The Ice Chips and the Stolen Cup

by Roy MacGregor

  “Yeah, we know—no PK,” said Shayna with a friendly smile. “But we kind of killed it on that open net anyway, don’t you think?”

  Lucas tapped Swift on the pads before lining up for the next faceoff. He could tell she was blaming herself—which was silly, because Shayna’s little move would have fooled anyone.

  He circled by Slapper before moving into the centre area for the puck drop.

  “Slap, you set me up, okay?” Lucas said, grinning like the Face. “And I’ll get it in the net.”

  Lucas didn’t want to admit it, but what he disliked about half ice was that it gave the other players on his team more chances to shoot. Edge was already a far better scorer than he was, but Lucas was still a good skater. If his teammates improved their stickhandling and plays, who knew where he’d rank?!

  Slapper nodded, saying he was ready to assist. He had a great shot—by far the best slapshot on the team—but he rarely tried to score in a game. He left the glory to the Chips’ forwards.

  Just before the puck dropped, Lucas looked over at Slapper and nodded meaningfully. Slapper quickly nodded back.

  Lucas won the faceoff and got the puck back to Bond, who spun behind Swift’s net. The ice surface was so much smaller that Beatrice Blitz was on her quickly, trying to check her, but Bond was able to clip the puck off the boards so that Edge now had it. He quickly flipped a backhand pass to Lucas.

  Lucas came into the Stars’ zone and curled back just as Jared Blitz was about to check him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Slapper on the far side of the half ice, his stick already raised to take the shot on net. Both Lucas and Slapper knew this was the Chips’ best chance.

  Jared had turned and was skating hard straight at Lucas, an angry scowl on his face. All Lucas had to do was get the puck where Slapper needed it.

  Lucas could have passed the puck between Jared’s skates and placed it perfectly for Slapper—so the defenceman could bring his stick down as hard as he could swing it, the puck taking off like a rocket into the top shelf of the net behind the Face.

  But he didn’t.

  He could see Slapper’s dad’s eyes—ready, waiting. But he could also see that open top-shelf hole . . .

  There was a shot, and Lucas wanted to be the one to take it. He could feel the tag on his underwear tickling his belly button, and he could already hear the shouts erupting in the stands: “MAAAAAAHRIAA SHOT!”

  Feeling selfish but determined, Lucas lifted his stick—but Jared Blitz hadn’t stopped coming! He hit Lucas with his shoulder, driving him back hard against the boards. Lucas’s helmet hit the Plexiglas.

  Craaaack!

  The crowd went silent as he struggled to shake it off. This was novice; the games were no-contact. A few of the Chips’ parents booed, and then they were booed by some of the Stars’ parents. No one was happy.

  Swift and Edge stared nervously at Coach Blitz to see if he’d actually make the call. Coach Small was watching, too. He raised his eyebrows, nodded, and then waited. Coach Blitz’s face grew redder and redder, until finally, reluctantly, he placed his whistle back between his lips and blew.

  A penalty for Jared Blitz!

  * * *

  The Chips were up 2–1, thanks to Edge, when Slapper finally circled back around Lucas on the ice.

  “I could have taken that shot,” said Slapper, whose eyes looked puffy.

  “I know,” said Lucas guiltily. He’d stopped looking up at Slapper’s dad—he didn’t want to see the disappointment he’d caused. Instead, he had his eyes on Jared, who’d been acting funny ever since he got out of the penalty box.

  “You don’t let me do anything,” Slapper continued, tapping his stick on the ice as he got into position behind Lucas. The space was so small that they could still talk easily. “I can’t shoot on net. I can’t join your stupid secret club. You probably wouldn’t even let me wear my underwear inside out!”

  “You can do whatever you want with your underwear,” Lucas said with an awkward laugh, trying to sound relaxed. In reality, he was panicked. The worst person in the world had been sent to the penalty box—their hiding spot!

  From the bench the Chips were sharing with the Stars for their half-ice game, Mouth Guard had heard the word “underwear” and was laughing so hard he snorted.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Lucas could see that Jared was whispering something to Beatrice with a mischievous look on his face—Nolan saw it, too. Can he read their lips? Lucas wondered. Nolan made a sign in Lucas’s direction, but Lucas didn’t know what it meant.

