The Wheels were bigger than the Owls. They were bigger and stronger and played a more physical game. First shift out, Nish got hammered into a corner on a play that Mr. Dillinger shouted should have been a penalty. No penalty was called, and Nish got right back up and into the game. No grandstanding.
“We’re faster,” Muck said after the first few shifts. “We can get a step on them. Speed is still the most intimidating thing in hockey – don’t forget that when you’re out there.”
Travis felt Muck was speaking directly to him. To him and to Simon and to Jesse and to Fahd and to Liz – the smallest Owls, the ones most likely to be frightened away from the corners by the huge all-male Wheels. It felt to Travis as if they were playing against men, not other twelve-year-olds.
“Check out number 6,” Sarah said after she and Dmitri and Travis came off from a shift. “He’s got a moustache.”
Travis tried to see through the other player’s mask. It was difficult to say for sure, but it certainly looked like the beginnings of a moustache. He shuddered. Perhaps they were men. Perhaps there had been a mistake in the scheduling.
The Wheels scored first, and second, both times by essentially running over the smaller members of the Owls. Once Fahd coughed up the puck. The other time Wilson dropped it for Simon, who was simply bowled over by a larger Detroit player.
Muck showed no nervousness at all. “Use your speed,” he said to Sarah at one point, laying a big hand on her shoulder for support.
Next shift, Nish made a wonderful block on a good Wheels opportunity and jumped up and moved the puck behind his own net. He fed it up along the boards to Travis, who used his skates to tick it out onto his stick blade. A large Wheels defenceman was pinching in hard on him.
Travis’s original plan was to dump it out through centre and trust that Sarah could pick it up, but he didn’t want to be the one who gave the puck away, so he moved it onto his backhand and put it hard off the side so it squeaked past the pinching defender and up along the boards.
Sarah read him and swept to the boards, picking up the puck behind the pinching defenceman, who was now caught up-ice.
Dmitri was on the far side. Sarah slapped a hard pass that flew over the remaining defenceman’s poking stick and Dmitri knocked it down niftily with his own stick – a “Russian pass,” Dimitri called these when the three of them practised high passes in practice. He kicked the falling puck onto his stick and took off, free of any checker.
Travis knew exactly what Dmitri would do – cut across the ice so he was angling into the goal. Fake a forehand to the short side. Keep and tuck around the goalie. Then backhand a shot high.
Sure enough, the water bottle flew off the back of the net just as the red light came on.
Two minutes later Derek knocked down a puck at centre ice and threw a blind pass to Nish, who was charging straight up the middle and hammering his stick on the ice. The pass was almost perfect. Nish reached ahead and just barely poked the puck between the two Detroit defenders, then jumped through and over them as they came together to block him, shooting as he fell. The puck rose hard over the Wheels goaltender’s shoulder and Nish came right behind it, knocking the goalie flying as he took out the net. All three – Nish, goalie and, net – crashed into the boards.
Wheels 2, Owls 2.
“Just use your speed,” Muck advised at the first break. “It’s working.”
There were moments when it didn’t seem to be working. The Wheels went ahead; Andy tied it up on a great, ripping slapper from the far circle. The Wheels went ahead by two; the Owls tied it again, on a goal by Fahd, on a screen, and by Derek, on a nice tip of a hard Nish screamer from the point. Nish was all business – no showboating, no Pavel Bure moves, just Nish working as only he could when his mind was on the game.
They finished regulation time tied 5–5. The referee explained there would be a five-minute overtime. If nothing was decided, then the game would go down as a tie; they couldn’t go into further overtime, as other teams were scheduled to play. Muck wanted the win. The extra point might make the difference between the Owls making the finals or not.
They played cautiously for the first couple of minutes, each team afraid to make a mistake. Muck played all three lines evenly, hoping for a break that didn’t seem to come. The Wheels seemed to be doing the same.
