The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 3

by Roy MacGregor

  He opened the door, cringing. Better to be seen leaving the office than to be caught inside, he figured. The sun cut into his eyes. He squinted in the light, unable to see anything but the blinding red and yellow through his eyelids.

  “Data?” a voice called.

  He recognized that voice. But it couldn’t be…

  Data closed his eyes hard, then slowly opened them.

  A man was paying off a cab driver. The cabby was pulling away. And then the man was standing in the centre of the parking lot, smiling, an old suitcase in one hand, his other hand raised in greeting.

  “MUCK!” Data called. His voice broke. He had never been so glad to see anyone in his life.

  Travis was passing along the handshake line, Nish behind him, Sarah in front. He was tapping shin pads and punching gloves, and trying to say the right thing–“Nice game…Thanks for the game…. Good game”–but he knew it should never have been this close. The Owls had been lucky to get the win in the end, but they should have beaten the Predators easily. And they should never have lost to the Werewolves.

  Without even looking at the standings posted in the lobby, the Owls all knew where this left them. The win had given them one more game in the tournament, but not for the championship. They had made it to the “B” side, and would play for the consolation title. It wasn’t the same as making the big game.

  In a way, though, it hardly mattered. For the first time ever, the Owls would probably have preferred just to go home and not play at all any more. The excitement had all been off the ice instead of on. Drumheller was a wonderful town, but Kelly Block had made their stay an experience they would rather forget. And as long as he was around, none of them felt much like playing. He wasn’t their coach–and they weren’t the old Screech Owls.

  Sarah waited until Travis had passed the last Predator in the line, then together they turned towards the exit.

  “Do you see what I see?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “What?” repeated Nish from behind.

  “By the Zamboni entrance.”

  The doors were open, the big machine ready to come out and flood the ice after the handshakes were over. But to one side was Data, pumping his fist in the air.

  And behind Data, holding on to the handles of his wheelchair, was Muck!

  We owe you young people an apology.”

  The deep and confident voice belonged to the senior officer in the Drumheller detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was standing in the centre of the camp kitchen, the only room large enough to hold all those who had been called together for this moment.

  Travis sat at a table with the other six who had seen the dinosaur. Nish was beaming, as if he were about to be knighted by the inspector. Sarah was there, smiling. And Lars, Andy, Jesse, Jenny. All of them. And all of their teammates. And, of course, Muck.

  “Mr. Block has been arraigned this morning in a Calgary court. He is in custody, pending Monday’s bail hearing. We cannot comment on the charges or the case, of course, but we can tell you that it seems you were right and we were wrong to doubt you.”

  “ALLLLL RIIIIGHT!” Nish shouted. Everyone in the room, Mounties and players, looked at him as if he had just dropped in from another planet.

  “We knew, naturally, that there never was any dinosaur,” said the inspector. “That was impossible. But we knew nothing about the powers of hypnotism and suggestion. I’m told, however, that while under hypnosis, you can’t be made to do anything you don’t wish to do, but you can be made to imagine things, even as a group, if conditions are right and the hypnotist knows what he is doing.”

  It was all becoming clear to Travis. Nish, after all, had said he’d fallen asleep while undergoing that one-on-one session with Block, and they’d thought it a great joke, but it now seemed clear that Nish was intended to fall asleep. All the other talk, about “chemistry” and “focus,” was just blarney while Block used the hot room and his purring voice to get people to fall under his hypnotic spell. And the fan that Travis had watched before he dozed off–it was the same thing. All part of the scheme.

  “You will be interested to know that my men did indeed find something in exactly the place you identified out in the hills,” the inspector continued.

  Travis could sense the room go very quiet.

  The inspector laughed. “No, I’m afraid not an Albertosaurus, though I think some of my officers wondered at times if they might come face to face with a monster.”

  Everyone chuckled politely. Travis and Nish strained to see what it was that two of the Mounties were carrying into the room.

  “This,” the inspector continued, “is a remote-control sound system. It’s not very big, you’ll notice. But it certainly sounds big.”

  One of the officers flipped a switch. The machine hissed, then growled deeply, the fierce sound filling the room and threatening to burst the walls.

