The Ice Chips and the Magical Rink

by Roy MacGregor

  “We got an emergency!”

  Chapter 4

  As fast as Lucas could, he threw on some clothes, pulled his backpack over his shoulder, and took off running out of the house.

  Edge never had emergencies. He had big ideas, and he drove Lucas nuts with his made-up words—especially when he called Lucas’s old skates blade-onators—but Edge never made up stories.

  This had to be real.

  As Lucas raced down Elm Street and turned right on Montreal Road, he could see Edge waiting up ahead, at the playground beside the school. He was with Nica Bertrand, known as “Swift” to the team, and Sebastián Strong, the Ice Chips’ math nut, known as “Crunch.”

  Lucas started running even faster to meet them—What could have happened? What??—but then his eyes suddenly grew wide . . . He raised his arms to his head and dove to the ground.

  ffffffff-WHOOOOOOSH!!

  Lucas somersaulted twice in the grass before coming to a stop, his backpack flying off and the lunch his mother had packed spilling out and breaking apart.

  ffffffff-WHOOOOOOSH!!

  Again a powerful breeze blew past him, scattering more dirt onto the sandwiches that had fallen into the gutter.

  Lucas looked up. It was a plastic drone the size of a Frisbee, its lights flashing. It seemed to rock uncertainly in front of Lucas and then it shot off again into the sky, clipping the branches of a nearby oak tree as it rose.

  With leaves falling all around him—some of them already turned the colour of fall—Lucas began picking up his lunch and putting his sandwiches back together. Maybe he could wash the dirt off; maybe he’d just go without.

  “Those sandwiches looked gross anyway!”

  It was Lars Larsson, a new kid at school. He was on the other side of the street with a remote control in his hands, smiling. Lars pushed a button and the drone did two more awkward loops before falling sideways into the grass near Lucas’s feet.

  “Loser!” Lars chuckled as he breezed past Lucas and bounded into the thick, wild grass to recover his toy.

  Lucas had seen Lars hanging out at school with the Blitz twins, Beatrice and Jared—the spoiled kids of Mr. Blitz, the owner of the new rink complex.

  Of course any new friend of the Blitz twins would pick on Lucas. He wasn’t sure why, but the twins had never liked him—not since kindergarten, and definitely not when they met him on the ice, whenever the Ice Chips played the Stars. No one had even gone through tryouts yet, and already the twins were wearing new team jackets with crisp maroon and gold stars over their hearts and their names stitched across the arms. Lucas was surprised Lars didn’t have one, too.

  “Bea says you’re a forward, like me.” Lars chuckled mysteriously as he walked out of the grass with his drone.

  Bea? wondered Lucas. Not even Jared calls Beatrice “Bea.”

  Edge was now waving from the playground.

  Confused, Lucas nodded toward Lars. It was true. He was a forward. Why should he hide it?

  “Then I guess you’re more like a ‘backward’ now that you’ve got nowhere to skate! Right?” Lars laughed, happy that his joke had been set up perfectly.

  But his laugh was too loud, too mean . . . and Lucas didn’t get it.

  What is he talking about?

  Another kid on his way to school, Dylan Chung, came down the path. Dylan normally talked and talked when they were in class. But at this moment, he said nothing. Once Dylan had seen Lars, he’d just hurried past with his eyes to the ground.

  Lucas was zipping up his backpack, ready to go, but he could already feel it coming on—down, down, down in the very pit of his stomach, where it could churn and burn.

  The fear.

  There was nothing Lucas hated more than being picked on. It was worse than his fear of the dentist, his fear of needles, even his fear of swimming at his grandparents’ cottage after someone had pointed out a giant snapping turtle. This fear was different because he didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t know how to make it stop.

  “At least you’re not the only loser on the team, right? Now you’re all losers!” Lars laughed. His white-blond bangs had fallen over his eyes, but Lucas could see he had a smirk on his face. He was still waiting for Lucas to react.

  But Lucas didn’t, which seemed to make this new kid even madder.

  With a smug curl of his lip, Lars suddenly swung his backpack over his shoulder and started off toward the school—as though he’d made his point anyway and his work there was done.

