Page 48 of Grumpy Pucking Orc
“Bwat,” I barked out. “Meeting. On the ice. Skates on.”
He looked up from his phone. “Do you know that hockey players are known for their foul language, taunts to members of the opposing team, and fights in the middle of the games?”
My eyebrows shot up, impressed that Bwat had been researching something related to hockey and not just generic human culture and language.
“That’s…helpful,” I reluctantly admitted.
“The main curse word used is ‘fuck,’” he continued. “If we want to be taken seriously at this hockey game thing, then we need to say ‘fuck’ a lot.”
I nodded. “Everyone say ‘fuck’ as often as you can in your communications. Bwat, you’re in charge of coming upwith appropriate taunts for us to use against the opposing team. Now, skates on and hit the ice. That means you too, Eng.”
Eng rolled his eyes. “Why should I bother? No fuck-one cares if we win or lose, if we try or not. If there’s no payoff, why exert any effort?”
“Nofuckingone,” Bwat corrected. “When it’s describing?—”
“Thereisa payoff.” I grabbed my box of leftover cannoli from my locker. “Now everyone get on the ice.”
Eng muttered something about how my finding a mate and getting laid had pushed me over the edge of insanity, but he did as I said and strapped on his skates.
We all went onto the ice, Ugwyll and I moving with a whole lot more ease than the other orcs who hadn’t been practicing. Just to torture them, I skated to the center and waited for them to slip and slide their way to me. Eng, as usual, refused to cross the ice and instead stomped his way around the wall until he was as close to us as he could get while still clinging to the barrier.
“Our owner might not care if we win or lose,” I began. “Some fans might not care if we win or lose—although many do. But no matter what others’ expectations are,weneed to care. We need to stop being the fools they come to laugh at, and be the players they respect, the ones they cheer for.”
“We’re not going to win,” Ugwyll reminded me. “I can barely fuck-skate, and you’re not much better.”
“Fuckingskate,” Bwat interrupted.
I scowled. “We might lose, but we’ll make the other team pay for every point in fuck-blood.”
“Fuckingblood,” Bwat corrected. “Because?—”
“We try to win. We try to score every point we can. Butour primary goal is to make the other team respect us. And we do that by hitting them hard and often.”
For the first time, probably in his life, Eng looked mildly interested. “You want us to beat the shit out of the human team?”
“Yes but make it look like a series of unfortunate accidents,” I explained. “We’re clumsy and don’t know how to skate, so we slam into them, trip them, accidentally sucker punch them while flailing around for balance, rack them in their hand-axes with our sticks.”
Ugwyll grinned. “I can do that.”
“They’ll put us in the box if we fight,” Bwat said.
I shrugged. “So, we go in the box. I don’t care as long as we rattle them.”
“How hard can we hit them?” Eng asked.
“Don’t kill them or cause any serious injuries,” I said. “Bruises, blood, concussion, a few knocked-out teeth are all okay.”
“Can we shoot the puck into their faces?” one of the other orcs asked.
“I don’t think the rules allow that,” Bwat replied.
I didn’t give a fuck about the rules right now. “No, if we have control of the puck, we need to try to score. Don’t waste that opportunity caving a human’s skull in.”
“You said we could hit them with sticks?” another orc asked. “You mentioned nailing them in the hand-axe with our stick, but what if we take out their knees or break a few ribs with one?”
“You might break a stick doing that. And Sizzle gets mad when we break the sticks,” Bwat warned.
“Fuck Sizzle.” I must have said that right because Bwat didn’t correct me. “Now we’re all going to skate andpractice. If you stick around until I say so, then I’ll give you some of my cannoli.”