Travis checked the clock. One minute to go. He looked down the bench. Nish was sitting at the far end, his back heaving, his head between his legs. Not once this game had Nish done anything stupid, not once had he faked an injury, not once had he even spoken. Travis couldn’t remember a single game where Nish had been this concentrated.
Muck leaned over Nish and asked him something, Nish nodded, and then Muck slapped his shoulders. Still fighting for breath, Nish bounded over the boards for what might be the final faceoff.
“Sarah,” Muck called. “Your line.”
Travis, too, had yet to recover his breath. But Sarah and Dmitri were already over the boards. The faceoff was in the Owls’ end, and Sarah was, by far, the best at faceoffs. They needed to win this one, to keep it away from the Wheels and to give themselves one more chance to win.
In one motion Sarah plucked the falling puck from the air and turned, sticking her rear into the big Wheels centre so he couldn’t get at it. Travis knew the play perfectly. She would block and he would scoop up the puck and go.
He grabbed the puck and tucked it away just as the big centre bulled his way past Sarah.
Nish was behind the net, waiting. Travis fed him the pass.
The far winger was driving in hard on Nish. Nish pretended he didn’t even see him, then very gently pinged the puck off the back of the net just as the winger reached him. There was no puck for the winger to play, Nish stepped out of the way, the winger flew past, and Nish easily picked up his own pass as the puck came back to him off the net.
He swung to the far boards, looking up-ice.
Dmitri was breaking. Nish saw him and sent a high, looping pass that almost hit the clock. Dmitri straddled centre to make sure he was onside and pounced as the puck fell.
The Wheels’ biggest defenceman was on him, but he was no match for Dmitri’s amazing speed. Dmitri shot for the near boards and made as if to cut sharply against the defence for the net. The defence had no choice but to charge full at Dmitri, and Dmitri slipped the puck through his own legs to Sarah, coming up fast with the big centre hacking at her as he tried to keep up.
Travis saw his opening. He cut across towards Dmitri’s side and headed in a long curl towards the net. His winger came with him. He could feel the player’s stick hard against his shin pads, hard on his pants. He could feel the blade hooking him. The referee should have blown his whistle, but there was nothing. The officials were going to let it go.
Travis attempted to shoot, but the player chasing now had his stick blade right under Travis’s arm and was pulling him off the puck. Travis tried again to snap a shot, but he missed the puck and fell. He could hear the crowd yelling for a penalty. But still no whistle.
Travis was down, the checker falling on top of him. Travis kicked at the puck with his skate and it flew back towards the blueline.
With the big Wheels player now fully on top of him, Travis struggled to see.
Nish had the puck!
Nish was in full flight. He picked up the puck at the blueline, and with one lovely little fake to the right he took out the only remaining check. He came in on the goaltender alone.
The goaltender gambled – he rushed at Nish.
Nish pulled the puck back with a perfect little tuck, stepped around the falling, flailing goalie, and, slowly, lifted the puck into the middle of the net.
Owls 6, Wheels 5. The final buzzer could barely be heard above the cheers of the crowd.
Travis scrambled to his feet and charged for Nish, already backing into corner with his stick thrown down and his gloves in the air.
Travis and Sarah and Dmitri hit Nish at the same time, with Sam coming u
p fast to join in and Jeremy already halfway down the ice and the rest of the Owls pouring over the boards.
“Speed!” Sarah screamed. “SPEEEEEED!”
Nish was smiling at Travis.
“King of Overtime, too,” he said. “I forgot that.”
11
Mr. Dillinger had a treat in store for the Owls. He’d booked a section of the new ESPN Zone restaurant just off Times Square. Travis had never seen anything like it: three floors, entirely dedicated to great hamburgers, delicious fries, and wall-to-wall sports. Everywhere he looked there were televisions tuned to sporting events across the world, hundreds of huge screens filled with basketball, football, hockey, soccer from Europe, a Formula One car race from Australia, and, best of all, in the room reserved for the Owls, three sets tuned to the World Junior Hockey Championships in Finland.
