Breakaway

by W. C. Mack

  “And made it!” Cara shrieked.

  Gunnar shook her head. “Nope. I was an alternate.” She was quiet for a second or two. “I was disappointed. I mean, the Olympics had been my dream forever, and to get that close but not actually make the team was pretty rough.”

  “Did you want to quit?” Patrick asked.

  “I thought about it,” she admitted. “The next Olympics was four whole years away and I wasn’t sure I’d even make the team on a second try, no matter how hard I trained.” She looked at each of us, then said, “But I decided that it was important enough for me to give it a shot. So I kept training with the 2006 team, showing the coach how dedicated I was and proving to the other players that I wasn’t a sore loser. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I needed to prove it to myself, too.”

  “So how did you end up at the Olympics?” I asked.

  “Melanie O’Donnell tore her ACL and couldn’t play.” She frowned. “It was hard. I saw how upset she was that she wouldn’t be able to represent Canada. I wasn’t sure if I’d be her alternate, but Coach took me aside, told me how impressed she’d been with my work ethic and attitude, and she put me on the team.”

  “Cool,” Cara said, smiling.

  “It was,” Gunnar said. “Like I told you guys before, winning that medal was one of the proudest moments in my life. And to do it again four years later?” she shook her head. “Who gets two chances like that?”

  I was still thinking about what Gunnar had said when Tim pointed out that Holbrook’s team was still out on the ice.

  For the first time I’d seen, the three girls were actually skating. Of course, it was in a corner, playing keep-away by themselves, but at least they were out there.

  “Aren’t they breaking for lunch?” Tim asked Gunnar.

  “They should be,” she said, searching the ice. “Where’s Holbrook?”

  We all looked, and none of us could spot him.

  “Hey,” Gunnar shouted. “Aren’t you guys taking lunch?”

  Colin shrugged and shouted back, “Danny told us to play.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He had to go,” Kenny shouted.

  “Go where?” Gunnar asked, sounding shocked.

  The entire Holbrook team shrugged at once.

  “When did he leave?” Gunnar asked.

  “Maybe an hour ago?” Colin said.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Take a break, guys.”

  They hesitated for a second, then started to skate toward us.

  “He had to go,” Gunnar muttered, scowling. “Unbelievable.”

  * * *

  After lunch, we ran a couple more drills, and then I heard the magic words I’d been waiting for.

  “How about a scrimmage?” Gunnar asked.

  Yes!

  “That would be awesome,” I told her, as the rest of the players cheered.

  Gunnar split us up into two teams. I knew it wouldn’t be boys against girls, and that was fine. I’d seen some pretty sweet moves from the girls already.

  My team was made up of me, Simon (who I could even identify with his helmet on, thanks to the white-blond curls sticking out of the ear holes), Patrick, Ashley Bosko, Cara, two other girls whose names I didn’t know and Big Nose from Port Alberni.

  “My name’s Mark, by the way,” he said, once he was standing next to me.

  “Nugget,” I told him, with a nod.

  “You play right wing,” he said.

  “Cool,” I said, smiling.

  “No, I mean you usually play right wing. For the Cougars.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I do.”

  “Well, that’s my position, too,” he said. “I know it’s your home turf, but —”

  “Go for it,” me and my new attitude told him.

  Chapter Ten

  We all got into positions that most of us didn’t usually play, with a couple of people from each team on the bench.

  Gunnar dropped the puck. It was game time!

  Patrick was at centre and he snagged the puck as soon as it hit the ice. He spun around and passed it to me, at defence.

  I charged down the ice, slipping right between two girls and deking Tim out a second later.

  “I’m open,” Ashley shouted from my left.

  But Simon was open, too, and I knew for a fact he could score.

  New attitude.

  I took a deep breath and passed to Ashley. Her long ponytail swung back and forth as she dodged around two of the girls and got in great position to take the shot.

  Then she stopped and looked from one side to the other.

  What was she waiting for? An invitation?

  I’d give her one.

