Riptide Academy

Dream's To Reality

"Cheer up Alex, I promise it'll only get easier once you get used to it. Now! Who's hungry?" Charli said as she rubbed her stomach.

Their last lecture had finished at 7pm so I wasn't surprised when I saw all three of them devour the Chinese. Jaimie complained about her sports lectures, Aldric Emberthorn and Elara Moonfire had put them through the ringer on the first day while Charli and Em told us about the weird encounter, they had in their last art lesson for the week.

"It was a complete surprise to see Howdy and the vice principal show up. Vice principal Loreli Edwards wanted to talk to us about the upcoming 100th centenary the school was celebrating and loved if we could create some art for it. Howdy even said that they wanted to add some art by the first years this year or 100th centenary students to do a project together as a special present for the school and new students to come. Howdy said that they would try and hunt down the writing; 'story'; kids to see if they could get a short imaginative story of how the school formed so they could put it in the display" Jaimie said.

Tomorrow was Saturday and since the games didn't start until next week Charli and Jaimie had us split into teams and verse each other as a practice game. Every time the ball or puck would come near one of us, they would cheer for them and then switch to the next friend when the ball or puck came near them. Everyone else who had come to watch would laugh at the uproar they caused. I'd even hear other players shout stuff as my friends encountered the object. One of the identical twins Jasmine, the other sides goalkeeper had once roared at her sister Jennifier who was on her team to stop adding the uproar when shed deliberately channeled Charli to Jaimie every time Charli came within the twenty-five-meter line and closer to the circle.

Then the two twins would switch with Jen being our main goalkeeper for ice and Jasmine being the other siders best attacker with Jasmine's team being the more experienced they allowed me to play goalkeeper than switch at half time with Jen as an attacker for the other team.

"I feel like I've been betrayed!" shouted Jaimie when she let lose a powerful shot into the back of the net and the crowed didn't cheer.
"Treacherous crowd, you're supposed to cheer!".

The crowd burst into laughter and so did a few players, but she shook her head with a growing smile and joined Charli at the face off. With a crack the shaft of Jaimie's stick had lifted Charli's and in the craze of bashing sticks she managed to swipe the puck off to me.

Instantly I put my extra training to use and started down the ice gaining speed. I could hear the sound of skates digging into the ice behind me, so I looked up for a teammate to pass the puck to; to my left was Ashley but she was still behind me and in front was Skye coming in for defence. Using my past experience as a forward in field hockey I skidded to a halt in front of her and did an anti-clockwise one eighty spin and dished the puck to Kate who was driving the net. She pulled the puck back for a shot and just as she was about to fire, she slapped it over to Ashley behind her on the right as she kept driving the net. Kate ended up skating past the net and into the boards before coming back as an option behind the net; Ashley rocketed the puck over to me and with a smacking sound the puck flew into the back of the net.

The crowd roared after moments of stunned silence; players looked bewildered at the play that just happened. As I skated to the bench the whole team mobbed me with hugs and slaps of appreciation, while Coach Moonfire just stared at me. The sports subject lectures Moonfire and Emberthorn both doubled as most sports coaches.

"That's some real talent you've got!" she said over the chatter of the team gushing at what I had done "Guys, I think we've got ourselves a keeper!" she shouted over the voices.

With a cheer we all headed off the ice to pack up and go home. As I shouldered my bag and left both of my goalkeeper and player equipment bags underneath the bench where I sat, I ran into the boy's coach, Aldric.

"That was a seriously hard stunt you pulled. The skill that would have had taken wasn't something someone could've learnt in their first two days. Now, I'm not trying to be mean or call it a fluke, but I reckon some of your field hockey skill came into that. Would you reckon you could do it again? Cause I'd like to see the boys try 'n do it" he asked.

Coach Aldric Emberthorn wants me to try and teach the boys with a move that he thinks I would destroy them with?

"I dunno, maybe? It was a kind of in the heat of the moment, natural reaction as a past winger in field. Are you asking me to try and teach the boys or destroy them with it, Aldric?" I asked.

He chuckled whilst nodding his head before saying goodbye and walked down the hallway. The others wouldn't stop yapping on about the play the whole way back to the house. I was so tired I ended up crashing shortly after dinner; so, before I tried to sleep, on habit, I checked my phone for messages and saw that the asteroid was supposed to pass over tonight.

Before long, my eyelids grew heavy, and I drifted further into my sleep. The world seemed so big but also did the asteroid rocketing for earth; instead of zooming past the rock changed course and started teetering off course further into the Earth's atmosphere. The rock lit ablaze like a firework streaming into the sky, except this one was heading for Earth fast; and right at the mountain near the school. As it collided with the mountain face my body shook and I sat up in bed drenched in cold sweat. Wide awake I used parts of my shirt that wasn't wet to wipe the sweat from my face, neck and the pool on my pillow.

"Hey, I heard you squeal. You, okay?" Em asked.