  The roar of the Albertosaurus!

  “Turn it down, Mac!” the inspector shouted. The machine clicked off. “We believe this device was hidden out there by someone, probably our Mr. Block. It was set off by a remote sensor. Body movement, say a bike passing by, would set it off. Anything that happened after that probably took place in your imaginations.”

  In some ways it was really quite simple, thought Travis. Block had probably found it quite easy to insert the idea of a living Albertosaurus in their heads. They’d all seen the life-size models at the Royal Tyrrell Museum and were all excited about dinosaurs. All they had to do was hear that sound, and their minds would do the rest of the work for Block. He’d probably experimented first with Nish, who obviously had the wildest imagination on the team, and then tried it out on the six he’d selected.

  They weren’t a Russian unit at all. And their selection had nothing whatsoever to do with playing hockey.

  It had everything to do with a very public hoax, and millions of dollars.

  “I think Mr. Munro has something to say to you all,” the inspector said.

  He nodded to Muck, who fidgeted awkwardly, then stepped forward. Nish began a small smattering of applause that caught on, and grew. Muck grimaced and shut them down by raising his right hand.

  “We have a game to play,” Muck announced. “We’re still here for a hockey tournament.”

  The Drumheller rink was filled to capacity for the second straight day–but the crowd was hardly the same this time. This time the merely curious had stayed at home. The people of Drumheller had come out to see hockey, not the little kids who had played a part in what the papers were now calling the “hoax of the century.”

  The crowd had gathered early. The big championship game was still two hours off, but they had come to cheer for the Screech Owls, and also to show them that in Drumheller they were not all like Kelly Block. They cheered the warmup and they clapped for the players coming onto the ice and they even cheered when Travis Lindsay, the little captain, succeeded in firing a puck off the crossbar and over the glass into the crowd.

  The Owls were up against the Lethbridge Lasers, a fine team that had missed the championship round by a single goal. Since the Owls had struggled so badly, even against weak teams, the crowd expected the Lasers would have little trouble taking the consolation title.

  Muck’s entire speech before the game, Travis figured, could be written down on a tiny scrap of paper and stuffed inside a fortune cookie.

  “Same lines as always,” he said. “Jeremy and Jenny split the goaltending. Play your best.”

  Nothing about “chemistry,” no fancy words out of a psychology textbook, no crazy theories–and certainly no hypnotism.

  Sarah and Travis and Dmitri started.

  They dominated the first shift, up and down the ice, with pinpoint passing and deft drop plays that sent Dmitri in for a superb chance, only to be turned back by a fine stacked-pads save by the Lasers’ goalie.

  Halfway through the first period, Nish saw little Simon Milliken breaking for centre and threw a high pa
ss that went over Simon’s shoulder like a football and dropped just ahead of him a second before he crossed centre ice. Simon was onside and had a clear break. He went backhand-forehand and then slipped the puck in on the short side as the goalie butterflied too late.

  Screech Owls 1, Lasers 0.

  It was clear there was not going to be much scoring. First Jenny and then Jeremy, who came in at the halfway point, played magnificently. The Lasers’ goaltender, staying in for the whole game, seemed unbeatable except for Simon’s lucky break.

  Into the third period the Lasers finally struck when they turned a two-on-one into an open chance. Wilson, backpedalling fast, guessed it would be a pass and dropped to block it, but the Laser centre held fast to the puck and slipped it quickly across in front of Jeremy, and the winger fired it fast into the open side.

  Owls 1, Lasers 1.

  What a game it had become. The crowd was screaming with every rush. If this was a consolation match, Travis thought, what would the championship game be like?

  Travis watched happily as Muck walked along behind the players the way he had a thousand times before. Mr. Dillinger was back, patting backs, rapping helmets, dropping towels around necks, slapping pants as players rose and leapt over the boards and into the play. Ty was once again Ty, whispering strategy to Muck and talking to the players about other things they might try, and complimenting them on the things they were doing right.

  If I could spend the rest of my life on this team, Travis thought, I would. And then he realized what that meant.

  Chemistry.

  The Screech Owls had had it all along. It took Kelly Block to ruin it.

