The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 3

by Roy MacGregor

  Nish began to whimper. He began to wish he hadn’t made fun of the Little Church. He might need divine help here, and what if there was a Big God and a Big Jesus standing up in the clouds somewhere, remembering that Nish had insulted their church and joked about them being little, and had decided that, as far as they were concerned, Nish was on his own.

  “H–help me!” he whined.

  Nish realized he had spoken out loud and instantly regretted it. What if someone had heard? What if the sound had come from one of the Owls, getting him back for the shaving cream. Maybe they’d heard him and were standing behind that closest hill, laughing at him right now.

  What if it was Kelly Block? What if he’d followed Nish out and now knew what a great big chicken Nish could be when it came down to the crunch?

  If someone was indeed watching, Nish couldn’t betray his own terror. He had to act brave. His reputation might depend on it. He told himself to remember what Mr. Imoo had taught him in Nagano: to be a Samurai Warrior, to fear nothing. He owed it to his old friend to at least try.

  He decided to walk towards the sound.

  It had come from behind him, down and to the left, probably from behind that twisted hoodoo that looked like a giant pink-and-brown toadstool.

  Nish turned his bike and straddled it, coasting down with his toes clicking the earth and the brakes on, ready to bolt at the slightest sign of a coyote.

  “W–who’s there?” he called, weakly.

  Again, a throaty roar! Louder this time.

  Nish had never heard such a sound. It sounded like it came from a sewer–or a crypt. Nish had never heard a sound from a crypt. He had never even seen a crypt! But he had seen enough horror movies to know that a sound from a crypt is bloodcurdling and filled with all kinds of horrors, from rotting skulls with squashed eyes to hideous snakes and bats and spiders and slugs and maggots and…

  Nish shook his head sharply. Idiot, he said to himself, you’re letting your imagination run away on you! Get a grip! It’s one of the team. Or it’s nothing. It’s probably nothing.

  Nish rolled farther down the hill, coming to a stop in front of the hoodoo. He waited, listening. Nothing. Dead quiet.

  A shadow moved!

  Nish felt his heart in his throat. He felt it choking him. He could hardly keep a grip on the handlebars his arms were shaking so badly.

  “W–who’s th–there?” he asked in a small, shaking voice.

  Nothing.

  The shadow moved again! Large. Huge. And right behind the hoodoo!

  Nish lifted his feet onto the pedals. He flicked the gears down to first, in case he had to jump fast. He pedalled ahead, silently, carefully, easing closer to the other side of the hoodoo.

  “T–Travis!” he called. But there was no answer. “M–Mr. B–Block?” He was near tears, biting his lip hard. THE GROWL ALMOST KNOCKED HIM OVER!

  Nish leaped high on his seat and hammered down hard on the pedal, his foot slipping off and the rear wheel digging in sharp and failing to catch on the loose gravel. He lost it, and the bike went down, Nish spilling off the seat, over the handlebars, rolling on the sharp stones.

  He lay on his back, wild with panic. He turned his head back towards the growl.

  The shadow moved again!

  And suddenly, from behind the hoodoo, a huge head emerged.

  A head as big as the body that followed!

  Huge teeth flashing, darting tongue!

  Massive scales, rising like little horns along the nose and around the eye!

  Green and brown and red and speckled!

  Small shrunken hands, with claws like knives!

  And a long tail, whipping slowly, menacingly!

  The head turned–a small, green, beady eye sizing up its victim!

  “I’M SO SORRY, GOD!” Nish screamed.

  “Help me!

  “Help me!

  “HELLLLLLLLPPPPPP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

  Nish sighed deeply and looked up at Travis and Lars.

  Travis couldn’t help himself. A smile quick as a blink flickered on his mouth–and Nish caught it.

  “I knew you wouldn’t believe me!” he wailed. “No one will believe me!”

  “We didn’t say we didn’t believe you,” argued Travis. “It’s just that…”

  Nish stared back hard, defiant. “Just what? Just that dinosaurs don’t exist anymore, is that it?”

  “Well…”

  “Maybe you just saw something like a dinosaur,” suggested Lars. “A big shadow, or something.”

