The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 2

by Roy MacGregor

  “It doesn’t matter!” Nish shouted. “You got your seventh–same as Lafleur!”

  Nish wasn’t the only one who had noticed. Tournament organizers rushed from the stands to congratulate her. The Bears, led by the quick little centre and the good defenceman, lined up to shake her hand. Reporters and photographers were milling onto the ice to get shots of her holding seven pucks.

  How nice, thought Travis. They’re no longer chasing me.

  He still felt foolish about the back pass, but then, if he hadn’t blown it, Sarah wouldn’t have had to score a sixth goal and would never have been on the ice with Lars, who gave her the seventh.

  Travis dressed quietly. Apart from one sharp look from Muck, who shook all the players’ hands, nothing more was said about the messed-up glory play. There was no need.

  When they left the rink, a light snow was beginning to fall. Nothing had been painted on the bus this time, Travis noted with some gratitude. Perhaps the whole thing was just going to fade away.

  “Travis!” someone called.

  He turned, nervous, instantly on guard–but this was no reporter. It was a young voice, though in the dark of the parking lot and the light snowfall, Travis couldn’t quite make out its source.

  “Travis!” called a couple of voices this time, and three figures came racing up, puffng and wiping melting snow from their eyes.

  They were kids, all younger than Travis.

  “S’il vous plaît!”

  They were holding out hockey cards. Travis Lindsay hockey cards. They wanted his autograph.

  Travis took the offered pen and the cards. He signed each one carefully, a big loop on the L, and the number 7 inside each loop.

  “Merci,” he said as he handed each one back. “Merci.”

  Travis’s world felt right again.

  The Owls had signed autographs after the big win against the Bears–Nish still the biggest draw–and then boarded the school bus. Instead of delivering them to the usual pick-up spot where they would meet their billets, Mr. Dillinger took them out on the main road towards the university, then turned down the Duponts’ street and parked opposite their driveway, where Nicole and J-P and several of their friends from the neighbourhood were waiting.

  “Now you skate for fun!” Mr. Dillinger announced as he turned off the engine and yanked on the emergency brake.

  It was a wonderful surprise, arranged almost entirely by Nicole and J-P. Monsieur Dupont was just putting away the snowblower. The ice glistened, the perfect result of a careful flood. There were patio lanterns strung on poles around the rink. Madame Dupont had hot chocolate for everyone, and homemade cookies and tarts and tiny chocolate bonbons that she had made herself.

  The Owls all had their skates. They put them on while sitting on benches in the tent garage, then stepped carefully along a path made by Monsieur Dupont’s snowblower, then onto the ice. J-P had set up the sound system so it would first play a song in English that everyone knew, then a French song, then an English song again. All the Quebec kids knew the French songs by heart, and the others, like Sarah and Travis, wondered why they had never heard them before, for the music was wonderful.

  They skated in circles to the music. They played “whip” until Nish was so exhausted he lay on his back like a beached whale on top of the far snowbank, tossing mittfuls of snow onto his own face, where it melted and cooled him. They drank hot chocolate and ate candies and regretted that soon Muck’s curfew would be in force and Mr. Dillinger would have to deliver them all back to their billets.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” Nicole said to Travis. “Sometimes from the end of the street you can see the northern lights.”

  They slipped away down the path, tiptoeing on their skates until they reached the tent garage, and then quickly changed into their boots.

  Travis’s feet always felt odd when he first put on his boots after skating, but particularly so after skating on an open-air rink. They felt slightly unsteady, like he had rubber bands connecting his joints instead of muscles.

  He pretended to stumble and reached out and took Nicole’s hand. She giggled softly. He could feel the colour rising in his face. He knew his move must have looked pretty dumb–faking a fall so he had to grab something to hold him up. But Nicole didn’t seem to mind. She tightened her grip on Travis’s hand. He felt his face turn even hotter.

  They were away from the lights now. The street was dark but for a few streetlights. Travis looked up; the stars were thick and plentiful. He recognized Orion by the belt, the Big Dipper by its handle. He wondered if he should point them out to Nicole. She might be impressed. But he knew only two constellations. If she asked about any others, he wouldn’t have a clue.

