The Ice Chips and the Magical Rink

by Roy MacGregor

  Robert gave the journal back then pulled a folded piece of paper out of the back pocket of his too-big jeans and opened it up. It looked like a kid’s blueprint for some kind of machine, one with wires and buttons, but Lucas had no idea what it was supposed to be.

  “It’s my invention,” Robert said excitedly.

  “Now, Robert,” said Mr. Ward, smiling in Lucas’s direction. He’d just stepped back to take a look at his work. Gordon’s blades were shining now that the rust was gone. In the light of the strange lamp, which was casting monster-like shadows of him and Edna on the wall opposite, they almost sparkled.

  Mr. Ward handed the skates back to Gordon.

  “How much?” Gordon asked.

  “Nothing,” Mr. Ward said. “I know who you are. Your family can’t afford it.”

  Gordon smiled, but Lucas could tell he was embarrassed.

  “Do you want to see something really swell before you go?” Robert whispered to Lucas while Gordon carefully tied his skate laces together.

  “Sure,” said Lucas.

  Robert reached up to one of his grandfather’s worktables and picked up a thin, stretchy square of material. He stretched it lengthwise and widthwise, and then pressed the material up against his nose as if he were looking through a screen door.

  “The material’s ‘ny-lon.’ My American friend just invented it,” Mr. Ward said somewhat proudly. “Sent it in the mail. Says one day it’ll be in ladies’ fashion or parachutes—not sure which. But it’s interesting.”

  “We’re going to make inventions out of it—like this one!” Robert cheered. He leaped off the trunk and quickly opened its lid.

  Inside was something that looked like an old sewing machine, but there was a sharpening stone attached to the part where the needle would normally go. There was a piece from a film projector and part of . . . Lucas didn’t know what. Nothing matched, but somehow the odd parts seemed to fit together.

  “It’s me and my grampa’s invention,” said Robert excitedly, pointing at the drawing he’d done and showing how it matched up with the bizarre machine in front of them. “See? The ny-lon is the belt.”

  At first, Lucas couldn’t figure out what he was seeing.

  Then Robert’s grandfather pushed a button on the machine, and a light attached to an old car battery went on. Two wheels started turning slowly, with what looked like a pair of nylons wrapped tightly around them—the belt. The wheels turned some gears that moved the sharpening stone, but then the machine suddenly fizzled and stopped.

  “It’s not . . . finished.” Mr. Ward shrugged without seeming embarrassed.

  Is this really the first skate-sharpening machine? Lucas couldn’t help but be impressed.

  * * *

  As they were leaving the sharpener’s house, Lucas’s comm-band suddenly buzzed.

  “Hello, comm,” he said quietly into his wrist, but the call was gone.

  Gordon and Edna exchanged looks but didn’t say anything.

  It had been Swift.

  Lucas immediately buzzed her back.

  The reception was fuzzy and he could make out only a few words: “You’d better get back here.”

  Chapter 12

  Even before the three kids arrived back at the frozen slough, they could hear the distinctive, unmistakable sounds of hockey being played. There was the lovely click-click-click of someone stickhandling, the rasp of skaters stopping fast, the yelling and cheering that said something special had happened.

  Gordon seemed very nervous as they approached the outdoor rink. He stayed a few steps behind Edna, almost like he was trying to hide.

  The two grumpy-looking players who had arrived at the rink at the same time as Edge and Swift were still there, but now they had friends. And they’d taken over the part of the ice where Lucas and his teammates had been teaching Gordon to skate.

  Is this what Swift meant—that they’d been pushed out?

  “Maybe we should . . . get home, Edna,” Gordon said to his sister. “We can come back . . . tomorrow.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Edna told him.

  Soon, they reached Swift and Edge, who were on their own, rolling over the bumpy strip of ice they’d been left with.

  “See? We’ve got enough players here for our own team if we want,” Edna said cheerily. “I’ll play goal—you don’t need skates for that.”

  “You can borrow my goalie pads,” said Swift with a smile. She didn’t mind being an out player for today.

