Line Change

by W. C. Mack

  What?

  A lot to think about? I’d spent all day worrying about how he’d feel when Coach bumped him, and he’d actually been invited to stay? I mean, what was there to think about?

  “What are you talking about?” I finally asked.

  “Look,” he said, glancing at each of us. “I gave it a lot of thought today, and I’m going to pass on the offer.”

  “What?” I choked. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want the job,” he said, with a shrug.

  Another shrug, like it was no big deal to turn down an awesome opportunity!

  “What do you mean?” I asked, getting frustrated. “I went in there and stood up for you and —”

  “I appreciate that and —”

  “You want to be Head Coach, so you can’t settle for Assistant?”

  Dad laughed. “I don’t want to settle for anything, Nugget.”

  I shook my head, hoping something would start making sense.

  “But sometimes you have to settle,” I told him. “That’s what you’ve been teaching the whole team. That’s why Bedhead is rocking as a goalie right now and Bosko will probably lead the league in points this season by playing part-time centre.”

  Dad shook his head. “I haven’t been teaching you guys to settle for anything. I’ve been trying to help you open up to new experiences.”

  “Dad.”

  Why couldn’t he just take Coach up on the offer?

  “I liked the idea of coaching, so I gave it a go. It turned out there were parts I loved and parts I didn’t.”

  “But —”

  “Let him finish, honey,” Mum said, resting a hand on my arm.

  “The best part for me was getting back on the ice, Nugget.”

  “So why don’t you keep doing it?” I asked, totally confused.

  “Because I realized coaching wasn’t the best way for me to get back out there.” He smiled. “Being responsible for the team involved a lot more politics than I expected.”

  “But —”

  “I’d rather stick with being a Cougars fan.”

  “You can still —”

  “Nugget,” Mum said. “Let your dad speak.”

  “Yeah,” my sister said, “Zip it, Nugget.”

  “Wendy,” Mum warned.

  “Mulligan and I have been talking,” Dad continued, “and he wants me to play Old Timers.”

  “Old Timers hockey?” I asked, totally caught off guard.

  So that’s what they’d been talking about at centre ice that day.

  That’s why Dad had looked so happy.

  “Yeah,” he said, smiling even wider. “I never knew how much I missed playing until I dug out those old skates.”

  “So, you mean you’re going to do it?” I asked, starting to feel kind of excited. “Like, play on a team?”

  “Yes. Are you going to come and watch?”

  “Definitely,” I told him, grinning.

  Forget coaching.

  Forget assistant coaching.

  My dad was going to be a hockey star again.

  I’d never seen him play, but I knew he would shred the competition.

  But first, he’d have to help us beat Courtenay on Saturday.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A couple of weeks later, my alarm went off and I jumped out of bed, ready for Coach’s first practice since his surgery.

  As I showered, I wondered whether Coach O’Neal would stick with the changes Dad had made to our practices and positions. It sounded like we’d still be doing plyometrics, but would he move Bosko back to full-time right wing? Chris Fullerton back to goal?

  I thought Dad might have an idea about what Coach was planning, but when I got downstairs, Mum was the one making breakfast.

  “Waffles?” I asked, licking my lips when I saw the plate waiting for me.

  “Blueberry waffles,” she said, smiling.

  Right on! Toast was okay, but waffles were awesome.

  And since she was back in charge of the morning routine, I couldn’t help asking, “Could I maybe have a couple of brownies in my lunch?”

  “They’re already packed,” she said, pointing at the paper bag on the counter.

  Nice!

  “Dad’s not up?” I asked, as I spread butter into most of my waffle squares.

  “Not a chance,” she said, laughing. “He told me last night he was going to sleep in as long as he could.”

  “Cool,” I said, nodding and taking a bite of my waffle. “You know, it would have been pretty cool if he’d taken the Assistant Coach job.”

  “Maybe,” she said, shrugging. “But I think playing is going to make him happier than coaching.”

