The next day I appeared on the Silver Grove Times, the main newspaper in town. The headline said, Local Girl Everybody Thought Was a Boy Saved Local High School Hockey Superstar From Bullet.

I thought it was too wordy, but it occupied so much space that the picture of me they put was small and blurry. Of course, everybody knew it was me, anyway.

Besides, it appeared under a much more important headline. That one read, Local High School Hockey Assistant Coach Tried To Murder Student.

To me that was the biggest story not just in town, but likely in all Canada. Gun crimes were not common here, and it figured that I had to be the one to encounter the one gun crime in the year in all the land.

Unbelievably enough, there was an even bigger headline on top of it. For the town of Silver Grove, there was another piece of news that was clearly more important than everything else. And it was this one:

Silver Grove Bears Defeat Eagles of East Pembroke 2-0 And Move To Province Finals.

My dad read me the news in the hospital the day after I went through the surgery. He didn't understand why I'd suddenly started laughing until I pointed out the obvious.

"All three headlines have one thing in common," I told him with a grin. "Hockey."

He sighed but made the effort of offering me a watery smile. "If I'd known I could have won this town over faster through hockey I'd have given them a brand new arena."

I patted his hand. "You're giving them something better. Jobs so they can earn money to pay for hockey tickets." As an afterthought I added, "And skates. And sticks. And pucks. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to lose pucks. What if you buy the school buckets of pucks? They might forgive us then."

Dad's look was skeptical at best.

A couple of days later, Coach Martel and the principal, Mr. Lapierre, came over for a visit. They caught me in the middle of eating the most insipid soup I'd ever tasted, and dad had to set his work laptop aside so he could greet them. They didn't catch us by surprise, exactly. The three of them had already spoken over the phone that this must be done.

And by that, they meant my expulsion.

"How are you doing, Bernal?" Coach Martel asked as he sat on a stool by the bed. He scratched the back of his head. "I heard your name is actually Carlota, should I call you that way?"

I gave him a smile. There was no animosity coming from him, no resentment. If anything he seemed confused, and even though I wouldn't be able to call him my coach anymore, he'd always be a genuinely fair and good guy in my mind.

"You can keep calling me Bernal if it makes you more comfortable, Mr. Martel."

He frowned. "Please, call me Coach. I feel like you're addressing my old man."

We chuckled. The conversation didn't require much hilarity, if any at all, but he and I had gone through some shit together. He'd kept his cool throughout and later I heard that he'd actually been the one to wrestle Gauthier to the ground and keep him there until the police and paramedics arrived. In my books, he was as much of a hero as Pace, who ran clear out of the school in his socks and all the way into the police station, because he didn't have a cellphone in him, or any shoes after removing his skates outside the locker room.

I'd been overly pleased when Dean reported that Pace had kept his feet and all toes, despite the cold.

Lapierre sighed. "I'm really glad you're doing well, kid. And I do want to stress the fact that we're just as perplexed as everyone else by Florian Gauthier's actions. We had no idea there was a monster in our midst, and I will deeply regret these events for the rest of my life."

That all sounded very PR. It was code for I had no idea this would happen, please don't sue me.

"However," he continued and ah hah, this was the moment dad and I had been waiting for. "While we most definitely commend you for your bravery, and while technically not illegal, we still cannot allow you to remain in our school."

I looked at my dad, at the defeat that hung heavy from his shoulders. I felt ashamed that I got us into this mess out of pettiness. And I would tell him.

But for now I looked back at the two visitors.

"Why do you not want girls in your St. Andrews?" I asked.

Lapierre wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. "Well, Silver Grove seems to mostly produce boys. It would probably be difficult to have a school where classrooms are just 3% female, or so. For the girls, that is," he hastened to add at the end.

I tilted my head against the pillow to level him with a better look. "Well, for four months I was the sole girl in a classroom of boys, and I did just well in school and extracurriculars. Coach here can attest."

Lapierre's face broke into a deeper sweat and he wiped, wiped and wiped.

I shrugged my good shoulder. "I don't know. It just seems unfair to me to deprive the girls in town, few as they may be, when what you maybe have to look at is what you teach your boys, if you still fear they might act out against the few girls."

The smile that slowly drew on my dad's face filled me with warmth. I was pleased with myself. It wasn't going to change the outcome for me, but what I'd said was an unalienable truth that had to be acknowledged.

Coach Martel surprised us all by blurting out, "You could bring a petition to the town's council. I'd say that given the fact that you saved the town's future Stanley Cup champion from death or maiming would grant your argument more weight than the people who've tried before."

We all stared at him with popping eyes.

He smiled. "I'm all for it."

"You are?" Lapierre asked, flapping his mouth up and down.

Interesting.

In the end they decided that since I'd basically saved the day, they would allow my dad to discretely remove me from the school, instead of an outright expulsion that would look really bad in my college applications. This was a lot more than I could even hope to ask, and I was a little overwhelmed that they even offered it as an option.

My dad followed through and discretely removed me from St. Andrews that same week, which meant the whole freaking town found out.

Lena Lee came over to visit and after I'd caught her up on all the events, she picked her jaw off the floor and said, "Wow, you really should submit the motion to the council. I think your experience here is probably all they need to unstick their heads from their asses and approve turning St. Andrews into a co-ed."

She waved a hand as she leaned forward. Her eyes shone, and it wasn't because the white winter sunlight coming through the window was hitting her glasses directly. I braced myself.