  Lars was just like the Blitzes, who Lucas thought had a cruel streak, both off and on the ice. But at least on the ice, referees could deal with sneaky trips and lippy talk. Off the ice, Lucas was on his own.

  Well, partly.

  “There you are, Top Shelf!” Edge yelled, calling Lucas by his team name as he made his way up the hill. Edge was making his voice extra loud on purpose, so Lars could hear him from across the road.

  Of course, Lars didn’t even turn around.

  Edge continued running toward Lucas, with Swift and Crunch close behind him. Crunch had his computer tablet tucked under his arm. Swift’s long strawberry-blonde ponytail had slipped out while she ran, so she was tying it back up again with an elastic. They were all out of breath.

  “Why would he say we’re all losers?” Lucas asked once Lars was far enough down the road. Is this why Edge was buzzing my comm-band so frantically?

  Edge closed his eyes. He didn’t want to say it, but he couldn’t keep it in. “Lucas, our rink is being closed.”

  Lucas blinked twice and his mouth fell open.

  “What?? Who’s closing our rink?”

  Is hockey being cancelled? What about the Ice Chips? Is this some sick joke?

  “Seriously,” said Crunch, who was always serious. He coughed uncomfortably and adjusted his glasses. “Edge isn’t joking.”

  “Crunch read us the story in the paper,” Edge said sadly, motioning toward the tablet, which Crunch then handed to Lucas.

  Lucas read as quickly as he could: “Mayor Abigail Ward told council that due to a lack of available parts, the town would be unable to repair the Riverton Community Arena. The Riverton rink . . . is to be immediately shut down.”

  “Available parts? For what?” Lucas asked in shock, handing the tablet back as they walked.

  “My dad said the problem is in the refrigeration room, where they keep the chillers for the rink,” said Swift. Her dad was an engineer with the city, and he often helped out at the arena. He’d explained that the special liquid that usually flowed through the pipes underneath the arena floor was no longer freezing the rink—the pump that was supposed to push it through the pipes wasn’t working right. And there was a problem with one of the chillers. That didn’t look good either, because the machine was old and parts were hard to find. Swift’s dad said they needed a rare fuse and a certain size of belt, and no one had them. “That’s one reason why they’re making one of Mr. Blitz’s new rinks out of synthetic ice—it’s just easier.”

  “Easier? What it is is crud-o-stupid,” Edge said in disbelief. He looked over at Swift, urging her to tell more.

  “My dad helped shut everything down last night around suppertime,” she said sadly. “And my sister, Sadie . . . she even had her figure skating practice on Mr. Blitz’s synthetic rink this morning. She said she hated it.”

  “That’s not even real ice time,” Edge said angrily. They all felt cheated.

  But Lucas wasn’t giving up that easily.

  He spoke slowly, his voice catching in his throat: “But on our rink . . . the ice surface is still there, right? Our ice hasn’t melted yet?” He was desperate, searching.

  Crunch looked at the time on his comm-band. “By my calculation, that’s . . . thirteen hours and twenty minutes with no freezing. It could still be . . .”

  “Wait, what’re you—” Edge turned toward Lucas just as the school bell cut him off.

  As they all hurried toward the doors of the school, Lucas whispered as quietly
as he could. He didn’t want anyone to hear him—especially Lars up ahead—but a plan, if they were going to have a plan, had to be made now.

  “We’ve got to skate it. We have to, if they’re shutting it down,” Lucas said. His eyes were pleading. He was almost shaking. “One last skate on our home ice . . . yeah?”

  Crunch nodded and Edge gave Lucas a quick pat on the back. They were in. Whatever Lucas was suggesting, they were in.

  Swift almost had tears in her eyes as she turned back toward them. “You’re right. We’re going to have to break in—tonight.”

  Chapter 5

  By sunset, Lucas and Edge were crouched in the bushes beside the main doors of the Riverton Community Arena, waiting for Swift’s buzz.

  “She’ll do it. She’ll get us in,” said Lucas, pushing his blue hockey bag closer to the wall, trying to hide it in the shadows.

  Now all they had to do was wait—and listen.