  “Shoot!” I shouted.

  Ashley swung her stick, hard and fast. We all watched the puck whip across the ice and slide right between Tim’s skates.

  “I don’t usually play goal!” he shouted to the rest of us, as soon as he’d picked up the puck.

  Only a day before, I would have pointed out that he didn’t usually play at all, but my new attitude made me zip it.

  The next thing I knew, Jeremy’s sister, Tonia, was hauling down the ice toward me and I suddenly remembered I was playing defence!

  I bent my knees and tried to guess which way she’d probably go. But I had no idea.

  In a split second, she zipped around me like I was standing still. Okay, I was standing still, but I’d thought I had a bit more time. Man, she was fast!

  I spun around and saw her heading for the goal, which was manned by one of the other girls. But before she could pull back her stick to take the shot, Cara came out of nowhere, like a redheaded tornado, and stole the puck.

  Yes!

  She passed to Simon, who passed to Patrick, who took the shot. The puck bounced off the blade of Tim’s skate and toward the boards.

  Port Alberni Mark hustled to reach it first and when he succeeded, he passed to Ashley.

  This time, she didn’t hesitate at all. She just let loose a killer shot that Tim didn’t stand a chance of stopping.

  And he didn’t.

  “That was awesome!” I shouted.

  “Yeah, awesome,” Kenny echoed.

  “Getting the girls to do the work for you, Nugget?” Colin called from the other side of the rink.

  I was kind of ticked off, especially when a couple of the other Cougars on Holbrook’s team laughed.

  “Ignore it,” Patrick said, as he skated past.

  “But they —”

  He shook his head. “Aren’t worth the wasted breath, Nugget.”

  I knew he was right. Again. “Hey, Patrick?”

  He turned around. “Yeah?”

  “Sorry about … how I’ve been during camp.”

  “It’s cool,” he said. “I’m just glad to see the real you back today.”

  After about fifteen minutes, my team was ahead by four goals, so Gunnar decided to mix things up. She switched players so half of us stayed where were and the other half traded teams.

  Coach O’Neal usually kept the Cougars on the same teams and in their own positions when we scrimmaged, so I was interested to see how Gunnar’s plan would work out.

  It turned out to be awesome.

  * * *

  At the end of the day, I got changed and packed up my bag in the locker room with the rest of the guys.

  And I mean all of the guys. It turned out that the players from Port Alberni had been changing in the washroom because the girls were using the Visitors’ room. So I invited them to use ours.

  “What are they doing in here?” Chris demanded.

  “Same thing we are,” I told him.

  “Yeah, well they don’t belong in our locker room,” Colin said.

  I waited for Kenny to chime in, like he usually did, but he left it alone.

  “They’re part of our camp,” Patrick said.

  “So are the girls,” Chris argued. “But I don’t see them in here.”

  “But I sure see a lot of girl uniforms,”
Colin said, laughing.

  Patrick, Mark and Tim were all wearing the Gunnar jerseys that arrived midway through the day and I wished I were, too. I’d wear mine the next day, for sure.

  “It’s a cool jersey,” Quinn said.

  “Yeah, and the girls are actually pretty good,” Simon added.

  “Oh, boy,” Colin said, rolling his eyes. “Here we go.”

  “They are good,” I told him. “They’re fast and they make smart plays.”

  “Yeah, right,” Colin said. “Gunnar’s team couldn’t play their way out of a paper bag.”

  What?

  “Why would we ever have to do that?” I asked.

  “You know what I mean,” Colin snapped.

  “No, we don’t,” Patrick said.

  “I mean that your whole team stinks and these Port Alberni guys need to be somewhere else.”

  “Get over it,” Bosko said, from the corner. “It’s a locker room, for crying out loud.”

  “But it’s our —”

  “Get over it,” he said again.

  That shut everybody up.

  Bosko left a couple of minutes later, followed by Patrick, the Watson triplets (I mean, Simon, Quinn and Warren), Bedhead and Jeff, who was chewing on some kind of wrinkled up pepperoni stick.

