Nish was standing next to Travis. Salming gave him his medal, shook his hand, and then patted his shoulder.
“Good defenceman,” Borje Salming said. “Just like me.”
Nish, of course, was never speechless: “We have the same hair,” he said.
Borje Salming looked at Nish as if he had lost his mind. Nish just stood there, grinning.
“Hey,” Nish said, when Salming had moved along, “I had to say something, didn’t I?”
Silver medals were awarded to the Russian team and then the bronze to the Djurgårdens peewee team that had come in third. They then announced the Most Valuable Player for each team. Slava Shadrin won for CSKA and the crowd gave a huge cheer as Mr. Johanssen made the presentation. The Russian delegation then came out onto the carpet and the Most Valuable Player for Canada was announced.
“Wayne Nishikawa!”
Nish looked startled. He dropped his stick and gloves and began skating over, but suddenly stopped. He was right in front of Sarah.
“This should have been yours,” he said.
Sarah smiled. “You scored the winner,” she said graciously.
Nish smiled back. “You got us into the shootout.”
The Russian leader handed him a wrapped present, and Nish took it and then reached out his hand to shake.
The man shook his head. He leaned over instead and kissed Nish on one cheek. Then he went for the other but missed as a startled Nish jumped back, a look of shock on his face.
The Russian laughed and shook his head.
Nish stopped again as he passed Sarah. He handed her the MVP award. “I wish you’d won it in the first place,” he said, trying to wipe his cheek with the sleeve of his Owls sweater.
The Globen Arena burst into wild cheers.
Behind Travis, Annika screeched: “EEEE-AWWW-KEEE!”
They then stood by the thousands in Stockholm’s Globen Arena. And at the far end of the rink a red-and-white Canadian flag began its long climb up a guy wire towards the rafters.
Travis was barely aware that the anthem had begun, but soon it seemed as if the music of “O Canada” had filled the huge stadium and was pounding in his heart. Behind the great swell of music, he could hear people singing along. The Canadian parents…then more and more of the Swedes.
It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
There was another sound a bit behind him. It was a sort of low drone, but growing louder.
He turned slightly to his left. It was Nish, singing off-key, his eyes staring straight up at the flag.
Nish was crying. Big, fat tears were burning down his cheeks and falling freely onto his sweater. He was singing and crying at the same time, and he didn’t seem to care the slightest that he couldn’t sing a note.
THE END
Travis Lindsay had two dreams that kept coming back to him, time and time again. In the first, he was at his grandparents’ cottage and something had happened to the water. He would wake in the morning and the lake would be entirely dry but for the odd pool of water and a lot of slippery mud, as if somebody had pulled out a big rubber bathtub plug in the middle of the lake. Instead of snorkelling around the surface with his rubber flippers and mask, he was now able to roam the lake bottom on foot, collecting lost lures and finding out, for once, just how big the trout were.
Travis’s second dream was about winter vanishing. In Travis’s home town, there came a time every late February or early March, when, suddenly, everyone grew sick and tired of winter–even young hockey players like Travis and the rest of the Screech Owls. You got up one morning and, instead of looking forward to practice or a tournament on the weekend, you started looking forward to spring: the first robin, the first sound of flowing water, the first smell of earth wafting up through the snow, the first day you could run out of the house without a winter jacket and boots.
In the dream where winter went away, it always happened instantly. Travis would wake up–at least he’d dream he had woken up–and there would be birds in the trees and the smell of manure being spread in the farm fields at the edge of town, and Wayne Nishikawa, Nish, would be firing pebbles at his window and shouting for him to come out and play.
This time, however, Travis’s end-of-winter dream was different. It was really happening! And not just to Travis, but to Nish–snoring away in the seat beside him–and Data, up a row, and Lars, Jenny, Dmitri, Andy, Gordie, Jesse, Derek, Willie, Jeremy, even Sarah Cuthbertson, two seats back and playing hearts with Wilson and Fahd and the Owls’ newest player, Simon Milliken. Simon was the smallest player on the team–smaller even than Travis, who was finally going through a growth spurt–and was a bit puck-shy. Nish had pounced on Simon’s weakness, tagging him with a dreadful nickname–“Chicken Milliken”–that had, unfortunately, stuck. Fortunately, Nish was sound asleep; otherwise he might have been hounding poor Simon at this very moment.