  There was a chilly wind blowing through the maple trees in the parking lot. The sun had just gone down, but Lucas could still see the branches moving in the darkness. Somewhere far away, a motorcycle was driving by, and those gentle creaks, the drawn-out clicks, were probably crickets off in the dist—

  “Gotcha!” a voice called out behind them as the sound of footsteps—clumsy, eager footsteps—rounded the building.

  Lucas jumped back and fell over his hockey bag.

  Edge just laughed.

  Crunch.

  “You guys had better become hockey players when you grow up—you definitely can’t be spies!” Crunch giggled. He had on an old-man-style wool hat with earflaps, perched too high on his head, and was clutching a lumpy garbage bag to his chest.

  Edge quickly grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him down into the bushes.

  “Shhhhhh!” Lucas warned.

  “Yeah, I know—shhhhhhh,” Crunch said without embarrassment as he tried to tuck himself under one of the taller bushes in the small, dimly lit rock garden.

  Lucas noticed a hole in Crunch’s garbage bag where a skate blade had broken through. With a smile, he carefully touched the tip of his friend’s protruding skate. Crunch always has weird ideas, Lucas thought affectionately. “Being Crunchy” was what Edge liked to call it. All of Crunch’s family members were the same. They were all really smart but wacky, like absent-minded professors—even Crunch’s little sisters, who spoke four languages, including Spanish like their parents.

  “I told my mom I was taking the garbage out and—” Crunch whispered proudly, but Edge quickly threw his hand over his friend’s mouth. He had heard the click of the arena’s front doors.

  Someone was coming out!

  “It’s fine. It’s going to be fine. You shouldn’t worry.” The tall, grey-haired man who had come out of the arena was speaking nervously into his cellphone. It was Quiet Dave the Iceman, as the kids called him—the friendly but soft-spoken man who cleaned the ice.

  With the rink closed, Lucas had almost expected the arena to be boarded up. He had definitely expected the rink’s caretaker to be gone.

  “Ace, this is my last chance,” Dave pleaded as he turned his key in the front doors and locked them.

  They called him Quiet Dave, but Dave wasn’t being so quiet tonight. Lucas had never seen him so worked up. In fact, he couldn’t remember the Iceman ever talking much at all. The kids would say hi and Dave would nod. Coach Small would thank him for cleaning the rink and Dave would say, “Yep.” Their Iceman was sort of like a farmer, Lucas guessed, or anyone who was used to working in a big space all alone.

  “I know you don’t agree with me,” Dave continued loudly, looking around to make sure no one was listening, “but I have to do this.”

  In the bushes, Edge now had his arms out in what Swift called his “superhero mode,” as if he was guarding his two teammates or holding them back.

  Ever since Lucas had started hockey, he’d known Dave. The guy was probably sixty years old, and he had looked after the rink forever. In the last few years, small patches of grey had appeared on the sides of Dave’s hair, but he still had a childlike grin on his face whenever he watched the Ice Chips play. Sometimes Lucas even felt that the Iceman wished he were out there with them.

  Is Dave . . . mad about retiring?

  Lucas checked the time on his comm-band. Swift should be here by now.

  “We need him to leave,” Crunch mouthed to his teammates.

  And then, as though he had heard Crunch’s plea, that’s exactly what Dave did.

  “Look, I forgot a part anyway, and I can’t go without it,” he said as he pulled twice on the door to make sure it was secure. “I have to go home and get it. I’ll be about an hour. Yes—it’s locked. The place has been shut down anyway. No one will be here.”

  Dave’s voice trailed off as he headed angrily into the parking lot, still clutching his phone to his ear. “Look, Ace, if you’re coming, meet me here. If you’re not . . . well, then I’ll do it without you.”

  Suddenly, the three Ice Chips’ comms buzzed.

  And the lock on the doors turned again, only slowly—and this time, from the inside.

  * * *

  “I thought he’d never leave!” Swift bellowed as the front doors of the Riverton Community Arena swung open with a loud click.

  The first part of the plan had been on Swift: she’d rushed home after school to grab her dad’s extra set of rink keys before he got back from work. Since the rink was closed, they’d figured no one would notice if Swift “borrowed” the keys from his desk drawer.