  The consolation match ended in a tie, 1–1, and they announced an immediate ten-minute, sudden-death overtime. First goal wins.

  Muck was at Travis’s back, leaning down.

  “Don’t be afraid to carry,” Muck said. “They’re keying on Sarah and Nish, expecting them to have the puck.”

  Travis nodded. He felt Muck’s big, rough hand on his neck. It was like a comforter.

  Next shift, Wilson pounded the puck around the boards to Nish, who stopped, seeming almost to tread water as he stared down the ice, challenging the Lasers to forecheck.

  Travis turned back sharply, rapping his stick on the blueline as he cut into his own end. Nish hit him perfectly.

  A winger was chasing him, closing in on him fast. Without thinking, Travis did something he had only dreamed about before. Still skating towards his own net with the puck, he suddenly dropped it back so it passed through the checker’s skates. At the same time, Travis turned abruptly, picking up his own back pass as he headed straight up ice towards the Laser end.

  He could hear the roar of the crowd. What sound would they have made, he wondered, if it hadn’t worked?

  The roar of the Albertosaurus?

  Travis moved over the red line, with Sarah ahead of him, slowing so she wouldn’t go offside. The Lasers were double-teaming her. Travis bent as if to fire a pass in her direction, then brought the heel of his stick down hard on the puck–sending it backwards through his own skates!

  Travis cringed, praying that Dmitri would be there.

  He was!

  Dmitri had read the play perfectly. He took up the sliding puck and flew across the line, Sarah and Travis barely staying onside, each with one leg straddling the Lasers’ blueline.

  Dmitri broke for the corner, spinning away.

  Travis read the signal. Dmitri was going to drop the puck and take out his checker. They were cycling the puck–Russian style.

  Travis headed for the corner, and the puck came instantly back to him. Dmitri had the checker under control–he’d have to be careful he didn’t get called for interference–and Travis looked back towards the blueline, certain of what he would see there.

  A locomotive coming full bore: Wayne Nishikawa.

  Nish was already poised to shoot, his stick sweeping back for the one-timer.

  Travis held to the last microsecond, then sent the puck out fast. Nish had to time it perfectly. He brought his stick down hard.

  The puck shot forward, then Travis lost it, then the crowd roared as one.

  Travis spun, looking at the net. It was bulging with the puck. The Lasers’ goalie was fully extended, legs out, arms out, stick swinging wildly–but the puck was already by him.

  We did it! Travis shouted.

  The Owls poured onto the ice. Travis heard Sarah screaming in his ear.

  “Trav! We won! WE WON!”

  It looked as if the Screech Owls had won the Stanley Cup, not the consolation round of a small-town tournament. The entire arena seemed to explode, as if all that had happened to the Owls was now forgotten, as if everything in the world was now right once more and would never go wrong again.

  Ty was running into the crowd of Screech Owls that had smothered Nish into a corner.

  Even Muck was out on the ice, moving as fast as his bad leg would take him. He was holding both arms in the air, fists up high, a big grin from ear to ear. Behind Muck, Mr. Dillinger was pushing Data out onto the ice, Data’s fist pumping the air.

  Travis and Sarah pushed into the crowd. Dmitri leaned over and smacked Travis’s helmet. It rattled his brain but felt like a caress. Travis threw his arm around Sarah’s shoulder and hugged. Jenny leaped onto their backs from behind.

  They threw their gloves and sticks and helmets off, and pushed and shoved and cheered and screamed until, finally, they broke through to reach the Screech Owl who had scored the winning goal in overtime.

  Nish was beet-red and covered in sweat, but there was no smile on his face, no life in his eyes. “What’s going on?” he asked Travis. “What’s everybody yelling about?”

  “You, you stupid idiot–great goal! WONDERFUL GOAL!”

  “What goal?”

  “We won, you jerk. Don’t you realize what you’ve done.”

  Nish shook his head, not comprehending. “I can’t remember a thing,” he said.

  “What?” Travis yelled, unbelieving.

  “I must have been hypnotized.”

  And then Nish winked.

  THE END

  Nish was dead!