  When there were just a few of us left, the room got even quieter, which was fine by me. I didn’t feel like arguing with anybody.

  I high-fived Mark and Skinny, along with the rest of the guys, on my way out of the locker room.

  “See ya tomorrow, Nugget,” Mark called after me.

  My attitude change felt good, and I was happy that I’d figured out that I needed it on my own (except for almost every member of my team calling me out, that is).

  Kenny and me walked down the hallway together and when we were almost to the front door I saw a flash of something green under the vending machine.

  “Hold on,” I said, dropping my bag and heading over for a closer look.

  I had to get down on my knees to reach it.

  “What’s that?” Kenny asked.

  “Ashley Bosko’s cell phone,” I said.

  “Maybe she’s still here,” he said.

  “Nah. I think she and Eddie go home together and he’s been gone for a while.”

  “She can wait until tomorrow,” Kenny said with a shrug.

  I tucked the phone into the front pocket of my hoodie, remembering how hard she’d looked for it that morning.

  I wasn’t so sure a teenage girl could make it through a whole night without her cell.

  Mrs. Cavanaugh spent the whole drive home telling us about the huge list of things she needed to get done, so it didn’t sound like a stop at the Boskos’ house was going to fit in. I quietly held Ashley’s phone and waited to get back to my place.

  When we got there, neither of my parents’ cars was in the driveway. I thanked Kenny’s mum for the ride and walked around the back of the house. I dug the key out from under the rock I was pretty sure the whole neighbourhood knew was fake and opened the back door.

  I didn’t even have to call out a hello to know that nobody was home. The house had that creepy quietness to it.

  I unpacked my gear and loaded the washing machine, then went upstairs to change.

  I stared at Ashley’s phone and thought about how protective Bosko was when it came to her. Would he be mad if I waited until morning to return the phone?

  Probably. He’d think I stayed up all night reading her texts, or something equally creepy.

  Since Wendy wasn’t around to give me a ride, I left a note on the kitchen counter and got my bike out of the garage.

  It only took me about fifteen minutes to get to Bosko’s house, which had a minivan, a pickup and Shane’s old beater in the driveway.

  I parked my bike, thinking about the fact that I’d never actually stepped onto the Boskos’ property before. He’d been tutoring me forever, but we always met at my house or the library.

  I had no idea what to expect. Before I met Ashley, I might have thought the Boskos lived in a gigantic cave. Or maybe a massive gym, where they all worked out, bench-pressing their own body weight and snacking on nuts and bolts (and I don’t mean the pretzel kind — I mean car parts and stuff).

  But if there were girls in the house, that kind of changed things a bit. It made me curious.

  I took a deep breath before ringing the doorbell, then waited almost a whole minute before I heard footsteps inside. Big, thundering footsteps, loud enough to shatter windows and crack pavement.

  “I said, I’m getting it!” I heard Shane yell. He whipped the door open and stared at me. “Nugget. What are you doing here?”

  I dug into my pocket for the phone, but before I could say anything, Ashley joined him in the open doorway, a surprised look on her face.

  “Nugget? What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I’ve got your phone,” I said, holding it up.

  “Yes!” she shrieked, as I handed it to her.

  “You lost it again?” Shane asked.

  She waved it at him. “No, I didn’t.” Then she looked at me. “Thanks for dropping it off. Wanna come in?”

  In? Like, inside? I thought about saying no, but Shane had already moved out of the way and the door was wide open.

  I felt like a mouse being lured into a trap, but the curiosity had gotten to me.

  I stepped into a living room that looked just like ours, except for the thousand or so trophies, plaques, ribbons and photos all over the walls, tabletops and bookcases.

  “Whoa,” I whispered.

  “Dumb, isn’t it?” Ashley said, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the kitchen. “Want something to drink?”

  “I guess,” I shrugged, wondering how many of the awards she pulled me past belonged to Eddie.

  “You should stay for dinner,” Ashley said.

