The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 1

by Roy MacGregor

  The two boys followed, the water cold as the ice bucket Mr. Dillinger always kept handy at the back of the bench. Who would keep it today? Muck had them all join hands and they began working back and forth on a grid, the three of them shivering and shaking as they felt across the bottom with their toes for the missing keys.

  “Anybody comes along and sees us,” said Muck, “I don’t know you two.”

  Shivering, their teeth chattering, Derek and Travis began laughing at the crazy situation they were in and Muck’s silly idea that they could somehow all be strangers, two of them half-dressed, all holding hands as they waded back and forth in ice-cold water.

  “Got ’em!” Derek shouted. He pulled the keys up on the end of his toes.

  “Thank heavens!” snorted Muck. “I can’t feel my legs any more.”

  “Me neither,” said Derek.

  Muck smiled at him: “And you’re going to need yours today–mine don’t matter.”

  Sarah was back with her new skates. The carton they had come in was under her stall, the wrapping paper all around her, the skates, tongues flapping, on her feet as she stared down at her new equipment, delighted.

  The dressing room was busy, alive. It had all come down to this one game. Panthers versus Screech Owls. For the Lake Placid Peewee International Championship. For the chance to take a victory lap on the same Olympic ice surface Team U.S.A. had skated on in 1980. For the tiny, gold-plated medals and Lake Placid tuques they were, rumour had it, going to be handing out to the victors.

  And Sarah would be there to help them this time. There for the whole game, without anything to worry about for once. Travis felt wonderful inside, excited and happy and thrilled. The others were equally worked up. But Derek was dressing as if he was alone in the room, a hunched-over kid pretending to lose himself in the concerns of his hockey bag. Travis felt terrible for him, but happy that Derek was at least going to play. They would need him, too.

  Muck came in and checked out Sarah’s new skates. He whistled, impressed. “No allowance for ten years for you,” he kidded.

  “They’ll need sharpening,” Sarah said.

  Muck strode to the centre of the room. He stopped, staring about as he always did before his pep talk. But it was too early for that. He would always do the pep talk just before they skated out onto the ice, just as the Zamboni was finishing up the flood. Never at this point, when they were just arriving to dress.

  He smiled quickly at Travis, then stared long at Derek, who did not look up. Muck counted heads, satisfied.

  “We’re all here now. So keep it down for a minute. I have something that has to be said to you.”

  The players all stopped what they were doing. Even Nish. This seemed unusual to them all, not just to Travis.

  “I have been talking to the tournament organizers,” Muck began. “This is, as you already know, an international competition. It falls under a joint agreement between the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association and U.S.A. Hockey. A number of restrictions apply.”

  Nish’s mouth was as open as an empty net. What was Muck going on about? The other kids were all staring up, completely silent, waiting for him to make sense.

  Muck watched Derek as he spoke. “One of those restrictions is that each team must have a qualified trainer with certified first-aid training at the bench. If you don’t have the proper helmet you can’t play. Don’t have the proper neck guard, can’t play. Same thing about the proper trainer. There’s only one person affiliated with the Screech Owls who has all the training necessary and all the right certification. But only one person. It isn’t me. And it isn’t Barry or Ty.”

  The whole room could sense Derek lifting his eyes from his shin pads. It was almost as if he were just now entering the room, as if up until this moment he had been missing, as if someone had been in his stall but it was not the Derek Dillinger they knew.

  “Mr. Dillinger?” Fahd asked.

  Muck turned, nodding. “That’s correct.”

  “But he’s off the team!” Nish blurted out.

  Almost as one, the team turned and stared, Nish glowing beet-red and wincing.

  Muck stared at Nish, not at all upset. “Technically, you’re not quite right, Nish. He resigned from the team. We always have the option open of refusing to accept his resignation.”

  Derek’s eyes were closed. He was covering his ears, shaking his head.

  Muck continued, loud enough so Derek had to hear. “It’s a simple choice. No certified trainer, we can’t start the game. And it’s Mr. Dillinger or it’s nobody. None of the other parents has it. And I, for one, happen to consider him one of the best I’ve ever worked with.”

