Tiger Threat

by Sigmund Brouwer

  He didn’t.

  That left only one person to go in and help. Me.

  Our winger was supposed to stay up near the blue line and prevent a pass back to the point. Our other defenseman would cover the front of the net. That left the center to help out.

  It seemed to me that the action was all sticks and skates and bumping bodies. I moved in, looking for a way to chip the puck out along the boards. It would give me some room to skate and look for an open man to feed a pass to.

  I stayed on the outside, the way I always did. A part of my mind was telling me to go in with my body. Another part of my mind said that I could get the puck and make a great play.

  The hesitation cost me.

  The Hurricane winger kicked the puck ahead, squeezing along the boards until he

  was free. I should have been in closer. Then I could have given him a hip or shoulder check to knock him off the puck. Instead I was too far away to stop him and too close to get back to the slot and help out the other defense.

  He made a hard pass. I feebly waved my stick as it zipped past me. I was able to half turn to watch the progress of the puck. It snapped between our other defenseman’s legs and onto Tidwell’s stick.

  He banged it high, over the goalie’s shoulder. Just like that, we were down 1–0.

  Tidwell raised his arms, wheeling in a tight circle. His eyes met mine. He grinned. He made sure he skated past me.

  “Nice try, little girl,” he said. “Want to drop the gloves now?”

  I knew what he was doing. He was trying to intimidate me. I didn’t want to be honest with myself. I didn’t want to admit it was working.

  The crowd was quiet as our line skated off the ice.

  I stepped into the players’ box, looking for a place to hide. It didn’t do any good.

  Coach Thomas paced down the bench behind the players. He put a hand on my shoulder. He squeezed hard, and it felt like an eagle’s claw.

  “Ray, look at me.”

  I didn’t want to, but I did.

  He leaned in close so that the other players couldn’t hear.

  “Looks like you’re not leading the way,” he said.

  “I thought I had a chance of chipping the puck loose,” I said. “We could have moved the puck out and—”

  “One thing I hate worse than gutless players,” he said, still speaking low, “and that’s gutless players who make excuses.”

  He stared into my eyes. “No excuses, Ray. Got that?”

  I blinked. “Got it.”

  “No ice time either,” he said. “Unless you play it my way. Understand?”

  He squeezed my shoulder harder and continued. “If you’re not in the corners, you’re not in the game. Understand?”

  Slowly, very slowly, I nodded.

  “Yes,” I said. “I understand.”

  He walked away, leaving me to dread my next shift.

  chapter eight

  For the next two minutes of the game, I hoped for a leg cramp. Vomiting. Another fire to empty the arena. Anything that would delay my turn to go back onto the ice for another shift.

  None of that happened.

  The Tigers were still down the goal that had been my fault, when the linesman called an offside against the Hurricanes. That meant my line was supposed to go back onto the ice.

  I flexed my leg, testing it for the slightest sign of a cramp. Nothing.

  I wondered if anyone would notice if I put my finger down my throat to make me throw up. Decided it would be too obvious.

  I scanned the rink for smoke. Nope.

  All of this meant I didn’t have a choice. It was back onto the ice. I skated slowly to our blue line to line up for the face-off against Joe Tidwell. He bumped into me. Not hard enough to get a penalty. But hard enough that I knew it wasn’t an accident.

  I’d been dealing with this for two seasons. My passing and skating and stickhandling skills were better than most in the league. I knew the word was out that the best way to stop me was to play physical hockey against me. Every game, this kind of stuff happened.

  But I still found ways to make plays. I had plenty of assists and goals. I just wasn’t a fighter or physical player myself. It hadn’t mattered whether I bumped back or dropped my gloves, as long as my line was producing points.

  Until Coach Thomas. And this game.

  So I bumped Tidwell back.

  His head whipped around. He was as surprised as I was.

  “What?” he said. “Mama’s boy wants some action?”

  I kept skating, although I knew he wanted to drop the gloves and fight. I took my position at the face-off. I didn’t feel any better about myself for bumping him back, not when it had given him a chance to challenge me like that.