  I nodded. “And I’ll get to watch him.”

  She smiled. “And he’ll get to watch you as a fan again. No more worrying about running the show.”

  He’d run the show just fine, though. We’d beaten Courtenay one week and Duncan the next.

  As a result, Eddie Bosko was five goals ahead of me, which drove me nuts.

  But I had more assists.

  “We’re up against Port Alberni this weekend,” I told her.

  “With the home advantage.”

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling. “It’s in the bag.”

  Mum shook her head. “It’s never really in the bag, honey.”

  “I know,” I told her, thinking about that awful Eagles game and cringing. “But the Cougars are on fire right now. It’s going to take a lot more than the Port Alberni Totems to stop us.”

  They were a good team, but the name was as bad as the Penguins’. Totem poles were awesome to look at, but they didn’t even move.

  We were going to win on Saturday.

  No doubt.

  * * *

  When Mum dropped me and Kenny off at the rink, we met up with Bosko, Colin and Jeff in the locker room.

  “I heard Coach wanted your dad to be his assistant,” Bosko said.

  “He turned it down,” I told them.

  “It isn’t because my dad was being a jerk, is it?” Colin asked.

  I could tell by the look on his face that he was worried about it.

  “No,” I told him, shaking my head.

  “It isn’t because we complained about switching positions and stuff, right?” Jeff asked. “Because obviously it worked out. I mean, we smoked Courtenay and Duncan.”

  “Nope.”

  I didn’t know Patrick had come in until he asked, “Why didn’t your dad take the job as Assistant Coach?”

  The phone tree must have been working overtime that week.

  It was cool that the guys wanted Dad to stick around, but I agreed with Mum about playing being the better choice for him.

  “He’s going to play instead. Old Timers.”

  “Seriously?” Colin asked, smiling. “That’s cool.”

  “Totally cool,” Patrick agreed.

  While we got dressed, Jeff asked, “So, how are you guys feeling about the Totems game this weekend?”

  “Awesome,” I said. “They’re going down.”

  “I heard they’ve been talking trash about us, just like the Seagulls.”

  “Big deal,” Colin said. “They won’t be saying much when we skate circles around them.”

  “No doubt,” Patrick said, smiling. “Between Bosko and Nugget playing together —”

  “And Bedhead making killer saves,” I said, elbowing our new goalie to wake him up. “We’re winning for sure.”

  “Our best season ever,” Kenny said, smiling.

  Patrick held one gloved hand out in front of him. Jeff added his hand, then Chris, Colin, Bedhead, Bosko, the benchwarmers, all three Watson triplets and I joined in.

  “Cougars on three,” Patrick said.

  We bumped our fists together three times, then shouted, “Cougars!”

  “Now, let’s do this,” Colin said, as the whole team headed out to the rink.

  Check out this excerpt from

  the exciting sequel to Line Change an
d Hat Trick!

  Chapter One

  Everything was going my way as I headed for the goal, as if I was daydreaming instead of right there, in person.

  I deked out Colin Bechter, then Patrick Chen, in like, two seconds flat. No problem at all.

  When I got within shooting distance I couldn’t help smiling when I saw David “Bedhead” McCafferty bouncing from one foot to the other, trying to look ready.

  But trying to look ready and actually being ready are two totally different things.

  And Bedhead wasn’t ready for me.

  At that moment, Roberto Luongo wouldn’t have been ready for me.

  I hummed to myself as I lined up the shot. All Bedhead would see was a blur of orange when the ball flew past him and into the net. (Hopefully, it wouldn’t go too far, though. We were on the last ball of the six-pack from my garage.)

  I pulled my stick back, remembering the roar of the loudest Cougar fans at the last game before the holidays.

  I wished we were playing at the Rogers Centre.

  I wished my hoodie was a Canucks jersey.

  I wished it was a real game.

  “Car!” Kenny Cavanaugh shouted.

  But most of all, I wished we weren’t playing on Daffodil Drive.

