The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 5

by Roy MacGregor

  “Can’t they go elsewhere?” Travis asked.

  “The turtles? The fish? Why can’t the casino go elsewhere – like Las Vegas or some place!”

  “You know what I mean,” Travis said.

  “I’m sorry,” Sam said, the fire subsiding. “But you know this lake, Travis. Where else can turtles find soft natural sand like we have here? It’s rocks, nothing but rocks. That means they have to go up onto the highway shoulders to find somewhere to lay their eggs. Is that what you want? Turtles squashed from one end of Highway 11 to the other?”

  Travis shrugged. Of course he didn’t.

  “Fish swim,” he said. “They’ll have no problem.”

  “Anton says they’d be in even worse trouble. Fish have a built-in gene that takes them back exactly to where they were born themselves – you know about salmon, don’t you? – and the lake trout will simply stop spawning if their breeding ground disappears. These are the last natural trout in the area, Travis.”

  Anton came out to them, his last protest sign nailed to the cedars.

  “I may chain myself to a tree,” he said, adjusting his woolen toque in the heat. His hair was dripping with sweat.

  “What if they don’t start building until next year?” Travis said, trying to lighten things up a little. He could imagine Anton chained to the cedars all through the winter.

  Anton ignored him.

  “We need to bring Greenpeace in on this,” he said. “The turtles will capture the public’s imagination.”

  “Snapping turtles have always captured the public imagination,” Travis kidded. “But not exactly in the way you’re thinking.”

  Anton seemed to consider this. “The trout,” he said. “People would do it for the trout. We need a trout logo for our signs.”

  And with that, off he went, saying something about finding an artist to paint a special “Save the Trout” logo for the campaign.

  “He’s a zealot,” Travis said when Anton was out of earshot. He didn’t say it in a mean way, just as an observation.

  “He’s a sweetheart,” said Sam. “One of the few pure true believers left in this world. I’d die for him.”

  Travis looked up, grinning. “You’re in love with Anton?”

  Sam shook her red hair fiercely. “I’m in love with a pure and unspoiled world. And Anton is the only pure and unspoiled human I have ever met.”

  “Then you’re in love with him,” said Travis.

  “Am not.”

  “Are so.”

  Sam put an end to the silliness by blowing a huge raspberry at Travis. The old friends laughed, and Sam changed the topic.

  “How’s the hockey game shaping up?”

  “Very well. We have everyone on board, pretty well – except Simon, who can’t come; you, who might not come; and Nish, who won’t come.”

  “What’s his problem?”

  “He might ask the same of you.”

  “I have important work to do. All he does is dress up in an Elvis costume and jump out of airplanes – that’s hardly going to change the world, is it?”

  “It entertains people,” Travis said. “That’s important, too, in its own way. And that’s really all our game is about. Entertainment. You’re sure you won’t reconsider?”

  “I told you I’d think about it.”

  “For Sarah?”

  Sam looked away, then hurried after little Muck, who was playing with Imoo.

  “You stay right here, Mr. Muck!” she called as she raced toward her son.

  Travis checked out the little boy and the dog. They were fine, nowhere near the water.

  There was something wrong here, Travis thought. Something about Sarah and Sam that he didn’t quite understand.

  12

  “We have a problem.”

  Travis was listening on his cell phone as he prepared to put his kayak on his car roof for a run up the river to play in the white water.

  The voice belonged to Data. Travis’s heart sank. The exhibition game must be off. Dmitri and Lars had suddenly changed their minds and weren’t coming. Sarah wasn’t coming …

  But it was nothing like that.

  “We can’t play against ourselves,” Data said.

  Travis had never really considered this. The idea had been to put together the old Screech Owls for one last match. There would be fifteen or sixteen of them, and the game would be kind of a shinny match.

  “The new rink has already sold out for Sarah’s big night,” Data continued. “There’ll be three thousand people in the stands. We can’t have them watch a stupid scrimmage, can we?”

  Travis thought about it a moment. There was nothing quite so much fun to play as a little scrimmage. There was also nothing quite so boring to watch.

  “I see your point,” he said.

  “Fahd has the craziest idea,” said Data.

  “How crazy?”

  “Crazy beyond belief,” giggled Data. “Are you sitting down?”

  “No – I’m leaning over the roof of my car, if you must know.”

  “Then sit down – I mean it!”

  Laughing, Travis settled himself as comfortably as possible on his back fender.

  “I’m sitting,” he said. “Shoot.”

  “He wants us to play an all-star team.”

  “Sounds good. Who?”

  “You’re not going to believe this.”

  What could be such a big surprise? It might be the Tamarack cops, or one of the newer teams in town. Maybe a couple of NHLers might even come up to play.

  “Tell me,” said Travis.

  “Well, Fahd’s been working with the airline points we put together. We have thousands more than we need. And Derek has also offered up to thirty thousand dollars to cover costs – you know he struck it rich playing the stock market, eh?”

  “Cover costs for what?” Travis asked. He was getting impatient.

  “Fahd’s idea is to put together an all-star team of the best players we ever played against. He’s already contacted Jeremy Billings and Stu Yantha from the old Portland team, and they’re up for it. And Wiz says he’ll come from Australia.”

