The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 5

by Roy MacGregor

  “Where to now?” asked the kindly young priest after he had shown them all there was to see.

  “The Tower of London,” said Muck. “I now have two players I need to lock up for a while.”

  7

  They caught the green line, and in a few short minutes were at the Tower Hill stop and coming onto a perfect view of famous Tower Bridge, where Data and Fahd insisted on lining everyone up for a team photograph.

  Travis had never imagined a place at once so lovely and so terrifying. The Tower of London took your breath away with its beauty, and took it away again with its history.

  It was a kaleidoscope of colour. Exquisite gardens, perfect lawns, different-coloured towers, and wardens dressed exactly like the picture on the front of the gin bottle Travis’s grandmother liked to get out when she was settling down with a good mystery novel. They even had the same name: beefeater.

  Travis thought the beefeaters’ strange costumes fit perfectly with the stories the guides told them as they moved about. Bright red uniforms, bright red history – red with blood.

  Everywhere they looked, every word they heard, seemed to have blood in it somewhere. Even the birds.

  Travis had noticed the ravens at the Tower as soon as the Screech Owls arrived at the front gates, and he had recognized them immediately, thanks to his grandfather’s obsession with birdwatching. He had told Travis astonishing stories about the large black birds.

  According to Travis’s grandfather, ravens lived almost as long as people. They could “talk” and could imitate dozens of animals. Inuit hunters said they guided them to caribou and seal, showing the hunters where the game might be hiding in the hope that, in return, they would get small portions of the kill.

  But none of old Mr. Lindsay’s chatter about his favourite birds compared to what the beefeater wardens told the Owls.

  The ravens at the Tower of London were famous. “In certain parts of the world,” the guide told them, “ravens are held to be bad luck, foretellers of death. Ravens were well known for following troops into battle, where they would then pick the dead down to their bones. There are parts of England still where a man will tip his hat to a raven if one flies by, just as he would if it were a hearse passing on the road. But here they are said to be the greatest of luck.”

  “Luck?” asked Fahd. “How’s that?”

  “They’re our lucky charm,” the guide said, smiling. “We take the greatest care of them. Every single day, for example, I will feed them exactly six ounces of raw bloody meat – as the king once decreed. We also give them special biscuits that have been soaked in blood for treats.”

  “Why?” asked Liz.

  “We want to keep them here and keep them content,” the guide said, then winked. “Mind you, we clip their wings, too, so it’s not as if they’re going to fly far away. But they have left in the past. We had one who didn’t like it here and took up at a local pub for a few years. His name was Grog. I suspect he had a drinking problem.”

  “Are you serious?” asked Fahd.

  “No. Are you?”

  “Always!” sighed Sam.

  “Well, young man, I’m being serious, too. We have seven ravens here at the moment. They all have names. That’s Hardey hopping across the lawn over there.” He pointed to a bird jumping toward a group of tourists. “He’s easily the most famous of our Tower ravens – and an ill-tempered lot he is, too. Don’t point a finger at him or he’ll snap it off.

  “There’s Gomer and Thor and Cedric over there. And Hugine, that’s a female. The others are about. Just keep your eyes out and your fingers in.”

  “Why do you keep them?” Jeremy asked.

  “It was always said that if the ravens ever left the Tower, the Crown would fall. That’s why Charles II decreed more than three hundred years ago that there must always be at least six ravens here. And that’s why we always make sure there is an extra, usually two, just in case.

  “If the ravens ever leave the Tower, I’m right behind them – let me tell you that.”

  The beefeater spoke with a bit of a chuckle and a wink, but Travis could not help but get the feeling that the man truly believed the legend.

  Still, it seemed ludicrous. How could there possibly be any connection between the ravens of the Tower of London and the survival of the British Crown.

  Mr. Dillinger had told them that the Crown Jewels were held at the Tower of London, and this, Travis had presumed, would be the main attraction for tourists. The Owls had apparently come at a lucky time, for there would be a royal procession later in the week, with various members of the royal family – “Prince William!” Sarah had shrieked, “Prince Harry!” Sam had squealed – parading to the Tower of London to celebrate the seven hundredth anniversary of the Crown Jewels being held at the Tower.

