Line Change

by W. C. Mack

  “Mum and Dad,” she whispered.

  “Well, duh. How many times have they told you not to use your stupid cell phone while you’re driving?”

  She dropped her hand from her mouth and turned to face me. “Don’t you dare tell them.”

  “They’re gonna know,” I told her. “Unless you can do some serious body work in the next hour or so.”

  “It might not be that bad,” Bosko said, jumping out of the car to take a look.

  When Wendy saw him cringe, I thought she might cry.

  “They won’t make you pay for it,” I told her.

  “Shut up, Nugget.”

  “They won’t,” I insisted. “Dad’s an insurance guy, for crying out loud.”

  She held up a hand. “Just stop talking.”

  I looked out the front window and saw either smoke or steam blowing out from under the hood.

  My sister’s eyes were huge. “Is it going to blow up?”

  I stared at her. “This isn’t an action movie, Wendy.”

  But it started to seem like one when I saw the flashing lights of two police cars heading our way.

  “The police?” she whispered.

  “Mum and Dad are going to kill you,” I finished for her.

  One of the policemen came to Wendy’s window and when he signalled for her to roll it down, she shook her head and looked away.

  “I don’t think that will work,” I told her.

  “Maybe we can just drive to a garage and I can pay for it out of my savings. Maybe Mum and Dad don’t have to know.”

  “What are you, five?” I asked. “That’s the kind of plan Kenny would come up with.”

  “You’re not helping, Nugget. Can you please just be quiet?”

  The policeman rapped his knuckles against the glass and I swore Wendy jumped about a foot. And that was with her seatbelt on.

  “Just get out of the car and deal with it,” I told her.

  She closed her eyes for a second, then unlocked the door and climbed out to talk to the police. I followed her, wondering if they’d take her to the station.

  That would be pretty awesome. I’d only been there once, for a field trip in grade two.

  Bosko and I sat on the curb while Wendy and the other driver told the police what had happened. No one asked us anything, even though we’d been closer to the action than anyone. We were perfect eyewitnesses, but nobody cared.

  When it turned out that Mum’s van was too messed up to drive, and would have to be towed away, Wendy came and sat with us. That’s when she really did start crying.

  Bosko saw an opportunity and tried to put his arm around her.

  She punched him in the neck.

  Hard.

  I watched her biting her lip as she dialed our home number and told Mum where she was. I couldn’t think of another time when Wendy had been in big trouble. Sure, my parents had talked to her about her attitude every now and then, but she’d never done anything seriously wrong.

  And this was seriously wrong.

  And seriously stupid.

  It was going to be interesting.

  “Wanna get started on the Math?” I asked Bosko.

  “I guess we could,” he said, glancing at Wendy to make sure she wasn’t suddenly going to change her mind and leap into his arms.

  She wasn’t. I grabbed my textbook out of the van and we got to work while Wendy stared off into the distance, still biting her lip.

  When my parents showed up and saw their almost-new van smashed up, they looked madder than I’d ever seen them.

  “What happened?” Mum asked.

  Wendy fiddled with the zipper on her hoodie. “I was, uh …”

  “Texting,” the guy she hit told them.

  “What?” Mum gasped, staring at my sister. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Wendy shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” Mum laughed, but in kind of a crazy way. “You’re sorry?”

  “Yeah,” she said quietly.

  “You’re paying the deductible,” Mum said. “I don’t care how you do it or how long it takes.”

  “And this looks like the end of driving for a while,” Dad added.

  “Not to mention leaving the house,” Mum said.

  “What?” Wendy gasped. “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely,” Dad told her. “Grounded.”

  It was kind of cool to watch my parents tag team somebody else for a change.

  “School and volleyball,” Mum said. “That’s it.”

  “But Shane —”

  “You’re not seeing Shane,” Mum said.

  “What?” Wendy almost choked on the word.

  Bosko started to grin like he’d won the freakin’ Stanley Cup.

  While we were all making a scene, a big, black SUV pulled up next to us. When the driver jumped out, he had a neck like a tree stump and I immediately knew who he was.

  It had to be Mr. Bosko.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked. “You okay, son?”

  Eddie nodded. “Sure.”

  Mr. Bosko spun around to face Dad. “You should count your lucky stars that he’s okay. This kid is a prodigy. Do you know what that means?” he asked, then looked from Wendy (gnawing on a fingernail) to me (mouth hanging open like a flounder) and back again before shaking his head and muttering, “Of course you don’t.”

  “Look, I’m —”

  “The hockey coach,” he said, with a sneer. “I know exactly who you are.”

  “Gord McDonald,” Dad said, offering his hand for a shake.

  “Give me a break,” Mr. Bosko said, turning away. “Eddie, get in the car.”

  “But —”

  “Now,” he said, following his son to the SUV.

  I had a sneaking suspicion I wouldn’t be seeing Bosko next practice.

  And that meant the McDonald family had managed to lose three players for the Cougars.