The Screech Owls filled a school bus, each player allotted an entire seat to him or herself so they could all stretch out and sleep. Even old Muck was on board, in the front seat, the big coach so deep in a thick book that Travis wondered if he even realized they had left Canada and were almost halfway to Florida. Halfway to summer! Halfway to Disney World!
With Mr. Dillinger, the team manager, driving, the Owls had left for Florida at the beginning of the March school break. And though Travis knew it was still March on the calendar, it sure didn’t feel like it. Every few hours it seemed like a whole month had passed. Winter was peeling away. They could now see grass in the fields!
Behind the rented school bus–slow, noisy, and uncomfortable, but cheap, Muck said–there were parents’ cars and Mr. and Mrs. Cuthbertson’s Winnebago, and the two assistant coaches, Barry and Ty, in the rented van filled to the brim with hockey and camping equipment. Camping, Muck had argued, was another way to save them money.
They were off to the Spring Break Tournament, Peewee Division II, with games in Orlando and Lakeland, Florida, with special three-day passes to Disney World and–if they made it to the finals–a chance to play for the championship in the magnificent Ice Palace, home rink of the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning.
“Stupid stop!” Mr. Dillinger called from the front of the bus.
“STUUU-PIDDD STOP!”
All around Travis there was stirring and cheering and even a bit of applause. They’d been waiting for this moment. A trip wasn’t a hockey trip unless Mr. Dillinger pulled off for one of his famous “Stupid Stops.”
Mr. Dillinger, his bald spot bouncing, hauled on the steering wheel and the bus turned sharply into an exit for something called “South of the Border”–a huge restaurant and shopping stop on Interstate 95.
Mr. Dillinger stood at the door as they got off the bus. He had a huge roll of American money in his hands.
“You know what a per diem is?” he asked as the first Owl–Nish, naturally–stumbled down the steps and out into the warm air and surprising sun of the parking lot.
“Huh?”
Mr. Dillinger was enjoying himself. “In the NHL,” he announced grandly as the rest of the team emerged, blinking in the bright light, “every player gets so much money each day–that’s what per diem means, Nish, each day–when they’re on the road. They can do what they wish with the cash. Whatever they want.”
“How much?” Nish wanted to know.
Mr. Dillinger scowled at him, half kidding. “Fifty-five dollars,” he said.
“Allll-righhhtttt!” Nish said, high-fiving Data, who was standing beside him.
“You’re not in the NHL yet, son–but there’s a five-dollar bill here for every player who’s made the Screech Owls.”
“Allll-righhhtttt!” several of the Owls shouted at once.
They lined up and Mr. Dillinger, making a great show of it all, peeled off a bill for each player in turn.
“We can do anything we want with this–right?” Travis said, as he reached for the bill Mr. Dillinger was holding toward him.
“No, you cannot,” Mr. Dillinger said,
looking shocked. “You do anything sensible with it–you save it, for example, or put it in a bank, or fail to spend it absolutely foolishly all at once–and we will send you home for being too responsible and mature to be a member of the Screech Owls hockey club.
“Now get in there and throw it away–on something stupid!”
It took Nish about thirty seconds to find the joke’s centre. He was determined to follow the instructions to the letter. Mr. Dillinger wanted stupid, Nish was going to be stupid.
He talked Data into spending money on some hot gum. He talked Wilson into buying something called Play Sick, which looked, sort of, as if someone had thrown up and the mess had instantly turned to rubber. But Nish wasn’t satisfied; he went off in search of more useless stuff, leaving Data and Wilson to fork out their five dollars for things they would never have purchased if Nish had left them alone.
Travis stood looking at a joke display. A hand buzzer. A letter that snapped like a mousetrap when you pulled it out of the envelope. A Chinese finger-trap. A card trick. He didn’t think there was anything he wanted.