  “What? Me?”

  She shook her head and her ponytail bounced all over. “You eat, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, but —”

  “So eat here. Mum always has way too much food.”

  Dinner at the Boskos’? Could I handle that?

  Did I want to?

  When we walked into the kitchen, Mrs. Bosko was reading a magazine at the kitchen table.

  “Hey, Mum?” Ashley said. “Can Nugget stay for dinner?”

  What?

  “Oh, I … uh …” I stuttered.

  “Sure,” Mrs. Bosko said, barely looking up. She was as tiny and bird-like as I remembered, and I still couldn’t believe those giant sons were hers.

  “What do you want?” Ashley asked, opening the fridge door.

  “Um …”

  “How about a pop or something? We’ve got Coke, Sprite, Gatorade, Vitamin Water and …” she disappeared behind the door. “Grape juice.”

  “Water is fine,” I told her.

  I didn’t even know Eddie was behind me until he said, “Nugget. What are you doing here?”

  When Shane and Ashley had asked me the exact same thing, they’d just sounded surprised and curious.

  Eddie sounded dangerous.

  “Uh … I’m … uh,” I stammered, unable to form a word, let alone a whole sentence.

  I didn’t have to worry about it, though, because Eddie walked away without waiting for an answer.

  * * *

  When we all sat down at the dinner table about half an hour later, Mr. Bosko (and his huge neck, as thick as a tree trunk) sat at the head, with Shane and Eddie on either side of him. I sat across from Ashley, in their little sister Casey’s spot.

  Mrs. Bosko brought in the meal and it wasn’t the hard metal objects or power shakes I might have expected.

  Instead, she carried in a pizza the size of our kitchen table.

  That’s when I remembered that she didn’t cook.

  Before the smell of the pizza even reached me, Eddie and Shane had each grabbed a quarter of it and Mr. Bosko was trying to lift the other half onto his plate.

  W
hat?

  Mrs. Bosko disappeared into the kitchen again and came back with another pizza, just as big. She put it on the table in front of me and I took one slice.

  “So,” Mr. Bosko said, as I battled a long strand of cheese stretched between the tip of my slice and my mouth. “How is Math going?”

  “Good,” I said. I hadn’t won a whole living room full of trophies, but I was doing well enough not to fail the class.

  “And your other classes?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  I remembered the way he’d looked at me and Wendy the day she rear-ended someone in Mum’s minivan. Like we were the dumbest people on earth.

  “Fine,” I told him. “Social Studies is a lot of work this year, memorizing a lot of stuff, but everything else is okay.”

  He tilted his head, obviously interested.

  “If memorization is giving you grief, perhaps you should try a mnemonic device.”

  “A what?”

  The whole Bosko family looked at each other, then back at me, like it was the most ridiculous question they’d ever heard.

  “A mnemonic device,” Mr. Bosko said again. “Something to help your memory.”

  “You know, like the one for the order of operations,” Shane said. “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.”

  Order of operations?

  Who was Aunt Sally?

  My tutor could tell when I was confused, so he jumped in.

  “When you’re doing a math problem with lots of parts, you have to do them in the right order. In Shane’s mnemonic device, the p in ‘please’ stands for parentheses, then the e in ‘excuse’ is for exponents, then it’s multiplication, division, addition and subtraction. My Dear Aunt Sally.”

  “Oh.” That was supposed to make sense?

  Mr. Bosko cleared his throat. “You could also use a device like visualizing something that reminds you of what you’re trying to remember.”

  Right then I was trying to remember how to listen without my mouth hanging open like a flounder.

  Who were these people?

  “Other times,” Mr. Bosko continued, “it’s a phrase, like Shane’s. Let’s say you were going grocery shopping and needed to remember beets, mushrooms and vinegar. That’s b, m, v.”

  “Be My Valentine,” Ashley said.

  “What?” I choked. Was she talking to me? I glanced at Eddie to make sure he wasn’t lunging across the table to strangle me.