“MY STUFF!”
The cry came from the far end of the parking lot. Travis didn’t even have to lift his head to know who had called out.
Nish was standing at the corner of the rink staring in disbelief at the assembly of army trucks and soldiers and anti-bomb equipment. He was, if anything, looking even greener than when he’d walked off to “get some air.” The air was still filled with smoke and fluttering pieces of card – Nish’s precious stash of his own hockey cards from Quebec City.
“What have you done to my equipment!” Nish wailed.
The lead Secret Service guy was walking fast toward Nish, frantically brushing debris off his suit.
“Who the hell are you?” the Secret Service man demanded, his teeth ripping into his gum.
“Wayne … Nishikawa,” Nish answered. He looked like he was about to throw up again.
“You with this team?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, we had to blow up your equipment.”
“Why?”
“Dog sniffed explosive. You have explosives in there, son?”
Nish put on his finest choirboy look and shook his head.
“Just my hockey stuff, sir,” he said.
“Well,” the Secret Service man snapped, turning on his heels. “You’ll have to get new stuff now.” He walked away, leaving Nish astonished.
The Owls were on their feet, dusting themselves off and picking up pieces of Nish’s equipment. Lars held a skate blade high, shaking his head as he stared at it.
“There’s nothing left!” Nish wailed.
“There’s this, Big Boy!” Sam shouted.
She threw something at him. He caught it in the air and held it up.
It was yellowish-white, torn and smouldering, smoke rising from holes that had been peppered through it by the explosion.
A metal cup fell from it and clattered on the pavement.
“They even blew up my jock!” Nish moaned.
“I’VE NOTHING LEFT TO WEAR!”
4
Sam and Sarah were in the dressing room, kneeling at opposite ends of Nish’s new equipment bag, when Nish stepped out of the washroom, his hair freshly watered down and parted for the practice. Both girls had their heads buried in the open bag, and both, at the moment he appeared, sat back and, eyes closed, made a grand display of drinking in the air from the bag.
“Ahhhhhh,” Sam said, inhaling deeply. “Like a garden of flowers!”
“Like a spring shower,” Sarah agreed. “We could call it ‘Breeze of Nish’ and sell it.”
“Get outta there!” Nish shouted, blood racing to his face. “Or I’ll give you a breeze that’ll peel paint off the walls.”
“Such a charmer,” Sam giggled as she and Sarah backed away and Nish took up his usual seat in the corner farthest from the door.
The bag in front of him was an Owls equipment bag, but the number, 44, was scribbled on in grease pencil rather than stitched. Mr. Dillinger had scrambled to replace Nish’s destroyed hockey equipment, and he’d done an amazing job. Carrying extra skates in the general equipment bag had paid off; there was a pair of size 8s that Andy had outgrown but which fitted Nish almost perfectly. There were extra pads and gloves and a pair of pants that Mr. Dillinger had stitched up. Mr. Dillinger even produced new team socks for Nish and a new sweater. Not his old 44, of course, which had been destroyed in the explosion, but 22. “Some people say you’re only half there, anyway,” Mr. Dillinger had joked, and even Nish had been forced to laugh.
But he was hardly happy now.
“This isn’t me!” Nish had moaned when he was finally suited up.
“Thank God!” Sarah and Sam had shouted out at the same time.
“I’m missing my ‘A,’” he whined.
“We can fix that,” said Mr. Dillinger. He pulled out a roll of tape, cut three strips, and stuck them on to form a quick assistant captain’s “A.”
“And I’m missing my lucky shorts!” Nish groaned, almost in tears.
“Lucky us!” shouted Sam.
“I’ve worn them since Lake Placid!” he muttered.
“When?” Travis asked, eyes widening in disbelief.
“Lake Placid,” Nish repeated.
Travis, like every other Owl in the room, did some rapid mental calculations. Months had passed since the tournament in Lake Placid. Hundreds of games and practices. Surely he hadn’t worn the same pair of boxer shorts in every one of them!
“You must have washed them?” Fahd asked, equally incredulous.
Nish shook his head. “Only a fool would wash off good luck,” he groaned.
“It’s a wonder Washington is still standing!” laughed Sarah.
Nish said nothing. He leaned back in his stall, closed his eyes, and stuck out his tongue in the general direction of everyone in the room.
Muck threw one of his “curve balls” into the practice. After they had worked on a new break-out pattern and taken shots at Jenny and Jeremy, Muck had them all toss their sticks over the boards and onto the bench floor while Mr. Dillinger struggled out from the dressing room area with a large, open cardboard box.
“Everyone take one!” ordered Muck. “And no reloading!”
Travis looked at Nish, who scowled back. What was Muck up to?
Lars’s hand was first into the box. He pulled out a green, clear plastic water gun, water dripping from the plug and trigger. Wilson got a blue one. Sarah got a red one. Hands plunged into the box, each one emerging with a cheap, filled-to-the-brim water gun.
“Have fun,” Muck said, and stepped off the ice, hurrying up the corridor towards the Owls’ dressing room before anyone could think to take a shot in his direction.
