You sidle up to Wump. He’s older than in Duckett’s photo, a little grayer around the sideburns, a little fleshier in the jowl, and with a large crease in between his eyebrows that can only come from another decade of concentrated frowning.
“Man, that ‘87 Squabble was really a bloodbath, huh,” you say to him. He’s standing under a display showing several photographs from the game as well as a Nub’s framed, ripped jersey from it. It is, according to the Nubber (his Squabbling nickname that he only permits team members to use) the proudest moment in his life, even though he was quickly ejected from the game for excessive biting.
“Oh, yeah, I suppose it was,” Wump says. He sort of stares through you and doesn’t say anything else.
“Well, hopefully we’ll have another one that good this year. I’m the captain,” you say, desperate to start some sort of conversation.
“Oh you are. Well, good luck to you, son,” he said. I’ve got to, uh, talk to someone else now.”
And then he walked away. He didn’t even introduce himself. At first you are sort of shocked by his rudeness, but it quickly wears away to realizing how badly you messed up, and you can feel the sandwich and Sqabbler’s Punch starting to churn in your stomach.
You run over to the dancefloor and find Moods trying to get people back on the dancefloor after the fight and grab his arm.
“I really dropped the squabble here,” you say. “I went up to him and must have freaked him out. He bailed pretty quick.”
“Dude,” Moods says, “is he still here?” In your panic you hadn’t even thought to see if he had left, but after looking around you see him at the top of the stairs talking with Nub’s private secretary Barry “Boner” Bonar. You had to get to him before he left or talked to another group of players.
“Moods, it’s up to you.”
“Dude,” he says.
Next Chapter
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