“He just went by again,” said Travis.
“Can you give us a ride home?” Nish asked, again to the point.
Mr. Dickens looked stricken. Was he afraid of Booker, too?…No, how could he be? He didn’t know who was chasing them.
“Can’t,” Mr. Dickens said, shaking his head vigorously. “No can do–car’s not running right.”
Travis couldn’t shake the feeling that Mr. Dickens was hoping they’d just go away. Did he not believe them?
“Who’s chasing you, anyway?” Mr. Dickens asked. He still hadn’t asked them in.
“Some guy who thought we were firing snowballs at him,” Nish invented.
Mr. Dickens turned and stared hard at Nish. “Were you?”
“No, sir. We didn’t throw anything at anybody.”
Mr. Dickens looked once more down the street. “Well,” he said. “Whoever he was, he’s gone now.”
It was clear to Travis that they weren’t going to get invited in, and he was almost glad. The warm air from inside the house smelled sickly sweet, and of smoke. Not clean and fresh like his own home, or Nish’s home. And there was something not right about Mr. Dickens. He seemed to have a bad cold. Maybe that was why he’d been so reluctant to help them out.
Mr. Dickens closed the door on them, shutting off the flow of warm air and unpleasant smells.
Nish turned, his face puzzled. “What got into him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe he’s sick,” said Nish.
“Maybe.”
They were still standing on Mr. Dickens’s porch. They scanned both directions.
“I don’t see the lights any more,” said Travis.
“It’s all clear,” said Nish. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We’ve got to go back for the bottle,” Travis said.
They hurried down the driveway and back up the street until they came to the spot where Travis had hidden the bottle. It took them a minute to find it in the powdered snow. Travis held the bottle up towards the streetlight, turning it carefully.
“What’s wrong?” asked Nish.
“This isn’t a whisky bottle,” said Travis, turning the label towards Nish. “It’s rum–Captain Morgan’s rum.”
They had the wrong bottle!
“Maybe Booker drinks rum, too,” suggested Nish.
“Maybe,” Travis said. But something didn’t feel right.
Booker could be someone who drank a bit of everything, of course. And besides, finding a Seagram’s bottle at Booker’s house wouldn’t really have proven anything anyway, apart from the fact that Booker and the hit-and-run driver bought the same drink. But at least it would have been a clue, one that was linked to the scene of the accident and their only other clue: the piece of metal from an unknown Chevrolet.
Nish took the bottle and twisted off the cap. He sniffed the opening quickly, and jerked his head back. “Yuck! Makes you want to throw up without even drinking!”
Nish pushed the opened bottle towards Travis, who instinctively turned away. But then Travis turned back, sniffing hard.
“Let me see that.”
Nish handed over the bottle with a puzzled look, and Travis took it, sniffed again, wrinkled his nose, sniffed yet again.
“You’re supposed to drink it,” Nish said, “not inhale it.”
“This isn’t anything like what I smelled when Data got hit,” Travis said.
“We know that. This is a rum bottle, not whisky, remember?”
“But it isn’t even close to what whisky smells like.”
“The accident was weeks ago–how can you even remember?”
“Because I just smelled it again a few minutes ago.”
Nish blinked, waiting.
“At Mr. Dickens’s.”
It took a moment for it all to register. The eerily familiar, sweet smell of whisky coming out the front door, the red face of Mr. Dickens, his strange, unwelcoming behaviour.
Of course, thought Travis, that’s what was wrong with him. He wasn’t sick. He didn’t have a cold. Mr. Dickens was drunk! And maybe that’s why he wouldn’t drive them home; he was afraid to drive after what had happened before…
“We have to go back,” Travis said.
“Not again!” said Nish. “He’ll be watching for us this time!”
“Not to Booker’s–to Mr. Dickens’s. I want to check his garbage.”
