The Boston Breakout

by Roy MacGregor

  Sam nodded.

  “We’ll take her back,” Sarah said firmly to the woman. She quickly took Sam’s free hand and pulled her, just enough that the woman’s grip on Sam loosened.

  “I guess,” said Sam.

  “Stay in touch,” Frances said. She raised her right hand to show another tattoo – a blurred mark in the center of her palm.

  11

  “You’re sure that’s the name?” Data asked. “Pretty sure,” said Travis. “Frances A-see-see, or something like that. She didn’t spell it out for us.”

  Data had been fiddling with his tablet. He was supposed to be looking for a new invention for Nish, but Travis had interrupted his research.

  Later in the morning, the Owls would be heading for the rink and Game 3 of the Paul Revere Peewee Invitational, but right now Travis wanted to know what was up with this strange woman who seemed to have put a spell on Sam.

  Data was taking quite a long time, his fingers dancing as he jumped from one website to the next.

  “Very, very strange,” Data finally said.

  “What? What have you found?”

  “There are a couple of news stories here concerning a ‘Frances Assisi,’ who was arrested for throwing paint over fur coats at a fashion show.”

  Data began reading. “Isobel Twining, a.k.a. Frances Assisi, forty-three, was detained and later released by Boston police …”

  “What’s a.k.a.?”

  Data looked at Travis as if he couldn’t believe he wouldn’t know. “It means ‘also known as.’ It means Frances Assisi isn’t her real name – she’s really Isobel Twining.”

  “Why would she do that?” Travis asked. “Such a strange name.”

  Data’s fingers moved over the tablet and a new website popped up.

  “I think this is your answer,” he said, spinning the tablet so Travis could see.

  It was an encyclopedia entry on St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis was born in 1181 or 1182 and died in 1226 – nearly 800 years ago. He was Italian, and his real name was Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone. His “a.k.a.,” Travis noted, was Francesco, or Francis – and Data pointed out that “Frances,” with an e, was the feminine version of the name. St. Francis had been a Catholic preacher and was renowned for his love of all creatures. A couple of years after his death he was named a saint and was still known as the patron saint of animals.

  Travis nodded. Now he understood.

  He read more on the patron saint of animals. He found that the real Francis Assisi claimed to have seen visions and was the first person known to have the signs of the crucifixion appear on his hands and feet – signs taken at the time to be nothing short of a holy miracle.

  So, Travis thought, that would explain the tattoo in the palm of the woman’s hand. He didn’t need to see the other palm or her feet to know what he might find there. This was getting really weird.

  “Do you think she’s crazy?” Travis asked Data.

  “I have no idea,” said Data. “You met her, not me. But obviously Sam doesn’t think she’s crazy. And they aren’t the only two people in the world who believe you shouldn’t eat animals. There are millions who hold that view. So it’s pretty hard to call her crazy based on a fake name.”

  Travis couldn’t argue with Data’s logic.

  “Don’t you have a game to get ready for?” Data asked.

  Travis snapped out of his confused thoughts. A game, yes, they had a game to play. That’s why the Screech Owls were in Boston, after all.

  “Thanks for this,” Travis said. “See you at the rink.”

  “Get your head back in the game, too,” Data said. “Okay?”

  Travis nodded. “I will.”

  12

  It turned out to be easier said than done. Travis had his head back on hockey – he thought. He had checked the schedule. The Owls would be up against the Detroit Wheels, another peewee team they had previously met, and beaten. But only barely. The two teams had met at the Big Apple International in New York City, and the Owls had won 6–5 in the opener and then 5–4 in overtime for the championship. Nish had been the hero in both games, and naturally he would want to be the hero again today in Boston.

  As they got their equipment together for the bus out to Wilmington, Travis and Nish talked about the previous games against the Wheels. Nish had been going on and on about the spectacular goal that had won the championship. He had tried a move made famous years earlier by Hall of Famer Pavel Bure. Nish had carried the puck up ice and ended up back of the Wheels’ net. From there, he had flipped the puck high into the air, over the goal and the Detroit goaltender, then slipped out around front to take his own pass and rip a shot past the goalie for the winning point.