"Now, tell me all about Dean. Is he your boyfriend now?"

I was a roller coaster of emotions lately, and even though I kind of wanted to cry at the fact that I had to close the best chapter of my life so far over some old fashioned, little town ruling, I also wanted to laugh about the fact that this was the topic she focused on.

"Really?" I asked her as I chuckled. "I got shot, I got kicked out of my all boy's school when it was found out I don't have a penis, and what you want to talk about is Dean?"

She smirked. "See, he's never had a girlfriend before. Or a boyfriend. I always wondered what kind of person would take to bring a guy like that to his knees."

"A concussion," I said with a deadpanned voice that made her laugh.

"Stop! Tell me the deets, I'm dying to know."

We talked about that until her mom called her, desperate for help with the rush hour at the diner.

Her parting words were, "I'm so disappointed he didn't ask you to be his girlfriend. Or the other way around."

By that point I probably looked like a tomato already, but I was glad that I could finally talk to a girl friend about silly things like crushes and kisses. Twice I'd learned the hard lesson that life could end at any given second. This time I didn't want to waste my second time antagonizing everybody, just so that they wouldn't see the vulnerable parts of me.

So I gave her what I hoped was a brilliant smile and said, "Thank you for being my friend, Lena Lee."

She blinked rapidly and for a moment I thought she was going to start crying. But she returned the gesture with a smile of her own.

"You're welcome. Without me, you and Dean would still probably be giving each other moony stares."

I was discharged a week before Christmas. Late, even for what Dr. Cree recommended. But dad hadn't wanted to run any risks, and in his words, he made money for us and was not going to save it when I needed it the most.

It required an entire theater of operations to get me ready for the discharge, and then to deliver me from the hospital room to my dad's car. Dean and his mom came over to assist. She carried my stuff as dad and Dean helped me onto a wheelchair that I insisted I didn't need anymore.

"Hospital protocol," said the awaiting nurse. The same guy who took care of Dean and I the first night.

As I settled in the chair I told Dean, "Shouldn't you be resting at home, instead of lifting me around?"

He sighed. "It's just a mild concussion."

His mother had been walking ahead of us. She glanced back to show me an eye roll. "I couldn't have kept him from you if I strapped him to his bed."

"Mom," Dean warned.

Even though I'd been bundled in a thick coat, scarf, beanie and gloves, my body still rebelled against the frigid wall of air that greeted me once we made it outside the front door of the hospital. I shivered and the jerky motions set off a wave of pain that made me dizzy. I squeezed my eyes shut against it, hoping to compose myself before anyone noticed. I had to stand up from this chair and walk to my dad's car with all the dignity of a queen.

That plan went to shit when shouts and claps suddenly exploded all around me.

I looked up to see what looked like half of the town standing outside with balloons and banners that said things like Thank You, Charlie, and Our Hero. There was one that simply asked Is Your Name Really Carlota?

I started laughing and crying at the same time. Anyone would think I had truly lost it, but I couldn't contain the emotions in me any longer.

The entire Bears team was there, and they all grouped up around me and gave me a jersey they'd all signed their names on. Pace and Brian held it up together for everybody to see. I wiped my nose with the back of my good hand as I looked up at their smiles.

Pace folded the jersey up and gave it to me, saying, "Regardless of what the school says, we made you an honorary member of the team forever."

My eyes were about to pop out now. "Forever?"

"Yep," Hunter said from between them with a grin. "We even hung a little plaque with your name next to where we're going to put our province trophy."

That set off a wave of Go Bears, Go around the multitude.

I was so warm on the inside that it was a shame it couldn't stop my shivers. Dad eventually had to apologize to everybody and he and Dean set out to help into dad's car so that we could head out home. He started the car as I waved off at people.

"Wait, what about Dean and Margaret?" I asked him.

"She brought her own car," he said as he pulled into traffic. "They'll meet us at the diner, where your friends have a little surprise for you."

I whipped around to look at him. "Don't tell me. It's a signed hockey stick. Or a puck from the game against the Eagles."

He chuckled. "They may want to kill me for spoiling it, but it's just cake."

"Ohh, that sounds great actually." I made a pause. "Am I even allowed cake now?"

"I checked with Dr. Cree and in her words, you can eat whatever the hell you want."

I smirked. That sounded like her, alright. I wished I could grow up to be a badass woman like her, kicking ass at a field that everybody expected men to dominate. In a lesser way, that was a bit of what I had accomplished during my time at St. Andrews. I was going to introduce that motion to the town's council after all. My story was compelling enough that it might be the final push for change that was needed.

Or they might pump out some more funky news articles about me.

Either way my mind was set.

And so was dad's, but on a different topic that he broached on the way to the diner.

"The board approved the transition to renewables and the town's council is evaluating the proposal positively," he said as we waited at a red light. "You know what this means?"

"That we're not going bankrupt?" I supplied.

He smiled. "Well, that, and that we'll be able to return to Orlando pretty soon."

My stomach bottomed out. I sucked in all the air in the car with my gasp.

"What?"

He blinked, and even though the haze that was taking over me I could tell he was confused I wasn't jumping for joy. I would have been, four months ago. But four months ago I was a completely different person, someone who had never opened up enough to gain friends or let a special person in.

"Dad, I don't want to go."

The light turned green and he started the car again.

"But Carlota, I already bought the tickets. We'll be back in Orlando with your brother for New Years eve."