Owls 1, Young Lions 0.
The first lead, ever, in Screech Owls in-line history.
“Nice goal,” Edward Rose said as they lined up to face off again.
“Thanks,” said Sarah, blushing deeply.
Then, on a beautiful solo rush that caught Wilson flat-footed, Edward Rose tied the game. The Owls came right back, Lars now taking over ball control and weaving back and back until he had suckered the Lions into chasing.
The moment the chase began, Lars hit big Andy Higgins on a break and Andy simply overpowered the Lions’ goaltender with a huge slapshot.
Owls 2, Young Lions 1.
They were hanging in. They were not only hanging in, they were ahead.
The crowd loved the action. It was fast. It was end-to-end. And there was plenty of scoring, something that made this sport different from soccer, no matter how similar the attack patterns.
Heading into the final period, it was Screech Owls 5, Young Lions 4. Travis had scored on a lovely feed from the swift Dmitri, and Jesse had scored an impossible goal when he punched the ball out of mid-air and it went like a line drive right through a crowd in front of the net.
Edward Rose had scored three of the Young Lions’ goals and set up the fourth.
“Win or lose,” Muck said before the final period began, “you’ve made it matter. I’m proud of you all – even you, Nishikawa.”
Nish didn’t even acknowledge the rare compliment. He was in “win” mode – just the way Muck needed him for the third period.
Travis looked up at the makeshift clock Mr. Dillinger and the Young Lions’ manager had hung on the side of the closest dressing room.
Two minutes to play.
Game tied, 7-7. Dmitri had scored with a backhand that had knocked the bottle off the Young Lions’ net. Simon had scored with a neat tip on a Nish shot from the point. And Edward Rose had five goals and had set up the other two.
It was now Dmitri’s line against Edward Rose’s line.
Travis scanned the crowd. Not only had no one in the crowd left, there seemed to be thousands more, all cheering equally for the two sides. Travis couldn’t believe they would do that. One side was home, the other from across the ocean, and yet they were being treated just the same.
He could see one of the men closest to the boards collecting money. They were betting on the game.
Edward Rose led a great rush up the floor, only to be stonewalled by Nish’s big hip knocking him off the ball. Nish took it himself, heading straight up like a steamroller. Travis raced to keep up on the wing, his stick down and ready for a pass.
Suddenly Nish went flying as a blur of red jersey moved in and swept the ball in the other direction.
Edward Rose – where had he come from?
Edward Rose had only Sam back. He turned her inside out with a shoulder fake and a tuck, moved in on Jenny, faked her down to her back, and pinged the ball in off the crossbar.
The crowd went crazy!
Young Lions 8, Screech Owls 7.
Nish was winded. He lay where he had fallen when Edward Rose made his spectacular play.
Mr. Dillinger raced out, a water bottle in one hand. He worked on Nish while the rest of the players milled about. The crowd was silent.
Travis figured that, as captain, he should really go over and see how serious it was. He skated over slowly, stick held over the tops of his shin pads, leaning and looking straight down.
Nish was lying there, a huge smile on his face. “Just restin’, Trav,” he said. “Just give the ol’ Nisher another minute and I’ll get that goal back.”
Mr. Dillinger looked up, his eyes rolling.
Finally Nish got to his knees, and a huge roar of appreciation went up from the crowd.
Nish mumbled his ridiculous Elvis impression: “Thank you, thank you very much … “Travis shook his head.
Nish insisted on staying in. He went back to his defence position and crouched, waiting.
Travis looked over at Muck. Muck was staring, blinking, unsure what to say. Sam was on her way off. Muck held up a hand indicating she should stay. He wanted his two top defence in the play.
Edward Rose won the faceoff, but Sarah, coming in from the side, knocked the ball away and it scooted toward Travis.
Travis used his wheels to catch the ball and kick it up onto his stick. He then smartly slipped it through the skates of the opposing winger and stepped around his check.
Dmitri was waiting for the pass back, hoping, once more, to trap the Young Lions into chasing him as he circled and faded.
But Nish was charging straight up centre! Straight up, like a train, banging his stick as hard as he could.
Travis had been about to send a quick pass to Dmitri. Instead, he used a backhand flip to toss the ball into the centre area, where Nish picked it up at full speed.
Nish broke over centre and faked, sending one defender down on one knee, and then he jumped – high in the air – over the stick of the other defence, the ball rolling through with him.
He landed and shot at the same time.
Travis wondered if he’d ever seen a puck on ice shot so hard.
The ball ripped off Nish’s stick, hit the Young Lions’ goalie in the shoulder, and popped straight up.
Nish was still coming in. He reached over and deftly ticked the ball out of the air and in behind the falling goaltender, almost crashing through the backboards as he did so.
The crowd exploded! The referee blew his whistle to signal a goal, then again to signal the end of regular time.
Screech Owls 8, Young Lions 8.
Muck and Mr. Dillinger came out onto the floor to join the celebrations – Nish red-faced and delighted at the bottom of a heap of laughing Screech Owls – and then quickly ran over to the opposition bench where they huddled with the coaches and the officials.
The official blew his whistle again. The tie game would stand.