  From the way Nish told it, he’d been the only Owl on the ice against six hundred Detroit Wheels and had single-handedly won the game. He was conveniently forgetting the Owls’ four other goals, which had taken them into overtime. But what could Travis expect from his goofy buddy? Nish was never going to change. He claimed he’d matured since “quitting” school, but Travis couldn’t see it.

  Nish was still boasting when Mr. D came up the steps of the bus, closed the door, and stepped to the front of the aisle with a quick announcement.

  “We’re going to be short a player this afternoon, boys and girls. Sam isn’t feeling well and will stay back in her room. So let’s win one for her, okay?”

  Several of the Owls shouted back.

  “Okay!”

  “This one’s for Sam!”

  But not Travis Lindsay. He spun in his seat away from Nish the Braggart and looked for Sarah. He found her back a few seats on the other side of the aisle.

  Sarah shrugged and held up her hands.

  She had no answer for him.

  The Detroit Wheels were every bit the team they had been in New York: fast, smart, well-coached, strong, and determined. But the Owls were no longer the Owls who had arrived in Boston with their “hockey muscles” weak and their timing as off as a broken clock.

  Travis felt right from the moment he stepped onto the fresh ice, his newly sharpened skates – thank you, Mr. D! – cutting in hard as he sizzled through the first corner. He skipped a puck off the crossbar on his second try. He felt good and strong and fast.

  Sarah was also rounding into game shape. She won the opening face-off by plucking the puck out of midair, and with a backhand slap she sent it instantly up ice, where Dmitri picked it up and flew in fast. Forehand, backhand, puck high into the roof of the net. The Owls were up 1–0 and the game had barely started.

  Soon, however, it was apparent that the Owls could have used Sam back on defense. The Wheels’ coaching staff had realized that, without Sam’s speed and smarts, the Owls were weak on that side, and their players kept using the advantage to hound less-skilled defensemen like Fahd to cough up the puck. If either Nish or Lars wasn’t there, the Owls were in trouble.

  The Wheels tied the game at 1–1 on a deflection, then went ahead 2–1 just before the period ended, when Jenny misplayed a long shot that bounced twice and changed direction.

  Midway through the second, with the score tied 2–2, after a nifty bit of stickhandling by Derek, Nish sent a long pass that bounced off the boards and slid fast down the ice between a hard-skating Travis and Dmitri.

  Dmitri used his skate blade to kick the puck up to his stick. But the Detroit goaltender was ready for him this time. He read Dmitri’s forehand-backhand fake perfectly this time and had the near side sealed off when Dmitri was ready to shoot.

  Dmitri was also ready, however. He had played it the same way on purpose to pull the goaltender as tight to the post as possible. Instead of shooting, Dmitri sent a quick, short pass to Travis, who popped the puck into the net. The Owls had the lead again.

  But the Wheels were not to be so easily beaten. Their top center scored on a booming slap shot early in the third, and with only a minute to go, a shot from the point ricocheted in past Jenny to give the Wheels a 4–3 lead.

 
Muck sent Lars and Nish out together. All game he had split them up to help cover for the loss of Sam, but now he needed his best on the ice if the Owls were to have a chance.

  He sent out Sarah’s line. And then, once Lars had dumped the puck up over center and into the Wheels’ end, he called Jenny off for the extra attacker, sending out Derek.

  It was a gut call by Muck. Mr. D’s son wouldn’t usually be the choice as an extra attacker, but he had played probably his best game of the year. Muck was playing a hunch. And Muck’s hunches had a way of working out.

  Nish and Lars worked a give-and-go up the ice, and Lars fired a puck in around the boards. Travis, anticipating the dump-in, hurried along tight to the left boards. Instead of taking the puck on his stick as it rounded the boards, he let it tick off his skate blade out to the top of the left circle, where Derek was waiting.

