hear the details.
"Well," said Mika, "at first I was still quite homesick. But I eventually fell in with some local hockey players who were about my age, give or take a few years. Eventually I got over it. A little bit. Among them was the first friend I made since leaving home. His name is Kevin Taylor. A fellow hockey player and an aspiring sportswriter, we hit it off immediately. We practiced together, hung out a lot and generally got along quite well. He showed me around Detroit, all the cool places, hotspots. You name it, he showed me them. Then I made the biggest mistake of my life."
"What happened?" Balto asked.
Mika sighed before answering. "I started to develop a crush on his sister, Melissa. One day Kevin caught us making out in the living room of his parent's house. He wasn't too thrilled. To this day, he still won't speak to me. Even now, I still can't believe I let a girl come between me and the only non-Finnish friend I had at the time."
"What happened then?" asked Balto.
"One night we got a phone call," said Mika. "Dad had suffered a gunshot wound after getting caught in the middle of a gang war. His only mistake was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. My mother, who's name is Erja, by the way, couldn't stand being in Detroit anymore. Worried for our safety, we eventually left, settling in a town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula called Ishpeming. The Finns, Scandinavians, and Cornish, from England's Cornwall Peninsula, are said to be the 11th distinct culture to settle in the UP, as Michiganders call it. The most recent predecessors to them were the Menominee and the Ojibway. I tell you, you think it snows a lot here? Kokkola and Ishpeming each see far more snow in the winter. In the UP, some people frequently have to dig down to several feet of snow to reach their mailboxes. Yep, the UP is clearly snow central. Ishpeming itself smaller than Kokkola, but far bigger than this dump."
"HEY!" Balto exclaimed. He clearly felt insulted by that cutting remark.
"Easy there," Mika said, throwing his hands up in defense. "That wasn't directed at you." He put his hands back down before continuing. "While in Ishpeming, I continued to pursue playing in the NHL. Just like back home and in Detroit, I played with other local players. I was too old to play at most of levels available, so instead I ended up in a teen/young adult recreational league. It wasn't that well organized, but it was game experience. As mentioned before, I let these ambitions have a detrimental effect on my personal life."
"Oh, boy," said Balto, uneasily. "What happened?"
"Well," Mika responded, "if you must know, I did manage to overcome what happened with Melissa and get back to dating. I met this local girl who down the street from me, her name was Stephanie. We went out several times and, well, you know. But eventually, she started to disdain the fact that my hockey games took up a lot of time on weekends. One day, she said to me, 'You're never around on weekends because of all these hockey games, and Patrick (another local kid) is always asking me out to the movies.' All I could respond with was 'Be patient, you're dating an athlete, and there are sacrifices involved. Eventually, it will all be worthwhile.' Even though I really cared about her, I tried to explain that I didn't want to limit my potential future as a pro athlete, and that she would have to choose between me and my hockey and Patrick and the movies. Guess which one she chose?"
"I don't think I even have to," said Balto.
"Yeah," said Mika. "Along the way, Dad got a job in the lumber business. But he grew tired of it and wanted to get back into flying. Eventually, he got a job offer to return to the mail and supply-running business here in Nome. And so, that's how I got here. Dad now makes air runs carrying supplies to nearby miners."
"Interesting. How long have you been here?" asked Balto.
"Since October 15 of last year," replied Mika, getting up off the couch to stretch. "If I ever had the chance to get out of here, I would take it instantly. I mean, I got a less than stellar job, a coworker who I don't get along with, and I'm barely making enough to get by on my own. On top of all that, the only person outside of my family who shows any respect towards me is my boss. This place is the pits. I hate it here."
Oh, come on, Mika," said Balto, "it's not that bad here. What kind of problem do you have with Nome?"
"Look," said Mika, his voice sounding angry, "I'm not the one with the problem, okay, it's this damn town that seems to have a problem with me! People take one look at me and shy away in fear. It's as if I have the plague! They might as well have screamed, 'Ah, run away! Crazy foreigner on the loose! He's gonna kill us all!'"
Mika sat back down on the couch, shook his head slowly, and sighed before saying, "They judge me before they even know me. That's why this town is better off without me." He then buried his face in his hands. He didn't cry, but he came very close.
