I stayed at the door, and Riley led them out.
I watched Ben, Samantha’s brother. He was in the middle of the line. When he passed me, I patted his shoulder.
“How you doing?” I said. What I really wanted to ask him was if anyone had tried to kidnap him for the second time. I really wanted to ask him if he knew why the director of Youth Works was threatening his sister.
“I’m doing good,” he said. “Can I be a goalie today?”
“Sure,” I said. “Hey, what’s with the cotton ball?”
He was wearing a T-shirt, and a cotton ball was taped to the inside bend of his elbow. I’d had the same thing myself after donating blood to the Red Cross.
“Blood tests,” he said, like it was no big deal. “We all get them. Samantha says I have to leave it on until after dinner.”
“Oh.”
He marched onward. I followed him out of the room and down the hallway. I kept my eyes open for Samantha. She was always running around and doing different things around the building. If I was lucky, I would run into her and find an excuse to ask her to the dance. There was only a week left. I didn’t have the courage to call her on the phone.
But I didn’t see her.
Fifteen minutes later, I had bigger things to worry about.
Joey, my favorite little, redheaded, monster kid, stopped in his tracks in the middle of the courtyard. He toppled to his side as one of the other kids fired him a pass.
His head made a horrible sound as it hit the pavement. His body began to flop around. I got there just as his face was turning blue. Riley arrived a half second later.
“Ambulance?” Riley asked.
“Yes, hurry!” I said. This was no time to ask any other questions or think about anything else.
Riley dashed toward the Youth Work offices.
I dropped to my knees and leaned over Joey. He was wheezing.
I whipped off my jacket and folded it as a pillow beneath his neck. I pinched his nostrils together with the thumb and forefinger of my right hand. I pulled his chin down with my other hand. His face was cold and clammy.
“You’ll be all right, little buddy,” I said with a lot more calm than I felt. “Let’s just get you breathing right again.”
I began to blow air into his lungs.
Sunday afternoon, as the referee skated into the face-off circle deep in our end, I looked at the scoreboard. Seven to six. We were leading this home game against the Kamloops Blazers. Ten minutes, twenty-seven seconds left in the game. A full house of screaming fans.
The players had lined up, waiting for the puck to drop. I didn’t feel my usual nervousness. In the second period, I had scored a goal. I had tipped in a slap shot from one of our defensemen at the point. By scoring that goal, I knew Coach Estleman couldn’t say I hadn’t contributed to this game.
I turned my attention away from the score clock and back to the game.
The referee slapped the puck down between the sticks of the centers. They fought for the puck. Our center spun his body around, blocking the other center. Our center kicked the puck back with his skate, sending it to our defenseman who was waiting behind the net.
By then, I was already moving toward the boards. As winger, that was my position. If we lost the puck and it squirted up to their defenseman on the blue line, I was close enough to keep him from shooting at our goalie. If we kept the puck, I was in position to take a pass.
This time our defenseman fired the puck along the boards.
It began to bounce, and I knew I would have trouble trapping it with my stick. I backed up against the boards and turned my skates to trap the puck.
Unfortunately this gave their defenseman time to rush down the boards toward me. He reached me just as the puck did. He hit me with a full body check and spun me around.
I should have thanked him. He slid off me and fell to his knees. I ended up facing their net. And the puck was straight ahead, waiting like a plum for me to pick off a branch.
I sprinted forward. The crowd’s roar grew. They could see what I saw.
Two Winter Hawks forwards. Only one defenseman left to protect the net at the far end. We had a two-on-one breakaway!
I flipped the pass over to Steve Harper, the other winger, who had cruised into the open ice at center. He busted ahead at an angle, drawing the defenseman over to the side. I was skating at full speed too.
Harper and I had at least a ten-step head start on the next closest Blazer.
Wind filled my face; the roar of the crowd shook my whole body.
I kept to the middle of the ice, and when Steve and I crossed their blue line, I began to slow down. Just a bit. That forced the defenseman into making a move. He had to go wide to stay with Steve, or slow down to stay with me. If he stayed with me, Steve could go in alone on the goalie. If he moved to Steve, I would be free for a wide-open pass.
The defenseman decided to gamble. He stayed with Steve as long as he could, and as Steve went to backhand me a pass, the defenseman dove, hoping to block it.
The puck slid beneath him. Onto my stick.
I was at the top of their face-off circle. Just me and the goalie. And thousands of fans screaming for me to bury the puck in the net.
It was the big chance to be a hero, and I didn’t want it.
What if I tripped? What if I missed the net? I’d be a bum.
I faked my head and shoulders to the left, dragged the puck to the right and went to fire a cannon of a wrist shot. Except the puck hopped over my stick and rolled back into my skates.
Desperate to take a shot, I kicked it ahead. I took a feeble slap at the puck and managed to hit a slow looping shot that the goalie gloved easily.
Not only had I missed scoring, but I had also missed in the ugliest way possible. And in front of nearly every person in Portland who cared about hockey.
The ref blew the whistle to stop the play. I hung my head in the sudden silence of the disappointed crowd and got off the ice as soon as I could.