  Derek one-timed a hard shot. The Detroit goaltender brilliantly kicked it out with his left pad, but the puck landed right on the stick of Lars, who lofted it over the fallen goaltender into the Detroit net.

  Detroit Wheels 4, Screech Owls 4.

  “This is my time to shine!” Nish hissed at Travis as the horn blew to call an end to regulation time. There was nothing in the world Nish liked better than overtime hockey – providing he could be the hero.

  But it was not to be. Two minutes into overtime, Nish took a penalty for tripping, and no amount of whining to the referee could take it away.

  The Wheels had the power play they needed. Soon they had the Owls boxed in down at their own end as they worked the puck around the edges in search of a clear shot on Jenny.

  They set the shot up perfectly – or almost perfectly – as their top defenseman found himself in the slot and ready to hammer a one-timer.

  Fahd, put out by Muck out of necessity, because Nish was unavailable, appeared out of nowhere, sliding and spinning toward the puck as the big defenseman continued through on his swing.

  He slapped the puck. It flew off his stick blade –straight into Fahd’s shin pads.

  The puck hit Fahd’s pads so hard it rebounded, still in the air, all the way back to center ice, where, of all people, Simon Milliken picked it up, raced in, and shot.

  Or, rather, he missed his shot. Simon’s stick slid over top of the puck and it barely changed direction.

  It was almost nothing, but it was enough to fool the Detroit Wheels’ goaltender. The goalie watched helplessly from the far side of his net – where he’d leaped in anticipation of Simon’s shot – as the puck moved, slowly as a curling rock, just over the red line.

  Victory for the Screech Owls, 5–4 in overtime!

  The Owls flooded off the bench and over the boards. Dmitri raced first to Simon, leaping and landing on him and crashing the surprised little forward into the boards past the despondent Detroit goaltender.

  Sarah raced for Fahd, who had made it all possible, hugging him and slapping his pads. Fahd seemed to wonder what it was he had done to deserve all the attention.

  The penalty box door opened and out skated a red-faced, scowling Wayne Nishikawa, looking for all the world like his team had just suffered its worst defeat in history.

  Travis took note. What was it about Nish that Travis liked anyway? At the moment, he couldn’t be sure.

  “Good game,” Muck told them in the dressing room. “We’re in the final now. We just don’t know yet who we’ll play. There are three possibilities – these guys we just played, the Young Blackhawks, or the Mini-Penguins from Pittsburgh. Could be any of them. We don’t care.”

  And with that, the coach stepped out of the dressing room, leaving the Owls to undress and talk amongst themselves.

  “You rule, Fahd!” Sarah said. “And you, Simon! You’re our first two stars.”

  “Hey,” protested Nish. “Who’s the guy who sent the pass down the ice that got us into overtime?”

  Sarah feigned ignorance. “I have no idea, Nish – who would that be?”

  He answered with a raspberry.

  13

  It was morning. The summer sun streamed warm through the hotel room window as Travis sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with the backs of his fists.

  There was a light knock at the door. The others were still sleeping – Nish snoring like Travis’s grandfather did when he napped at the cottage – and Travis opened the door quietly.

  It was Sarah. Sam was gone again.

  “When?” Travis asked.

  “No idea,” Sarah said. “I thought she was in the next bed, but she’d just covered up a couple of pillows to make it look like she was.”

  “Does Muck know? Or Mr. D?”

  Sarah shook her head.

  Travis felt the pincers of a dilemma begin to squeeze his brain. He was captain of the Screech Owls. He had a duty to look out for his teammates. But he also had a duty to the coach and general manager of the team. If he went to Muck and Mr. D, Sam might get in trouble – and for all he knew, she might simply be down in the lobby. If he and Sarah found her there, their worries would have been for nothing. Then again, they had reason to be worried. Sam was not acting herself.

  A quick check might be the right thing to do.

  “Wait there,” Travis said. “I’ll get dressed and be right with you.”

  Nish stirred as Travis dressed. His snoring stopped, then started up again even more loudly. The others were sound asleep.

  Travis slipped out the door and closed it gently. “We’ll check the lobby first,” he said to Sarah.