  I groaned as Colin and Bedhead lifted Kenny’s junker net off the road so a Honda could squeeze by us.

  The lady who was driving waved and honked her horn a couple of times to say thank you.

  “No problem,” I sighed, waving back.

  But it was a problem. A million-in-one shot like that wasn’t going to happen again any time soon. My huge (well, big, anyway) moment was gone.

  “Why don’t we move to Primrose?” Patrick suggested. “Less traffic.”

  “Less flat,” Colin reminded him. “We’ll spend the whole game digging the ball out of the ditch.”

  “What about Bluebell?” Kenny asked.

  “What about a thousand potholes?” Colin answered.

  It was more like four or five, but I knew what he meant. Bluebell Lane was a mess.

  Jeff McDaniel rested his chin on the handle of his stick. “We should play in the mall parking lot.”

  “Seriously?” I stared at him. “On Christmas Eve?”

  He groaned. “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

  Who could forget about Christmas, for crying out loud?

  “Can you imagine how many people are down there right now?” Patrick asked. “I bet that place is packed.”

  I shook my head, hoping that at least one of the last-minute shoppers was my sister Wendy, buying me the Canucks history book I’d put at the top of my wish list.

  Unlike Jeff, I hadn’t forgotten about Christmas, but I wasn’t nearly as excited as I usually was. Any other year, I would have wanted Christmas Day to last a whole week, but winter hockey camp was starting on Boxing Day and I was counting the minutes.

  And sometimes the seconds.

  I’d been looking forward to camp since October, when I’d spotted a sign on the bulletin board down at the rink. As I read the big blue letters and my mouth dropped open with shock (and possibly a drip or two of drool), I was glad Eddie Bosko hadn’t been around to call me a flounder.

  And the more I read, the lower my jaw dropped, because this wasn’t any old hockey camp.

  The coach was Danny Holbrook, a retired Vancouver Canuck.

  He’d played before I was born, back in the nineties, and I didn’t know as much about him as I did about the stars like Pavel Bure and Russ Courtnall. But I didn’t care (too much, anyway) because whether he was a star or not, he’d been a pro, from my favourite team!

  If my parents would send me, I, Nugget McDonald, would have the chance to learn some new moves from an NHL pro.

  And how awesome was that? (That is what my English teacher calls a rhetorical question. It doesn’t need an answer because everyone knows it’s, like, the most awesome thing ever.)

  When I told Mum and Dad about the camp that afternoon, they thought about it for longer than they needed to (like, five whole minutes!) and finally, when I didn’t think I could take the waiting anymore, they told me I could go. From that moment on, I’d been marking a big red X on my calendar every night before I went to bed.

  And there was only one more X to go.

  I watched the guys move the net back into place and as soon as Bedhead nodded I dropped the ball, ready to rock Daffodil Drive.

  I moved the ball down the asphalt as fast as I could, knowing Kenny was right on my tail. Colin came at me from the left and tried to check me, but he didn’t stand a chance. With some fancy footwork and a solid shoulder, I left him with a view of my back.

  Bedhead looked even more nervous than last time and I couldn’t wait to fire the ball right past him.

  “It came!” someone shouted from behind me.

  I spun around and saw one of the Watson triplets running toward us. He was wearing one of the biggest smiles I’d ever seen and waving something in the air.

  My moment wasn’t going to be ruined again. I turned back to the ball.

  “What came?” Bedhead asked, stepping away from the net.

  “Nothing as important as what I’m sending you right now,” I told him.

  “My Holbrook jersey!” the triplet shouted.

  What?

  That stopped me. In fact, I tripped over my own feet trying to turn around.

  We all checked out the jersey he was holding up to his chest. The logo on the front was a pair of white hockey sticks, crossed, with a green box around them and the name “Holbrook’s Heroes” above it.

  The colors were pure Canuck.

  Before I could ask where he got it, he turned around and showed us the back, which had “Holbrook” across the top.

  “Shouldn’t it say Watson on the back?” Patrick asked me.

