About thirty minutes later, the six Gulls amble into their team’s exclusive locker room in their practice facility, Poway Ice Arena.

In the goalie corner, one of the team’s goalies, Matt Hackett, perks up at his incoming teammates.

“Hi, hi!” He smiles and waves to them.

Joseph nods to him as he takes a seat in his stall. “Hey, Hacker.”

“Hi, Matty Hack,” Nick greets drowsily as he sits down next to his roommate.

Brandon smiles at him. “Hey, Matty Hack.” He sits in his stall next to Joseph.

Matt turns to the other side of the room, where he spots Bryan munching on pancakes in his stall. He nods to them. “What do you have there, Mooresy?”

Bryan perks up at him. “Pancakes—” He holds them out to him. “Want some?”

Matt appears taken aback by straightening up with knitted eyebrows. “Uhhh...no thanks… Bu-but I thought you LOVED pancakes.”

Bryan’s eyebrows shoot up. “Yeah, I do!” He tears a bite with his teeth.

“But you’re not hopping up and down and doing your pancake chant…” The goalie mimics the movies subtly.

“Pancake chant?” The skater wrinkles his nose with scrunched eyebrows. “Since when did I do chants?”

Matt’s eyes widen at him with shock. He slowly turns his head to his right, facing the three Monarossabergie residents.

“There’s something off with Mooresy,” he tells them softly.

Joseph takes a glance at Bryan before looking back at the goalie. “He seems fine.”

Matt’s facial expression intensifies at Joseph’s reaction. He turns to Brandon. “Are you guys okay?”

Brandon nods. “Yeah, we’re fine.”

From the other side of the room, the head coach of the San Diego Gulls, Coach Dallas Eakins, strolls into the room in his track suit attire.

“Alright,” he begins from the middle of the room, “it is time for the captain speech.”

From his stall, Joe promptly stands up and intently gazes at his team. “Alright, men, we’re gonna practice well and hard so that we can obtain victory over the Barracuda tomorrow.” He swiftly raises his stick up in the air. “Let’s go Gulls!”

Matt has a horrified expression at the captain. “Something’s terribly wrong with Joe!” he exclaims underneath his breath.

Then like usual, Jaycob Megna marches into the locker room. “OH, THERE’S THE LOCKER ROOM!”

His best friend, Shea Theodore, stands up from his stall and throws his hands out at him. “Oh, there you are!” He then strides up to him and takes him by the hand to lead him into the room.

---

Practice is more normal than usual: Everyone acts like normal people! Joseph and Bryan do not bicker, Joe does not give many compliments, and Brandon is more confident in his answers and moves.

The session goes on with someone not bluntly pointing out the change of attitude toward some of their teammates. Yet the person who is freaking out about this odd situation is Matt. He even carries his worries after practice.

Back in the locker room, most of the sweaty hockey players are changing out of their equipment. In the goalie corner without his chest padding, Matt is observing the teammates with the different attitudes.

“Crammer, are you okay?” he asks Joseph with a concerned expression.

Joseph narrows his eyes at him with curiosity. “Yeah? Why?”

“Well, uh--” Matt fiddles with his suspenders “--because you were getting along with…everyone—”

“That practice was the beeeeeeeeeeest!!!” Bryan hollers as he bounds into the locker room with a massive grin.

Joseph snaps his head at him with a glower. “And I’ll make the ending the worse.”

Bryan whirls to him with delight in his eyes. “Ohhh, so you wanna play? You wanna play?” He throws his stick and gloves down and raises his fists up to his chin in a ready stance. “Let’s play! Let’s play!”

“Bryan!” Stu rushes up to him from the entrance of the room and pulls him back with a firm grip on his shoulder. “Why do you keep picking fights with Joey?!”

Bryan gazes up at him with a maniacal expression. “BECAUSE I WANT TO—!”

Stu smacks his hand over his mouth. “Never mind I asked that,” he mutters. He then pulls his friend to their stalls.

Joseph rolls his eyes. “Squirrel,” he huffs out. He then resumes removing his skates.

Nick frowns at the empty center of the room where a fight was about to occur. He then turns to Joseph. “Awww, I was getting my popcorn ready!” He pulls out a red and white striped bag of popcorn from the his hockey bag.

Joseph straightens up and glares at the bag. “Give me that--!” He snatches the bag from his clutches.

“But it has no butter this time!” Nick cries out to him as he witnesses his snack being crumbled up by his roommate’s hands.

“WHO HAS POPCORN?!” Coach is heard barking from the outside of the room.

Nick jolts up in fright with his small eyes flying open. Joseph smashes the crumpled bag against Nick’s stomach; Nick scrambles to stuff it back down his bag, out of sight.

Matt peers at Nick, noticing that he is still indeed the same Nick. He then reverts his gaze at Brandon, who is removing his shin guards.

“Monty?” he asks with a tilt of his head.

Brandon perks up at him with bewilderment. “Uh, what?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing…” Matt leans against the wooden back of his stall in deep thought. “Huh, that was odd…,” he mutters to himself. “They were all acting weird before…and now they’re okay.” He rubs his stubble-filled chin. “Hmmm.”

Notes

E.14 "What A Great Dish!"
Part 2/7
Episode 14/20