  “There,” she said. “You can see them rippling.”

  Travis knew Nicole was referring to the northern lights, but he wasn’t looking up any more.

  A dark shape was moving by the school bus!

  Something was there, but he didn’t know what. A big dog? A person? He had seen a shadow, and the shadow had jumped as if it was hiding.

  “Shhhhhhh,” he said.

  Nicole turned, surprised, and saw that Travis was pointing toward the bus. They ducked into the nearest driveway, using the high snowbanks as cover. They peeked out from behind, waiting.

  “What’s going on?” Nicole whispered.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is it one of your team?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  They watched for a moment. It was definitely a person. Whoever it was, he was wearing a bulky parka, with the hood drawn up. The hood had a thick fringe of fur, so his face was hidden.

  The figure rounded the side of the bus. A big glove came off, and a hand went into a side pocket and came out with a can of something.

  “Spray-paint,” whispered Nicole.

  “What’ll we do?”

  “I’d better get my father!” Nicole said.

  The two of them cut through the deep snow of a neighbour’s backyard. They scrambled over the Dupont’s back fence and ploughed through the heavy snow until, with difficulty, they climbed the snowbank at the far end of the rink, rising over it just as Nish, still lying on his back and eating snow, caught sight of them.

  “Ohhhhhhhh–where–have–you–two–been?” Nish sang in his most irritating voice.

  Nicole and Travis were bounding down the side of the snowbank.

  “Where’s Muck?” Travis called.

  Nish pointed towards the patio doors.

  Nicole was already at the back of the house. She yanked the patio doors open and ran in, her mother shouting at her–probably about getting snow all over the carpet, Travis figured.

  By the time Travis got inside, Nicole was calling to her father, who was already up and moving.

  “There’s someone painting the bus!” Travis shouted at Muck and Mr. Dillinger, who had been sitting over a cup of coffee with Monsieur Dupont. There was a cribbage board and cards on the table and a hockey game on TV. Montreal Canadiens versus the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Travis noted. Strange, he’d been so caught up in this tournament, he’d almost forgotten about the NHL. He tried never to miss “Hockey Night in Canada” when Paul Kariya was on.

  Muck was pulling on his big snow boots, reaching for his coat. Monsieur Dupont was already at the door. Mr. Dillinger was struggling to tuck in his shirt.

  “Vite!” Monsieur Dupont called to his wife. “La police!”

  Madame Dupont moved quickly towards the downstairs telephone.

  Muck and Monsieur Dupont were out the door, doing up buttons and zippers as they ran.

  Through the glass of the patio door, Travis could see the kids all standing on the ice, watching with puzzled faces. Everyone knew something was up.

  Travis and Nicole fell in behind the men. As the only two already out of their skates, they were the only ones who could follow.

  Travis had barely reached the end of the Duponts’ driveway when he saw Muck in full flight down the street tow
ard the bus.

  The spray-painter in the hooded parka saw him and bolted. Whoever it was, he was very fast.

  Muck turned and yelled at Monsieur Dupont, who had fallen in behind him.

  “La voiture!” Muck shouted.

  Monsieur Dupont spun on his heels and ran back to his car, started it up, and backed out with the heavy winter tires spinning a sudden spray of snow. He switched to a forward gear and sped away, the car fishtailing down the street as he joined in the chase.

  “C’mon!” shouted Nicole. “We can cut him off this way!”

  To Travis, they seemed to be running in the wrong direction. But Nicole knew how the streets ran. She and Travis dashed up one block, across another street, then turned right.

  Down the street Travis could see the hooded spray-painter, running straight towards them. Muck was still in pursuit, but had fallen behind.

  He was coming closer! Travis had no idea what to do.

  What if he had a gun?

  What if he had a knife?

  “We have to turn him!” Nicole shouted.

  There was just one side street between them and the hooded figure. She jumped in the air and shouted.

  “Yahhhhhhhh!”

  Travis didn’t know what to do. He jumped up and shouted, too.

