Middle School Heroes

Chapter 43 - Exploding Boxes and Dance Madness

On the first Friday in April, Principal Fury announced that the final school competition of the year would take place in mid-May. This caused a ripple of excitement throughout the school and more work for everyone as Peggy encouraged everyone to try to work in extra practice in any event which they might compete, and apparently there were quite a few options.

"So how does this work, guys?" Skye asked at dinner that night.

"Well, it's a two-day competition," Peggy explained. "The first day you have all the usual things like shooting, archery, sparring, computers, debate, flying, science, and capture the flag. Like the winter competition, you get points for your place."

Steve jumped in. "The points are used to decide order for the event of the second day, which is a giant obstacle course. The whole team has to take part and the winner of the competition is the team who crosses the finish line first."

"Wait, wouldn't that give an advantage to the smaller teams?"

"Well, you'd think so, but some of the obstacles require creative problem solving, and the more people you have, the more abilities you have," Tony added.

"The X-Men have won this competition every year," Rhodey grumbled. "They are pretty insufferable about it."

"Yes, I would very much like to beat them this year," Peggy sighed. "If I have to go another year listening to Scott brag about them winning, I won't be happy."

"Will we know all of the obstacles ahead of time?"

"Nope," Sam answered. "We'll know a few through team practice, but not all of them. Speaking of that, Peggy, when will team practice start?"

"This Sunday. We are scheduled for 10:00 to 11:30am, then we will have a team meeting afterward to see how everyone is doing preparing for the other events. Hopefully we will be done by lunch. Everyone be ready in the lobby at 9:30am. No one better be late either."

Skye had to laugh at the sternness in Peggy's voice. "Peggy, you remind me of one of the nuns in the orphanage that I was in. She took punctuality very seriously. She used to always say, 'If you're early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late. If you're late, don't even bother showing up.' She meant it too."

"I like that very much. Maybe we should get that printed on new team t-shirts." Everyone groaned around her, and Peggy laughed. "Okay, I'm only joking about the shirt, although let's assume that is our team motto for the rest of the year." Everyone groaned again.

**********

Skye learned very quickly that Saturdays were going to be crazy. She was up at 6:30 to go run with Sam, then after breakfast she went to the archery range with Clint, Oliver and Felicity as they always did. The girls tried to bring their laptops with them, but Oliver and Clint, who would go back to the archery range in the afternoon to practice for hours on their own, insisted that they should just have fun and not think about the competition for the hour that they were all there together.

Even though there was pretty much no chance that Skye would be sparring, Natasha still asked her to show up for the late morning practice, mostly to help her keep everyone organized. Steve, Bucky, Thor, Loki, and Natasha were all likely candidates for sparring, so they were fighting each other and anyone from the other teams who were interested. She was watching Drax and Thor when she heard a familiar voice behind her. "Hey Skye! Are you sparring in the competition?"

She turned toward him and shrugged. "Hello Ward. Nope. I'm just here helping Natasha out. Are you?"

"We aren't sure yet. I'm probably shooting or doing capture the flag, but I figured I might as well come just in case. Besides, I thought you might be here."