  Derek caught at the mention of this. His hands came down. He stared at Muck, dumbfounded.

  “He’s the best skate sharpener I’ve ever had,” Sarah said.

  “Me, too,” added Dmitri. Dmitri was beginning to panic that he wouldn’t have his fresh sharp for the game.

  Muck turned to Sarah. “You’re the one who should say,” Muck said. “You give me the word, and I’ll see if I can find him.”

  Everyone turned to look at Sarah. She closed her eyes a moment. Travis could see her jaw working, her teeth grinding as she thought. She opened her eyes, swallowed, and began nodding.

  “I think so,” she said.

  On the other side of the bench, Derek’s head went down, shaking.

  Travis and Nish could not resist. Wearing only their long underwear, their garters, athletic supporters, shin pads, and socks, they scurried along the corridor to the bench area and sneaked out to watch.

  They could see Muck climbing up through the crowd, the parents surprised to see him. They gathered tight against the wall with him when he called them over with a quick wave of the hand. They could hear nothing, but they knew Muck was giving them the same story that he had just told the players.

  Travis couldn’t fight the thought: Is it really true? Was there such a rule? Did neither Muck nor Ty nor Barry have the right training? And if there was such a rule, how did the tournament committee find out that the Screech Owls were without a proper trainer? Or did Muck go to them instead of them coming to him?

  There were a million questions in Travis’s mind, none of them answerable, none of them even questions he wished to share with his teammates. It was almost as if he and Muck had a special understanding now, ever since the incident with Derek down by the water. And Muck had looked at him in a certain way before beginning his speech about Mr. Dillinger.

  If Muck had fixed it so they had to invite Mr. Dillinger back, why? Because Muck figured he had learned his lesson? Or because Muck figured all the parents, including, and especially, Mr. Brown, had learned a lesson that couldn’t be learned by a quick punch in a parking lot? Muck was a mysterious man to the players. They liked him, they loved him, but they didn’t pretend to understand him.

  And how would Travis himself feel about Mr. Dillinger coming back? He had thought the world of Derek’s father before all this. But maybe this had all happened because Mr. Dillinger got mixed up. He got far too carried away with the thoughts most parents–just look at Mr. Brown–had all the time. Only Mr. Dillinger had a way to make them happen. It was wrong, but at least he had admitted it was wrong.

  Travis figured he would let whatever happened happen. He could see the parents breaking up high in the stands. He could see Mr. Boucher pointing someone out to Muck. He could see Muck walking over to the other side, where Mr. Dillinger sat by himself, his elbows on his knees and his chin in the palm of one hand.

  “He’s going to get him,” Nish said.

  “Maybe he won’t come,” Travis said.

  “He’ll come,” Nish said.

  Nish was right. They watched Muck talk for a while and then they saw Muck reach down and take Mr. Dillinger by the arm and pull him to his feet.

  Muck then turned and began walking away, back down to the dressing room. Mr. Dillinger, it seemed, had no choice but to follow.

  Everything bega
n to happen very fast after that. Mr. Dillinger came in, looking terribly sheepish, and immediately set about doing his work, just as he always did, except there was no whistling, no singing, no kidding around.

  He took Sarah’s skates and sharpened them as carefully as the Screech Owls had ever seen him sharpen before. He worked for a while, came back with them, had Sarah run a thumbnail over them, but he was still not satisfied with his work. He then took the skates back and sharpened them as carefully as if they were about to go on the feet of Wayne Gretzky himself. Then he brought them back, showed Sarah that he had even cut out and taped a small “98” on each heel, slipped them on her feet and tied them. When he looked up and Sarah quickly smiled a thank you, it seemed Mr. Dillinger was going to float away.

  He put new tape on the equipment box and loaded the table up with three different flavours of gum. He filled the water bottles, set the warm-up pucks in Guy Boucher’s trapper, and ran for a bucket of ice from the maintenance office. Mr. Dillinger was back.