  “I told you. I did see a shadow. But then I saw it, face to face.”

  “What kind?” Travis asked.

  “One of those things that looks like the Tyrannosaurus rex–the one from around here.”

  “Albertosaurus,” Lars said.

  It wasn’t possible. Travis racked his brains trying to think what Nish might have seen, might have thought he saw. There were all kinds of phony dinosaurs around Drumheller, on street corners and in parks. The realistic, life-size replicas–including one Albertosaurus in attack mode–outside the main building of the Royal Tyrrell Museum. But Nish was nowhere near there!

  “You’re sure you went right, not left towards town?”

  “I guess I know where I was,” Nish said defiantly.

  Travis and Lars looked at each other quickly. They had indeed seen him pedalling hard from the east, where the hoodoos were located.

  “Nish…,” Lars began.

  “What?” Nish almost shouted. He was angry, impatient. Perhaps he felt he should never have told them.

  “This isn’t another one of your famous tricks, is it?”

  Nish wrenched the bike away from them and threw it to the ground. “Oh, go to hell if you won’t believe me,” he shouted, his voice choking. “I’m telling you the truth.”

  Nish walked away, head down, then turned on them, face again swollen and red.

  “I SAW A DINOSAUR! A REAL, LIVE DINOSAUR!”

  And then he turned and bolted.

  I think it was the wind.”

  Travis couldn’t follow Lars’s argument. Lars was saying that maybe the chinook had somehow addled Nish’s brain. He said there was a similar wind in Europe, the föhn, and it was famous for the effect it had on people’s minds. Some people, he claimed, even killed themselves when the warm föhn began blowing north across the Mediterranean from North Africa in what should have been the dead of winter. Perhaps Nish had just been struck with a similar kind of sudden terror while out on the trail, Lars suggested, and had imagined an Albertosaurus because he’d seen the Royal Tyrrell model just the day before.

  “Maybe,” Travis said. But he wasn’t convinced.

  There seemed no rational answer. Nish could act the fool, but he wasn’t a fool. Nish loved tricks, but he wouldn’t trick about something like this. He knew Nish well enough to know that Nish had been terrified, frightened as badly here in Drumheller as he had been that time in James Bay when they’d been lost in the woods at night and Nish had dreamed he was being attacked by the Trickster and had wet his sleeping bag.

  Whatever had really happened, Lars and Travis decided to keep Nish’s story to themselves. Nish had been so frustrated he’d gone to his room after breakfast complaining of a headache so severe he couldn’t make the exercise class that was about to start. When Kelly Block heard the news, it seemed as if he was somehow satisfied. Maybe he thought Nish was reacting to hearing the sad truth about his personality.

  Nish had said nothing more. And neither Travis nor Lars would say anything until they had a better idea of what had happened to their friend on his dawn bicycle ride. Besides, even if they had told the rest of the Screech Owls that Nish had seen a living, breathing dinosaur, it would have paled against the topic that was currently holding the Owls spellbound.

  The new team roster.

  Kelly Block had posted it while Ty was leading the team through a light workout in the main yard of Camp Victory. It was Sarah who saw it first when they cam
e into the camp kitchen for a short break and some Gatorade.

  She wasted no words in her response: “Is this a joke?”

  But it was not a joke. Based on his “psychological profiles” and interviews with the players, Kelly Block had designed a roster that he claimed would result in “improved team chemistry.”

  Sarah Cuthbertson was now playing left defence.

  Wayne Nishikawa had become a centre.

  Travis Lindsay was on right wing, not left.

  Dmitri Yakushev, the quickest skater on the team, was now a penalty killer.

  Fahd Noorizadeh, who scored about once every twenty games, was on the power play.

  And so it went. Those who were defence were now mostly forwards. Scorers were now checkers. Checkers were now scorers. The only positions that hadn’t changed were Jeremy and Jenny in goal, but the way Kelly Block was going about redesigning the Screech Owls, maybe Mr. Dillinger would be in net for the next game.

  Travis felt as if his world was spinning out of control. The other players were turning to him, as their captain, in the hope that he might have some answers.