An even larger cheer went up from the crowd when they realized what had been decided.
It seemed the perfect thing to do.
21
The Screech Owls’ Air Canada flight was to leave at ten in the morning. They’d be back in Canada, thanks to the change in time zones, by lunch.
It seemed crazy to Travis. But then, so did everything else about this trip.
The best news was on the front page of the newspaper Mr. Dillinger was waving as he walked into the lobby. The missing ravens, Thor and Cedric, had suddenly reappeared at the Tower of London.
The Crown was secure once more – and the legend of the ravens stronger still after the modern-day Guy Fawkes plot.
All was well, too, with the Screech Owls. The two teams, the Owls and the Young Lions of Wembley, had a party at the hotel the final night, the food and soft drinks provided by New Scotland Yard, the entertainment offered free by the hotel.
The Young Lions had come and joked and even danced, and the next morning the Owls were still laughing and whispering about the fact that, at some time during the evening, Sam and Sarah and Travis and Edward Rose had gone missing for more than an hour.
Travis at first didn’t like the teasing – he couldn’t bear to imagine what they might be thinking – but Sam and Sarah laughed it off so well that, after a while, he didn’t care either. Certainly it didn’t bother Edward Rose, who seemed used to being teased about his effect on girls.
Besides, it was only a matter of minutes before they found out what the four had been up to.
22
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Sam announced just as the last of the luggage had been stacked in the lobby for the bus lift to the airport. “We invite you to a special presentation in Ballroom A.”
Everyone looked at each other. No one knew what to make of it. The Young Lions, who had come back in the morning to see their new friends off, were as confused as the Screech Owls.
“What’s this all about?” Nish demanded, his face a twisted tomato.
“Come see,” said Travis.
Tra
vis walked with his best friend all the way to the ballroom. The hotel had been kind enough to let the four of them have the room for as long as they had needed it, and they had even gotten into the spirit of the occasion by supplying much of the necessary material.
There was a sign over the entrance.
MADAME TUSSAUD’S CHAMBER OF HORRORS.
Sam threw the doors open.
There was nothing inside but a single structure in the centre of the room, with a white tablecloth draped over it and a large sign turned backwards.
All the Owls and Lions squeezed into the room, trying to see what the fuss was about. Several tried to get a look at the sign, but Sam wouldn’t let them get close enough to see.
“This is bogus!” complained Nish. “What’s this all about?”
“You, Big Boy!” Sam happily announced.
“Whaddaya mean, me?” Nish asked, his face clouding with suspicion.
“You said your dream was to have your own spot in Madame Tussaud’s, remember?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well …,” Sam said, and turned the sign around.
The players stared, some starting to giggle. The sign said:
WAYNE “NISH” NISHIKAWA
WHO SAVED THE ROYAL FAMILY FROM THE
SECOND GUY FAWKES
Nish brightened up. “Outstanding!” he shouted, clapping his hands together. “Let’s see it!”
“You do the honours,” said Sam, stepping aside and pulling up a chair so Nish could stand on it and pluck the tablecloth clean off the statue.
Nish got up, turned even redder, bowed and yanked the cloth.
It flew off.
Underneath was a full figure of Nish in his complete International In-Line hockey equipment.
Nish’s sweater, number 44, with the “A” on the chest, was stuffed with straw, just the way Guy Fawkes was every fifth of November.
The golden helmet was on his head. And inside the oversized helmet, complete with painted eyes and nose, was Sam’s treasured tape ball.
“Why did you use that?” Nish asked, exasperated.
“Hey,” answered Sam. “You’re the guy who said it was stupid – remember?”
THE END
The Screech Owls’ Reunion
1
It had been a quiet, uneventful mid-June Sunday at the Lake Tamarack public beach – right up until Muck lost his diaper.
The water was still and bright as a mirror. There were nesting robins by the gravel parking lot, and a pair of loons was calling farther out on the lake. The only ripples had come from Muck’s chunky legs as he waded out among the reeds, staring down at the freshwater clams and darting minnows in the surprisingly warm water of what had already been a pleasantly warm spring.
Distracted by the wonders in the water, Muck didn’t realize how deep he was getting. The water rose over his knees, then crept up his diaper, the tabs straining until, finally, the soaking diaper simply popped off and began floating out into deeper water.
Muck paid it no heed. Giggling at his newfound, bare-bottomed freedom, he began splashing through the shallow waters, much to the amusement of an older couple who had decided to walk home from church by the path that looped down around the bay and back toward the river mouth at the edge of town.
Naked as the minnows, Muck began screeching with delight and splashing the water all around him until a small, quick rainbow formed almost within reach.
The man and woman applauded.
“Muck!” a younger woman’s voice broke in. “Where is your diaper?”
Muck looked up, bright blue eyes blinking innocently.
He turned his hands palm out and shrugged helplessly, smiling.
“Gone,” he said.
“Diaper gone.”
Travis Lindsay had been running for nearly an hour, but it still felt good. He had already run down River Road, across the bridge, up to the Lookout, and back down to the new recreation path that would take him down along the river mouth to the beach. The delicious smells of pin cherry blossoms were in the air and his lungs were greedily reaching for even more.