Coach Estleman didn’t say a word as I reached the players’ bench. He didn’t have to. I had a good idea of what was going through his mind.
chapter eleven
After the game, Coach Estleman took me aside in the hallway and spoke with me briefly. What he told me did not put me in a great mood. He wanted to meet with me on Wednesday. I doubted he wanted to move me up to the first or second line, even if Riley was still playing badly.
Unfortunately, when I left the coach I had to hide my sour mood because Joey and his mother were waiting for me in the lobby of the ice arena. I had told Joey I’d meet them after the game for burgers and milkshakes.
It had taken the team awhile to shower and then to listen to the coach’s post-game talk, so the lobby was nearly deserted. Joey and his mother saw me right away and walked in my direction. Joey looked fine, which was amazing considering that earlier in the week he had spent a night in the hospital hooked up to a machine that breathed for him.
“Hey, Tyler,” Joey said. He gave me a high five, which I returned. I had visited him at the hospital, and when I found out they were releasing him, I had given him a pair of tickets to today’s game.
His mother stood beside him. She was short and wore an old jacket. Her hair was blond and stringy, her face pale and splotchy. I smelled cigarette smoke on her clothes.
“I’m Judith Scranton,” she said. She bit her lower lip. “Joey’s mother, but you probably guessed that.”
“Hello,” I told her. “I’m glad you were able to bring Joey to the game.”
She shrugged. “You got us the tickets.”
Her attitude threw me. Chances were good, the doctor had said, that I had saved her kid’s life by giving him mouth-to-mouth. I’d given him hockey tickets. But it was like she didn’t care. She looked every direction but in my eyes. She didn’t smile. She fidgeted.
“Let’s go,” Joey said. “Tyler said we could get burgers and shakes.”
“I told you,” she hissed at him. “We
can’t afford it.”
“My treat,” I told them.
“No,” she said. “You already done plenty. I’m not going to owe you more.”
“But—”
“Nope. We may be poor, but we don’t need charity.”
“Mom...,” Joey said. He was squirming.
“But Mrs. Scranton—”
“Ms., if you don’t mind. And if Joey and I don’t hurry, we’ll miss our bus.”
Bus? This wasn’t an easy place to reach by bus, not from the part of Portland where they lived. By giving them the tickets, I’d forced her to spend hours on a bus?
“I can give you a ride,” I said.
She shook her head no. “We’ll be fine.”
“But—”
“We’ll be fine,” she said. It began to dawn on me that she was very uncomfortable around me. It also began to dawn on me that I felt uncomfortable around her.
Here I was, in nice new dress pants, polished dress shoes, a leather jacket and with a haircut that might have cost more than the old coat she wore. Joey’s dirty clothes were little more than rags, his fingernails and hair were grubby and there were holes in his running shoes.
Was her life so tough that she didn’t want to be reminded of another world, where teenaged kids had Jeeps to drive and she was forced to take the bus?
“It was nice meeting you,” I finally said.
“You too,” she said, her lips tight. I wondered how much begging Joey had done just to get her to the game.
“See you later, Joey,” I said. “Down at Youth Works, right? Get ready for some big-time street hockey.”
“No,” Ms. Scranton said. “You won’t see him there.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You won’t see him there.” Her voice became angry. “First they pay me to get Joey in the program. And right when it seems things are finally right with him, they kick him out.”
I looked at Joey. He nodded, with a miserable look on his face.
“Yeah,” he said. “First Nathan and Drew and Jamie. Now me. It ain’t fair.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Nathan and Drew and Jamie. Who are they?”
“Kids,” he said. “Youth Works kids. They got sent to the hospital too. Just like me.”
“Just like you?”
He nodded gravely. “Yup. Seizures.”
Ms. Scranton glared at me like it was my fault Joey was out of Youth Works. She pulled Joey away and headed for the exit, leaving me to stare at them with an open mouth.
Four kids with seizures?
They were almost to the outer doors by the time I caught up to them.
“Ms. Scranton,” I said, “would you mind if Joey told me the last names of those other three kids?”
chapter twelve
I marched into Sam’s office. It was exactly a week since Joey had had his seizure.
“I’d like you to tell me what is going on,” I said to her.
Without getting up from her desk, she looked at her watch. “Well, for the next two hours, you and Riley will be playing street hockey with the boys.” She smiled. “I can’t tell you how much it has meant to them. Thanks.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” I said. “I’ve been here often enough to know the Tuesday afternoon schedule.”
She pushed her chair back and stood. The tone of my voice was telling her plenty.
“All right,” she said. She spoke slowly, half curious, half concerned. “What do you mean?”
It was strange. Being angry had taken all of my shyness out of me. I was able to speak directly to her without staring at the floor.
“What do I mean? For starters, Joey’s not the first kid to have a seizure here.”
“How do you know—?”
“And he isn’t the second kid to have a seizure here either. Isn’t he the fourth kid in four months to get sent to the hospital?”
“But—”
“Joey and his mother came to our game on Sunday afternoon. It was my first chance to speak to him since the hospital. He told me about three of his friends. Maybe you remember them. Nathan? Drew? Jamie? All of them had seizures. Right?”