  The jewels were spectacular, but they paled considerably when held up against the history. On Tower Hill, just outside the window, the beefeater told them, more than three hundred people, many of them famous historical figures, were executed. Inside the tower, they were imprisoned and tortured, often with the hideous thumbscrew, which tightened down on a prisoner’s thumbnail until he was willing to confess to any crime at all if only the torturers would stop.

  There was even a ancient axe with a huge blade, which, the guide said, had been used to behead Anne Boleyn, the first of Henry VIII’s two wives to be executed at the Tower. Here, too, was where Sir Walter Raleigh, once the greatest hero in all of England, was imprisoned for thirteen years for supposedly plotting against the King. Raleigh was later beheaded at Westminster Abbey, but, the guide said, “Sir Walter’s ghost is said still to walk at night in what they once called the Garden Tower but has long been known as the Bloody Tower.”

  The most moving story of all concerned the Princes in the Tower. Edward v was to be the young king of the country, but his evil uncle, Richard III, took Edward and his younger brother, locked them up in the Bloody Tower, and took the crown for himself.

  The princes were never seen again.

  “Edward V was twelve years old,” the beefeater told the Owls, “his brother only ten.”

  Travis heard a sharp intake of breath behind him. It was Sam.

  Edward would have been exactly the same age as the Owls.

  “As legend has it,” the beefeater continued, his smooth voice dropping low, “the older boy was stabbed with a dagger and the younger suffocated with a pillow. Their bodies were not found until nearly two hundred years later, when a priest was searching beneath the stairs you see over there and uncovered an old chest that had been buried beneath stones. He pulled it out and opened it up and found two small skeletons inside, still in their sleeping clothes.”

  Travis heard a quick sob from behind. Sam again. Then a choke.

  Sarah.

  “What did they look like?” Fahd asked.

  Travis winced. Fahd always asked the most ridiculous questions.

  “Just bones,” said the beefeater. “Bones and a bit of cloth.”

  “No,” Fahd said. “The princes – what did they look like when they were alive?”

  “Ahhhhhh,” the guide said, nodding. “Well, we don’t really know all that much about them, young man. They were murdered in 1483, after all, which is several years before Christopher Columbus even discovered your part of the world –”

  “We didn’t need discovering!” Jesse shouted from the back. “We already knew where we were!”

  The beefeater, fumbling and blushing, realized that Jesse was speaking as a Cree, and he apologized profusely before going on with his story of the two princes.

  “We do, however, have a book here that shows a painting of the two young boys. Would you like to see that?”

  “Yes!” the Owls shouted.

  “Yes, please!” shouted Sam and Sarah in unison.

  The beefeater made his way to an old bookcase with glazed doors, opened it up, and pulled out a large and somewhat dusty art book. He carefully opened it and leafed through until he came to
the picture he was looking for.

  “There we go,” he said, standing back.

  The Owls crowded around the book, each jockeying for position. Travis heard another gasp from Sam, then a small shout from Sarah.

  “Oh my God!”

  Travis was shorter than most of the other players, and had to wait his turn to see what the others were all reacting to. Finally, Gordie Griffith moved out of the way and Travis was in front of the book.

  The two princes were in full royal regalia: feathered hats, swords, fancy colourful clothes. The younger one looked so young and innocent.

  The older boy, Edward V, was staring defiantly out of the portrait, his eyes a strong, proud blue, his hair long and curling and blond.

  Travis was staring at Edward Rose.

  8

  “Listen up!” Mr. Dillinger shouted to the Owls gathered in the main courtyard of the Tower of London. Several of them were off trying to get a closer look at the hopping ravens, but no one dared reach out to touch one.

  “Listen up!” Mr. Dillinger repeated. “Everyone over here – on the double!”