Balto just sat there, open-mouthed. He could scarcely believe a word he had just heard.
"Oh, man," he thought. "I thought I had it bad fitting in. I thought Aleu had it rough, too. This guy has and still is having it even worse! Ripped from his homeland when things were going great, and then enduring a major roller coaster ride ever since then. That's definitely not good. And to think, I almost even made it worse yesterday by tripping him."
Now Balto really felt terrible. He climbed back up on the couch and reassuringly put a paw on Mika's left shoulder. Mika pulled his face out of his hands.
"You know," Balto said, "when I ran into you yesterday, I didn't think you were so bad. And that's despite the less-than-ideal circumstances."
"Really?" Mika asked.
"Yeah," Balto replied. "Look, if it's any consolation, I do know to some extent what you're going through. I was once an outsider in this town. And all because I'm part wolf."
"What?" Mika asked sounding rather surprised. "Balto, are you serious?"
"Oh, yes," said Balto, "very much so."
Balto went on to revealed his own story to Mika. At the end of which, the Finn realized, he wasn't alone.
Balto, meanwhile, continued looking around at some relics around Mika's house. Among them were some old photos of Mika and his brothers and friends, most of which were several years old. One that really stood out was one of Mika and a pretty blonde girl with both arms around him.
"Who's this," he asked.
"That? Oh, that's Rikko," Mika replied.
"Whoa, you were right about her," said Balto, noticing how her own curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes were both about the same shade as Mika's. "She sure is pretty."
One other object that caught his eye was a glass bottle with a picture of Russian czar Nicholas II walking around in a stupor. He took a couple whiffs, then abruptly pulled back.
"Holy owned and operated!" he exclaimed. "What is this stuff?"
"Hey," said Mika, "unless you don't want to see tomorrow, I suggest you get away from that." He then put the bottle back on the shelf where Balto found it. "To answer your question, it's vodka."
"What?" Balto asked.
"Vodka," Mika responded. "It's a type of hard liquor. Very popular in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Ari and some buddies of his set up a distillery in Helsinki two years after I left home. This is what the make. Drunken Czar Vodka."
Balto laughed upon hearing the name. "Where did they come up with that name?" he asked.
"Ask them, not me," Mika replied. "Alright, I'm gonna head out back and shoot some pucks around. You wanna come?"
Balto looked up at a clock on a nearby wall. It read 6:30. "Okay," he finally said, "but I can't stay for long."
With that, he followed Mika out through the back door.
Mika grabbed a stick, a crate full of hockey pucks, and a goal with netting on it, and set it up to run some shooting drills. During the summer, this was the best form of hockey practice Mika could get in. The net had a wood panel with a goaltender painted on it across the front. The panel followed the goalie's body shape, with holes in certain places. This way, Mika could have some actual opposition, since he couldn't practice with a live goalie.
He dumped the pucks out, lined them up, and positioned himself at one end of the line with his stick in hand.
"You might want to keep a safe distance between you, my stick and the pucks for your own safety," Mika advised.
"Got it," Balto answered back.
With that, Mika started shooting one puck at a time at the goal. Most shots went in, some didn't. Balto, meanwhile, watched in amazement as his newfound Finnish friend landed shot after shot in the goal.
"Man, he is good," Balto thought. "I can see what that coach saw in him. He really can make it in the pros."
After all the pucks were launched, Mika gathered them up, re-aligned them, and started another round of shooting. During this round, Balto thought he heard someone calling him. Just as he was about to call back to see who it was, one of Mika's shots bounced off the crossbar, hit a gutter on a nearby building, and was followed by a "OW!" Upon hearing the scream, Balto and Mika, who was still clutching his stick, ran over to see what happened.
Jenna was lying on her right side, and the stray puck, which had struck her in the head, landed nearby.
"Oh, nice shooting, Tex," said Balto, sarcastically. While he tried desperately to wake Jenna, Mika went to retrieve the culprit puck. Eventually, Jenna came back to her senses.
"You OK, Jenna?" Balto asked, obviously sounding concerned.
"I'm OK," Jenna answered as she tried to stand up.
"You OK?" Mika asked, also sounding concerned.
"She's OK," Balto answered. "But seriously, watch where you're aiming those pucks."
"I was watching where I was aiming, Hammerhead," Mika retorted
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