“Yes, but—”
“And all of them have been told not to return to Youth Works. Any reason?”
She took a deep breath and blinked a couple of times. “Insurance,” she said. “It’s difficult for organizations like ours to get insurance against being sued. We can’t afford the risk of keeping kids who have proven they are likely to have seizures.”
“Interesting,” I replied. “Very interesting. Almost as interesting as finding out all four of them have ADD. Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
“ADD?” Samantha blinked a few more times. “I don’t understand.”
“Attention deficit disorder. You know, a medical condition that some kids have. It makes them hyperactive, and they can’t pay attention to anything for long. I find it strange that someone in your position pretends not to know what it is.”
She blinked again. “I’m not pretending.”
But she was pretending. I’d already made some phone calls. I’d already visited the mothers of Nathan and Drew and Jamie. Because of that, I knew Samantha was lying.
Her constant blinking seemed odd. I wondered what it meant.
“And you don’t know why Ben was kidnapped?” I asked.
“He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said. “It’s not like someone was looking for him specifically.”
This time, I expected her to blink. Which she did.
“If you want to lie to people,” I said, “you should learn to be a better actress. You give yourself away by blinking. You can’t look me in the eyes when you lie.”
“You are rude. Please leave.”
“I might be rude. But I do know Ben is in danger. In fact I know you’re supposed to keep your mouth shut about something or he’ll get seriously hurt.”
Her mouth dropped. “You can’t know that,” she managed to say in a whisper.
“I overheard Earl Chadley threatening you. I know plenty more too. After Joey told me about Nathan and Drew and Jamie, I called each of their mothers. Not only did I find out that all of the boys have been diagnosed with ADD, but I also found out everyone in our group suffers from it. Almost like you went out and collected kids who have ADD.”
That, of course, explained why they were so crazy and wild during our visits here. If it hadn’t been for the street hockey to tire them out, Riley and I would have gone equally crazy trying to work with them.
“I found out something else,” I said. “Joey, Jamie, Nathan and Drew had been making great progress. Every one of their mothers was sad to see them out of the program because the boys were so much quieter at home after spending time at Youth Works.”
I took a breath. “What I don’t know is the big secret you’re hiding. And I want to know it. Now.”
“Drop it, Tyler,” she said. Her face was white now. She wasn’t blinking. “Drop the questions. Drop your volunteer time here. Drop everything and pretend you never called those mothers. Then go back to hockey and forget you ever heard of Youth Works.”
“Why?” I said. “Give me one good reason why.”
“Because you look much nicer in a hockey uniform than you would in a coffin.”
“Mr. Cranky Pants,” Riley said to me as we walked away from the Youth Works building toward my Jeep. “What’s the matter? Did Sam turn you down for the dance?”
Two hours had passed since my conversation with Samantha. Riley and I were both dripping sweat after a long run with the kids. I carried my gym bag in one hand, my Jeep keys in the other.
“I didn’t ask her,” I said.
“You spent enough time in her office when we got here,” he said. “How could you not have asked her?”
Riley carried his own gym bag over his shoulders.
“You want to hear something crazy?” I asked.
We were almost at the Je
ep.
“Sure.”
I waited until we were both inside. Riley threw his gym bag on the floor at his feet. I put the key in the ignition. We both pulled our seat belts on.
I didn’t start driving though. Instead I told Riley about the weird things I had discovered with my phone calls. An entire group of kids with ADD. Four kids with seizures in four months. The mothers unhappy that the kids weren’t allowed to come back to Youth Works.
“Well, no kidding,” Riley said with his usual smart-aleck grin. “Sometimes ADD kids use medication. So if your kid came home happy and tired and quiet, wouldn’t you want him to stay in the program?”
Program.
That word kept going through my mind as Riley dug through the gym bag for his water bottle. He found it and offered it to me.
“Kool-Aid?” he asked. “I took some more from their snack tray while they weren’t looking.”
“Sure,” I said. I gulped down some KoolAid and handed it back to him.
Program. Drugs.
I remembered the kidnapping van. It had been stolen from a pharmaceutical company. I remembered how it bugged me that the van had clean sides but a dirty back end.
Program. Drugs. Pharmaceutical company. What could it mean?
Riley almost had the water bottle to his mouth when I grabbed it from his hands.
“Hey! I’m willing to share! You don’t have to be a jerk about it.”
“Riley,” I said, “you’re allergic to a lot of things, right?”
“So?”
“I’m not. Which means I can handle a lot of things that you can’t.”
“So? What’s your point? I’m thirsty. I’m not allergic to Kool-Aid, and I’m the one who got it for us. I deserve a drink as much as you do.”
“No problem,” I said. “Just answer me a couple of questions. When was the last time you had some of their Kool-Aid?”
He thought about it for a second. “Not the last time here. Joey had a seizure, and I didn’t re-fill the bottle. So it must have been the time before.”
“Exactly.”
He nodded.
“Here’s my other question,” I continued. “When was the practice where you went blind for an hour?”
It took him much less time to answer this question. “Last time I had their Kool-Aid.”
Winter Hawk Star Page 5