Back home in her bedroom, Casey works solemnly on her computer, staring out the window at the frozen pond.

In a deserted school hallway, Gen approaches Casey and insists she had no idea about Tina's scheme, but Casey just walks away. Tina appears in the hallway and berates Gen for being late to practice, but Gen loudly protests that she wants to have a normal life and study more instead of ice skating all the time. Gen also expresses disgust that her mother sabotaged Casey at regionals.

After Tina leaves, Casey reappears and tells Gen she overheard the whole thing, and finally believes she is innocent. Gen encourages Casey to take her slot at sectionals, but Casey explains that she must attend her Harvard interview instead.

Casey attends the interview and explains her science project to the interviewer. However, Casey decides that she wants to ice skate after all, and walks out of the room in the middle of the interview, to Joan's extreme horror.

This chapter is crucial for both Gen and Casey, as they each seize their destiny by standing up to their belligerent moms. Having been robbed of her chance to compete at sectionals, Casey is understandably upset, although, ironically, her chilly demeanor towards Gen in the hallway is the most like an actual "ice princess" she has been thus far in the film. But while Tina's scheme was clearly intended to advance Gen's skating career, she has brought about the exact opposite outcome by unwittingly jeopardizing the only thing more important to Gen than her ice skating: her romantic prospects with Casey.

To be sure, Gen has put considerable time and effort into her courtship of Casey over the past several months, alternating boldly flirtatious gestures (asking Casey out on a date , molesting her lips and saying "you're hot" , etc.) with coy indications of unavailability (making out with Brian , offering to set Casey up with her brother , etc.). Indeed, it is no wonder that Gen chooses to retaliate against Tina the only way she knows how (quitting ice skating), as there is no underestimating the furious passion of a teenager in love. Thus, Gen offers herself to Casey in the most explicit terms permitted in a G-rated movie: "It's your slot, Casey."

While Gen's "slot" ostensibly refers to fourth place and a chance to compete at sectionals, it is important to note the subtextual importance of this gesture; drastic times call for drastic measures, and Gen clearly understands how much it meant for Casey to compete. By throwing in a reference to her "slot" as well as her eagerness to spend more time studying, Gen is laying all her cards on the table, certain that such an offer will be too erotic for Casey to refuse. But, like Tina, Gen realizes too late that she does not have the whole story -- and Casey's polite rejection of Gen's proposal represents, at last, a moment of grown-up honesty between the two girls. Casey is finally mature enough to say, "Yep, I'm not gay."

(Alternatively, of course, there is the possibility that Casey's computer model told her that she was only good enough for fifth place at regionals, and she had to get to sectionals somehow. In this case, the rather chilling conclusion is that Casey employed this annoyingly credulous persona to goad Tina into betraying her, with the intent of withholding her friendship from Gen until she quit figure skating and cleared the way for Casey to advance to sectionals. Not only would this scenario paint Casey more believably as her mother's daughter, it would allow us to respect Casey for bamboozling each and every character in the film -- not to mention the viewer.)

Unfortunately, Casey continues to display a unique talent for undoing whatever goodwill she manages to garner from the audience, and in the subsequent scene commits an act of thunderous imbecility: Casey flips a proverbial middle finger at Harvard in the middle of her scholarship interview, with one declarative statement: "What I need to be doing, I can't do here." In fact, Harvard is the most prestigious Ivy League university in the country, and a place where Casey could easily nurture her twin passions of science and ice skating. After all, Casey managed to juggle high school, athletic training, and a job over the past year while keeping the latter two a secret from her mom.

Casey sits in front of her computer, typing away. The clock reads 1:34 AM.

Computer: CASEY

Casey: Yes, computer?

Computer: MY CALCULATIONS YIELD A DISTURBING CONCLUSION

Casey: What is it, computer?

Computer: YOU WILL NEVER RANK ABOVE FIFTH PLACE

Casey: Wha... what?

Computer: MY CALCULATIONS SHOW THAT YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH

Casey: B-but I can spend more hours at the rink. I-I can train harder. I can do anything I put my mind to!

Computer: NO YOU WILL NEVER RANK ABOVE FIFTH PLACE

Casey: But how can you tell?

Computer: PHYSICS

Casey: [sighs] Maybe I should just take that scholarship and go to Harvard...

Computer: THERE IS ANOTHER WAY YOU CAN MAKE IT TO SECTIONALS

Casey: Th-there is?

Computer: GENNIFER HARWOOD MUST DROP OUT OF FOURTH PLACE

Casey: Go on...

Not to belabor the point, but Casey does own a computer, so it might have served her well to Google "Harvard figure skating" at some point before burning that particular bridge. Had she bothered to do so, Casey may have learned a lot about the Harvard University Figure Skating Club , such as the fact that it has produced:

• 3 Olympic victors
• 14 U.S. champions
• 5 members of the World Hall of Fame
• 14 members of the U.S. Hall of Fame
• 7 presidents of U.S. Figure Skating

Additionally, there might not have been competitive figure skating in America AT ALL, had it not been for George Browne, a Harvard alum who introduced the "international style" in 1908 .