  He felt he needed to talk to Muck–but Muck wasn’t here. He couldn’t even talk to his parents. They weren’t here, either. The only Screech Owls parent, apart from Mr. Dillinger, who’d made the trip to Alberta was Mr. Higgins–and Kelly Block was his idea! As for Ty and Mr. Dillinger, both of them seemed overwhelmed by Block’s bully tactics and his energetic way of taking charge of everything that happened at Camp Victory.

  “I don’t mind,” said Fahd.

  “You’re on the power play,” said Derek. “Why should you?”

  “I’m going to refuse to dress,” said Lars, who was now a forward.

  “We have to,” said Travis. “We’re guests here. We can’t ruin the tournament just because of Mental Block.”

  “No way! Absolutely no way! I won’t. I won’t.”

  “You have to.”

  Travis was alone with his friend, but getting nowhere. Nish was still in his bed, his pillow pulled down over his face, the covers up to his neck, as if he was expecting snakes to come pouring in under the door. Travis wondered how Nish could stand it. It was boiling hot in the cabin, the chinook still burning down from the hills.

  “Look,” Travis finally said, “you’ve got to think about the team, not Mental Block. We’re the Screech Owls and we have to show up. We always show up.”

  “We’re not the Screech Owls. He’s turned us into a bunch of turkeys.”

  “It won’t work. He’ll start out with his new line-up and it won’t work, and before you know it you’ll be back on defence and Sarah will be back on forward and we’ll be the Owls again. You just wait and see.”

  “You’re wrong,” Nish said, lowering the pillow just enough to look out with one eye. “You’re wrong and I’ll prove you’re wrong.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll go, okay? And I’ll play. And you watch. He’s too stubborn to change his mind.”

  Game two was against the Winnipeg Werewolves, a good-but-not-great peewee team from Manitoba that would normally have been hard pressed to stay within three goals of the Screech Owls, let alone beat them.

  But this was no longer the Screech Owls. This was confusion.

  Kelly Block was now firmly in place as the lead coach of the Owls. Ty was plainly very upset, but, really, Ty was still just a kid himself. He was only a few years older than most of the Owls, and they looked up to him as a fine hockey player and an even better person, but he had no hope of standing up to the force of Kelly Block’s personality. Neither did Mr. Dillinger, who was keeping very much to the background, sharpening skates and taping sticks and, for once, not smiling as he went about his job.

  Mr. Higgins was no help, either. Poor Andy felt like he had to apologize for his father. “I’m sorry,” he said to Travis at one point. “But my dad thinks Kelly Block walks on water.”

  “I know,” said Travis. “Don’t worry. We’ll soon be back home and all this will have gone away.”

  But when he thought of Nish, Travis wasn’t so sure. Some of the damage done there was going to take more than a flight back to Tamarack to cure. But he couldn’t explain that to Andy. No one but Lars and Travis knew about Nish’s strange mental state, which Travis thought was probably all due to Kelly Block. And no one but Lars and Travis would be able to help Nish get over it.

  The Owls dressed for the game in disturbing silence. It seemed as if they weren’t even breathing. Mr. Dillinger was keeping to himself, and Ty was nowhere to be seen.

  Kelly Block looked as if he’d been waiting for this moment. He had on a suit, just like a coach in the big leagues, and a tie with so many cartoon characters on it, it looked more like a bad comic book than something anyone would ever wear. He had even been to town to get his hair cut.

  “All right, now!” Block had shouted as he stood in the centre of the room. “This is a brand-new start for a brand-new team. We begin today to become the team we were always meant to be.”

  Travis heard Nish’s sigh from the far corner. But no one raised a head.

  “We’re going to ‘envision’ this game right now,” said Block. “When I stop speaking I want each and every one of you to see the game that’s coming up. I want you to breathe the Werewolves. I want victory to be rushing through your blood. I want the Screech Owls to be the only thought that’s in your head–the Screech Owls, victorious. Understand?”

  He stopped speaking. In the sudden silence Travis was aware of his own breathing. The silence descended in layers, building on them until he wanted to scream.