  They quickly caught an elevator and descended to the lobby without a stop. It was still very early in the morning. They searched everywhere, but to no avail.

  Travis hurried to the revolving doors on the side of the hotel nearest the New England Aquarium, Sarah moving quickly to catch up to him. There were few people out and about so early. One hotel worker was watering plants, and another was washing down the sidewalks with a hose.

  “Over there!” Sarah said, pointing toward the aquarium.

  Travis turned and looked. On the side of the aquarium closest to the harbor, he saw the yellow caution tape and barricades to keep people back from the construction work, but there was no one at the site. A large black tarp completely covered the gap in the concrete that the crew had opened up on the aquarium wall.

  Off to one side, taking photographs of the construction site, was Frances Assisi, a.k.a. Isobel Twining.

  Sam was there as well.

  Travis and Sarah looked at each other. Travis grimaced; Sarah looked perplexed. What was Sam up to?

  They wandered over. “Frances” noticed them before Sam did, and scowled. She obviously had no desire to be disturbed.

  “Sam!” Sarah called out.

  Sam turned, blushing deeply, as if caught doing something she’d been warned not to.

  “Hey, Sarah, Trav … what’s up?”

  “We were wondering the same,” said Travis.

  Sam swallowed. “I couldn’t sleep. Still not feeling well, I guess … so I came out for some air, and Frances was out here, so I just started helping her.”

  Frances was smiling at them now – the same emotionless smile – and moved in quickly. “I’m a professional photographer as well as my other work,” she said. “Sam’s been helping me take photos of the aquarium for an article I’m working on. They won’t let me take any photos inside.”

  I’m not surprised, Travis thought to himself. This woman had trouble written all over her.

  “And we’ve been talking about animal rights, haven’t we, Sam?” Frances went on.

  “Right,” said Sam.

  “Sam’s going to start up a youth wing of our little group once she gets home, isn’t that right, Sam?”

  Sam nodded. “Frances sees this movement spreading by the power of kids just like us,” she said. “We refuse to eat animals, and our parents have no choice but to stop killing them. It would be the ultimate grassroots movement – one we think could take off to include the whole wo
rld.”

  Travis and Sam both looked at their friend, blinking. Neither said anything, but each knew what the other was thinking: this didn’t sound like Sam. She was using Frances’s words. It was almost like she was under some weird spell.

  Frances began taking pictures of other parts of the aquarium and the boardwalk, but she was doing so without much enthusiasm.

  Travis looked back at the construction site. When Frances had been taking photographs of it, she had been working carefully, deliberately. She appeared to know exactly what she was looking for. Now it seemed she was just taking shots at random.

  Travis didn’t believe that Frances was working on any “article.”

  “Muck’s going to be looking for us,” said Sarah.

  Sam nodded.

  “We’d better get back,” added Travis.

  “B-bye,” Sam said to Frances, as if she were being dragged away.

  “Keep in touch, Sam,” Frances said, the mouth smiling again. “We have a world to change.”

  It was still early enough, when the three Screech Owls returned to the lobby, that none of their teammates had come down from their rooms yet. Muck was sitting in a chair in one corner, reading the Boston newspapers, and didn’t notice them come in through the revolving doors. Travis pulled Sam’s arm, leading her off to the opposite corner, where the three teammates could talk alone.

  “What’s up with you?” Travis asked. He tried not to sound too angry – or too much like their vice-principal at Tamarack Public School – but he knew he sounded cranky and annoyed.

  “Nothing,” Sam answered, as if she didn’t quite understand why Travis would ask such a question.

  “You’ve been acting weird,” said Sarah, looking genuinely concerned.

  “Weird?” Sam said. “I’m the one that’s weird, while you eat innocent animals that have no idea what real grass or blue sky looks like? I’m the weirdo, when the rest of the world thinks it’s a wonderful thing to steal creatures from their mothers and their natural homes and put them on display in zoos and aquariums so humans can pay money and gawk at them? I’m the weird one? Give me a break!”