Suddenly Nish was at his side, hissing, “Gimme your five bucks!”
“What?”
“I need your stupid money, stupid.”
“What for?”
Nish just looked at Travis, shaking his head. “C’mere!”
With one hand holding Travis’s sleeve, Nish led his friend down an aisle toward a shelf at the back, where he reached up and plucked down something that didn’t look the least bit interesting.
“You want to buy a pair of glasses?” Travis asked. What was wrong with Nish? This was hardly stupid.
“They’re not just glasses,” Nish hissed, holding them out like they were made of diamonds. “They’re X-ray glasses!”
“What?”
“X-ray. You know, see right through things. See right through things like bathing suits. You get what I mean?”
“You’re sick.”
“I’m not sick–I’m short five bucks. Are you in?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Dead serious. Now gimme your fiver!”
Travis reached in his pocket and took out his five-dollar bill. He knew better, but he handed it over anyway. Nish snatched it, giggling, and hurried off to the cash register.
What the heck, Travis told himself. Mr. Dillinger had said don’t come back if you don’t throw the money away on something absolutely useless and ridiculous.
And who better to show how it’s done than Wayne Nishikawa, the King of the Stupid Stop?
Nish spent the rest of the trip south hounding poor Simon. At the next washroom stop, he took the opportunity to help himself to a pocketful of paper towels. He waited until Simon dozed off to sleep, and then got busy. He carefully laid out several of the brown paper towels on the seat beside Simon. Then he took a bottle of water and sprinkled the towels and had Wilson pull out his rubber vomit and set it carefully on top of the dampened towels. He then took two more paper towels, soaked them, and laid them partially over the vomit so it appeared as if someone had tried to soak the disgusting mess up.
Then Nish really went to work.
He squirted the bottle of water directly into his face, took a paper towel, wet it, and placed it so it was partly sticking to his chin, partly lying over his shirt front. Then he turned toward Simon, made a horrible, sickly face, and began to moan.
“Ohhhhh…ohhhhhhhhh…ohhhhhhhhh!”
Simon shifted slightly in his seat, half awakened.
“Oooohhhhhhh!…Oooohhhhhhh!…Oooohhhhhhhh!”
Everyone was watching now, and Nish twisted violently and moaned even louder.
“OOOOHHHHHH!…OOOOHHHHHH!…OOOOHHHHHH!”
Simon’s eyes blinked open. They turned to Nish. They blinked again. Nish twisted and moaned.
“OOOOHHHHHH!…OOOOHHHHHH!…OOOOHHHHHH!”
Simon jumped. He looked down at the seat between them. He instantly went white.
“Nish has thrown up!” he shouted.
Wilson was instantly into the act. “Oh my God!” he said, as he looked over from the seat directly behind. “Has he ever!”
Simon reached out, frightened almost, and very carefully touched Nish.
“Nish. You okay?”
Nish opened his eyes and groaned. “Ohhhh!” He groaned again, louder. “OHHHHHHHH!”
Nish jerked toward poor Simon, his eyes rolling, his mouth opening as if he was going to throw up on him.
“HHHELPPPP!” Simon shouted, and he jumped so fast, so far, that he scrambled clean over the seat in front and landed on Data and Andy, who were crouched there giggling.
Nish was howling with laughter. With the wetted towel still stuck to his shirt, he was on his feet and squawking and flapping his arms like a chicken.
“Wakkk-cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck!”
It seemed everyone was laughing at Simon. Even Travis was kind of half-laughing–it was, after all, pretty funny. But it was also pretty cruel.
Sarah wasn’t laughing at all. Nish didn’t even notice her, though; he was laughing uproariously, his eyes closed and his mouth wide open.
Sarah reached down and snatched the rubber vomit off the seat and stuffed as much of it into Nish’s open mouth as she could–which was more than you might expect.
“AAARGHHHHH!!” sputtered Nish as he spat it out.
“Nish gonna hurl?” Sarah asked sweetly.
“Yuck!” Nish spat, wiping his mouth with one of the towels. “Whatdya do that for, Sarah? Geez!”