“What’re we supposed to do with these?” Nish asked, holding his up like he’d never seen one before.
“This!” Sam shouted, squirting him straight in his open mouth.
She took off down the ice, Nish chasing. Bedlam broke out at the bench as Owls began firing at Owls. Screaming and yelling and laughing, they chased each other around the rink, trying to get a shot in.
Andy and Simon went after Travis, but he was too agile a skater for them to nail him with a good blast. He twisted behind the goal. He used the net for a shield. He scooted out and towards the blueline and then turned back so fast his skates almost lost their edge.
Everywhere, the Owls were twisting and turning and ducking and trying to cut each other off. Travis slipped back behind the net again, jockeying for position as Simon came in from the left.
Travis faked one way, then turned back on Simon, blasting him as he twisted and coiled back along the boards.
Travis realized what Muck had done. They were playing – but they were also practising! They might not have sticks or pucks, but they were still working on hockey skills. Twisting and turning along the boards was not unlike cycling in the corners. Racing for the net was not unlike looking for a scoring chance. Trying to cut off a player who’d just sprayed you and was now racing down the ice was not unlike trying to read the ice to make a check.
It made Travis laugh to think how brilliant Muck could sometimes be. The Owls would be convinced this was nothing but messing around – and yet they were probably learning far more about hockey than they were about water pistols.
Nish, naturally, ran out of water first.
When the others realized this, they turned on him as a team. Nish cowered in the corner with his hands held up helplessly to block the spray of more than a dozen water guns. Finally, the last spurt went down his neck, and Nish rose up in a rage and began blindly chasing the scattering attackers.
They were saved by a shrill whistle from the bench. Muck’s whistle. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks and turned to glide towards the bench where Muck was standing, whistle still in his mouth, face red with anger.
Beside Muck was Mr. Dillinger with the box that had held the water pistols, and behind them was the Secret Service leader, earplug still in, teeth still snapping on his chewing gum.
He looked stern.
“Put ’em away, kids,” Mr. Dillinger said. “Security says you gotta hang ’em up.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Sam, as she tossed her empty pistol into the box.
“Water pistols,” Muck said quietly through clenched teeth, “are apparently a ‘security breach’ in this rink.”
“Just while the tournament’s on, Coach,” the gum-snapper said. “We have to confiscate them and they’ll be returned to you before you head back home.”
“Water pistols?” said Sarah.
Travis studied Muck. He knew that the quieter Muck spoke the more upset he was bound to be. He also knew that Muck hated to be called “Coach.” It was an American thing, he always said. Hockey was a Canadian game, and his name was the same whether he stood behind the bench or out in the parking lot: Muck Munro.
“Any kind of pistol, miss,” the man said. “Replicas, facsimiles, toys – whatever. One of my men sees one of these being pointed, and we shoot first and ask questions later, understand?”
Nish didn’t. “Like what?” he asked. “ ‘Are you using hot or cold water?’ ”
“Don’t be smart, mister,” the man said. “I have authority to suspend any team or player from this tournament we deem to be a security risk – and you’ve already got one count against you, do you not?”
Nish flushed deep red. He said nothing more.
Mr. Dillinger took the last of the pistols, folded the flaps of the box, and handed it over to the security head, who tossed it to an assistant.
“Three times around,” Muck said to the Owls. “Skate it out of you. Let’s go now!”
Muck blew his whistle sharply three times. The man with the earplug winced, and Travis grinned to himself. Muck rarely blew his whistle, and never hard. This was just his way of taking a shot at the security head. Good for Muck!
Travis skated with Sarah, the two of them talking about the absurdity of the situation and laughing, again, at how helpless Nish had looked when the team had him down in the corner and was spraying him at will.
“Look over there,” Sarah said suddenly, tilting her head towards the opposite side of the ice.
A kid their age – curly red hair, blue eyes – was standing so close to the glass at the visitors’ doorway that his breath was fogging it up.
He was in full uniform, holding his helmet in one hand and a stick in the other. He stared at the Owls as they left the ice.
“Earplug’s watching him,” said Sarah.
Behind the youngster, studying him with fierce concentration, was the Secret Service head, the man who chewed gum like a beaver going through a branch.
Travis giggled. Earplug was a perfect nickname for him.
Beyond Earplug stood another three men, each facing in a different direction, each standing on the balls of his feet as if he might, on a moment’s notice, have to tackle someone.
Travis and Sarah stared back.
“Guess who the kid is,” Sarah said.
Travis knew – the President’s son, the centre for the Washington Wall.
He was so close to the glass it was almost as if he were trying to push through.
Travis understood. All his life, a hockey rink and especially a clean, untouched ice surface, had been his own greatest escape. It must be worth even more, he realized, to the son of the President of the United States.
Sarah took off her glove and waved to the boy.
Unsure, the boy lifted his hand and gave a quick wave back.
Behind him, the Secret Service man snapped his gum and scowled.
5
Travis was the first to wake in the little hotel room he was sharing with Nish and Fahd and Lars. Nish was still snoring. He’d managed to turn completely around in the large double bed he was sharing with Fahd, and his toes were resting on the pillow beside Fahd’s head. Poor Fahd, thought Travis. What a sight to wake up to!