  Now it was Coach Small’s turn to whistle. “Our time’s up!” he suddenly called over to Coach Blitz, who was ready with the puck to start play again. “Dave wants to clean the ice!”

  Coach Blitz nodded toward the arena’s regular ice-surfacing machine, which was already coming out onto the practice side of the rink, and then skated away with the puck. He didn’t look happy about the score. A Blitz—Coach Blitz, Jared Blitz, Beatrice Blitz, any Blitz—hated to lose.

  “Everyone shake hands!” Coach Small called to the players as he exited the Chips’ side of the shared bench with his bucket of practice pucks and his clipboard with the drills so carefully laid out. Coach Blitz had no clipboard with drills. He didn’t like practices—just games.

  Lucas wondered if Jared was going to chirp him again when they met in the handshake line, but when the Blitz twins got to him, they seemed almost joyful, delighted about something.

  “Good game!” Jared said, with only a hint of sarcasm. He took Lucas’s hand and shook it strongly.

  “Good game, Lucas!” Beatrice said, smiling as if they were best friends.

  Swift was pulling off her mask and heading toward the door in the boards when the Face started copying Edge’s grandma’s cheer again. There was a bit of a mean cut to his tone this time—but maybe he was just angry because he was on the team that lost? Bond glared at him and Edge just tried to ignore him. Hockey was how the Singh family had first connected to life in Canada; Edge was proud of Dadi, and no one could change that.

  Lucas hadn’t even noticed the Face because he was busy squinting toward Nolan, who was leaving through the Stars’ gate. Nolan had given him a little wave, with his hand slightly behind his ear, but Lucas couldn’t figure out what he was trying to tell him in sign language.

  “So what’s your secret club about? Just tell me,” Slapper demanded, stopping hard in front of Lucas. “Does it have to do with the rink? With that model Crunch keeps carrying around?”

  Lucas’s cheeks flushed pink and his mouth dropped open. Has Slapper actually figured it out? What will happen if the whole team knows about our time travel?

  “No, we . . . we are . . .” Lucas sputtered as he started skating backwards, pushing past Crunch and Mouth Guard, trying to get away.

  None of the Ice Chips were watching as Jared turned away from the boards and skated back toward the penalty box.

  * * *

  Swift and Lucas were out of the dressing room before anyone else. They hurried back into the rink just as Quiet Dave and the ice-surfacing machine were making their final loop.

  They ran along the walkway to the back of the penalty box, and Lucas leapt over the boards as fast as he could. He dropped down onto the bench, then onto the floor, and reached under the bench for the straps of Swift’s purple bag.

  “It’s gone!” Lucas whispered to Swift, panicked.

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Swift hissed loudly, her eyes wide.

  “Gone gone!” Lucas said, his voice shrill and anxious.

  “Look again! It’s dark!” Swift was freaking out.

  Lucas looked again, but there was nothing there.

  He scrambled back up over the bench and the backboards and onto the walkway, where Swift was breathing hard, as if she’d just completed a dozen sprints of the ice in full goalie equipment.

  “You kids lose something?” Dave asked, calling from the Zamboni chute.

  With tears in their eye
s, Lucas and Swift just shook their heads.

  Chapter 7

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” Edge cried as he and Swift rounded the side of the Riverton Community Arena the next evening, running full out. They were coming from the Zamboni entrance, where Crunch had been busy at work on Scratch.

  “We’re all set up! What are you doing? Get in there!” Swift said, huffing.

  Edge had grabbed Lucas’s bike and was rolling it into the bushes to hide it. “Crunch didn’t want to tell you,” he said, “but he went to your dad for help. With one part—an engine part. He told him it was for the Fix-it Club. That’s what your dad was working on last night.”

  “And?” Lucas asked slowly. He was trying to look enthusiastic, but there was something weighing on his mind—the reason he was late.

  “And your dad fixed it!” said Edge. “At least we know one part works fine.”

  Lucas shrugged and tried to smile. They were going to leap. That was the plan. The only problem was that they no longer had anything to leap with. The silver bowl was still in the hands of the Blitz twins.