  But Derek wasn’t. Not yet. He would neither look at his father nor acknowledge his presence. Travis understood. It would take time, if even time could heal what had happened. It was, in a way, easier for Sarah to forgive than for Derek. Mr. Dillinger was his father.

  Muck came in and stood in his usual spot as the Zamboni made its last circle. “You expect a speech?” he said when he had their attention. “I have nothing to say to you. You know who you are. You know how good you are. You know who you’re playing. You know what you have to do. Now let’s get out there and do it.”

  “Let’s get ’em!” Nish shouted.

  “One last thing,” Muck said just as everyone was rushing to line up behind Guy. Everyone stopped in his and her tracks.

  “Derek, you’re going first line again,” Muck said.

  Derek turned, in shock.

  “Take Travis’s spot.”

  Travis never felt so happy to be demoted in his life.

  The arena was filled to near capacity. Some of the other teams were waiting around for the awards ceremonies and most of the parents were still there as well. It was going to be the biggest crowd Travis had ever played in front of, and though he would have loved to have been lining up for the opening face-off, he was happy for Derek. Derek deserved it. Derek needed it.

  They played both anthems before the opening face-off. First “O Canada,” then, to a rising roar, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The roar was just like the one in Chicago, whenever the Blackhawks played on television, only here the crowd and players were smaller. But just as excited.

  Travis stood along the bench for the Canadian anthem, burning with his own pride, but it was nothing to what he could see in the brimming eyes of Mr. Dillinger, who was staring at Derek as if the boy himself were the flag.

  What Mr. Dillinger had done was wrong, but Travis thought he now understood what Muck had been getting at when he said, as he had been saying for as long as the boys had been playing for him, that “hockey is a game of mistakes.” The kids had always thought that meant poor decisions on the ice, but they now all knew it also meant bad decisions off the ice. Muck also said mistakes are things you can always fix. You stop leaving drop passes. You take that extra split second to look before passing. You don’t just fire the puck blind from the point. And, Travis guessed, you stop trying to control things when you yourself aren’t out there trying to play the game. And, most important, you never hurt your own teammate to do something for yourself. Once you start doing that, there is no team.

  But now the team was back, and all together. Derek was back on the ice. And Mr. Dillinger was acting like Sarah’s personal valet. Still, Travis couldn’t help but watch Sarah carefully as she went into her first turn. The new skates glistened and sparkled, but they held. Perfectly. And when she began striding down the ice, she skated like the Sarah Cuthbertson who had been amazing them all since she took up the game and showed everyone that a girl can not only play, a girl can star, and, in the case of the Screech Owls, a girl can be captain.

  Nish, of course, was as ready for this game as any in his life. He had swiped the official scoresheet when Barry had it in the Screech Owls’ dressing room to fill out, and he had figured out who the enemy was by name. The little blond defenceman was Jeremy Billings, the big dark centre Stu Yantha. Nish liked to know names, and liked to use them, too.

  He went after Yantha halfway through the first period, with a face-off down in the Screech Owls’ end and Travis on a line with Matt Brown and Gordie Griffith.

  “Hey, Stu!” Nish called from in front of the net.

  Yantha, waiting for the one linesman to bring a new puck for the other to drop, looked up, not knowing who had called his name.

  Nish was grinning like he’d already scored. “I bet I know why your parents called you ‘Stu’–”

  Yantha just stared, baffled. Nish hit him hard and low: “’Cause they couldn’t spell ‘Stuuuu-pid!’”

  Travis had never laughed through an entire shift before, but this time his sides were hurting when he came off. Yantha had chased Nish around the ice from the moment the puck dropped until Nish had raced off for a change. Yantha was so distracted he forgot all about the puck and had become consumed by his rage. If it hadn’t been for the little defenceman, Billings, the Panthers would have been in real trouble.

  Sarah was having trouble with her new skates. But it had nothing to do with sabotage. Twice during shift breaks she had loosened them and Mr. Dillinger had massaged her insteps. She was cramping up in the stiff, new Tacks. But she was not quitting. She never missed a shift.