  Travis felt his whole body shiver – a most unusual sensation, as it was turning quite hot out.

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  “I’m not,” said Data. “Can we count you in to organize that part of it as well? School’s out, so we thought you might have the time?”

  Travis couldn’t believe it. His mind was racing: Lake Placid, Sydney, Nagano, New York City, London, Vancouver, Quebec City, Salt Lake City, Ottawa …

  “I’ll make the time,” he said.

  “I knew it,” said Data, his voice rising with delight. “I knew you’d do it!”

  Travis stabbed off his cell phone.

  He looked at his kayak, still in need of tying down at the front.

  Suddenly he didn’t feel like going on whitewater.

  He had more exciting matters to tend to.

  13

  Travis was hard at work tracking down the most amazing “All-Star” team he had ever imagined.

  It was a formidable task. The players lived all over the world, and Travis had almost no addresses. He used the Internet and e-mail and phone calls out of the blue to chambers of commerce and local newspapers. He tried search engines that produced telephone numbers for teams like the Muskoka Wildlife and the Toronto Towers and the Detroit Wheels. All the teams were still functioning, and all had partial lists of where players had gone to after they’d left peewee. He reached the Dupont family in Quebec City and had to use his rusty French to find out where J-P and Nicole were now living.

  It was a complicated process, at times frustrating as leads turned cold, but eventually it all began to come together, just as if had for the original Owls. A second chart on the opposite basement wall soon began filling up.

  Jeremy Billings and Stu Yantha were already confirmed from the Portland Panthers.

  Slava Shadrin, the Russian sensation, was now playin
g for Gothenburg in the same Swedish elite league that Lars was in, and he was coming.

  Wiz was coming from Sydney, Australia, where he was a world-class triathlete in training for the next Summer Games.

  Chase Jordan, whose father had served two terms as president of the United States of America, was coming from Philadelphia, where he was running a sports program for troubled inner-city kids.

  Brody Prince, who was now himself a rock star like his famous father, was coming from Italy.

  Edward Rose was coming from London, where he was a television announcer and still played in-line hockey.

  Nicole and J-P Dupont were both going to make it.

  Annika, who was teaching Grade Three in Malmo, Sweden, was going to hook up with Lars and Slava and fly in from Stockholm.

  To round out the rosters, Lars and Rachel Highboy had agreed to play for the All-Stars.

  When Travis sat in his parents’ basement and looked at the two wall charts, one on each side of him, he felt as if his whole life was flashing before his eyes.

  The thought made him laugh. It reminded him of something Nish had said not long before they graduated from high school together and set off in separate directions. “Travis is so boring,” Nish announced to a gathering of their friends, “that if he ever drowns, my life is going to have to flash before his eyes!”

  Travis chuckled at the memory, but at the same time he felt like weeping.

  Nish should be here. It made no sense to have a reunion without Nish.

  Nish’s life should flash before everyone’s eyes.

  14

  Sam and Anton had been busy.

  They had called a town meeting, and nearly four hundred concerned citizens had turned up to discuss mysterious company #3560234 and what, exactly, it planned to do with the nine acres of property on Lake Tamarack for which it had paid the town $3.2 million.

  Mayor Denzil Black had come to the meeting to state that the company in question was upstanding and honest and well-meaning and straightforward.

  “If that’s the case,” Sam had thundered from her seat in the front row, “why is it hiding behind a number?”

  The crowd cheered loudly for Sam each time she stopped one of the politicians or the company representatives with a pointed question.

  Sam was as formidable in a public meeting as she had ever been on defence for the Screech Owls. She grilled the mayor about the procedures followed by council when they rezoned the property. She produced a petition that she and Anton and Mr. Dillinger had collected with nearly 2,500 signatures on it protesting the loss of shoreline and habitat.

  “The shoreline will be improved,” the exasperated spokesman for the numbered company had argued. “We will be bringing in the best scientists money can buy to ensure that nothing changes.”

  “Wouldn’t it be cheaper,” Sam had argued, “to do nothing?”

  Again, the crowd cheered and stomped its feet in approval.

  Anton had questioned the town planning officer about the zoning and suggested the closed-door meeting had been illegal. The town planner angrily responded that council was entirely within its rights to operate as it had and had violated no laws.

  The meeting grew uglier and uglier. The mayor became testy. The company spokesman put away his notes and sat with his arms and legs folded as if someone had tied him to his chair.

  The local television channel had sent a camera crew to record the meeting, and it was clear to Travis, who sat watching near the back, that the moment belonged to Sam. She was clear and concise and sharp and smart in her questioning, funny and dangerous in her comments.

  “The turtles live here, too,” Sam had said, to cheers.

  “And the trout – however many are left in the lake.

  “And the loons. And kids play at the beach. They always have. Do you mean to tell these people here that they will no longer be able to take their children to the beach?”