Nish strolled in like it was his own living room. He walked to the front row of fat recliner chairs, plunked himself down in the middle seat and called out, “Chips, Coke, burger – no onions, triple ketchup – and the Mighty Ducks versus Detroit, if you don’t mind!” One of the waiters, laughing at Nish’s nerve, flicked a remote until Nish got exactly what he wanted. Nish pumped a fist in the air in thanks and sank so far into the big seat he all but disappeared from view.
Travis sat at a table with Sarah and Sam and Andy. They ordered onion rings and burgers and were sipping on their Cokes when Sarah, with the straw still in her mouth, nodded towards the far corner.
“Muck’s enjoying himself,” she muttered, the straw dropping back into the huge glass.
Muck was sitting by himself in the corner, as far removed as possible from the roar of two dozen television sets, each with the volume turned up so loud it sounded like a sports riot was in progress. He had his big arms crossed over his chest and was glowering at one of the screens tuned to the World Juniors.
“Canada losing?” Sam asked.
Sarah shook her head. “Muck hates things like this. Hates sports bars. Hates the way they broadcast games. Remember how he once told us, ‘If you can’t see it live, you won’t see it at all’?”
Travis nodded, giggling at the memory.
“Whazzat supposed to mean?” Sam asked.
“He thinks you can only enjoy a game by seeing the whole thing,” explained Travis. “He says things like, ‘A camera chasing a puck is as useless as a player chasing the puck.’ You know Muck – he thinks the game away from the puck is often more interesting than the play around the puck. So he won’t watch it on television.”
“He’s weird,” said Sam.
“He’s Muck,” Andy said, as if in explanation, and it seemed enough for the other three, who all giggled and nodded.
Finally, Muck could take no more. He stood up at his table, drained his Coke, and set the big glass down sharply.
Travis watched as Muck picked up his jacket and tuque and walked over to Mr. Dillinger, who was sitting with Jeremy and Jenny and Derek at another booth. Muck whispered – or perhaps shouted – something in Mr. Dillinger’s ear, and Mr. Dillinger nodded and looked up sadly, as if it were somehow all his fault. Muck grinned and rapped the team manager lightly on the arm with a fist. He wasn’t upset; the ESPN Zone just wasn’t for him. It was perfect for the Screech Owls, though.
They stayed to the end of the Canada– Slovakia game in the World Juniors – the Screech Owls cheering wildly as Canada scored into the empty Slovak net to win 4–2 – and then, their stomachs full and their ears ringing, they paid their bills and headed out again into the street for the walk back to the hotel.
It was snowing again. Large, fat flakes drifted down like feathers between the tall buildings, sparkling as they drifted past the streetlights before joining the snow already lying along the streets and gutters of New York.
It was late, but still it looked like rush hour, the streets plugged with snow and yellow taxis and police cars and even the odd private vehicle that had failed to heed the week-long warnings to stay out of the downtown core.
The Screech Owls enjoyed the long walk back to the hotel. They tried catching the large flakes in their mouths. They threw snowballs and washed Nish’s face and dumped snow down the back of Andy’s jacket.
Once they got back, Travis and Sarah caught the first elevator. They held it until Fahd had wheeled Data on, then pushed the button for the second floor. The doors of the old elevator slowly closed, and they rose to the second floor, stopping with a shudder. As they waited for the doors to open, Fahd began stabbing the open button.
“Hold your horses,” Travis said, thinking for a moment he must sound like his grandmother, who was always using phrases like that.
“I don’t like elevators,” said Fahd.
The doors caught, then opened.
Travis blinked in disbelief.
A body lay crumpled on the carpet before them, a large body, wearing a jacket with the collar turned up high so it partially covered the face. A tuque lay to one side.
There was blood oozing from a blow to the back of the man’s head.
Sarah screamed.
“MUCK!”
12
“He could’ve been killed,” Sarah said the next morning.