Sunlight was streaming in the window. There were dust particles dancing in the air – “angels,” Travis’s grandmother called them – and he watched for a while, wondering how they avoided the pull of gravity that ruled everything else on earth. Perhaps his grandmother was right.
Mr. Dillinger was filled with plans for the day. They would walk around the Capitol building, down the Mall to take in the view from the top of the towering Washington Monument, and on through the park and across the bridge to Arlington Cemetery. Then they’d walk back to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to see the Spirit of St. Louis and the spacesuit worn by Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, before returning to the hotel to rest before the first game of the tournament.
The Owls had drawn team number one in the round robin – Djurgården, from Stockholm, Sweden. Lars, who knew some of the players, had already warned the Owls that they would be in for a tremendous battle. Travis could hardly wait.
They set out in weather so beautiful it seemed impossible that there were still deep snowbanks back home. Here, the cherry trees were in full blossom as they headed out into the park, Muck and Mr. Dillinger leading the way, Sarah helping guide Data’s chair. They walked to the huge, open-air Lincoln Memorial, where Muck insisted on reading, out loud, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago …”
“I thought this was a hockey tournament,” Nish whispered in Travis’s ear, “not a history class.”
Travis said nothing. He knew how Muck loved his history, and knew, as well, how much Nish hated anything to do with school that wasn’t recess, March break, or summer holidays. But there was no point in arguing. Nish had already wandered off, fascinated with the echoes he could produce by tapping a small stone against the marble: tap-tap … tap-tap-tap … tap-tap. Where was security when you actually needed it?
They set out across the bridge over the Potomac River and up into the gently rolling slopes of Arlington National Cemetery, where they walked quietly about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the graves of President John F. Kennedy and his younger brother, Bobby. Bobby might one day have become president too, if he hadn’t been shot like his brother. Muck seemed deeply moved. With his eyes shining, he tried to explain to them what the Kennedys had meant to people like him and Mr. Dillinger.
“Everything seemed possible back then,” he said in a quiet voice. “They were so young and so full of life. We all wonder what the world might have become if they had lived. If it hadn’t been for John Kennedy, you know, the world wouldn’t have reached the moon.”
“If it hadn’t been for Ol’ Nish,” Nish whispered in Travis’s ear, “the world wouldn’t have seen the moon.”
Nish could never leave well enough alone. Muck was talking about space travel and as usual Nish wanted to talk about himself. Besides, he was exaggerating. Maybe Nish had planned to moon the world in New York City, but he hadn’t done it. Fortunately.
“Why were they killed?” Fahd asked.
Muck shrugged. “Presidents are always in danger of being assassinated. We’ll see where Abraham Lincoln was killed at Ford’s Theatre. It’s not far from the rink. And Ronald Reagan was shot right back there, near the Capitol and surrounded by Secret Service. There’s no pattern, which is why it’s so difficult to defend against. It’s usually just some nut.”
“What about the President’s kids?” Jenny asked.
Muck furrowed his brow. “They have to be protected, too,” he said. “You never know what some lunatic might try.”
“Is that why there’s all that Secret Service stuff around the hockey tournament,” Lars asked, “because they’re worried about the kid?”
“That’s one reason,” Muck said.
“There’s another?” Data asked.
Muck nodded.
“What?” several of the Owls said at once.
Muck smiled sheepishly. “I’m not really supposed to say …”
“You have to now,” Jesse shouted.
“Well,” Muck said, “just don’t broadcast it around.”
“We won’t!” shouted F
ahd. “What is it?”
“The championship trophy is going to be presented by the President.”
Travis swallowed hard. It felt like he was trying to push a pill the size of a puck down his throat. If the President of the United States was going to be presenting the trophy to the winning team of the championship, then he would be giving it to the captain of the winning team.
And if the Screech Owls won, that would be Travis Lindsay.
6
Djurgården skated out in the Swedish national team colours: beautiful yellow sweaters with the three crowns of Sweden in blue crests across their fronts. They looked intimidating, the sort of team that is so skilled, so fluid, and so organized that they can sometimes defeat the other team before the warm-up is even over.
Travis was particularly nervous. He missed the crossbar on five straight shots in warm-up. He tried to figure out what was wrong but couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The first game of a big tournament? It shouldn’t be that. All the security?
“This doesn’t feel right,” a voice squeaked in his ear.
He knew at once it was Nish. He was relieved to discover his friend was also uneasy.
But for different reasons.
“I need my old boxer shorts back,” Nish whined.
“They’re in the garbage. Go pick ’em out,” Travis laughed.
“They’re ruined. I should sue.”
“Sue the government of the United States of America for your boxers?” Travis asked.
“They had no right to destroy them.”
“They have the undying gratitude of our whole hockey team,” Travis said.
“Nothing feels right,” Nish continued, not listening to anything Travis was saying. “I’ve got the wrong shorts on. Wrong equipment. Everything’s wrong. I don’t even smell like me!”
“God bless America!” Travis said, and skated away from his muttering, mumbling pal.
The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 4 Page 26