“A taste of your own medicine,” Sarah said.
“We were just having a little laugh,” said Nish, sounding like he was the one who’d been hurt.
“Fine,” said Sarah, “we’ll all remember to laugh the next time someone pulls a mean trick on you.”
“Get a life!” Nish snapped.
“Grow up!” Sarah shot back.
The rest of the trip passed uneventfully. Nish sulked. Simon and Sarah played cards. Travis dozed off and on and stared out the bus window as summer came ever closer.
Nish had glanced over at Travis while Sarah was ripping into him. Travis knew that his friend was looking for support, any support, but he had felt powerless to say anything in Nish’s defence. Yes, it had been pretty funny. Nish, after all, was a good actor–he really looked like he was going to hurl. But if he was going to play practical jokes, he needed to spread them around, otherwise he was just being mean, not funny. Nish had been picking on Simon since Simon had started coming out with the Owls.
Suddenly, Mr. Dillinger began honking the horn. Once, twice, a third time, long and loud.
“State line!” he shouted back. “We just passed into Florida!”
“Yay!” the bus cheered as one.
“We’re there!” Data shouted.
“I wanna meet Goofy!” Nish shouted. He was bouncing back.
“Look in a mirror!” Sarah shouted in reply.
There was no time to visit Disney World that first day in Florida. In fact, it was getting dark when they finally made it to Kissimmee, the town nearest Disney World. When Mr. Dillinger announced they had just crossed over the Florida state line, none of them realized they were still four hours away from their destination.
Mr. Dillinger and Mr. Cuthbertson had made the arrangements. The Sunshine State Campsite had set off a special area for the Screech Owls and the other families who were camping to save money, the Cuthbertsons in their Winnebago included. Muck and the assistant coaches decided where the tents would go up and who would sleep in each tent. Travis and Nish were together in the Lindsays’ big old family tent, sharing with Lars, Data, Andy, and, much to Nish’s surprise, Simon.
“Lindsay,” Muck said as he read out the list, “you’re also captain of the tent. You keep a sharp eye on Nishikawa, understand?”
Travis nodded. How could he avoid keeping an eye on someone who always had to be the centre of attention?
Soon they had set up the old tent, and as they pulled
their gear inside and rolled out their air mattresses and sleeping bags, Travis filled his lungs with the lovely, slightly musty smell of summers gone by that rose from the canvas. Next to skating out onto a fresh sheet of ice, Travis loved camping. The smell of rain through canvas, the sound of wind in the trees, the wonder of the life that was in every stream and pool and shoreline his family encountered on their annual summer camping trip.
“Snake!” screamed Nish.
“What?” Travis shouted. “Where?”
“There! Under Simon’s bag!”
The head of a large snake was just visible under Simon’s blue air mattress.
“Lemme outta here!” Nish screamed, scrambling for the exit.
Travis instinctively backed away as well. Weren’t there poisonous snakes in Florida? Could it be a viper? A rattler?
Simon froze. He had been rolling out his sleeping bag, but now he stood absolutely motionless. Maybe it was a copperhead, thought Travis, his heart pumping fast. Andy was edging along the far side of the tent toward the door. He looked terrified. Lars was already outside.
Travis looked again at the snake. It wasn’t moving. It wasn’t even flicking its tongue, which Travis knew all snakes did in order to check their surroundings. Impulsively, he reached out and grabbed the snake and threw it, in one motion, out of the tent.
“Rubber!” he announced.
He could hear Nish outside, leading the laughter: “Wakkk-cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck!”
Nish was flapping his arms and walking around like a huge chicken, and Andy and Data were tossing the wiggling snake back and forth. It must have been what Andy’s five dollars had gone toward at the Stupid Stop.
“Very funny!” Travis said as he came out of the tent.
“I thought so,” Nish said defiantly.
Travis shook his head. Nish could be the nicest guy in the world one minute, the biggest jerk the next. He never seemed to know when to let up until he had gone too far.
“No more picking on Simon, okay?” Travis said.
Nish saluted. “Yes, sirrrr! Mr. Lindsay!”
The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 2 Page 8