  Gordon seemed unconvinced. But he wasn’t going to argue with his older sister.

  The five moved over to the snowbank so Gordon and Lucas could put on their skates. There were five other kids there—the ones who’d taken over their ice—all in hockey equipment, all chasing the same puck. They had set up their own green rubber boots as goalposts for a net. It was pure shinny—every player out for him- or herself.

  When the kids playing saw that the others had arrived and were lacing up, they stopped and stared. One of the players—the biggest boy, with a frown on his face that made him look like the bossiest, nastiest kid imaginable—skated straight over fast and stopped so quickly and hard that the spray from his skates covered Edna and Gordon with snow.

  “Well, well,” the kid said in a mean voice, “if it isn’t the ‘road apple’ gang. You still passing hunks of manure to each other?”

  “We have a puck now,” said Edna, brandishing the one that Edge had given them.

  “Where’dya get them skates, Doughhead?” the kid asked Gordon.

  Gordon had his boots off but was still proudly wearing the newly sharpened blades around his neck like a medal. “None of your . . . business,” he answered, taking his skates down and setting them on the ice in front of him.

  “Doughhead-Doughhead-Doughhead,” the big kid teased. “Doughhead can’t even look at me!”

  “Leave him alone!” Edna shouted. She seemed about to take a swing at the kid, who wiggled back on his skates and started laughing.

  “Doughhead’ll never make a hockey player. He can’t even learn school, for one thing. The only kid in town who’s flunking grade three!”

  The four others with the mean kid were also laughing, though none seemed to enjoy the teasing as much as the kid doing it. Lucas wanted to wash the guy’s face with snow.

  “Can you even skate, Doughhead?”

  “He’s a good skater,” Lucas blurted out. He surprised himself by saying anything.

  “Who the heck are you?” the bully kid demanded.

  “They’re our friends,” said Edna. “They’re just visiting for the day.”

  “From where? Mars?” The kid was sizing up their bizarre equipment.

  Lucas put his helmet back on and stood up on his skates, making himself taller. He dusted off Speedy’s old hockey pants without even thinking about how worn they were.

  “Wanna get your butts whipped?” the kid asked, scowling and laughing at the same time.

  “You’re on,” said Swift. “First team to score five goals wins.”

  “Wins what?” the kid asked.

  “I don’t know. You tell us,” said Edge.

  “If my side wins,” the kid said with a snarl, “Doughhead here has to carry my hockey stuff home for me. He’s always doing push-ups and silly exercises at school—carrying my stuff is exercise, so I’ll just be helping him out.”

  Lucas felt his teeth grinding. He’d heard that kind of deal before. It was exactly what Lars had tried to do to him back in Riverton. This big kid was out to humiliate Gordon. What a bully!

  “Let’s do it,” a voice spoke out clearly.

  Lucas turned. It was Gordon, standing at his full height—even taller than Lucas—and no longer staring at the ground. He looked absolutely determined.

  Chapter 13

  “Who is that nasty kid?” Lucas asked as the five were getting ready.

  “Yeah, he’s being a crank-o-saurus,” added Edge.

  “Tommy Boland,” said Edna, who had strapped on Swif
t’s goalie pads as best she could. “School bully. Total jerk. He’s a good hockey player, though—says that he’s already got junior teams after him, and that he’ll be the first player from this town to make the NHL. He’s probably right, but no one likes him.”

  “They seem to,” Edge said, nodding at the other four.

  “More likely they’re afraid of him.” Edna shrugged. “They all live on his street. He runs it like a gang.”

  “What’s that ‘Doughhead’ thing all about?” Lucas asked.

  Edna sighed, turning her right goalie pad a little. She wasn’t quite sure how it was supposed to fit. “Gordon has trouble at school. He doesn’t learn well—but he’s smart. He just learns differently. You saw it yourself with the skating.”

  She grabbed her stick and slid across the ice in her own boots with Victor’s under her arm. These she set apart to make “posts” for their goal, just as the others had done.

  “No raisers,” Edna called to the other side. “These goalie pads probably don’t work too good—they’re skinny.”