  The Owls gradually moved in closer to Mr. Dillinger and Muck, suddenly aware that their coach and general manager had been joined by another man: Mr. Wolfe, the yellow-toothed organizer from International In-Line. He was grinning widely, a small foam beach of spittle already on his lower lip.

  Travis had no idea what was going on.

  “We have some wonderful news for you young Horny Owls …”

  “Screech Owls!” Sam screamed at the top of her lungs.

  But it was too late. Nish was off like a balloon that had been blown up and let go untied. He roared with laughter and fell to the ground, rolling about on the short grass while he shouted out, “Horny Owls! Horny Owls! I love it! I love it! Horny Owls!”

  “Sorry,” Mr. Wolfe said, scowling angrily at Nish, who was being nudged by the toe of Muck’s boot and had suddenly gone quiet. “Sorry,” he repeated. “Screeeech Owls,” he said, with dripping sarcasm. “You Screeeech Owls have been granted permission, along with the Young Lions of Wembley, to spend Wednesday night in a special sleepover at the Tower of London.”

  “No way!” Fahd shouted.

  “Yes, yes,” Mr. Wolfe sputtered. “My company, International In-Line, has been able to arrange with the powers-that-be, with the much-appreciated help of the Canadian embassy, for the two young teams, as a goodwill gesture, to have an experience never to be forgotten. We’ll be sleeping in the Garden Tower. It will get great coverage for our upcoming exhibition match. All the papers will cover it. The BBC will be there …”

  But Travis was already tuning out. He was thinking about that phrase, “Garden Tower,” and wondering where he had just heard it mentioned. Garden Tower … Garden Tower …

  Yes, he remembered. That was its old, formal name. The Garden Tower had been known by another name since the murder of the boy princes.

  The Bloody Tower.

  9

  The Owls were almost too excited to concentrate on practice. The boys were all talking about the Bloody Tower and how neat it was going to be to sleep there. The girls were wild about the uncanny resemblance between the Young Lions star centre and poor young prince Edward, for whom every female on the team had now expressed her undying and total love.

  “You’re swooning over dust!” Nish laughed when he caught Sam hugging a postcard of the portrait of the young princes. “He’s been dead for over five hundred years!”

  “Edward was valiant,” Sam snapped at him. “You don’t even know what the word means!”

  “Sure I do!”

  “What then?”

  “I dunno – ‘brave’?”

  “It’s way more than that!” Sam hissed, her face almost as red as Nish’s. “It’s about being incredibly brave and having grace and knowing what has to be done and doing it!”

  “That’s bull – you don’t even know what happened.”

  “His brother was smothered with a pillow. Edward was stabbed by his jailers. It’s obvious he came to his brother’s rescue even though he knew what would happen. That’s valiant.”

  “You don’t know that,” Nish countered. “They didn’t have surveillance cameras in those days.”

  “I know in my heart what happened,” Sam said, near to tears. “And in my heart Edward was valiant, something you’ll never understand.”

  Nish laughed. “Like I want to be stabbed. What are you, nuts?”

  “Drop it, Nish,” Travis warned, pulling his friend’s arm to get him into another part of the dressing room away from Sam and Sarah.

  “They’re pathetic,” Nish snapped as he let Travis lead him off. “They think they’re in love with a ghost.”

  “Let it go. We’ve got some practising to do.”

  Muck had arranged for extra time at the practice facility at the Serpentine. He and Mr. Dillinger and Data had a number of drills to work on, and they put the Owls through their paces for more than an hour: wind sprints, stops and starts, crossovers, two-player rushes, three-player rushes, two-on-ones, three-on-twos, breakouts, penalty killing, and power play.

  Travis worked the power play, but Muck made one change, putting Dmitri at centre, where he’d never played, and moving Sarah over to right wing. “This is a speed-through-the-centre game,” Muck said. “I want our breaks to come straight up ice and our playmakers along the boards, understand?”