  It was quite the record.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When I came home on Tuesday, I was sick of everything. I’d had a bad day at school, I was sure we’d be down three players at the next game and I was just plain sick of everything.

  As soon as I walked in the door, I threw my backpack into the mudroom. Hard.

  “Whoa!” Mum said, when I got to the kitchen. “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It was a pretty loud nothing,” she said, raising an eyebrow at me.

  “It was my backpack, okay?”

  “No,” she said, frowning. “Not okay at all, Nugget. This isn’t the place to throw things.”

  “There’s nothing breakable in it,” I told her, starting toward the fridge.

  “That’s not the point,” she said, leaning against the door so I couldn’t open it.

  I gave the handle a huge tug, but she was heavier than she looked. “What?” I snapped.

  “First, pick up your bag, then we’ll talk about what.”

  I gritted my teeth and went back into the mudroom, got the bag and hung it on a hook.

  “No homework today?” Mum asked.

  “Yes, I have homework,” I muttered. I always had homework. That was one more thing I was sick of.

  “Then the bag is probably going upstairs with you, don’t you think?”

  I stared at her. “Whatever.”

  “Nugget, what’s going on?” she asked, carrying a cup of coffee over to the table and sitting down.

  “Nothing.”

  “I find that impossible to believe. Is it Math?”

  “No.” Yes, but that was only a small part of it.

  “English?”

  “No.”

  “Social Studies?”

  “No. Look, it’s not school at all, okay?”

  It was Mum’s turn to stare. “Then what is it?”

  “Hockey,” I mumbled.

  “You’re going to have to speak up.”

  “It’s hockey, okay?” I snapped.

  “Let’s wa
tch the tone, young man.”

  I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m just upset.”

  “About hockey,” Mum said, looking surprised.

  I nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “What’s going on? Is it one of the other guys? Bosko?”

  “No.”

  “Kenny?”

  “No.”

  “Colin?”

  “No, Mum. Can you stop trying to guess?”

  “Well, yes. If you tell me.”

  I took a deep breath. “It’s Dad.”

  “Dad?” she paused for a second. “Is he being too hard on you? Because if he is, it’s only because he wants you to play well and —”

  “He’s not being too hard on me.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s everything,” I said, slumping into a chair. “It started with practice, when he wanted to do all the weird drills and running and everything.”

  “He is the coach for now, honey. He can’t let you guys slack off.”

  “I know. It’s just that since he moved everyone into different positions —”

  “To strengthen the team, on a part-time basis,” she interrupted. “He explained that to both of us.”

  “Well, the guys don’t like it. The parents don’t like it. I don’t even like it.”

  “When you say ‘it,’ do you mean the changes, or Dad as a coach?”

  I bit my lip. “I don’t even know, Mum. Of course I love Dad, but he’s kind of tearing the team apart.”

  “Then what he’s trying to do isn’t really coming across. Have you talked to him about it?”

  “I can’t,” I shrugged.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can tell he likes coaching and —”

  “You don’t want to hurt his feelings,” she said, with a nod.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Do you want me to talk to him?”

  Part of me wanted her to, but I didn’t think that would solve anything either. “No.”

  “Well, can you talk to the guys?”

  “I’ve tried, but like I said, they hate the drills and the running and they think he’s favouring me and —”

  “Is he?”

  I shrugged again, thinking about keeping my position. “Kind of.”

  Mum shook her head. “I don’t know what to tell you, kiddo. You don’t want to talk to him, you don’t want me to talk to him, you don’t want to talk to the guys —”

  “I know,” I sighed.

  “I’d love to help, but you’ve turned down every suggestion I’ve made.” Mum shrugged. “It looks like you’re on your own on this one.”

  Great.

  * * *

  “Dad?” I said, sitting down next to him on the couch after dinner. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure,” he said, folding up his newspaper and putting it on the coffee table. “What’s up?”

  “I think we might have lost Kenny, Colin and maybe Bosko.”

  He nodded. “It’s kind of looking that way.”

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded too. “And that doesn’t leave us with a ton of guys.”

  He smiled. “I don’t think we’ve lost them for good, Nugget.”

  “But if they don’t come back —”

  “Of course they’ll come back. And even if they didn’t, we’d still have a full roster. We can get some bodies up off the bench.”

  Great. Tim and Curtis. That would really help.

  “But when the guys see we’re down all these players —”

  “What are you getting at here, Nugget?”

  I took a deep breath. “We need to scrimmage.”

  “Look, changing things up can mean a tough adjustment, but —”

  “Dad, we seriously need to get back to normal before everybody quits the team.”

  He looked surprised. “Who’s quitting the team?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “I just don’t know why you have to be so stubborn about doing things your way.”

  Dad shook his head. “Nugget, this is the first time I’ve been out on the ice in years. This is my chance to make a difference, to use all the skills that have been buried for all this time.”

