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the pond had been adam and leah's favourite place since they first learned to skate. through summer, leah was entranced by the soft ripples their sturdy oak raft would make in the water, and in winter she was mesmerised by the crystallised bubbles of air caught in the icy surface of the mossy pool. adam simply enjoyed skating on the crisp ice with his sister, and the slick sound his skate blades would make as they cut through the icy surface of the pond.
the two would spend all of winter break speeding across the ice with their shared puck. they had been practising ice hockey together ever since they learned to play - and they'd become quite a dynamic duo on the ice. the twins named adam and leah were the hawk's star players.
the hawks, district six, were the best team of all the peewee championship districts in minneapolis. they had been for decades. coach reilly told his team that they play to win big; and so they did. the hawks were a strong team - fast, rough and precise - and the only thing leah didn't like was that they played dirty. they would trip, and slash, and outright cheat! she was fine with playing rough, until the rest of her team would 'go easy' on her during practise because she 'played like a girl'.
leah didn't care all that much though, because adam and her were the best on the team. they would weave, glide, and skate circles around their opposition when they were on the ice together. though leah refused to perform cheap shots like the rest of her team, adam certainly had a gruelling shove on his hands. they were unstoppable together, hence why the hawks were at the top of the leaderboard for the 1992 peewee championships.
the worst team in the peewee championships was district five - the team that didn't even have a name or mascot. heck, even the panthers were better than district five, and the panthers had forfeited the 1992 championship! as district five and six were neighbouring districts, they often ran into each other off the rink. whether in the heart of minneapolis or its neighbouring suburbs, leah would try to stop her teammates, especially adam, from picking fights with them. it never seemed to work. she often thought that if she weren't a hawk, she would be subject to their teasing too.
adam and leah lived in edina, minneapolis, minnesota. their father worked in a law-firm and always encouraged their hockey-playing, as their older brother was a hawk player too. edina was known to be a suburb for the wealthy, and though adam and leah's family weren't poor, they certainly were not crazily wealthy. they had all that they needed, with a few extra dollars leftover. they never had to wish for more. for that, leah and adam were grateful.
the pond was adam and leah's unwritten spot. it was on the same block as the lake that froze over in winter, only the pond hid behind the lake and almost backed onto the road. there was a small riverbank which divided the lake from the pond, so leah and adam's raft never escaped the calm waves of the pond. the road closest to the pond was the bus stop for kids bordering edina and minneapolis. it was a beautiful place that adam and leah were lucky enough to call their stop. there was a bench some would sit on, but leah would always censure out to her raft even if it were frozen into the pond. it was serene and picturesque, and leah would have stayed there all day if she could. depending on who else was at the bus stop, adam would join her.
the raft was where it all began. leah remembered the first day of sixth grade - middle school! - like it was out a movie. it felt like it was out of a movie. that first day at the end of summer was the day there was another boy assessing leah and adam's oak raft.
