The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 5

by Roy MacGregor

  The Owls held a private reunion party at Travis’s apartment that first evening, but it was hardly the grand celebration that Travis envisioned when he first planned it. After their initial high spirits, the players were subdued, talking quietly about their new lives and laughing sporadically as one or another remembered a particular incident from the past, like the time they piled shaving cream on Travis’s head when he was sleeping, or the time they froze Nish’s underwear.

  Nish was missed. But so, too, eventually, was Sam. The others had noticed she had failed to show at the hospital, even though Travis said she came every day.

  “I don’t understand,” said Jenny. “She was always first to join in on anything.”

  “She’s completely caught up in the fight against the casino,” explained Travis, but he knew it was just an excuse. She could easily have come.

  “Fahd says she won’t play,” said Lars. “That true?”

  “I don’t think she will,” said Travis.

  The air was slipping out of the reunion, and everyone at Travis’s apartment could feel it.

  Travis was almost glad of the distraction when the doorbell rang. Had Fahd and Data ordered pizza?

  The sound of the doorbell was followed by a sharp rap on the door.

  Travis hurried and opened it.

  Instantly, he felt the gathering regain its excitement.

  It was Sarah.

  Sarah had not changed a bit. No, that wasn’t it: she had changed incredibly. Sarah had become a charismatic and very attractive young woman, her golden brown hair sparkling in the light of the room and her smile as infectious as ever. She was a gold-medal winner, the hero of the Canadian Olympic victory over the United States. She was being talked about in the papers as the likely winner of the Athlete of the Year award. She was on the front of the cereal box on the table in Travis’s small kitchen. She was on the cover of magazines. She was on the television talk shows, featured in a half-dozen different advertising campaigns, from milk to fair play in hockey to new Chevrolet cars. She was a genuine star.

  But she was also still the Sarah Cuthbertson they all knew, ever the thoughtful friend. She went around the room with a hug and a kiss and a special word for every single person there. It was as if the Owls had never broken up, never gone their separate ways. It was as if the Screech Owls were a team for life, a team forever, with Travis the captain, Sarah the heart and soul, and Nish the …

  “Who does he think he is, anyway?” Sarah asked after she had heard the tale of the missing Nishikawa.

  “He won’t answer my calls.” Travis said.

  “Do you have the right numbers?” she asked.

  “I got them from his mother,” Travis answered. “I get his voice asking to leave a message. There’s no doubt the numbers are his.”

  “Give me them,” Sarah ordered. She was in a no-fooling-around mood. Travis immediately got his notebook.

  “Do you have a phone in your bedroom?” Sarah asked.

  Travis nodded.

  “Let me have it for a bit,” she said.

  Travis led her to the bedroom, opened the door – petrified that she would find it a mess – and watched as Sarah stepped in and firmly shut the door behind her.

  This would be a private call.

  21

  The rest of the Owls had returned to their various homes and motel rooms, leaving just Travis and his two billets, Fahd and Data, to finish off the evening. They talked about Sarah’s attempt to contact Nish – she would say nothing about what she had said or what messages she might have left – and they talked about Sam and why she wouldn’t play, and about Mr. Dillinger and how suddenly it seemed like there was reason to hope.

  They weren’t tired. They were so wound up from the events of the day that midnight came and went and Fahd was still burning off extra energy.

  “Do you have laundry facilities here, Trav?” he said.

  Travis, beginning to get sleepy, raised his eyebrows sharply. “Sure,” he said. “Why?”

  “If we’re going to practise tomorrow, I’ve got to clean up my old equipment or I’ll stink worse than Nish in that dressing room.”

  “You want to wash something now?” Travis asked.

  “Why not? Do it now and it’ll be done in the morning.”

  Travis shrugged. It seemed silly, but he didn’t really have a reason why Fahd couldn’t do his laundry at this hour. It wouldn’t disturb anyone.

  They left Data in the apartment and went down to the laundry room, Fahd dragging his old hockey bag behind him.

  Travis started the machine and poured in soap while Fahd unzipped his bag, the fumes spreading through the tiny room.

  Travis faked gagging. “That’s worse than Nish!” he laughed.

  But Fahd wasn’t listening. He was leaning across the washing machine, looking at something by the soap.

  “What’s this?”

  “It was with Mr. Dillinger when they found him. Derek brought his clothes here to get the blood out of them. That was in his shirt pocket.”

  Fahd examined the bloodied playing card.

  “You know how he’d become so keen about card tricks,” Travis explained, unnecessarily. “He was always hiding cards up his sleeve and in his pockets.”

  Fahd wasn’t listening. “I want Data to see this,” he said.

  They left the washer running and returned to Travis’s apartment, where Data had already plugged in his laptop and was checking his e-mail.

  Fahd handed Data the card and explained how it had been found. Data checked it carefully, then asked Travis some pointed questions.

  “It was in his pocket?” Data asked.

  Travis touched his heart. “The breast pocket of his shirt.”

  “You pulled it out?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it was in exactly this condition?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Data and Fahd looked at each other.