But Muck had been lucky. His thick tuque had softened the blow to his head. Mr. Dillinger had come back from the hospital with the news that Muck was alert and in good spirits and now had sixteen new stitches to add to his lifetime total. “That puts him over three hundred,” Mr. Dillinger announced, as if Muck had set a new scoring record. These, however, were the first stitches that hadn’t come from playing hockey, whether from a stick, a puck, another player’s skate, or the operation Muck had after his leg was broken, putting an end to his junior playing career. What these latest stitches had come from, the police didn’t know. No weapon had been found, no one was in custody, no suspects were known.
“A mugging,” Mr. Dillinger explained. “Happens so often in this city they don’t even bother investigating them.”
Travis wasn’t so sure. A mugging on the second floor of a downtown Manhattan hotel? Why there, when it would have been so much easier to mug someone walking on the street?
By noon his suspicions had been confirmed.
Muck told the police that he’d gone out to see if he could buy a late theatre ticket, only to find out the storm had shut down the theatre district. He’d walked around a while before returning to the hotel just before the team came back from the restaurant.
Muck’s room was on the second floor, same as Data and Fahd’s, and when he’d gotten off the elevator and turned towards his room he’d noticed a couple of men struggling with the lock on a room down the hall in the other direction.
Something about the way the men were acting hadn’t felt right to Muck, so he pretended he’d accidentally turned the wrong way and headed back in their direction, checking the room numbers. When he got there, he realized the men were standing outside the room shared by Data and Fahd, the room that contained Data’s expensive laptop computer.
He figured them for hotel thieves, pretended that he’d just realized he was right the first time, and headed back to his room to call security. He’d barely reached the elevators when something hit him from behind.
The New York police, swamped with traffic problems and other disruptions from the storm, barely managed to send an officer to the hotel. The policeman, who seemed in a hurry to get going, took down what details Muck could supply and said he would file a mugging report. He advised Muck to cancel his credit cards as soon as possible.
“I don’t carry any,” Muck told him, and the policeman looked at Muck as if the Screech Owls coach came from another planet.
“How much cash did you lose?” the policeman asked.
“Nothing. They took nothing.”
The policeman nodded as if the crime had been all but solved. “Scared off,” he said knowingly. “You were lucky, mister.”
“Lucky to have sixteen stitches and a concussion?” Muck asked, shaking his he
ad. He wasn’t impressed.
Travis could make no sense of it all – at least not until Mr. Dillinger happened to read out the description of the men that Muck had given the police. One of the attackers was tall, in a long, dark coat, and wore a multicoloured hat pulled well over his ears, covering much of his face.
Big?
Travis was in his room, lying on his bed watching a “Simpsons” repeat. He was almost asleep when he heard a light tap at the door. It sounded like the housekeeping knock, and he instantly wished he’d remembered to hang the “PRIVACY, PLEASE” sign on the door handle. No one called out, however, and no one tried the handle.
The knock came again, and Travis rolled off the bed and went to see who was there. He needed to get on his tiptoes to see out the spy-hole. The fish-eye lens gave a distorted image of the hall, but Travis was glad to have the wide-angle view.
Travis had never seen Fahd’s head so big, his nose so long, his eyes so wide and worried. He opened the door quickly. Fahd was there, worry all over his face. Travis first thought something was wrong with Muck. But that wasn’t why Fahd had come to call.
“Big was here earlier,” Fahd said.
“When?”
“Yesterday. Before we went out. Nish brought him up to the room.”
“Your room?”
“Yeah – Data was out with you guys. It was just the three of us. Nish had to show him.”
“Show him what?”
“His butt – he wanted Big to see what he was going to do New Year’s Eve.”
“That’s sick!”
“No, no, no, no. He showed him the recording. I fired up Data’s computer and opened the file so he could see. That’s all.”
“That’s all? That means he knew about the computer. That and the digital camera are worth thousands of dollars.”
Fahd seemed on the verge of tears. “But that’s just it,” he said.
The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 4 Page 5