It was a day to be grateful for life, a day to let your mind go, like the young dog running off in all directions around Travis.
Imoo was a golden retriever. He was one year old, and still far more puppy than fully grown dog – especially in his behaviour. He was also Travis Lindsay’s new best friend in the world and constant companion, running with him by day and sleeping with him, usually across Travis’s legs, by night.
Travis had named him after the toothless, scrappy, hockey-playing Buddhist monk Travis and his former best friend in the world, Wayne Nishikawa, had met and befriended in Nagano, Japan. With Nish in goal and Mr. Imoo’s famous “force shield” helping protect the Owls’ net, the Screech Owls of Tamarack had won the gold medal in hockey’s first-ever “Junior Olympics.”
Travis never forgot that experience – though that had been such a long, long time ago.
Ten years now.
2
“I moo!” Travis called. “Imoo! Here, boy! C’mere!”
The retriever was running through the shallows near where the mouth of the river spread out into Lake Tamarack. He was barking and biting at his own splashes as if the water droplets were flies out to attack him. Travis laughed. He would love to have let Imoo carry on, but he could see an elderly couple coming along from farther down the trail and realized he was getting close to the beach. It was time to put the leash back on.
The young dog came racing toward Travis, jumping up to lick his master and soaking him with wet fur. Travis didn’t mind. The water felt good, and he wished he, too, could just run into the shallows and dive into the cool, refreshing water. He’d had an excellent run, but he knew he needed to cool down slowly.
With Imoo on the leash, Travis began walking briskly along the path. He said hello to the couple, who he recognized now as Mr. and Mrs. Dawson. They seemed to be sharing some secret joke about something – giggling as they walked hand in hand – but they weren’t offering an explanation and Travis wasn’t about to ask. He was just pleased to see people so happy on such a glorious day.
The Dawsons knew who Travis was, too. Everyone in town knew Travis. His grandfather had been a policeman in Tamarack, his parents had lived all their lives there, and now Travis himself seemed a permanent fixture.
He taught history and physical education at the Tamarack District Secondary School, a high school teacher instead of what he’d always dreamed of becoming: a superstar in the National Hockey League.
There had been a time when Travis Lindsay believed his size was his biggest obstacle in hockey. He’d been captain of the Screech Owls peewee team that had seen such success and brought such glory to little Tamarack, but by bantam he was so tiny he looked absurd out there on the ice while far bigger kids – Nish among them – seemed more interested in landing crushing body checks than in scoring pretty goals. Travis could still score, but the rest of the time he was getting murdered. For a brief while, he had even dropped out of the game.
But then he had grown, just as his father had always said he would. “Lindsays grow late,” Mr. Lindsay would say. “But they do grow. Just be patient.”
By age sixteen, Travis had caught up. By seventeen, he was taller, though certainly not heavier, than Nish. He came back to play midget, was drafted by the Orillia junior team, and, just before his eighteenth birthday, made the Barrie Colts of the major junior “A” league – the last stop before the NHL for many of the game’s greatest stars.
Travis, however, had not shone at that level. The star playmaker and sometime goal scorer in peewee had become the checking forward in junior. A utility player. Valued but not treasured – and most assuredly not glorified.
He had long ago accepted this. The Screech Owls’ beloved coach, Muck Munro, had played junior “A” and had his pro prospects nipped by injury, a terrible leg break that ended his playing days. Travis always reminded himself that Muck’s accid
ent had led to a wonderful life as a coach and that Muck had influenced and changed – for the better – every child who had played for the Screech Owls.
When Travis looked back on where he had come from and what he had become, he could pick out a handful of people who had, he thought, “built” him. His grandparents. His parents. A couple of teachers. And his hockey coach. Muck, in some ways, more than anyone else. Certainly different than anyone else.
There was only one Muck.
Well, Travis giggled to himself, that was not quite true any more, was it?
“Muck!”
“Get in here, right now!”
Travis recognized the voice immediately, though he and Imoo were still too far from the beach to see anyone.
It was Sam, and as she called Muck she sounded, as usual, a bit exasperated.
An energetic toddler will do that to you.
Travis was surprised how often he could run along this route and bump into Sam and her little boy out enjoying the fresh air – no matter how fresh it sometimes got.
The two of them, Sam and little Muck, had been down on the beach in mid-April when the ice finally went out of the bay, and they were still there on days when it was all Sam could do to make sure the boy stayed plastered with sun screen and kept his little Screech Owls cap on.
Muck was, as grownups like to say, a handful.
He was also a mystery.
Sam had finished high school and set off to see the world. While most of the other Owls had headed for colleges and universities, while Dmitri Yakushev had left to attend his first Colorado Avalanche camp, while Sarah Cuthbertson had joined the Canadian Olympic hockey program, while Nish had headed out to strike it rich and famous in Las Vegas, while Wilson Kelly had flown off to Jamaica to become a policeman and Lars Johanssen had gone home to Sweden to star in the Swedish elite league – while everyone else seemed to have found such purpose and meaning and direction in their new lives – Samantha Bennett had nothing planned, she said, except to live life to the fullest.
The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 5 Page 24