  This time, when the linesman dropped the puck, I was able to get my stick on it before Tidwell. I swept the puck back to my left defenseman, winning the draw cleanly.

  Tidwell skated beside me and jabbed me in the side with his elbow in revenge.

  I ignored it and made a semicircle, then broke for open ice in the center. I took the pass back from my defenseman. With Tidwell coming in hard, I dumped it off to my left winger.

  Tidwell bumped me again.

  My winger dumped the puck in and I chased it.

  I knew what I was supposed to do. Get into the corner and fight their defenseman for the puck.

  Normally I’d slow my skating just enough to give the defenseman time to get the puck and move it to the other side. If he didn’t have the puck by the time I arrived, there was no point in mixing it up along the boards with him, right?

  This time I busted for the corner. Tidwell was right behind me. It put him out of position, but he must have wanted to get me good.

  Again, normally this would be a good time to swing back out and cruise for open ice, looking to intercept a pass. But Coach Thomas was watching.

  I found a little extra speed.

  The glass rattled as I smashed into their defenseman. The crowd roared. The defenseman fell to his knees. The puck squirted loose at my feet. I kicked it to my stick.

  Tidwell had committed to coming into the corner, and my right winger was wide open.

  The safe play, the one that would protect me, would be to get out of Tidwell’s way and let the puck go.

  But playing safe was going to get me cut from this team.

  I concentrated on the puck. Waited until the last second, then flipped it over Tidwell’s stick and along the ice to my right winger.

  That left me open, my back to the boards, my chest facing Tidwell.

  As he came in, he lifted an elbow. His body slammed into mine, lifting me off the ice. His elbow smashed my head, and my helmet banged against the glass.

  I began to fall, and Tidwell hit me with another elbow.

  Dimly, I understood that the crowd’s noise had risen to another level. On my knees, I saw why. The puck was in the net.

  We’d scored.

  But that didn’t matter. Not compared to the pain that had exploded along my jaw as if I’d swallowed a porcupine filled with dynamite.

  I tried to say something. But couldn’t.

  Warmth filled my mouth. I spat. Saw blood. My tongue hit something sharp.

  I spat again. Saw a piece of a tooth.

  Seconds later the guys on my team were standing around me. I couldn’t get up.

  It seemed like forever until the trainer arrived. I kept spitting blood, kept wondering if more pieces of teeth would follow the blood.

  When the trainer got there, he helped me to my feet.

  “Great play, Ray,” he said. “We tied the game, and Tidwell’s got a major penalty.”

  “Great,” I mumbled back. My head felt like a busted watermelon. “Really great.”

  I wasn’t there for the rest of the game, but I heard later the Tigers scored two more goals during the power play, and the score stayed 3–1 to the final buzzer.

  Somehow that didn’t make me feel much better.

  chapter
nine

  The good news was that I hadn’t broken my jaw. The bad news was that one of my bottom front teeth had snapped. Dental surgery was scheduled for the next morning, when Dr. Dempster had some staff who could assist him.

  In the meantime, Dr. Dempster had given me some powerful painkillers. I wished, though, that the painkillers also worked as sleeping pills.

  It was 2:00 AM, and all I could do was stare at the ceiling and try not to think.

  Ever done that? The more you tell yourself not to think about something, the more you think about it.

  I told myself not to think about Amanda. That made me see her long black hair against the light blue sweater and her beautiful smile. Made me wonder if she would ever go on a date with me instead of helping me with math. Of course, to find out, I’d have to ask her. But I was too afraid she might say no.

  Thinking about her made me think about the capsule in the tooth. I didn’t want to think about that either, because it seemed it might be a dangerous secret, and danger was not high on my list of things to enjoy. But as soon as I pictured the capsule, I also pictured Mr. Jewel hunched over it at his workbench. And I pictured the tiny sheet of paper he’d pulled from it. There had been some Russian symbols and a string of numbers. Nothing else.