This time they crept up warily on Mr. Dickens’s house, crouching low. The lights were still on, but there was no movement. Travis crouched even lower and scooted across the driveway to where Mr. Dickens had put out the garbage. On the other side of the bags was the blue recycling box.
It was full of cans. Only cans. Bean cans, corn cans, chopped-fruit cans, tomato-sauce cans, spaghetti cans…No bottles at all!
Travis desperately searched for a telltale glint of glass. But there was nothing. It was hard to believe someone could get through so many cans in a week; they almost seemed to have been arranged there on purpose.
Too perfect, he thought. He dug deeper, removing one can after another.
Glass glinted below!
Travis reached down and pulled a bottle free. He spun the cap off and sniffed, once.
The same sickeningly sweet smell.
He spun the bottle towards the best light.
Seagram’s V.O. rye whisky.
Travis now had the clue he and Nish had been looking for–even if it had shown up in an unexpected place–but he also knew that it didn’t really prove anything.
Finding the right kind of whisky bottle was no better than finding the right make of car. It seemed half the people in town drove Chevrolets, and the whisky was probably the most popular brand on the market.
Mr. Dickens was also one of the best-liked people in town. He was well-known and well-respected. His garage had an excellent reputation for good work and honesty. But still, Travis couldn’t shake a gut feeling. Mr. Dickens had behaved so strangely when they’d come to his door seeking safety.
The garage! Of course, Travis thought. Mr. Dickens’s garage! Where no one would ever need to know what work had been done. Not if you owned the garage. Not if you did the work yourself!
Travis felt sick. Sick because suddenly he felt certain it had been Mr. Dickens that night. Sick because someone like Mr. Dickens had lied and then tried to hide what had happened. And sick because, while he had two real clues–the Chevrolet and the empty whisky bottle–everything else added up to pure speculation.
All Travis really had was a gut feeling. And gut feelings didn’t count for anything with the police.
Travis shook his head in despair, and when he thought of what Mr. Dickens had done to Data, he wanted to cry.
The next day, the Screech Owls practised after school. The big day of the charity game, and the Owls’ rematch against Orillia, was less than a week away, and Muck had a lot of “little things” he wanted them to work on.
Muck skated the Owls hard. Nish called these skates “no-brainers,” and it was as good a description as any, Travis thought. The last thing in the world you wanted to do out there was think about what you were doing: skating hard in both directions, stops and starts, turning backwards on one whistle, forward on two whistles. If you thought about it, it seemed to hurt more. If you thought about nothing–treated it as a no-brainer–it seemed to go faster and, somehow, hurt less.
But this day Travis couldn’t command a no-brainer. He tried to think about what it would be like to see all those wonderful heroes of hockey history: Henderson, Sittler, McDonald, Shack, Mahovlich…He tried to think about the comedy tricks the Flying Fathers would pull. Was it really true they had a horse that could play hockey?
But nothing worked: all he could think about was Data and what had happened since he had suggested they try “hitching.”
The whistle blew loud and long: Muck’s signal to pack it in and head for centre ice.
Travis and Sarah flew around the far net, sweaters rippling in the wind
. Sarah let out a whoop of appreciation. The no-brainer was over!
Nish had anticipated Muck’s whistle and broken away early. He’d ignored the last net they were supposed to circle and had cut fast to centre, stopping before Muck in a fine spray and immediately bowing down on his knees, breathing hard and deep, the sweat dripping from his face as if he’d just sprayed it with the Gatorade bottle.
Travis and Sarah skated up laughing. Nish hadn’t fooled anyone. Muck would have seen him skating around in the rear and then cutting out early, hoping to fool the coach into thinking he, not Sarah, had been leading the hard skate.
“Okay, you’ve earned it,” Muck said. “Black against white.”
Everyone whooped this time. Sarah and Travis and Lars slammed their sticks hard against the ice. Black against white. They were going to scrimmage.