  “I came in through the Zamboni entrance,” she said proudly, acting like she owned the place. Except for her skates and goalie pads, she was already dressed for a game.

  “Hey, not so loud!” Crunch pleaded as he stepped inside. But with Dave gone—at least for an hour—the coast was finally clear.

  Edge was looking around the entrance of the arena, grinning. He loved this kind of adventure. “Magna-mazing!” he said. “Lucas is right. We can’t let go of this rink.”

  “Well, wait until you see the ice,” Swift said, still at full volume. She turned toward the rink. “Oh, and my sister’s here. She caught me taking the keys . . . but I don’t think she’ll be staying.”

  “Why not?” asked Lucas as he slung his hockey bag over his shoulder. He liked Sadie. She didn’t play hockey, but the risks she took on the ice, leaping and spinning from one skate to the other, were always impressive.

  “Like I said, wait until you see the ice,” Swift called sadly, disappearing into the arena.

  Lucas moved as quickly as he could toward the Ice Chips’ dressing room, and Edge and Crunch followed. He had brought his full gear, but Edge had only brought his skates, helmet, shin pads, and a big pair of mittens. They were two very different players anyway: Lucas’s equipment was all well worn and didn’t fit right; Edge’s equipment was as high tech and as new as it could get.

  On game days, Edge was always the first ready, and Lucas was always the last. Even now that Edge had started wearing his patka—the cloth often worn by Sikh boys over their hair—at the base of his helmet when he played, he still dressed faster than Lucas. On days when they had to go straight from school to the rink, Edge could unwrap his hair from the bun on top, move it to a wrapped ponytail in the back, and get into all his equipment before Lucas had even tightened his second shin pad. Maybe that was because Lucas couldn’t go out on the ice without retaping his blade perfectly—usually twice, just to get it right.

  Edge liked hockey, but Lucas loved it.

  Sometimes Edge even felt guilty that he was the one whose dad had once been a professional athlete. Whenever anyone asked who his “hockey” heroes were, he sometimes even said Dhyan Chand and Sandeep Singh, two famous players from India’s men’s national field hockey team—his dad’s old team. Edge thought both sports were “outstan-delicious.”

  Without stopping, Lucas pushed open the heavy dressing room doors and let them swing closed behind him.

  “W
ait—what?” Edge called out nervously. “Tops, what about the trophy case?”

  It was Lucas’s ritual: before entering the dressing room, he’d stop at the dusty trophy case in the hall, kiss two fingers on his right hand, and press them against the glass where a picture of the District Championship Cup was displayed. In the faded old photograph, a dozen sweaty-faced players were grouped together on the ice as two smiling ten-year-olds in the middle held a heavy, shiny trophy above their heads.

  “One day, those two kids will be us,” Lucas was constantly telling Edge.

  Once he’d moved past the trophy case, Lucas would run his hand along the ledge of the skate-sharpening shop and then straighten an old wooden picture frame that hung beside it. He’d straighten the frame even if the black-and-white picture of old skates was straight to begin with. Every practice, every game.

  All the Ice Chips knew this—especially Edge, who didn’t believe in superstitions.

  But today, Lucas hadn’t stopped.

  With the closing of their rink, Edge suddenly realized, not even Lucas thought his superstitions could save them.

  Chapter 6

  “Hey . . . let’s GO!” Swift’s voice echoed off the boards.

  She opened and closed her glove a few times and then bent down on the ice in front of the net, pushing her goalie pads apart. She leaned left to stretch, then right. And each time she stretched, her strawberry-blonde ponytail almost touched the ice—the surface that had softened and was now covered in thin, shiny puddles.

  But so what?

  Now that she was on the ice, Swift was convinced the rink was skateable. Mostly. At least, she knew she was skating on it.

  Why wasn’t anyone else?

  While Swift had let in the boys, her sister had managed to turn on half the rink’s lights. But now Sadie—who was often grumpy, and slightly wild—was sitting in the stands in her skates, with her elbows on her knees and her head in the palms of her hands, staring at the rink.

  “This is worse than the plastic ice!” she yelled. “And that means it’s terrible!”