  “You can still do that without making everyone mad.”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I wish the players, the parents and even Coach O’Neal would let me do this my way. It’s for the good of the team. I’m not trying to sabotage the season, for crying out loud.”

  “The guys don’t know that,” I told him. “Look, Dad. They think hockey is supposed to be fun all the time. They aren’t like me and Bosko.”

  “You and Bosko?”

  “Yeah. The other guys don’t get that it takes a lot more work to make it to the NHL than to make it on the island.”

  “Ah, the NHL,” Dad nodded. “Maybe they don’t.”

  “They just want to get out there and play the game. Like, now.”

  “Yes, but —”

  “Dad, if you don’t start doing stuff like Coach O’Neal does, they aren’t going to want to come at all.”

  Dad leaned back against the cushions. “I’m just trying to prepare them for a great season.”

  “And they just want to play. Please Dad.”

  He stroked his chin. “Let me think about it, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  But I wasn’t sure at all.

  * * *

  Luckily, I was wrong about Bosko skipping Wednesday’s practice, and when I saw him in the locker room, I couldn’t help smiling with relief.

  “I didn’t think you’d be here,” I said, as I dropped my bag on the bench.

  We were both early, so none of the other guys were there yet, which was cool.

  “Why not?” he asked, pulling an old Flames jersey over his head.

  “I don’t know. Your dad seemed pretty mad yesterday and —”

  Bosko shrugged. “He has a pretty short fuse. Like me lately, I guess.”

  “He seems pretty —”

  “Loud? Angry? Unreasonable?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “That’s just the way he is. He gets mad about stuff, then it blows over when he finds something else to get mad about.”

  “I thought he was going to say something to my dad about you playing centre.”

  Bosko shook his head. “I doubt it. But I might.”

  Great. Another argument, coming up.

  “You know, Dad’s not trying to —”

  “I don’t mean today, Nugget. I listened to what you said and I’ll see how things go at the game on Saturday.” He paused for a second or two. “So, is he going to try you out in a new position?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  In fact, I had no idea what he was going to do about anything.

  I checked the clock and had a weird feeling that the whole team was going to pull a no-show.

  Maybe I’d waited too long to talk to Dad.

  But at that moment Patrick Chen walked into the locker room. I was happy to see him, but he didn’t look happy to see me.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he said, dumping his bag.

  “Ready for Saturday’s game?”

  “I guess so,” he said, unzipping it.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

  “With you?”

  “No, with you,” I said, confused.

  “I don’t know, Nugget. I thought we were solid teammates, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling my stomach sink.

  “So why was I the only one standing up for your dad last practice?”

  “What?” Bosko asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

  “Nothing,” I told him.

  “He backed Colin and Jeff up when they were complaining about his dad.”

  “Are you kidding?” Bosko asked.

  “Look, I was just —”

  “Then as soon as Colin and Kenny left, him and Je
ff acted like it never happened,” Patrick said, glaring at me. “We’re supposed to be a team, you know?”

  “I know,” I sighed. “I’m sorry, okay? I made a bad choice.”

  “No doubt,” he grunted, as he started digging in his bag.

  “You think Colin and Kenny will show up today?” I asked.

  “No idea,” Patrick shrugged.

  “They’d better,” Bosko said.

  “Better what?” Jeff asked, as he entered the locker room.

  “Show up for practice,” I said. “Colin and Kenny.”

  Patrick spoke up again. “I don’t think their dads should have acted all tough with your dad like that.”

  “Me neither,” I sighed.

  “He handled it, though,” Patrick said. “I liked what he said about how they should have volunteered to coach if they were going to complain about it.”

  “If they don’t show up, it’s their loss,” Jeff said.

  And probably ours on Saturday.

  “What do the other guys think?” I asked. “Are they going to show?”

  “Who cares?” Bosko asked me.

  “I do. If they don’t come to practice, they don’t play on Saturday. And if we don’t have enough guys, we don’t play either.”

  “Do you actually think those goofs will miss out on the season?” Bosko asked, with a snort.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. Everyone had been so split on things lately, I couldn’t guess what they would do.

  “No way,” Patrick said. “They won’t miss out.”

  Bedhead McCafferty showed up with one of the benchwarmers and squinted at us, like he just woke up. “Are we playing today?” he asked.

  “It’s Wednesday,” I told him. “Practice.”

  “I know,” he sighed. “I meant are we hitting the ice today?”

  “I think so,” I told him.

  Dad hadn’t said anything about leaving skates at home when we’d left that morning.

  “Well, I’m getting my gear on,” Bedhead said, pulling his shoulder pads out of his bag.

  I did the same, and as each of the guys came in, I waited for somebody to say something about the scene with Colin and Kenny’s dads, but no one did.

  I couldn’t stop wishing that Dad’s coaching had turned out the way I’d expected it to, where he was the hero and the Cougars played better then ever before.

  I knew it wasn’t totally his fault that things were all messed up, but why hadn’t he just stuck to the kind of practice we were used to? Why did he have to do his own thing?