  He wondered if anyone was actually “envisioning” the upcoming game against the Werewolves. He couldn’t. He didn’t think Nish could. He figured his brain and Nish’s brain were locked onto the same image–and it had nothing to do with any hockey game.

  It was of a monstrous creature that hadn’t been seen for a hundred million years.

  The game against Winnipeg could not have gone worse. Nish lost every faceoff he took. Sarah got caught out of position on two goals. Fahd had a breakaway on the power play and missed the net. Lars had trouble reading the play. Travis, forgetting that he was now a right-winger, kept criss-crossing at centre ice and bumping into the left-winger, leaving the right side open for every rush the Werewolves cared to start.

  If it hadn’t been for Jenny and Jeremy, who split the game in net, the score would have been even worse than it was. But in the end the Winnipeg Werewolves had five goals, the Screech Owls only three.

  It was the worst team they had ever lost to.

  The one-on-one sessions with Kelly Block were over. A few of the Owls, like Fahd, had actually enjoyed them. Fahd said Block had made him feel better about himself and his role on the Screech Owls. Others had hated their time with the sports psychologist–but no one as much as Nish.

  Kelly Block was trying to work on the team’s “chemistry,” Travis reminded himself. Well, he supposed there was good chemistry and bad chemistry. He remembered Mr. Hepburn, the science teacher back home, demonstrating how some things mix and others do not. Mr. Hepburn had sprinkled salt into a beaker of water, and the class had watched as the granules dissolved and were soon, with some stirring, gone altogether–the salty taste the only evidence that anything had been added. Then Mr. Hepburn had taken a small, seemingly harmless piece of material called magnesium and, using forceps to carry it and wearing protective glasses over his eyes, had dropped the tiniest piece into the water–and the explosion had shattered the beaker!

  Kelly Block and Nish, Travis supposed, were a bit like water and magnesium.

  The morning after the disastrous game against the Werewolves, Kelly Block had summoned six players to his office: Travis, Sarah, Lars, Jesse, Andy, and Jenny. A goaltender and five players–a full unit.

  He brought them into a room off his office, a room with bean-bag chairs and soft couches and thick rugs. He suggested they stretch out and relax.

  Travis lay on on
e of the rugs, looking up at the slowly turning ceiling fan and trying to see into the main office. Kelly Block certainly had all the best equipment for running Camp Victory. There were computers and video monitors and bookcases stretching around most of the room. There were model airplanes and model birds hanging from the ceiling, and a miniature basketball net against the door and two small basketballs carefully set on Kelly Block’s big black desk. Everything–paper, books, tapes–was in perfect order.

  “You may wonder why you six are here,” Block began.

  No one said a word.

  “That’s why we do our psychological testing,” he continued. “The questions may not make any sense to you–I know, I giggled too, the first time I saw some of them–but in the end you cannot fool the system. If you answer the way you think I want you to, you end up tricking yourself on the next question, and so on…”

  Travis’s mind had already begun to wander. He wondered if the others were listening. But he could see nothing but the big fan above his head slowly turning.

  “I ran your sheets through the computer, did some number crunching, talked to each member of the team, and identified the six of you as team ‘generators.’ That’s not quite the same thing as team ‘leaders,’ so don’t get the wrong idea. You are all leaders, too, but more important, you generate the energy this team draws from. You inspire with your play. You motivate with your emotion. You command respect with your personality…”

  Travis smiled smugly to himself. This wasn’t so bad. He liked being a “generator.”

  “We have, gathered here, a goaltender, two defence and three forwards. The Russians, as you know, play the game in five-man–sorry, five-person–units, not defence pairings and forward lines. Better chemistry. I’ve identified Jenny as our goaltender of choice and you five as our premier unit.”

  “Our?” Travis wondered. Since when did Kelly Block belong to the Screech Owls hockey team? And did he talk this way to all teams? What if Muck were here? What would he think? And where was Dmitri? How could Kelly Block dare call something a “Russian unit” and not include the only Russian on the team? And what of Jeremy? If Jenny was the “goaltender of choice,” what was Jeremy? The goaltender of second choice?