helmet to blades. “And crush you.”
“What?” I had to hold back a laugh. She was the smallest girl there. “You mean race? You’re like, half my size.”
“Well, you’re half the size of my brother,” she said, giving me a cold stare. “And he’s nine.”
“Hey!” I gasped.
Katie blew her whistle. “That’s enough chatter, I think. Are you ready, Jonathan?”
I nodded. I was ready, all right. Ready to leave my competition in the dust.
Half the size of a nine-year-old? Come on.
“Ready, Cara?”
The girl nodded, and the very second the whistle sounded, she took off like she’d been fired from a slingshot.
Caught off guard, I had a slower start, but I made sure I picked up speed right away.
All I could hear behind me were a couple of shouts of “Go, Nugget!” before the guys were completely drowned out by the frantic screams of nine girls. They sounded like the howling sirens of the Cutter Bay Fire Department.
Cara leaned over and touched the line with one gloved hand, then spun around to head back to the net, grinning and flashing a mouthful of braces as she passed me.
It was on.
I kicked it into high gear and bent to touch the ice myself. When I turned to head back, already breathing hard, I could see that the Cougars on Danny Holbrook’s team had stopped what they were doing to watch.
Nuts.
I pushed myself even harder and started to catch up with Cara. By the time she touched and turned by the goal, I was only a couple of paces behind her. My lungs were on fire, but I was in it to win it.
I wasn’t going to get smoked by some girl from the Blizzard.
Not in this lifetime.
A few of the Cougars were cheering for me while others were shaking their heads as I worked to catch up to that stupid blue helmet.
Cara and I hustled back and forth for what seemed like forever until Katie shouted “Last one!”
I couldn’t believe it, but I actually had another burst of speed left in me. I pushed myself as hard as I could, breathing hard through my mouth, nose and for all I knew, my ears.
I’m not sure if it was adrenalin or embarrassment, but I somehow managed to drag myself across the finish line first.
I won by less than a metre.
The guys on both sides of the rink cheered for me while I skated a victory lap.
As I returned to my goal, all nine members of the Blizzard lined up, arms folded across their chests, and glared at me like I’d cut in line at a Twilight movie.
That’s when I knew it was a double win.
They didn’t think I was cute anymore.
Chapter Four
I skated back to the guys and found a spot between Patrick and one of the Port Alberni players.
“That could have been embarrassing,” the one with the big nose said.
“Could have been?” the skinny one asked, snorting.
“Barely,” Big Nose pointed out.
My lungs were killing me and it was taking everything I had to sound like I wasn’t gasping for breath. The last thing I needed was an earful from those guys.
“Look, I had it under control, okay?” I told them, sounding a lot more sure than I felt.
“Sure, you did,” Skinny said, sarcastically. “You almost bit it on that last turn.”
He was right, but there was no way I’d admit it. “Not even close,” I told him.
Patrick elbowed me in the ribs and I noticed that the whole team was silently staring at me and the Port Alberni guys.
“Am I keeping you from something?” Katie asked, giving us a tough look. “Something maybe more important than hockey?”
“No,” we all said quickly.
I heard a snort from down the line and when I checked to see who it was, Ashley Bosko was laughing at me.
Whatever.
I glared back and when I really looked at her, I saw that she didn’t look like Bosko at all. Her hair was light brown instead of almost black, and she had blue eyes instead of dark brown. Of course, she didn’t have Bosko’s mustache (which he shouldn’t have had, himself!) and she was normal sized instead of a giant.
Lucky for her.
“Okay,” Katie said, interrupting my thoughts. “Now that Jonathan and Cara have shown us how it’s done, let’s all skate lines.”
What?
I’d barely caught my breath and my legs were still burning. I cleared my throat. “Uh, Katie?”
“Gunnar,” she said. “Everyone calls me Gunnar.”
“Okay, Gunnar,” I said, then added, “And everyone calls me Nugget.” I pointed to myself and Cara. “Do we have to do it again?”
Another snort from Ashley Bosko.
I ignored her. Well, tried to, anyway.
“Are you already worn out?” Gunnar asked, with an innocent smile.
“Well …”
“I’m not,” Cara said, skating to the goal line. “I’m ready for more.”
“Nugget?” Gunnar said. “If you want to hit the bench for a rest —”
“No!” I interrupted. “No, I’m cool. Let’s do this.” I took a deep breath and prepared to blow everybody away with how hard I could work and how fast I could move.
