The Heart Does Go On

I was left scowling at Kathryn on the bus towards the hockey tournament. She failed to mention until the end of yesterday that I had to be at school by 8AM, meaning I had to wake up at 6.30AM and leave a lot earlier than usual.

The early start I could deal with, the captain of the hockey team I could not.

Kathryn had forgotten to inform me that the lovely Tarnie was the senior girls hockey team captain. Had she told me this information I may have reconsidered joining the hockey team.

…Or not. I wanted to kick Kristy’s ass. But it still would have been nice to be given some warning on how to approach this situation.

So instead Tarnie was scowling at me, and I was scowling at Kathryn.

I looked down at my attire. The Domino High School PE uniform was fairly plain. It had a white t-shirt with pink that rimmed the shoulders for girls, and we wore blue shorts with white knee-high long socks to go with our sneakers. I wore my hair into a high ponytail, with my bangs sticking out.

The bus finally pulled up to the hockey arena, and all of the girls piled out of the bus. We put in our mouth guards, and took our hockey sticks from the storage space of the bus. We then all ran in, screaming and chanting.

The coach blew her whistle and ordered us to go back outside. We all trudged back outside.

“That is no way for young ladies to behave. Who do you think you are, Rintama High girls?” The coach shouted at us.

I saw an older woman go behind her, and poke her very hardly in the back. The older woman was very chubby; I’d even go so far as to say she’s obese. She had a lot of wrinkles, and had a ‘tough’ exterior.

“Hello Lisa, what did you mean by that comment about my school?” The older woman asked.

“Molly.” The coach said, nodding her head.

The older woman then turned to us.

“Sorry girls, but Rintama High has won the girls hockey tournament for the past 8 years. The odds are against you, but I guess it’s cute if you try.” This ‘Molly’ person said, and it was immediately made obvious that she was the coach of the Rintama High girls hockey team.

“Yeah, that’s because you cheat!” Kathryn said loudly, and ‘Molly’ was shocked that no one was scared of her.

She stormed off in a huff, and Kathryn told me that apparently everyone is scared of the Rintama girls, because they cheat and it wasn’t rare for players to seriously get hurt.

“This is the year where they will not win. I have a feeling.” Our coach mumbled, as we all went inside and dumped our gym bags in a spot ready to play hockey.

Our first game was against a public school that was in the next town over. We lost that. The next game was against Domino’s only private school. We lost that. In fact, we lost all our games, except against one private school that didn’t have enough players for a tennis team so they made a hockey team.

Basically, we sucked. The only good players on the team were Tarnie, Kathryn and I. Tarnie was shocked that I could play hockey fairly well, and we showed a lot of good teamwork on the field.

Then, the game of the year was about to start. Domino High School senior girls vs. Rintama High senior girls. Even the other girls stopped to watch the game. It was a well-known fact that the two schools had a huge rivalry against each other. And it was also a well-known fact that Domino beat Rintama academically, but Rintama kicked Domino’s ass when it came to sports.

The referee’s whistle blew, and the game began.

“Hi Ella!” Kristy said in a bitchy tone.

I decided to ignore her as I began running towards the puck.

Tarnie had it, and we made eye contact. She hit it towards me, and I took it in my stick. I was gliding along, and was about to pass it to Kathryn, when Kristy hit my foot violently.

“OW!” I screamed, and fell over.

Instead of the ref blowing his whistle for foul play, the game kept on going.

Tarnie ran over and helped me up.

“Rintama High is known for playing dirty. Even the refs are scared of them, so they never call fouls. This is how they win their games.” She hissed into my ear.

Rintama High has to go down!

However, throughout the game it was well known it would be impossible to win. Our girls were now limping around the hockey field, and we rarely got a chance to get the puck. One girl was already out because it appeared she had broken her arm from the puck being thrust at her, and another girl insisted she had a sprained ankle but kept on playing.

“Ella, I have an idea!” Tarnie hissed to me.

“Yeah?” I asked her.

“Remember when you pretended you were going to sue me, to try and lower my reputation and point out the illegal activity I did? Why not do it here. Go near the ref, and pretend to shout to me that you’re going to use Kaiba’s influence on something, like suing Rintama High girls for damages.” Tarnie suggested after she came up to me.

I gave her a pat on the back.

“Great idea! I’ll go and tempt Kristy towards the ref!” I said, and ran towards the ref.

Kristy saw me doing this, and curiously walked over and stood next to me.

“Ella! Take this!” Tarnie winked, hitting me the puck.

I took it in my stick, and like the beginning of the match Kristy hit my foot violently to take the puck off me.

Time to be a soccer player for a moment.

“OWWW OH MY GOD! MY ANKLE IS IN SO MUCH PAIN!!! WHY AREN’T YOU DOING ANYTHING?????” I screamed at the ref, faking about how much pain I was in. I was in a little though; I may have sprained my ankle.

The ref shrugged.

“My boyfriend Seto Kaiba is going to be SO ANNOYED that this happened to me and that I’ve possible broken my foot! I bet he sues for negligence!” I said to the ref.

“H-how could he sue for negligence?” The ref asked, stuttering.

“To prove negligence you have to prove three things. That the people owed a duty of care – that’s you and the organizers of the tournament. Your duty of care is to make sure no harm comes to the hockey players through foul play. You have to prove the duty of care was breached – that’s me getting hurt and you not doing anything about it. Then you have to prove the breach of duty of care caused damages – that’s me being hurt and not being able to walk properly, limiting my sport playing and other things.” I said matter-of-factly.

The referee went white, and blew his whistle and declared a time out. I followed him with my eyes and saw him talking to the organizers of the event. They looked over, and sort of held a gasp as the referee explained what I had just said.

I saw the organizers, who were in suits nod their heads at something, and they all walked towards this arena.

“Attention all players! Due to continuing foul play by Rintama High School, and possible legal action that may result from it, Rintama High School is disqualified from the tournament and Domino High School win by default!” The organizer announced.

The Rintama High School girls began to scream and carry on, while the Domino girls were cheering.

I saw ‘Molly’ run over to the organizer (albeit slowly because she’s a fat cow) and then grab him by the shirt in an attempt to threaten him. I saw the organizer threaten to call the police and like me, threatened a lawsuit. Molly let go of him, and rounded up the Rintama girls to leave.

“Ella! You genius! We may have come in second last place, but Rintama lost!!” Tarnie shouted to me, and all the girls piled on me.

“Hey guys,” I whined, “I really did sprain my ankle you know!”

***

On the bus ride back, Tarnie was sitting next to me. We weren’t fighting anymore, and I think today’s event had started a friendship between us. I knew there one more thing I had to do to set things right between us.

“Hey Tarnie, I had an idea for the yearbook that satisfies everyone in the year level.” I mentioned to Tarnie.

“Do tell, we’ve halted the year book until this conflict ends and I don’t think it ever will.” Tarnie replied.

“Why don’t we do both? Create a yearbook, but have a DVD accompany it. We can show all the major highlights of the year in video, but have the traditional yearbook to accompany it and show everything we can’t show on video.” I suggested.

“That’s so simple! Why didn’t I think of that?” Tarnie replied to my suggestion, slapping her forehead.