  Jared hadn’t been at school today, and that was Lucas’s first problem. So Lucas had had to talk to Jared’s sister—horrible Beatrice. He’d begged her for the track-and-field bag, but she’d refused to tell him where to find it. She’d laughed in his face and called him a loser.

  After school, Lucas had ridden his bike over to the Blitz Complex, thinking that Jared might be at the rink with his dad, even if he was sick. Many of the Stars had come out to help with the laser thing, and there were adults everywhere—Mayor Ward and a bunch of parents were helping with the more difficult parts of the set-up.

  What if Jared shows them the bag? Or the bowl? Lucas had wondered as he checked the Stars’ change room and poked his head in the door of Coach Blitz’s office. If the parents see it, Quiet Dave will know we’ve been leaping.

  Dave would probably take Scratch away. And then their leaping would be over for good.

  Lucas decided he couldn’t draw attention to the bag by demanding it—he couldn’t chance it. He’d glared at Jared from afar and Jared had glared back, but that was it.

  Unsure of how to tell his friends what a wimp he’d been, Lucas was already mounting his bike outside when he saw Nolan standing near the Zamboni entrance, behind Mayor Ward. He was giving Lucas that same odd wave he had at the end of their shared practice last night—his hand flat but his thumb tucked in front, waved slightly behind his ear.

  “See you at the final,” Lucas had mouthed back to him with a smile, not knowing what else to do. Nolan had shaken his head and done the wave again, but Lucas was already pedalling.

  * * *

  “Where were you after school?” Edge asked his best friend as the three Chips changed into their equipment in the dressing room.

  “I . . . uh, okay! I didn’t get it! I didn’t get the bowl!” said Lucas, surprising himself with the truth. “I was afraid that Jared would try to show it off. A lot of the jerky Stars were there—but Shayna and Nolan, too. Nolan gave me that odd wave again, and I didn’t see Swift’s track bag anywhere.”

  “What’s odd about the wave?” Swift asked as she strapped a goalie pad onto her left leg—the one with the prosthetic attached just below the knee.

  “It’s not really that it’s odd—I just don’t know what it means,” said Lucas truthfully.

  “Well, I DO!”

  Bond had just burst into the dressing room with her equipment bag over her shoulder . . . and Swift’s track bag in her hands.

  “This”—she made the same waving motion as Nolan—“is my name. B for Bond. And the movement behind the ear is for my braids. Nolan was saying my name.”

  “But . . . why?” Lucas asked, confused.

  “Shayna and Nolan live on my street. I found this on my doorstep when I was leaving for my singing lesson just now. Nolan was telling you he had a plan.”

  Lucas and Edge couldn’t believe it! Shayna and Nolan had taken the bag back from Jared, probably not long after he’d stolen it.

  Was Jared too embarrassed to come to school? And was he glaring because he knew he’d lost his game?

  “Do you think he looked in the bag?” asked Edge, worried what that could mean.

  “Would you look in a bag you stole?” asked Swift.

  He must have. Lucas was sure of it.

  “Well, I’m missing my singing lesson now,” said Bond. “So stop blabbing and let’s do this.”

  * * *

  “Okay, all aboard!” Crunch said with a nerdy little chuckle. He replaced the lid on Scratch’s engine and stepped back with his tablet. The Chips’ math nut pushed a few buttons on the screen, and soon Scratch was rolling onto the ice and drawing wet, glossy half circles on the white surface in front of him.

  “He looks okay, don’t you think?” asked Lucas, sounding like a pet owner talking to a veterinarian.

  “Just a few last-minute checks . . .” said Crunch, as though he’d known what he was doing all along. “It all looks fine from over here.”

  “Can we go for it?” asked Bond. Crunch nodded proudly, so she, Swift, Lucas, and Edge stepped onto the ice one by one.

  What an amazing secret we have here, thought Edge. His blades cut into the hard surface as he followed the curve of the boards. He turned sharply and shot a spray of ice chips out in front of him. He felt guilty that they hadn’t told the rest of the team about Scratch, and that Slapper felt so left out. But he also knew that this was a secret they had to keep.