  With a minute to go in the first, Sarah intercepted a Panther pass just inside her own blueline and, on a backhand flip that might have skidded away if she’d been using Travis’s stick, she hit Dmitri on the fly. Dmitri raced in alone, deked the Panthers goaltender, and sent a backhand along the ice in through the five hole.

  1–0, Screech Owls.

  Mr. Dillinger almost went nuts. He jumped so hard the water bottles spilled off the back shelf and onto the floor. He whooped and cheered and, when Sarah came off, hit her immediately with a fresh towel and a full, salvaged water bottle. And Derek hadn’t even been in on the play.

  With Gordie Griffith struggling, Muck told Travis to take the next face-off, and the Panthers also changed, sending out Yantha’s line.

  “Nice shiner.”

  Travis wasn’t sure where the voice had come from. Yantha was leaning down for the face-off, but suddenly he looked up and Travis could see the sneer of contempt through the shield.

  “You’re soon going to have one for the other eye, runt.”

  Travis said nothing. He won the face-off on a backswipe to Nish, but Yantha flattened Travis with a cross-check to the face before he could turn. The referee either didn’t see it or didn’t care, for there was no call.

  Nish tried to hit Gordie Griffith with a cross-ice pass and shouldn’t have. The little blond defenceman had read the play perfectly and zipped into the hole, gloved the puck down, and dropped it onto his own stick. With Nish already beaten, he was able to use Data as a screen and put one through Data’s skates into the short side behind Guy Boucher.

  Panthers 1, Screech Owls 1.

  A tie game, with the buzzer going to end the first period.

  At the break, Muck told them to watch their plays. “Don’t take stupid chances,” he said, without mentioning Nish’s bad pass. He didn’t have to say anything directly to the big defenceman. Nish looked like he’d just lost his home and family and television. He was pounding his fist on his leg, desperate for a chance to make it up.

  Mr. Dillinger had Sarah’s skates loosened all the way. He pulled them free and Travis could hear Sarah’s sharp intake of breath as she realized her feet were bleeding. Both socks were pink with blood.

  Mr. Dillinger seemed very worried. “Those blisters are breaking!” he said.

  “Put some ice on them,” Sarah said to him.

  Mr. Dillinger looked at Sarah, unsu
re, but the uncertainty vanished when he saw the determination in her eyes. He reached for the ice bucket, set it down, and began working handfuls of ice cubes over her feet. Sarah flinched from the pain but refused to give in, and when Mr. Dillinger pulled first one foot, then the other, down into the freezing bucket of ice and water, she actually seemed to sigh with relief.

  If Sarah can do that, Travis thought, I had better do something with my good feet.

  “You’re better than they are,” Muck said. “This game is yours if you want it.”

  Sarah’s skating was becoming laboured. She picked up a puck behind her own net but lost it trying to pivot out. The big dark centre, Yantha, picked it up and flicked it fast, the puck hitting the back of Guy’s shoulder and dropping just over the goal line. The Panthers’ bench and fans let out a mighty cheer when the red light indicated what had happened. The Screech Owls’ bench let out a collective groan. Travis flinched when he saw Sarah, completely out of character, smash her stick in half over the crossbar.

  Panthers 2, Screech Owls 1.

  Muck put Sarah’s line right back out, and his hunch paid off. She won the face-off and hit Derek, on the left, who crossed the blueline and sent a long shot ricocheting around the boards to Dmitri, racing in on the right. Dmitri neatly deflected the puck back to Sarah, coming in late, and Sarah stepped past the defence, pulled the goaltender completely out of the net, and sent a back pass to Derek, who had only to tap it in for the tying goal.

  The Screech Owls’ bench went nuts. As pretty a set-up as they’d ever seen the magical Sarah create.

  Screech Owls 2, Panthers 2.

  Travis was sent back out at centre, and again Yantha came on. This time the Panthers’ big centre butt-ended Travis right off the draw, sending him spilling down.

  Travis found his footing just as Yantha came back for the puck from his defence. The big centre had his head down as he picked a bad pass off his skate and did not lift it again until he reached the red line–by which time it was too late.