  They didn’t, but they all nodded as if they did. Muck also switched Sam and Nish so they’d have a left shot on the right side and a right shot on the left. Since there was no blueline, Muck reasoned, there was no point in trying to have players on defence with their sticks tight to the boards. Better, he figured, to have the shot on the open side for a better angle.

  Data had a contribution as well. He had dummied up some plays on his laptop to show the Owls.

  “I compared video of Owls ice-hockey games to some digital shots of the in-line game against the Young Lions,” said Data, delighted to have everyone’s rapt attention. “Watch these two examples.”

  Data’s hand flew over the keys and up came some video of Sarah, during a league game back in Tamarack, skating full speed after a player in possession of the puck, only to have Nish’s stick lunge into the frame and poke-check the puck. Sarah turned instantly in a massive spray of snow and headed back up ice with the puck.

  “Now this,” said Data, bringing up his next example.

  It was Sarah again, only this time on in-line skates during the practice match against the Young Lions. She was moving down the playing surface in pursuit of Edward Rose, who was carrying the ball.

  Nish hit Edward Rose just as he tried to cut for the net – the Owls gathered around the laptop cheering as if they were watching the game live – and Sarah cut hard to turn back with the ball, her skates skipping on the surface as she leaned hard to change direction.

  “What do you notice?” Data asked as he killed the screen.

  “Sarah’s lost a step,” Nish said, giggling.

  “You’re right. You can’t turn as quickly on wheels. That makes turnovers a completely different game. And Muck’s got a few ideas on that …”

  Muck then talked about how the Owls were going to attack from now on. He wanted them to think about soccer, and about lacrosse, and he wanted them to keep circling as they mounted an attack rather than always going for the fast break.

  “If the fast break is there for you,” said Muck, “fine. Take it. But if you’re trying to move the puck” – Muck coughed, uncomfortable – “… or whatever they call that silly thing … if you’re trying to move it up, you want to do it in waves.”

  “Swedish hockey!” Lars shouted.

  “Classic Russian hockey,” Dmitri corrected.

  “Why?” asked Fahd.

  “If we can get them chasing us, going toward our net,” said Muck, “then when we move it forward they’ll have to turn. And I think every time we can drop back and drop back and then attack fast, we can c
atch them going the wrong way. And by the time they’ll have turned, we’ll be in on them.”

  “I like it,” said Dmitri.

  “I love it,” said Lars, who was forever singing the praises of European hockey and telling them they could learn something from soccer.

  “We’ll try it,” said Muck.

  He split the Owls into two teams for a prolonged scrimmage. Every time the players followed their normal hockey instincts – to head-man the ball, to look for the fast break, to charge straight ahead – Muck’s whistle blew. Not to stop play, but to remind the players to reverse fields, to circle back, send lateral passes across the surface, do whatever was necessary to get the other side to stop skating back to receive the attack and lure them forward to try to gain control of the ball.

  The moment the tide turned and the side not in possession of the ball began moving forward, Muck wanted the side in possession to charge straight ahead, forcing the defenders to turn.

  It worked. Dmitri and Lars instantly understood the thinking behind the new style of play. Sarah caught on quickly too, and gradually the entire team understood this new form of attack: wait, circle, wait again, draw the other side toward you, then charge.

  Travis’s line played wonderfully in the new system, thanks largely to the move that put Dmitri at centre and in charge of the attack patterns. Sarah adapted nicely to her new role, and Travis found that he, too, could play better if he just showed the patience that seemed to come so naturally to Dmitri and Lars.

  By the end of an hour they were exhausted and itchy with sweat. Nish’s face was so wet and red it seemed on the verge of bursting. But he towelled off quickly, yanked out his new helmet, and pulled it on as if he’d just been awarded the MVP prize.

  They undressed in silence, tossing their soaked jerseys into a pile in the centre of the tent for Mr. Dillinger to pick up for washing, the only sound the rip and tear of the shin-pad tape coming off and being tossed over to Sam’s corner so she could wrap it onto her growing ball.

  Finally, Nish broke the silence.