  “I think it’s awesome,” I whispered back.

  A personalized jersey from Danny Holbrook.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  “I got mine yesterday,” Kenny said.

  What?

  “No way! Where did you get it?” I asked, already dying to have one of my own.

  “In the mail.” Kenny paused for a second, looking confused. “You didn’t get one?”

  “No,” I told him, shaking my head slowly. “Was I supposed to?”

  “Yeah,” Bedhead said. “Mine got here on Thursday.”

  “Mine, too,” Colin said.

  “I didn’t get one.” My hands were starting to sweat. “Yet.”

  “Your mum signed you up for camp, didn’t she?” Kenny asked, looking worried.

  “Duh,” I said, rolling my eyes. “We’ve only been talking about it for two months.”

  “Well, you should have gotten a jersey, then.”

  “So where is it?”

  Kenny shrugged. “Maybe it’ll come tomorrow.”

  I shook my head. “No mail on Christmas.”

  Nuts! I wanted to wear my jersey on the first day of camp, just like everyone else.

  Why hadn’t it shown up earlier in the week? Was it lost in the mail? Did someone steal it from our doorstep?

  I had to find the answer.

  I had to find that jersey.

  Right away.

  “I gotta go,” I told Kenny, turning back toward my house.

  “Where are you going?”

  I didn’t bother answering, even when I heard the rest of the Cutter Bay Cougars shouting after me to come back and play.

  When I opened the kitchen door, Mum was sitting at the table, wearing the purple sweater Wendy and I went in together on for her birthday. I was glad to see she was using it, but I had way more important things on my mind.

  “I’m surprised to see you already,” she said with a laugh. “Did you forget your puck?”

  “We use a ball for street hockey,” I reminded her. “And no.” As if that would ever happen. “Hey, did something come in the mail for me?” I asked.

  She smiled. “A couple of packages did, but
I’ve hidden them away for tomorrow.”

  “But I need to see —”

  Mum shook her head. “Nope. You know, you’ve always been the worst for trying to sneak a peek at Christmas presents, Nugget.”

  “This isn’t about Christmas,” I said, sounding a bit ruder than I meant to. But I couldn’t help it! This was an emergency! “Can I just see the packages?”

  She frowned at me. “What’s going on?”

  I pictured the Holbrook jersey in my head.

  Man, I wanted one. Like, last Tuesday.

  “The guys all got jerseys in the mail. For hockey camp,” I told her. “Did I get one?”

  Mum frowned. “No, you have a package from Grandpa Charlie and another from Auntie Carol and Uncle Mike.”

  “Nothing else?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “But I paid the registration fee when I signed you up, so I’m sure yours is coming.”

  I nodded and tried to breathe normally. “Yeah, because that was way back in October.” Plenty of time.

  “Actually, I think it was closer to the end of November.”

  What?

  “November?” I’d told her about the camp the same day I saw the sign, and that was definitely the beginning of October.

  My heart started pounding like I’d been skating lines for twenty minutes.

  Something had gone wrong. I just knew it.

  “Look, it’s not going to matter whether I registered you in October or November, honey. If the camp comes with a jersey, you’ll get one.”

  I wanted to believe her, but I had a gut feeling that it wasn’t going to be that simple.

  “Are you sure you waited that long?” I asked, wondering what the heck she’d been waiting for.

  “Let me grab my chequebook,” Mum said, leaving the kitchen.

  I thought about my calendar, covered with X’s, and all the time I’d spent imagining ways to impress Danny Holbrook. What if Mum had made a mistake and I wasn’t even registered? I couldn’t spend the whole Christmas break taking shots against the garage by myself.

  Maybe I could head down to the rink in the morning and talk my way in? Or was it too late? Was I going to miss out on the coolest camp Cutter Bay had ever seen?

  Mum was back in a couple of minutes, waving her chequebook. “Here we go. November nineteenth. Made out to the Holiday Hockey Challenge.”