  The more people who knew about Scratch’s abilities, the more dangerous this would become.

  We can’t ever let this wormhole fall into the wrong hands, he thought, watching the reflection of the lights dance on Scratch’s flood.

  “Are we ready?” asked Swift as she grabbed Edge’s and Bond’s hands. Lucas drifted over to the end of the line, holding on to Swift’s track bag.

  “Don’t fiddle with anything while we’re gone, okay?” Bond warned Crunch, sounding worried for the first time.

  “I will if I have to!” Crunch shouted back with a defiant smile, taking his glasses off his head and sliding them onto his nose.

  The four other Ice Chips took off skating. Edge, who was the fastest, pushed hard with his right leg, then his left, and pulled the others along toward the centre line.

  “Close your eyes!” Lucas yelled, and the lights began to grow brighter ahead of them.

  There was a flash . . .

  And then they were gone.

  * * *

  “Don’t let go of my baaaaaag!” Swift yelled in Lucas’s direction. There was another flash, then another. A glitch?

  The Ice Chips were turning, spinning.

  They were being pulled away from the earth like kids on a Ferris wheel.

  And then they were sinking down, down, down, as though the imaginary Ferris wheel had suddenly broken and come loose.

  They were falling into the unknown!

  Chapter 8

  Unknown location

  Lucas, Edge, Swift, and Bond landed with a thud in a pile of snow and were immediately surrounded by the sound of pounding hooves.

  “WHOA! WHOA!” a man yelled, panicking. A woman with a large flowered hat screamed. They were sitting high up on a wooden bench, and the man was pulling back on two long leather cords. He yanked on them sharply, causing his horses—which were about to run the Ice Chips over—to swerve.

  “That man’s driving a sleigh! Like Santa!” Lucas yelled cheerfully after he and his teammates, who were covered in snow, had successfully rolled out of the way.

  “That’s what you were thinking?” asked Bond incredulously. She was still breathing deeply from their close call.

  The Chips had rolled away from the road and onto a flat strip of snowy land—where, to their surprise, they now saw two dozen wooden tennis racquets thumping their way toward them! The people watching the snowshoe race were yelling, and soon the athletes were, too.

  “Look out! Loo
k out! LOOK OUT!!” a man in what appeared to be striped pyjamas called out. He was at the front of the pack of snowshoers, bounding with his right foot, then his left, as he leaped over the snowdrifts.

  “Children, get away! Move!” the man behind him yelled as he elbowed his way into the lead.

  “We’re not safe here, either!” Edge called to Lucas, grabbing his friend by his jersey. “There are horses everywhere—and now we’re going to be trampled by a snowshoe race!”

  Part of what made Edge such a good hockey player was his ability to see what was going on around him. Even when he was skating with the puck, he was always aware of what the other players on the ice were doing. He knew if they were shifting position; he knew when they were coming after him.

  “What is this—a fair?!” Bond asked excitedly as they squeezed their way onto the sidelines. “Oh, wow! There’s a sled being pulled by dogs over there! And those clowns are throwing snowballs—I mean actual clowns!”

  “Did you see the gigantic toboggan run?” asked Swift, who was pulling her boots from her backpack to change out of her skates. “And the candied apples and the hot chocolates?! Everyone here is having fun!”

  “Yeah, you’re right. But wow! This is the most spectac-errific thing of all, don’t you think?” asked Edge. His eyebrows were raised so high that they’d almost disappeared inside his helmet.

  In the distance stood the biggest, most elaborate castle the Chips had ever seen. It had turrets and rounded glass-like towers with flags sticking out the top . . . and it was made entirely of blocks of ice! Men in dark overcoats and women in skirts puffed out like upside-down tulips were moving in and out of the frozen palace, obviously impressed.

  “It’s almost glowing,” said Swift as she watched the sunlight reflect through the bluish green masterpiece in Montreal’s Dominion Square. “They must have used thousands of ice blocks to make that.”

  “A Frosty Frolic,” Bond said with a giggle. She was reading a trampled-on pamphlet she’d picked out of the snow. “This, my friends, is Montreal’s fifth annual Winter Carnival.”