𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐊𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 ; 𝓶𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽𝔂 𝓭𝓾𝓬𝓴𝓼

Eden Hall

    It was the next day and I have to go this welcoming ceremony for Eden Hall. I was running late as I had to drop off Elio with Mrs. Blogs for school.

I go into the auditorium and only spot the new Ducks. I go and take an empty seat next to Luis. He looks annoyed at some guys behind us with red letterman jackets.

"Hey, Speedster." I say to Luis as I sit down. Buckley starts talking about the school up on stage. While he was announcing the scholarships, commotion was happening behind him.

It sounds like Goldberg.

The curtain falls and a pile starts moving under it. "Don't tell me..." Luis leans forward in his seat as Charlie, Goldie, Averman, Guy, Adam, Connie, and Fulton stand up.

"Hi..." Charlie looks about the room. "We're the Ducks."

-

We were in Buckleys office. "Charlie, man, this isn't a good way to start the year." Kenny shakes his head.

"Don't worry, Kenny." Charlie turns the other way. "These preppies aren't doing anything to us." He looks at the large ant farm. "Check it out! Ant farm."

We all lean into the glass. "Looks like a little village." I whisper. "Right, Averman?"

"You can learn a lot from ants." Buckleys voice came instead of Avermans. "Brazilian fire ants can teach you a lot about successful societal structure."

Dwyane looks lost at the big words. I chuckle at that a bit.

"There's one queen in there, the rest are dedicated worker ants. everybody pulls their weight, nobody complains." Buckley continues. "Just like how the things are here at Eden Hall. And you are the workers; the backbone."

Russ looks at him. "You're the queen?" That made most Ducks snicker.

-

We were in our first class of the day, math.

"Every Monday you'll have a practice quiz, every Wednesday a real quiz, every Friday an exam, and whenever I feel like it, you'll have a surprise quiz or exam."

I stare at all the Ducks in that class. They had their mouths wide open.

    We went to our next class, history.

    The history teacher scares me. He starts talking about a dwarf and a giant, then a shoulder, then history is like a dwarf or something. He then goes to Fulton's seat and slams the dwarf with the history book.

-

    It was time for lunch. Thank goodness, I was starving. I go get a tray and find the Ducks sitting down already. Charlie was playing with his food, looking at the door.

    Luis is just sitting there looking across the hall, Averman and Guy were in conversation, same with Julie and Connie, Russ was talking with Kenny and Fulton, and Banksie was sitting down eating his food.

    I plop across from him. "School sucks donkey butt." I say as I put the tray down. Kenny was next to me and he looks over before turning back to the boys.

    Adam looks up and he was confused. "What?" He chuckles lightly.

    "What class you came from?" I ask him, pealing my orange.

    I swallows his chocolate milk. "English. You?"

    "English too. I had Mr. Marsh." I eat my orange and talk with Adam. Kenny occasionally would take a chip or two from my plate, and that's when I noticed he didn't have a lunch plate. I gave him mine. "Ready for practice?"

    Banks sighs. "No, not really." He looks nervous. "I'm not stoked about having a new coach."

    "I'm neutral about all this." I shrug my shoulders. "I knew he was bound to leave. He sorta kinda does that, if you haven't noticed."

    Adam sighs. "And Portman dipped too, the team isn't going to be the same."

    "Yeah, I'll miss him." I sulk a bit before the bell rang. "See you soon, Banksie."

    He gets up from his spot. "See you."

-

    We were all geared up and we went to the ice rink. We enter and I immediately notice the champions hanging, along with varsity on ice.

    The Ducks all say what they have to say about the rink. Charlie leads us to the entrance and he steps onto it.

    "Well if it isn't Captain Ducky." A varsity player comes up. He had a 'C' on his jersey.

    Fulton pushes him slightly. "Get your hands off him."

    The guy pushes Fulton. "Don't shove him, you imbecilic rat." I step forward.

    The guy pretends to be scared. "Ooo, a Bash Brother and the Bash Babe."

    A blonde kid joins in. "We're so scared." The varsity coach pulls them away and we skate onto the ice.

    "Hey, Dwyane, how bout some cowboy round up?" Charlie calls out.

    Dwayne smiles. "Charlie, shouldn't we wait until the new coach gets here before we mess around?" Connie looks at him.

    Conway took that to offense. "This is how we practice, Con." And he starts rambling on some more.

    Dwayne looks to Russ and yee-haws. We take that as our sign to skedaddle.