  The mayor was red-faced and angry. He could barely hold back his fury.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” he stormed. “There is a perfectly good beach that is barely used just across the point. That has been designated parkland and will stay parkland. And I give the people of Tamarack my solemn word that they will still be able to come and enjoy the beach where the new business is going in – that it, in fact, will become a place visitors will come to from all over the world. It will become the ‘image’ of Tamarack that the rest of the world gets to see.”

  “Then tell us what it is!” Sam shouted.

  The mayor began to shout back, caught himself, and looked at the spokesman, still sitting with his arms folded defiantly over his chest.

  The mayor looked pleadingly. The spokesman nodded.

  The mayor turned back to the crowd.

  “All right,” he said directly to Sam. “I will tell you. The Town of Tamarack is proud to be the new location chosen by Fortune Industries – operating under numbered company 3560234 – as the site of its newest and most modern multipurpose entertainment facility.”

  “A casino!” Sam shouted, shaking her head.

  “Yes,” the mayor said, as the television camera hurried closer. “The Fortune Casino of Tamarack will bring clean industry to this town. It will provide up to 1,100 new jobs, 700 of them fulltime. And it will include a full entertainment facility capable of hosting Las Vegas-style family entertainment for up to 4,500 paying customers at a time. This is the biggest thing ever to come here, and I would like to think the people of Tamarack would welcome Fortune Industries and embrace this wonderful new development for what it is, a truly golden opportunity.”

  “Gambling,” shouted out Anton, “is a tax on the poor!”

  “We don’t need a casino to sell our town!” shouted an angry, red-faced Mr. Dillinger. “People come here for the water and the outdoors, and that’s what you’re selling down the river!”

  “The water won’t be touched!” the mayor shouted back. “The fish habitat will be improved, the turtle situation will be addressed. New, clean industry will bring jobs and money into Tamarack and take us into the twenty-first century.”

  “What’s so great about that?” Sam shouted. “We like it just the way it is!”

  “So do we!” shouted a man in the crowd.

  “Get him, Sam!” a woman cheered.

  The meeting erupted into shouts and accusations and angry name-calling. Travis took the opportunity to slip away. He was telling himself he had to let Imoo out for a walk, but in fact he was desperate to escape. He hated it when tempers flared, whether on the ice or in a public town-hall meeting. It made him uncomfortable, and he wanted nothing to do with it.

  Even so, he was proud of Sam. Proud of Sam and proud of Mr. Dillinger and proud, he had to admit, of Anton Sealey for standing up to the mayor and the council and the powerful forces backing Fortune Industries.

  The next day, he read up on the company. It was huge, a multi-billion-dollar casino and entertainment giant, with operations in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Niagara Falls, and now little Tamarack.

  There were good things to be said about Fortune Industries. Millions of dollars in royalties went to hospitals and new sewer systems and improved roads. They provided good jobs and had a reputation for helping out the needy in whatever area they involved themselves in.

  But there was also the bad. A number of investigations into tax violations, though never with a charge being laid. A few terrible incidents, including a murder at a casino in Reno, Nevada, that had never been solved. There was also the usual rumour that plagued any operation with headquarters in Las Vegas: that organized crime was somehow involved.

  Travis felt decidedly uneasy about all this.

  Yes, Tamarack needed jobs. And a new hospital.

  But no, Tamarack did not need the possibility of organized crime.

  And most assuredly no, the snapping turtles did not need to lose their egg laying grounds.

  15

  On Sunday afternoon, Travis held his first meeting of the yea
r with the thirty or so peewee hockey players from town who would be invited to try out for the Screech Owls in September. It was just a get-to-know-you session, and after Travis talked for fifteen minutes about the importance of fitness and playing other sports, he had turned the meeting over to Mr. Dillinger for a little advice on training, to be followed by the highlight of the afternoon: card tricks by the Screech Owls’ manager.

  Travis left when Mr. Dillinger started on his famous “disappearing ace” act. Travis had seen it so often he figured he could probably do it himself, even though he was so poor at cards he could barely shuffle.

  He went home and was preparing to take Imoo for a long run in the sun when the telephone rang.

  “That you, Trav?” a familiar voice said. “It’s Sarah.”

  There was no need for Sarah to say her name. Travis knew instantly. He felt an immediate wash of delight and happiness.

  A friend like Sarah was a friend forever.

  “Hey,” he said, somewhat clumsily. “I was just thinking about you.”

  “Nice thoughts, I trust.”

  “Very nice – but I must admit I was also thinking about Nish.”

  “Not such nice thoughts,” Sarah giggled. “I hear he won’t come.”

  “He won’t even answer my calls,” Travis said. “I’ve tried and left messages. He never calls back”

  “You know why, don’t you?”

  “I think so.”

  “He hasn’t come to terms with the game. He can’t deal with it.”

  “Well,” Travis laughed, “there were a good many things Nish couldn’t deal with. Heights. Healthy food. Discipline. Reading. School. He eventually came to terms with all them.”

  They talked a while about Sam and whether she would change her mind. Travis said Sam was probably too deep in the fight against the casino. Since the big town-hall meeting, the tensions around Tamarack had worsened. Greenpeace had come to town and organized a march down Main Street, and Anton had gone on television to announce he would chain himself to the beach dock if construction began on the casino.