  That made me think of Vlad and his reaction to the capsule and the broken tooth. Mr. Jewel had placed the tiny paper back inside the capsule and screwed it shut again. So I’d given Vlad the tooth and the capsule when I got back to the Moores’ house.

  Vlad had gone into a Russian shouting fit. Then he’d pulled his fingers across his lips as if he were zipping them shut. He’d pointed at me to make sure I understood he meant I had to keep my mouth shut. He’d said nyet about twenty times. Then the scary part. He had slid his finger across his throat as if it were a knife cutting his throat.

  Did that mean I would die if I talked about it? Did it mean he would die if he talked about it? Who would do the killing? And why? What did the Russian symbols mean? What could the string of numbers be?

  Whatever it was, it meant my guess to Amanda had been right. The capsule was important. Not only important enough to be hidden in a tooth, but, if I understood Vlad right, important enough to kill for.

  Or die for.

  Nope, didn’t like thinking about that.

  The tree branches made weird shadows on my bedroom wall. Like in the movie Monsters, Inc. That made me think about how, when I was a kid, I was afraid in the dark because I believed in monsters under the bed or in the closet.

  Boy, was I wrong about where the monster lived.

  The monster was the guy who would come in and spank me until I couldn’t breathe because he was mad that his son was chicken. Yeah, my dad. The tough guy.

  Didn’t want to think about that either. Because then I’d have to think about Coach Thomas. About getting suspended from the team if I didn’t play more physical.

  Of course, playing physical had just cost me part of a tooth. And the pain from it was the entire reason I was staring at scary shadows on the wall, trying not to think about the pain. Or Amanda. Or the capsule. Or dying. Or getting cut from the team.

  It was driving me crazy to be in bed with all those unwanted thoughts rattling through my mind.

  Solution?

  Get out of bed.

  I did. I moved to the window, hoping that looking out at the trees in the moonlight and the river beyond would take my mind off those thoughts.

  Instead I saw headlights of an approaching vehicle. About a block away, though, the headlights snapped off. It took a second for my eyes to adjust. Then I saw that it was still moving.

  Weird. Why shut the lights off?

  It slowed down as it neared the Moore house. Then it stopped. It was a cargo van. White. Like the kind of van that a plumber would use. But this one didn’t have any decals on the side. Just plain white. And waiting outside the Moore’s house.

  Very weird.

  It was too dark for me to see who was inside the van. All I could see was a dark outline of a person behind the steering wheel.

  Russian symbols and a set of numbers. Hidden inside the tooth of a Russian kid who hadn’t known it was there. But who had freaked out once he’d discovered it. Who thought his life was in danger.

  Was that a hit man in the van? Watching the house. Getting ready to sneak up with a silenced pistol?

  I shrank back from my window. I was having crazy thoughts. From the painkillers. That was it. Instead of getting loopy, like Vlad, I was going crazy.

  Who knew that I knew about the capsule? I ran through a list in my mind. Amanda. Mr. Jewel. Vlad. Surely they hadn’t told anyone.

  I gulped. There was one other person. A friend, Abe Madison. Computer geek. I’d gone to his house and drawn out the symbols and numbers for him. Asked him to see if he could figure it out. But I had sworn him to secrecy.

  Maybe his search for the answer had alerted someone to the secret. That’s what happened in movies.

  Crazy thoughts, I told myself. Crazy, crazy thoughts.

  Still, I grabbed my cell phone. I snuck back to the window to watch the person still waiting in the darkness inside the van. If he stepped out, I’d be calling 911 faster than Pookie had run from the skunk.

  Another minute stretched by. My mouth was getting drier each second. My thoughts wilder and crazier.

  Then I saw movement. Not from the van, but from the sidewalk.

  Someone had stepped from the Moore yard to the van!

  I recognized that person almost immediately. It was Vlad. Dressed in sweats. Looking around like he was going to do a drug deal.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe it was drugs. After all, I didn’t know Vlad that well. No one on the team did. Maybe it was drugs or steroids. That made me feel better than thinking someone had shown up to shoot me.