  One moment he was screaming “I’M GONNA HURL!” from the seat behind Travis Lindsay–who was desperately hanging on to the bucking, slamming, sliding monster beneath them–the next he was airborne, a chubby twelve-year-old in a red crash helmet, a black rubber wetsuit, and a yellow life jacket, spinning high over the rest of the Screech Owls and smack into the churning whirlpool at the bottom of the most dangerous chute of the long rapids.

  Nish entered his watery grave without a sound, the splash instantly erased by the rushing, tea-coloured water of the mighty Ottawa River as it choked itself through the narrow canyon of wet, dripping rock and roared triumphantly out the other end. Screaming and spinning one second, he was gone the next–his teammates so terrified they could do nothing but tighten their iron-locked grips on their paddles and the rope of the river raft.

  Nish was dead!

  Travis closed his eyes to the slap of cold water as it cuffed off the dripping rock walls and spilled in over his face. Would any of them get out alive? Would it be up to him, as team captain and best friend, to tell Nish’s mother?

  “Did my little Wayne have any last words?” poor sweet Mrs. Nishikawa would ask.

  “Yes,” Travis would have to answer.

  “What were they?” Mrs. Nishikawa would say, a Kleenex held to her trusting eyes.

  And Travis would have to tell her: “‘I’m gonna hurl.’”

  The Screech Owls had come to Ottawa for a special edition of the Little Stanley Cup. Instead of in January or February, it was being held over the Canada Day long weekend and was going to honour the one hundredth anniversary of the Ottawa Silver Seven–hockey’s very first Stanley Cup dynasty. It was to be a peewee hockey tournament the likes of which had never been seen before. The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto was bringing up the original Stanley Cup that Governor Gene
ral Lord Stanley had given to the people of Canada in 1893, there was going to be a special display of hockey memorabilia from the early 1900s, and the Governor General herself was going to present the cup to the winning team. The Sports Network was going to televise the final, and special rings–“Stanley Cup rings!” Nish had shouted when he heard–would be awarded to the champions.

  But it was unlike other tournaments for more reasons than that. Muck Munro, who always said he had little use for summer hockey, wasn’t there to coach. Muck had told them he couldn’t get off work, but the Owls figured he hadn’t tried all that hard. If Muck took a summer holiday, he preferred to head into the bush for a week of trout fishing. Muck’s two assistants, Barry and Ty, hadn’t been able to get away either. The team was essentially under the control of good old Mr. Dillinger, who was wonderful at sharpening skates but didn’t know much about breakout patterns, and Larry Ulmar–Data–who was great at cheering but not much for strategy. Right now, Data was waiting for the Owls at the end of the ride, deeply disappointed that the river guides hadn’t been able to figure out a way to strap his wheelchair into the big, bucking rafts.

  Nor were the Screech Owls staying with local families for this tournament. Instead, they were camping, along with most of the other teams, at a church camp farther down the river, within sight of the highrises of Ottawa. It was an ideal location, and the tournament games were deliberately spaced out to allow for day trips. The teams were booked to go river rafting, mountain biking in the Gatineau Hills, and even off to world-famous Algonquin Park, where they hoped to see moose and bear. The tournament final itself was to be played in the Corel Centre, where the Ottawa Senators had played only the winter before. Nish had said it was only proper that he win his first Stanley Cup ring on a rink where NHL stars had skated.

  But now Nish was lost overboard, bouncing, spinning, bumping along the bottom of the Ottawa River, snapping turtles pulling at his desperately clutching fingers, leeches already sucking out his blood.

  It had been the guide’s suggestion that one of them join him at the back of the raft and help steer. Nish, of course, had jumped up first with both hands raised and shouted out that the seat was his. The new player, Samantha Bennett, had also raised her hand to volunteer, and Travis was quick to notice a small flash of anger in Sam’s green eyes when the guide gave in and picked Nish. Sam, who’d only moved to Tamarack two months earlier, was Data’s replacement on defence. Big and strong, she was as competitive off the ice as on, and almost as loud and just possibly as funny as Nish himself. Andy Higgins had even started calling her “Nish-ette,” though never to her face. Nish, to her, was a rival as top Screech Owls’ defender, not an example for her to copy.