  Travis was confused.

  “What?” he asked.

  Data fingered the card, placing it down.

  “The only way it could have blood smeared on it like this is if he put it into his pocket after the attack.

  “He must have put it there on purpose.”

  22

  Jeremy Billings and Stu Yantha drove up together from Boston, where Jeremy was going to Harvard on a full hockey scholarship and Stu was playing minor pro hockey in the East Coast League.

  Slava Shadrin had arrived from Gothenburg, Sweden, on the same flight that carried Lars and Annika, and Slava and Annika had gone to see the sights of Toronto while Lars went ahead of them to Tamarack. Lars and Dmitri had then driven back down in Dmitri’s car to meet Wiz, who claimed not to have skated since he took up the triathlon.

  Chase Jordan came in from Philadelphia with a binder filled with photographs of the inner-city kids he’d been working with. One or two of them, he said proudly, were going to end up in the NHL.

  Mr. Imoo arrived on a flight from Tokyo and took a bus north, showing up at Travis’s front door with his luggage in one hand and his hockey equipment and a battered stick in the other.

  “Smart dog,” he kept saying after he’d been introduced to the highly excited Imoo. “Very smart dog – good-looking, too.”

  Brody Prince came by Lear jet to the small airport south of Tamarack and was met by a black limousine, his arrival causing a near riot among the young high-school girls when word leaked out that the rising rock star was in town.

  Edward Rose, now a well-known television broadcaster, was due in from London that night. Others, including J-P and Nicole Dupont from Quebec City, were scheduled to arrive all through the following day.

  Data handled most of the final organization as the rest of the Screech Owls got together for their one and only practice at the new rink.

  They had all shown up early, most of the Owls staking out their familiar positions in the dressing room and everyone kidding about as if they had last played together ten minutes ago, n
ot ten years.

  Travis looked around in delight: Sarah laughing with Liz and Jenny, Big Andy quiet as he dressed, Wilson joking and giggling, Jeremy stacking his pads in the middle of the room like he always did.

  It was wonderful, but it wasn’t perfect.

  Perfect would have been Nish in the corner, head down over his knees as he searched through his bag for his socks, the rest of the Owls complaining about the stench.

  Perfect would have been Sam taking her shots at Nish, and Nish cracking back until everyone in the room thought the two of them absolutely hated each other.

  Perfect would have been Muck, glowering at Nish as he gave his short little pre-game talk.

  Perfect would have been Mr. Dillinger whistling as he went about his work, sharpening the skates and worrying about every tiny thing to do with the Screech Owls.

  Now it was the Owls turn to worry about Mr. Dillinger.

  Travis was almost dressed. He was looking at his jersey with the familiar Screech Owls logo on it when the door suddenly opened and someone large with short silver hair backed in through it.

  It was Muck, carrying Mr. Dillinger’s old portable ice sharpening machine.

  “Who needs a sharp?” Muck said.

  “Right here, Muck!” Sarah yelled out.

  Muck looked up as he laid the machine over the equipment box in the centre of the room. “Lord love us,” he said, his eyes wide. “Would you look what the dog dragged in.”

  Muck had not seen Sarah since she won the gold medal and told a national television audience that Muck Munro had been the best hockey coach of her life.

  “How are you, Muck?” Sarah asked.

  Muck said nothing.

  He stood up, walked over to where Sarah was sitting, leaned over, and kissed her on the side of her cheek.

  He then stood up, his face flushing, and walked out of the room.

  No one said a word.

  No one could.

  23

  The ice was still wet from the flooding, and Travis could hear his skates sizzle as he cut hard through the first corner.

  It felt wonderful. The wind in his face. The sight of Sarah skating ahead of him, her stride even more perfect than when they had been kids together. The almost frightening power of Dmitri as he dug hard and sprinted for a length.

  The others were in rougher form. Some, like Wilson, hadn’t skated in years, and it showed. Some, like Andy, were in terrific shape for other sports but had lost their timing and ice sense.

  It didn’t matter. This would be for fun, completely for fun.

  Muck came out onto the ice in his old practice clothes, the ratty windbreaker, the gloves with the palms half rotted out, the straight stick, the ancient skates. He ran them through some old drills, then let them scrimmage for the remainder of the hour and, for the first time ever, never once blew his whistle when an Owl tried an impossible play.

  In fact, it was nothing but tricks and impossible plays, with Dmitri, Lars, and Sarah all happy to show off their improved skills and the rest of the Owls keen to show they hadn’t gone to seed completely.

  It began to dawn on Travis that this “exhibition” game might turn more serious than he had anticipated. But then, he also knew that the match would lack the key ingredient for true competition: Nish.

  Sam too, for that matter, for Sam was every bit as determined as Nish when she wanted to be.

  They undressed slowly and lingered over a case of Diet Coke Muck hauled in from his truck. The sweat felt good, the workout great – but the real delight was in the company.

  They talked about Mr. Dillinger and Anton and the police investigation. Derek said he’d been told the police were getting nowhere, that they were certain there was a connection to the casino development but they didn’t know what it was – and until they knew, they couldn’t start thinking of suspects.