Practice was never better than when they finished up with a good scrimmage. Scrimmage was the best kind of hockey, Travis thought. They could try out the plays they’d been daydreaming about. There weren’t even any parents in the stands to watch. That was one good effect of the no-brainer: the parents had all gone off in search of fresh coffee or newspapers. Anything to avoid watching.
“Black against white” meant dark sweaters against light–Sarah’s line against Andy’s, Lars’s defence against Nish’s, the other players all divided up evenly.
Muck tossed the puck to Ty, his assistant, and carefully pulled the whistle off over his head and placed it on the bench in the penalty box. He then adjusted the small shin pads he wore, punched his gloves tight and skated back to defence, where he tapped Nish on the pads.
Nish understood immediately. Even if it was only a scrimmage, he shouldn’t play with his broken wrist. Nish shook his head, pretending to be outraged, and skated off happily.
Ty reached out and let the puck fall, and Travis felt a chill run up his spine. Nothing to do with the cold. Nothing to do with how much he’d been sweating. Everything to do with seeing Muck there, his stick ready, back arched, just the way Data would wait.
Sarah plucked the puck out of the air and cuffed a quick backhand over to Travis, who circled back, lifting his head to see if he had a play. Sarah was pounding her stick as she jumped through centre, racing towards the other blueline.
Travis sent a saucer pass over Jesse’s stick that was perfectly timed. But for Muck, not Sarah! Laughing, Muck knocked the puck out of the air with the blade of his stick. He moved quickly, as fast as his bad leg would allow, up across centre, where Lars was racing back to check him.
Muck simply shifted his big body to block Lars from the puck. Then, still laughing, he came in along the far side of the boards. Jenny moved out from the net in anticipation–her catching glove snapping like a lobster claw, her pads wiggling as she moved forward.
Muck wound up for a slapshot. Jenny readied herself. Muck looked up, then ripped a hard pass across the ice to where Jesse Highboy, flying in from the blueline, merely had to tip the puck into an empty net.
Muck and the “whites” high-fived and screamed in the corner. Muck came skating out, slammed his stick on the ice and teased Travis.
“Thanks for the pass.”
Travis smiled sheepishly. He’d been so proud of his little saucer pass to Sarah. It had led to a perfect goal–but by Muck and the “whites,” not Travis’s “black” team.
They played for almost twenty minutes. Travis wondered why Muck was letting them play so long. But then, as time went on, he came to realize the scrimmage wasn’t just for them.
Muck was having as much fun as anyone.
“Travis, you’ve gotta come and see what we’re doing,” Fahd said the next day as school was getting out.
“I’m supposed to go over to my grandparents’,” Travis said. “My dad’s picking me up there.”
“It’ll just take a minute,” said Fahd.
“Okay, but make it fast.”
Fahd led Travis down to Mrs. Wheeler’s room, where they were deep in preparations for the mock disaster that would take place the week after Data’s big night.
The windows of Mrs. Wheeler’s room were covered up with paper to prevent the rest of the school from standing around gawking. Inside, they were preparing “bodies” for the practice disaster. They were making crash victims and burn victims and even what Fahd called “a bloody axe murder,” though to Travis it looked more like a store dummy that had been cut up by a chainsaw and coated with spaghetti sauce.
“Gruesome, eh?” said Fahd. “I love it.”
Some of it was gruesome, some of it was stupid, thought Travis. But when he saw some dummies being prepared to stage an automobile crash, he shuddered. These ones were spooky.
Fahd opened the door that led into the art room.
“This,” said Fahd, “is where we work on real bodies.”
Inside, there were student volunteers in white coats and other students lying on tables.
“We have to have ‘real’ victims, too,” said Fahd. “I’m being trained in disaster makeup. These are living survivors we’ll be taking to the emergency ward by ambulance. The doctors and nurses have to treat them like they are really hurt. The kids even have to answer questions about their injuries–except, of course, for those who’ll come in ‘unconscious.’”