  “No raisers,” Tommy snarled back as he raised his elbows behind him.

  “Faceoff,” said Edge, reaching down to pick up the puck. He moved to roughly halfway between the two makeshift goals on the frozen slough and held out his hand with the puck in it.

  Tommy skated up to where Edge was, his skates snow-plowing to a stop and his stick on the ice.

  “What about the national anthem?” Lucas asked, thinking he was making a little joke as he got into position opposite Tommy.

  “No ‘God Save the King’ here,” Tommy said with a sneer. “It should be ‘God Save the Doughhead’!” He howled with laughter at his own joke.

  “God Save the King”? Lucas wondered. What’s that? Canada’s national anthem was “O Canada.” He shrugged, accepting that there were things around this frozen slough that made no sense to him whatsoever.

  Edge dropped the puck and Tommy immediately bowled over Lucas with his shoulder, taking the puck and skating back into his own end.

  “No hitting!” Edna screamed from her net.

  “An accident!” Tommy shouted back, smirking to himself.

  Lucas got back to his feet, brushed the snow off his pants, and started after Tommy. He was skating fast and easily, and his speed surprised Tommy, who decided to pass the puck off to one of his teammates—only to have Swift come out of nowhere, pluck the puck out of the air, and stickhandle it down the ice.

  Before Swift played goal for the Ice Chips, she used to play out in the middle with Lucas and Edge. It had been a long time since she’d been out like this, skating with the puck, but she still remembered a few tricks.

  Swift dropped the puck back into her skates, kicked it forward as she swooped around the last player’s back, and neatly released it between the goaltender’s legs, the puck sliding through the rubber boots and on down the ice.

  1–0.

  Now the other side came charging again. One of them, the girl, was a good stickhandler but a slow skater. Still, she made it past Edge’s check and slipped the puck over to Tommy, who fired as hard as he could at Edna, just missing her arm.

  “Hey, no lifters!” Edna cried.

  “Accident,” said Tommy, not even bothering to hide his satisfied smile.

  1–1.

  Back and forth went the action on the frozen slough. The fresh, cold air made Lucas’s cheeks turn red until he could no longer feel them or his nose. Yet the sweat was trickling down his back and soaking into his shirt.

  Gordon was something to behold. The kid who had stood so clumsily on rusted blades earlier in the day now had the skating stride down perfectly and was moving effortlessly over the ice. He had his stick down, and Lucas hit him with a perfect pass. Gordon took a quick shot that went into the corner of the goal to put his side ahead.

  And then Tommy crashed into him.

  The bully came across the ice and blindsided Gordon, smashing his full shoulder into the younger boy’s chest and side and sending him crashing to the ground. Gordon’s head hit the ice with a sharp crack. It sounded like a rifle had gone off.

  “Hey, sorry there, Doughy—I didn’t see you,” said Tommy, leaning to help Gordon back up. “Accident, eh? Sorry.”

  Lucas had never seen such false sincerity. He wanted to do something but couldn’t. This was just kids playing a friendly game . . . wasn’t it?

  “Maybe you should wear a bucket up top next time, like the rest of your lamebrain friends,” Tommy added, and his buddies burst out laughing again.

  Swift and Lucas were first to reach Gordon. He was dazed, struggling to get up. Each grabbed under his arms and helped him. Lucas wondered how it was that Gordon wasn’t crying after that.

  But he wasn’t crying—he was smiling.

  Gordon stood up and brushed off his sweater—the one that looked like it had been handed down through a dozen hockey players. The “9” on the back had been ripped again, and the top was now even more unstitched and sagging.

  “I wasn’t sure about that number 9 anyway,” Gordon said, giving Swift a big grin and a wink, which surprised both Lucas and Edna. “Picking a number is like picking which way you shoot—takes some time.” Lucas had noticed that, too. Gordon had just started skating, but already he shot both ways—sometimes left, sometimes right. Hardly any of the pros could even do that! “Let’s play?” Gordon asked, smiling. He was ready to jump back in the game.

