It was a black and stormy afternoon in a distant nook of atypical American suburb, and Johnny was nearing the end of his fourth bad practice in a row. A back-up attackman, Johnny liked rippin` twine and dropping goals, but recently he`d hit a depression and wasn`t putting in the performance he`d like. He had taken 11 shots in six-on-six to end practice, and hadn`t hit the goal. He also had thrown the ball away twice.
At the end of his fuse, Johnny slapped his stick against the hard FieldTurf ground after a particularly wayward shot and heard a "Snap." He looked low to obtain a cracked sidewall - not all the way through, though, and he knew he could fix it with tape.
At the end of practice, however, his coach called Johnny into his office. Coach informed him that if he didn`t shape up his position and get his back in order, Johnny wouldn`t make a spot on the team much longer. "We don`t make room on this roster for somebody who can`t restrain his emotions in check," Coach said. "If you don`t show major improvement tomorrow, you`re off the team."
That night in his room, Johnny did some operation on his stick, taping up the sidewall and restringing his pocket. "Well," Johnny said to his faithful wand, "I think we`ve got one more day together."
Practice started better the following day. Line drills finished without an errant pass, and Johnny made it through shooting practice without drawing any negative attention from Coach. He did notice something weird, however - he`d hear a weird groan while he was shooting, and once when he tried to run on his stick while standing in line, the chief gave way, Johnny lost his balance and nearly fell over.
Six-on-six went even better. Johnny scored twice when he tried to take and the egg never came out (this time, it was only a groan, but a full-blown "Ugh" when he tried to shoot), and so he was capable to feel easy looks because of the wicked stick-fakes he was capable to throw. Johnny left practice in a serious humour and Coach nodded approvingly at him as he walked off the field.
When he got home, Johnny went directly to his room. He sat down on his bed and started to see his stick. He set it english to side, made some fake throwing motions, all trying to duplicate the sound. He couldn`t get it to do anything weird. Then he took the tape off the sidewall to break the crack - it was all gone. The puzzle had healed itself.
Johnny was confused. He checked the bag to make certain it was strung in his signature way and he hadn`t mistaken it for somebody else`s - sure enough, it was his; the double loop on the bottom string told him so. Perplexed and freaked out, Johnny put his stick down besides his bed and went to sleep.
He woke the following morning to get his stay in bed, next to his face, as if it were looking right cover at him. Freaked out, Johnny jumped out of bed. After he calmed down, he asked his mom if she`d gone in his way that night. "No," she said, "I haven`t checked on you in years."
The following day in school, Johnny kept his stay in his locker, with his glove and helmet resting on his upside down stick. When he came back after last period, Johnny found his helmet, gloved and everything else on the shock of his cabinet and the joint right-side up, as if it were proudly looking backward at him.
"Something weird`s going on," Johnny thought. That day at practice, Johnny didn`t play nearly as well. Balls were flying everywhere out of his stick, and when he`d make a particularly bad pass, Johnny would see a "WOOOO!"
When he as walking off the field, Coach said: "Johnny, you should get best guardianship of that stick," and he had a weird feeling in his eye.
The night, Johny slept with his stay in be adjacent to him. In his locker, he kept his stick upright. That day in use was still better than two years ago; Johnny lost track of the goals he scored. Walking off the exercise field, Coach said, "What`d I say you?"
That night, Johnny slept next to his stick again. This time, he had a very weird dream in which he was laying in a sack made from mesh, and looked up to receive a giant lacrosse ball falling right toward him. The globe was screaming the same "WOOOO!" sound Johnny heard at practice when he threw the ball by two years prior. He woke to receive his stick upright beside his bed, with a crack in either sidewall this time. The top of the chief leaned back and it started to talk, making a talk with the broken spots.
"You heard Coach, Johnny," the stick said. "It`s time to have charge of me. I make a few demands."
From that day forward, Johnny had to rub butter on the network every morning, apply a new bright red fade dye to the top of the gravel every month and alter the ballstop twice a year. But, within three weeks, Johnny had made the foremost line. Yet, he was odd to inquire around the Bane of the Broken Sidewall.
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