Travis stared around the room, open-mouthed. He recognized some of the students on the tables, but now they looked exactly like crash victims and burn victims, bloodied and bandaged, some with their skulls shattered, eyes destroyed, arms and legs broken. Only instead of screaming in pain, they were talking–even laughing.
“Neat, eh?” said Fahd.
“Yeah,” said Travis, “neat. But I gotta get going.”
“Okay,” said Fahd. “Hope you don’t have trouble getting to sleep tonight.”
Travis didn’t need to wait until bedtime to have a nightmare. All the way to his grandparents’ place he thought of nothing but car accidents and broken bodies and what on earth he was going to do about finding the person who had hit Data.
But what could he do? He was going over the clues and what, if anything, he could tell the police. He needed proof–not guesswork. But by the time he reached his grandparents’ house, he was still only guessing.
Travis’s grandmother was a character. She had a great, huge laugh and was about as far removed from anyone’s idea of an old woman as Travis could imagine. She worked out almost every day. She wore a track suit more often than a dress. She listened to the “Golden Oldies” radio station, usually singing along. And she was never so happy as when she was at the cottage, curled up in her hammock beneath the pines, sipping a cold beer straight from the bottle while reading a mystery novel.
Of course, Travis thought, mystery novels. If anyone would know how to help him, his grandmother Lindsay would. The bookcases at their house were full of mysteries. And every week she watched British mysteries on Public Television. Her favourite character was Miss Marple, a crime solver who looked exactly the way Travis thought a grandmother was supposed to look. You’d never catch Miss Marple drinking beer straight from the bottle.
Travis’s grandmother put out some oatmeal cookies and made Travis some hot chocolate and, before he knew it, Travis was telling her everything he knew about what had happened since the night of the accident.
“So you know who did it,” she said when Travis was finished, “but there’s no proof.”
“We think we know,” said Travis. “But that’s not enough. The police would just laugh at us.”
“You should read more mystery novels,” Travis’s grandmother smiled. “The police are always the last to clue in.”
“But we’re just kids,” said Travis. “No one listens to us, anyway.”
“I’m listening, young man.”
His grandmother sat for a while, staring at Travis as he munched on his cookie.
“A guilty party,” she said finally, more to herself than to Travis, “but no clue strong enough to stand up.” She had one finger pressed tight to
her lips, thinking.
Suddenly she stood up, a look of determination on her face, and walked towards the doorway.
“Where are you going?” Travis asked.
“I’ll be right back,” she said over her shoulder.
Travis could hear her poking around in her bookcases.
“Aha!” he heard her exclaim.
She came back into the kitchen, thumping the book on her hand. “I knew Miss Marple would have been through that,” she said, setting the book down so Travis could read the cover. It was The Moving Finger, by Agatha Christie.
“This is about a drunk driver?” Travis asked.
“No,” his grandmother smiled. “But it is about catching a murderer when there is absolutely no evidence and the criminal is considered one of the most upstanding citizens in town.”
Travis grabbed at the book, turning the pages, fast. “How do they catch him?” he asked.
“Miss Marple,” said his grandmother, “sets a brilliant trap.”
Travis finished the book in three nights, reading until his mother called for him to turn out his lights. He was fascinated, and frightened.
Miss Marple had indeed encountered a similar situation. A body turns up, and no one–no one but Miss Marple–suspects foul play. There is no evidence. There is only her own suspicion that one of the village’s best-known and most-respected citizens is hiding something. She sets an ingenious trap, and it works perfectly.
There was a passage in the final chapter of The Moving Finger that Travis read twice. A man is criticizing Miss Marple for having put them all in danger:
“My dear young man,” Miss Marple had answered. “Something had to be done. There was no evidence against this very clever and unscrupulous man. I needed someone to help me, someone of high courage and good brains. I found the person I needed.”
“It was very dangerous for her.”
“Yes, it was dangerous, but we are not put into this world…to avoid danger when an innocent person’s life is at stake. You understand me?”
The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 2 Page 28