  “Yaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”

  He hoped their winter clothes made them look bigger than they were. It didn’t matter, though, as Nicole was already racing towards the spray-painter. Travis joined her, praying that the dark figure would turn away from them into the side street.

  He did!

  His face still hidden deep inside his hood, he took one look up at Nicole and Travis, then one look back at Muck, who was grimly churning up the street towards him. Mr. Dillinger was now in view farther back, still trying to tuck in his shirt as he ran, jacketless, after the man who’d dared deface his bus.

  Just as the hooded figure turned, a pair of extremely bright headlights snapped on, catching him in their harsh light and bringing him to a stop as suddenly as if he’d just run into a wall.

  It was Monsieur Dupont. He had been lying in wait in his car, his headlights off.

  That moment’s hesitation was all Muck needed. He dropped his shoulder and charged straight at the spray-painter. The man’s knees buckled, spilling him onto the road with Muck hanging on tight.

  Monsieur Dupont shot the car forward, then jammed on the brakes, causing the car to slide halfway up a snowbank, where it hung helplessly, the snow frying in the heat of the exhaust system and steam rising from under the rear wheels.

  Mr. Dillinger, his shirt flapping loose, went down on one knee, spinning into Muck and the hooded figure as they lay on the icy road. He grabbed the man by both shoulders and slammed him hard down on the ice.

  A siren howled!

  Travis and Nicole turned quickly to see where the awful sound was coming from. Three police cruisers, their lights flashing, were turning towards them off the Duponts’ street, the cars swaying dangerously on the ice.

  Monsieur Dupont roughly grabbed the can of spray-paint and tossed it angrily into the nearest snowbank.

  Muck was up on his knees now. He seized the hood of the parka and yanked hard.

  Travis gasped. He couldn’t believe what he saw as the hood came down.

  Brown, curly hair.

  It was Bart Lundrigan–the reporter from the Montreal Inquirer.

  “He wasn’t content with just reporting the news–it seems he had to create it, too.”

  The man speaking was the editor of the Montreal Inquirer, a big man, with a face as round and red as a face-off circle. He had come up to Quebec City to meet with police and apologize to the people of Quebec City for all the trouble Bart Lundrigan had created.

  He met separately with the Owls and those parents who had come along on the trip, and he both apologized profusely to the team and handed over a cheque for one thousand dollars to Mr. Dillinger, who said that it would go towards cleaning up the old school bus and that the remainder would be put into the local minor-hockey program once the Owls got back home.

  The newspaper editor’s explanation for his reporter’s behaviour confirmed what everyone had guessed. Bart Lundrigan had simply been too ambitious. He dreamed of getting to the NHL as a reporter, and he must have figured that breaking a major story involving minor hockey would get him there faster.

  The editor said that his newspaper hadn’t changed a single word of Lundrigan’s original story, despite the reporter’s claim that this whole affair only got started when someone at the Inquirer meddled with his work.

  Lundrigan must have figured that all the interviews he would get because of his sensational story were going to get him closer to his dream of a bigger and better job. And after the article in Le Soleil had thrown his reputation into doubt, he had taken matters into his own hands to prove he really did have a story. It had been Lundrigan who had spray-painted all those hate-filled messages over the city–both the anti-French and anti-English. There never were two warring sides. One man with a single can of spray-paint had created something that the rest of the media was treating as a huge crisis.

  Lundrigan had been charged by the police with public mischief and with defacing public property. He had been fired by the Inquirer, and his career as a reporter was over, because he could no longer be trusted. He had made much more out of things than was really there, had taken something true and twisted it into a lie.

  Among the many victims of Bart Lundrigan’s lies were the people of Quebec City. They felt terrible about Travis Lindsay, the little peewee player who had borne the brunt of their anger.

  Travis, once again, became the focus of the media. But now the cameras seemed to be smiling at him. It was a strange experience, like landing on two different planets, and yet he had not changed. Just the way they saw him was different.