  Then, realizing it made me feel better suddenly made me feel worse. I was so afraid that it made me happy to think badly of Vlad rather than accept that I might be in trouble.

  I watched carefully.

  The man inside the van reached out. There was nothing that I could see in his hand. Vlad reached toward him. It looked like their hands had touched briefly.

  That was it.

  They had a brief conversation. Vlad nodded and turned away, back toward the house.

  Then the van pulled away. With the lights off.

  Like I was going to be able to fall asleep after this.

  chapter ten

  I had an e-mail waiting for me the next morning. It was from my computer friend. I’d gotten so little sleep, and my mouth was in so much pain, that I found it difficult to see the words on the screen. I read it once. Twice. Three times. I kept blinking to make the letters clear. Even after I was able to focus, it still didn’t make sense.

  From: Abe Madison

  To: rHockaday@myemail.com

  Subject: weird stuff

  Ray,

  Spent some time in chatrooms with some Russian gamers that I know. Asked them to translate the Russian words you wrote down for me. It said “what did your papa call you when you were a boy.” Still don’t know what the numbers mean. Maybe some sort of code.

  Also, I asked them to look into Vlad’s background. He was a star over there, you know. Found out his father died in a mysterious accident. Rumors blamed the Russian mafia for it. What do you think about that?

  By the way, now you owe me tickets to the next game.

  Abe

  I shut down my computer.

  Russian mafia?

  There was only one person who could give me the answers to this. Vlad. But he didn’t speak English. And after last night, it didn’t look like I could trust him.

  There was a bright side, though.

  I was due at the dentist in less than an hour for emergency work on my broken tooth. The pain would at least take my thoughts away from all of this.

  “Big hit you took last night,” Dr. Dempster said. “Too bad about the jaw.”


  “Uunnghhh,” I answered.

  Dr. Dempster had an assistant with him, a middle-aged woman with very nice teeth. She said nothing.

  Dr. Dempster, on the other hand, was one of those dentists who liked to talk. I was one of those guys who liked to be polite. Which meant trying to keep up my end of the conversation. That wasn’t so easy with a frozen tongue and clamps in my mouth.

  “Good thing you had a mouth guard,” he said. “This would have been much, much worse. I mean, Tidwell came in at you like a locomotive. But you took the hit.”

  “Uunngghhh,” I said.

  “I’ve never seen you do that before,” Dr. Dempster said. “Usually you make plays by being smart, not by being stubborn.”

  “Uunngghhh.”

  “This new approach to hockey have anything to do with the new coach?” Dr. Dempster asked, holding a drill just above my eyes. It seemed like a torture instrument, forcing me to answer.

  “Uunnngghhh,” I said.

  “Couldn’t tell if that was a yes or no,” Dr. Dempster said. “Of course, it’s not my business either.”

  He moved the drill to my mouth. The high-pitched whine drowned out anything else he might have said. I hated this, knowing that the drill bit was grinding away part of my tooth.

  I gripped the arm of the chair as hard as I could.

  Dr. Dempster kept drilling.

  My knuckles began to hurt.

  He stepped back. He tapped my knuckles. “White. Very white. Are you feeling any pain?”

  I thought about it. The freezing was working. I wasn’t feeling any pain.

  “Uuunnnggghh,” I said.

  “Nod your head if you feel pain,” he said. “I can give you more freezing. Or shake it if you can’t feel anything.”

  I shook my head.

  “What are the chances that you’ll just relax?” he said, tapping my knuckles again.

  I shook my head.

  Although he was wearing a surgical mask that hid most of his face, I could hear the grin as he spoke. “At least you’re honest.”

  More drilling by him. More white-knuckling by me. His assistant suctioned blood and water from my mouth. It seemed to take forever. Finally I just closed my eyes.

  About five years later he was finished. He nodded at the assistant, and she left the room.