  Back in position, he dusted the snow off his pants and leaned on his stick, pausing only to look up, once and hard, toward Tommy, who was back by his own net, laughing at something he had said to the goaltender.

  Back and forth the play went, with each out player taking a turn carrying the puck and trying to set up a goal. The two teams were now tied 4–4. Next goal would win.

  Tommy had the puck behind his own net. He was coming up the ice hard, stickhandling easily. And he was skating straight at Lucas. Just as Lucas was going to try a poke check, Tommy niftily slipped the puck between Lucas’s skates and was past him in a heartbeat.

  And then he wasn’t.

  It was as if Tommy had deliberately skated into a brick wall. From out of nowhere, Gordon appeared directly in his path. Gordon did nothing. He just let Tommy crash into him.

  It all seemed to take place in slow motion. Tommy’s face went into Gordon’s chest, and then, just as happens in cartoons, Tommy seemed to melt and slide off the immovable Gordon like snow off a roof.

  He slid to the ice and began whimpering.

  “Sorry,” Gordon said to him as he lay there. “Accident.”

  Gordon picked up the puck, skated down ice with it, and with his long reach, used one hand on the stick to sweep it around the other goaltender and in past the rubber boots.

  It was 5–4 for Gordon, Edna, and the Ice Chips.

  Gordon skated calmly back to his sister, a big smile on his face.

  “Let’s go home,” he said.

  Chapter 14

  “That kid’s gonna be great,” Lucas said as the three Chips watched Gordon and Edna head off across the field—Gordon with his “new” skates once again slung over his neck.

  “That hockey sweater he had on under his coat was really ratty. The number was even peeling off,” said Edge. He wasn’t trying to be critical. He just felt bad for the guy.

  “Didn’t matter, though, did it?” said Lucas. Maybe equipment doesn’t matter as much as I’d thought.

  The wind was picking up again, snow once more starting to fall. Lucas turned to Swift and noticed a wet drop falling from her left eye. She must have had a snowflake blow into her eye. Or was that a tear?

  “Let’s go for one more skate,” she said.

  “Shouldn’t we try the comm-bands again?” asked Edge, who’d had to give Gordon back his coat. He was still warm from the game and the skating, but soon he’d be shivering again. “We should try to reach Crunch—reach someone.”

  “In a minute?” said Swift, making sure she’d properly adjus
ted her goalie pads after Edna had worn them. “Can we just skate for a minute?”

  “Yes!” Edge and Lucas agreed at exactly the same moment.

  Tommy and his gang were still gathering up their equipment and trudging slowly up the embankment. Lucas couldn’t help thinking that Tommy had shrunk since he’d run into that brick wall called Gordon.

  There was something else, too. It seemed that the other kids with Tommy weren’t sticking as close to him as before. Two had already run ahead. The third was shaking his head as he walked off in another direction.

  Maybe, just maybe, Tommy’s days as the town bully were done.

  Lucas pushed off, and the wind, funnelling down the field and along the frozen slough, caught under his arms and half-lifted, half-hurled him down the ice. He put his skates together, both pointing straight ahead, and just let the wind take him.

  I’m sailing! Lucas thought. Sailing on skates.

  He could hear Swift shrieking with delight as the wind caught her, too. Lucas looked back. Both Swift and Edge were following his example of just putting their skates together and letting it happen.

  Swift reached out to Edge and took his hand. She put an arm around him to keep him warm. They pumped a few times to catch up to Lucas, and Swift took Lucas’s hand with her free one.

  Laughing, shrieking, shouting, the three Chips sailed down the slough and smashed into the soft snowdrift that had built up at the far end. All three were buried completely in the snow and came up shaking it free and laughing hysterically.

  Now, thought Lucas, that is something you can’t do in an indoor rink. No wonder Bompa got so excited whenever he showed Lucas those grainy old photographs of kids holding hands and drift-skating on an iced-over lake.

  The photographs, with everyone frozen still, hadn’t been able to convey what it felt like. But now Lucas knew for himself. He knew what Bompa had meant. He’d have to tell him that now he understood.

  Then it struck him. How will I tell Bompa? How are we going to get home?