  Travis was asked to go on a French television program called “Le Point” with Muck and Monsieur Dupont, but said he couldn’t do it. The woman who had approached him with the idea put his refusal down to the nerves of a quiet-spoken, shy young boy. She hadn’t asked if he spoke any French. Perhaps they had been planning to translate whatever he said. But Travis couldn’t do it. He was ashamed that he hadn’t the nerve even to try speaking French.

  “You are coming with us,” Nicole Dupont said, as she took Travis by the arm and pulled him away from the rest of the Owls. Travis was surprised by the sneak attack, but delighted that it was his new friend, Nicole. Right behind Nicole, also smiling, was Sarah Cuthbertson.

  “Where are we going?” Travis giggled as Sarah took his other arm, marching him towards the door.

  “School,” she said. Nothing else.

  “Et le numero sept, number seven, le capitaine des Screech Owls, the Screech Owls’ captain, Traaaa-vis Liiiinnnnnndddddd-say!”

  A moment ago, Travis had been standing at the gate leading onto the Colisée ice. He had been surrounded by black, the lights down low in the packed arena. Now, as the Colisée announcer called his number, and his name rumbled and echoed about the building, spotlights and lasers exploded from the rafters.

  Travis skated out, but he had no sense of his skates ever touching the ice. He felt as if he were floating on air. His Screech Owls uniform shone brilliantly under the spotlights, and those lights and the roar of the crowd had tracked him all the way to the blueline, where his skates somehow managed on their own to bring him to a graceful stop. He stood, unsteadily, beside Nish and Data and Jenny and Jeremy, who had already been introduced and were standing there waiting, skittering back and forth on their skates.

  Nish turned and slammed his stick into Travis’s shinpads. He had a big, wide smile on his face. He knew what was going on.

  The rise continued to grow. It built and built from the moment Travis’s name was announced until it seemed it would go on forever, the Colisée filling with the roar of thousands upon thousands of voices. It was a noise so utterly different from the fierce roar of the crowd the last
time Travis and the Owls had played Beauport.

  Travis turned on his skates. He looked down modestly at his laces. But still the roar built. They wouldn’t quit. He looked toward the doorway. Sarah was standing there, waiting, a big smile on her face as she looked out at Travis, who was shifting more and more uncomfortably on the blueline, the roar holding fast, deafening.

  Nish’s stick slammed again into his shinpads. Travis could hear him shouting, only it was muffed, as if there were three walls between them, not three feet. He had to lean into Nish to make out what he was saying.

  “Acknowledge them!” Nish was screaming. “They’re waiting for you to do something!”

  Travis, in his shyness, hadn’t understood. Nish, of course, understood perfectly the rules and regulations of being the centre of attention.

  Travis skated out in a small loop. He raised his stick like a sword and saluted the crowd.

  The roar nearly split his eardrums! It built to an impossible pitch, then at last died suddenly away. The fans sat, as one, back into their seats, and the announcer began to introduce Sarah, which caused the roaring to begin all over again.

  Everyone knew about the girl who had tied Guy Lafleur’s record of seven goals. It seemed that even the souvenir hunters knew about Sarah’s great achievement, for as the team had dressed for the final game, Sarah was unable to find her Screech Owls sweater. Someone had taken her jersey with her lucky number. Mr. Dillinger had been forced to go to the equipment bag and find a replacement, and instead of wearing her usual number 9, Sarah now had to skate out with the number 28 on her back. She didn’t seem too pleased about it.

  Sarah saluted the crowd, and then, one by one, the rest of the Owls came out to loud applause and cheers: Dmitri, Simon, Jesse, Lars…

  The Owls assembled on the blueline until the coach, Muck Munro, was introduced and the roar exploded one more time. Muck gave an embarrassed little wave as he walked, unsteadily, around the boards towards the Owls’ bench.

  After the Owls had all been introduced, the announcer turned to the Beauport Nordiques, the other team to reach the championship game in the Quebec International Peewee Tournament. The Saskatoon Wheaties, despite the same overall record, had been eliminated from the final because they hadn’t scored as many goals as the other two teams. The significance of Sarah’s seven goals was now known to everyone and appreciated by all.