Hat Trick by W. C. Mack Read Free Book Online Page B

and they kind of did. But they didn’t give me an edge over Coach.
    “Let’s hustle out there!” he shouted, in between blasts on his whistle.
    “I
am
hustling,” Colin grunted at me.
    “Me too,” I grunted back.
    “Bayview isn’t going to slow down for you guys at next week’s game, you know,” Coach shouted.
    “We know,” Colin and I groaned at the same time.
    “You’ve got three days before you face them. Do you want to win?”
    “Yes,” I heard a couple of guys say.
    “What about the rest of you?” Coach shouted.
    “Yes,” we mumbled.
    “I still can’t hear you.”
    “Yes!” we shouted, loud and clear.
    For most of practice, I felt like I had too much on my mind to concentrate properly. Life had been kind of a breeze up until twenty-four hours earlier, and it had been going down the tubes ever since, especially on the ice. I should have been a lock for starting right wing, since I’d been on Coach’s team forever. Never mind all the extra work I’d done over the summer. That position should have been mine, period.
    Eddie Bosko was ruining everything for me.
    He was going to be a tough player to beat. He was good, he was strong and he had the size advantage.
And now he was going to be my tutor?
I’d be stuck spending time with him off the ice? That stunk worse than week-old garbage, but there was nothing I could do about it.
    And when it came to things I had no control over, there was the fact that I wasn’t growing at all. What if I was the size of an eight-year-old when I was seventeen … or seventy!
    Jeff swiped the puck from me during scrimmage and scored his second goal.
    Nuts!
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eddie Bosko check Kenny, who tripped over his own skates and wiped out. Eddie did the same thing to Patrick Chen, who was one of the only guys on the team who liked him. Patrick managed to stay on his feet, but barely. In fact, he looked pretty shaken up after Bosko made contact.
    That monster was going to help me with Math? He would slowly explain all the calculations that made no sense?
    I seriously doubted it, especially when he checked me into the boards three times in four minutes, each hit a little harder than the last.
    I didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing it hurt me, though. I grunted, but kept my face totally blank, just like he did. I tried to smirk once, but it probably looked more like a wince, and even with pads on, my elbow felt like it was on fire.
    After the last hit, I went after the puck like it was the key to fixing everything that was going wrong. I forgot how tired I was and much pain I’d be in the next morning. I pushed myself as hard as I could, and the people around me even harder.
    Unfortunately, that included Kenny, who was rubbing his shoulder and shooting me dirty looks as practice was winding up.
    “Geez, Nugget! What’s your problem?” he asked, as Coach O’Neal blew his whistle to call us in.
    “Sorry, man,” I said. “I didn’t mean to.”
    “That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt,” he said, skating toward centre ice.
    “Let’s huddle up,” Coach said, clapping his hands silently.
    I guess he forgot he was wearing gloves.
    The group of us skated into a circle and I saw that every one of us was dripping sweat, even Eddie Bosko. That was a good sign, at least. I wiggled my toes, and even they felt sweaty. If my socks stood up on their own from the first practice, the second would have had them dancing around the laundry room.
    “I know I ran you guys hard today,” Coach O’Neal said, over the sound of us catching our breath. “And you know I did it for your own good.”
    A couple of the guys nodded.
    “We beat Bayview twice last year, but that doesn’t mean we can rest on our laurels and —”
    “Our what?” Kenny asked.
    “Laurels. Don’t worry about it right now. Just know that Bayview is hungry for a win. We all know last season left them with something to prove.”
    “I’ll say,” Jeff whispered.
    Coach