  Anton had apparently been surprised from behind, and his head was covered with a blanket as they beat him, so he had seen none of the faces he had struck at with his desperately flailing fists.

  Some of the Owls thought it was pretty obvious who the main suspect would be: Fortune Industries. But Travis pointed out that Sam herself was far more suspicious of the mayor.

  They were still talking about the attack as they headed out into the parking lot. It was a bright day, the sun sharp enough to force Travis momentarily to screw up his eyes, and for a few seconds he couldn’t respond to Data’s call to look up.

  Travis heard it long before he could see anything. There was a drone, the sound of a plane coming in low over the river and the new arena complex, but the sky was so bright he could not make out what was happening.

  “What is it?” Sarah cried out, trying to shade her eyes with her hand.

  The plane was even lower now, and much louder, and Travis eyes began to adjust just as others started to yell.

  “Oh my God!”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “Who is it?”

  Slowly, the scene came into focus, a silver plane seeming almost to stall against the stunningly blue sky of an August day.

  A plane, with its door open, and something dropping out.

  One.

  Two.

  Three

  Four.

  Five.

  Five skydivers, wearing bright silver costumes that sparkled in the sunlight.

  Five Elvises.

  The Flying Elvises.

  Nish was coming in for a landing!

  Travis watched the Flying Elvises drift down through the sky over Tamarack, the five of them forming a wheel in freefall before they broke apart and released their parachutes, each one seeming to jerk back into the sky before drifting down slowly, perfectly, towards the baseball diamond just off the parking lot.

  Travis ran with the others to watch the landings. There were cars coming from all over town, horns honking, kids screaming. The Flying Elvises had not even touched down and already they were a sensation.

  Nish landed first.

  There was no question it was Nish, despite the costume, the big hair and the phony sideburns. The body shape, the big grin, and the beet-red face all said it was Nish.

  But more than anything, it was his reaction on landing.

  Nish immediately leapt to his feet and unharnessed the parachute. He turned around, instantly Elvis, and preened his fake hair and sideburns, putting on his silver sunglasses.

  “Thang you very mush,” he said in his best Elvis voice. “Thang you very mush, ladies and gennlemen. Thang you very mush.”

  And then, to Travis: “Mr. D. got my skates sharpened?”

  He didn’t know.

  24

  The Screech Owls and the “All Stars” gathered that night at the community centre for a special dinner with the mayor, the councillors, and about two hundred invited guests. There were television crews from Toronto, newspaper reporters, and even a demonstration by Greenpeace outside as everyone arrived.

  Travis was afraid that Sam might be in the crowd, but she was nowhere in sight.

  He began to see what it was that must be bothering her. Sarah was so clearly the centre of attention – even more so than Brody Prince, the rock star, or Dmitri Yakushev, the new superstar with the Colorado Avalanche, or Lars and Slava, the stars of European hockey.

  Sarah was the one everyone wanted to meet, touch, get a photograph with, ask for an autograph. She had her Olympic medal around her neck and she was gracious with everyone, from the mayor to the little kids who kept sneaking in the side doors and trying to approach her.

  Sarah was as poised and smooth off the ice as she had ever been on the ice. She seemed to float effortlessly from group to group, easily joining in on conversations, casually excusing herself as she moved on to another group that she didn’t want to disappoint. They had yet to officially name the rink the Sarah Cuthbertson Arena, but it was already hers.

  Well, hers and Nish’s. The other superstar of the evening, Travis had to admit, was Wayne Nishikawa, who
swept about the room in his sequined cape, his silken purple jumpsuit, his fat silver shades, his puffed up hair, his ridiculous sideburns, and with his four identical Elvis buddies.

  The Flying Elvises took to the stage for an impromptu “air” concert – all five taking turns mouthing the words to Elvis’s hits as the others pretended to play various instruments – and Nish virtually brought down the house with his rendition of “Jailhouse Rock.”

  Travis felt a tug at the back of his shirt.

  It was Sarah.

  “Talk?” she said.

  While the Flying Elvises entertained the crowd, the two old friends walked outside and headed down along the river.

  It was dark, the lights from across the bay playing on the water, and Sarah drew close to Travis, holding on to his arm. He realized that he was actually taller than her now – the first time in their lives this had been the case.

  They talked about Mr. Dillinger and Sam and little Muck and Nish – “I just told him to get his fat butt up here or I’d kick it next time I saw him,” Sarah said – and they talked about the Olympics, about hockey, about where they were living and what they were doing.

  For a long while they didn’t talk at all. They walked out to the end of the point and stood watching a crescent moon rise over the Lookout.

  Out on the water, a loon called, the haunting sound drifting into what sounded like the laugh of the insane.

  “Reminds me of Nish,” Sarah said, and giggled.

  Travis smiled.

  “I think I’ll play one more Olympics,” Sarah said.

  Travis nodded. Of course she would. She’d be through her university courses by then. It would be time to get on with life.

  “And then what?”

  “What would you think if I came back here to teach?”