by David Skuy
“We never played together.”
“I know — and I think he knows that too. That’s why it’s so bizarre. I thought for sure he’d say no. But then as I left he said he’d consider it. I guess he did.”
Zachary joined them on the bench. “You’re quite the general manager,” he said to Charlie, pointing to Pudge. “I didn’t know you were such a powerful guy.”
“You’d better pass me the puck, or you’ll be watching from the press box,” Charlie said.
“I’ve always wanted to sit up there. You can see the whole ice.”
Hilton gave his whistle a sharp blow.
“Okay, guys. Line up how I showed you. Jake you move in a bit, and Matt, I want you over closer to the middle. Liam, you come closer to me. Remember, your job is to get me to pass the puck quickly — you don’t want me to have the time to get a good look.”
For the next thirty minutes the team practised their forechecking. It was a little boring at times, especially since Hilton blew his whistle almost every five seconds to point out mistakes and explain how to do it better. Charlie loved it, though. Hilton had a way of making the most technical aspects of hockey seem simple. It was always fun to learn something new, especially when it made you a better player.
Eventually, Hilton blew his whistle and pointed at centre. “Let’s have a scrimmage, and try to forecheck like we’ve just practised. You all look like you could use some action. Jake and Charlie, your lines will start. Thomas and Adam, you’re on Charlie’s team, and Scott and Nick, you’re with Jake.”
The puck was dropped, and soon they were racing around the ice, forechecking scheme completely forgotten. Hilton reminded them a few times about it, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. After a while he gave up and let the players enjoy themselves.
Pudge acquitted himself fairly well in his new position, encouraged by Charlie’s incessant praise. He slapped Pudge’s shin pads after every shift, and he made a great show of celebrating when Pudge scored a goal. Charlie and he had come down on a two-on-one. Charlie had faked a move outside, and then slid the puck between the defenceman’s feet to Pudge, who fired the puck into the top right corner, just over the goalie’s blocker.
Charlie was relieved to see that by the end of scrimmage Zachary had accepted Pudge. Pudge’s performance seemed to have won him over, because he overheard Zachary explaining some new plays to Pudge, the pair sounding as if they’d been linemates for years.
The sound of the Zamboni firing up announced the end of practice. A few of the more energetic players, Charlie included, took some final laps, enjoying the chance to skate full out. Only the driver honking his horn, combined with two loud whistle blows from Hilton, convinced them to get off.
Hilton followed them to the dressing room. He knocked on the door to get the players’ attention. “Gentlemen, before you get changed, we need to take care of some business. It has become a tradition at Terrence Falls to hold an assembly with the entire school before the tournament and announce the members of the hockey teams. Part of that tradition is to name the team captains and assistants. So if we don’t want to break with tradition, we need to pick some, and we may as well do it now.”
A feeling of tension had entered the room, and the guys looked around nervously at each other.
“I’m going to open the floor to nominations. Please don’t just call out a name. Give it some thought. Your captain must be someone you respect both as a player and a person. It doesn’t have to be the best player, or the guy who scores the most goals. It’s someone you feel you can trust. Someone you want to act as a go-between, between you and me, and also someone you feel comfortable talking to. The second and third runner-ups in the vote will be the assistant captains. And as far as I know, no one’s being sentenced to death, so you can all relax.”
That broke up the tension, and everyone laughed.
“We’ll do it this way. Call out a candidate and I’ll write the name down on this board. The vote will be by secret ballot, so don’t worry about having to vote in front of everyone.” He gave one of the players a cardboard box filled with small slips of paper and a bunch of pens. “Take a pen and one slip of paper before we start.”
The players passed the box around. Charlie took his and looked around the room. He didn’t know the grade ten players too well. Among them, Ethan Mitchell, a defenceman, seemed like a good guy. Among the grade nines, he guessed Jake had the best chance of being captain. Tough to say about assistants. Matt and Thomas were good players and fairly outgoing. He certainly wasn’t a Thomas fan. Matt, on the other hand, hadn’t bothered him recently, at least not since their fight. Charlie had even grown to admire his determination and spirit on the ice. Matt was more of a team player than he’d given him credit for.
“It looks like we’re all ready,” Hilton said. “You’ve also had a minute or so to consider your choices. Before we start, however, I want to emphasize that this is no big deal. It’s not a popularity contest, or any judgement about your hockey skills. If you don’t get nominated, or if you get nominated but not chosen, please do not take it personally. Teams need leaders, which is why we’re doing this, but every player on the team is important. There’ll be no special privileges for the captain or the assistants, I can promise you that.” He took a deep breath. “All right! Enough with the preliminaries. Let’s have some nominations.”
Liam held up his hand first. “I nominate Jake.”
Hilton nodded. “Anyone else?”
“I nominate Thomas,” Matt called out.
“Can defencemen be captain?” Jake wisecracked.
“I think so,” Hilton replied.
“I nominate Ethan,” another player said.
“I nominate Craig.”
The room went quiet after that. No one seemed willing to put forward another name.
Finally Pudge’s hand shot up.
“I nominate Charlie Joyce,” he said, in a loud voice. That caught everyone’s attention. Jake’s face clouded over. He glared menacingly at Pudge.
“Any more nominations?” Hilton asked.
The room was silent. “Okay, the nominations are closed,” he said, finally. “List three names in order of preference. The player you want to be captain is number one, and the others are your choice to be assistants.”
The players quickly wrote down their choices and dropped the slips of paper back into the cardboard box.
“I’ll count these up tonight, and you’ll find out in two days at the assembly.” Hilton nodded to his players and left the room.
Charlie sat in disbelief. Pudge’s nomination shocked and embarrassed him. He saw the other players looking over at him, and then turning away. They were obviously also surprised. He really wished Pudge hadn’t done that. It’s not that he didn’t appreciate it — Pudge was probably just trying to be nice. But it wasn’t the kind of attention he needed right now. He undressed as quickly as he could, hoping to get out of there before anyone asked him about the vote. He didn’t even bother drying his skates before he zipped his bag, grabbed his sticks and left the dressing room.
Charlie fretted all the way home. He’d been tempted to withdraw his name right then and there, although Hilton might have thought that kind of weird. He slapped his stick on the sidewalk. It had happened so fast. It was over before he knew it. Jake and his friends were going to be ten times worse than usual after this.
He saw his house up ahead. Why did Pudge do that? He felt his anger rise — then, curiously, it went away. He shouldn’t blame Pudge. How can you get mad at a guy who nominates you for captain? And besides, he had to admit that deep down it was nice to know that at least one player on the team thought him worthy — and nominating a guy Jake hated was a bold move. He hadn’t thought that Pudge had the guts to challenge Jake so openly.
Charlie tossed his equipment into the garage. Obviously, there was no sense worrying about it. Anyway, he had an even more pressing problem — homework! He had enough assignments to sink a ship, and h
ad barely gotten started on any of them.
11
A MEETING OF MINDS
It was the day after the vote, and Charlie still couldn’t get it out of his mind. He put his book down and looked out the window for what felt like the hundredth time since he sat down to do his book report. To his surprise he saw a kid on a bike wearing a dark blue sweatshirt turn sharply into his driveway. That was a Terrence Falls sweatshirt, he noticed.
The doorbell rang.
“Someone is here to see you,” Danielle yelled.
“Okay. I’ll be right there.”
Charlie ran downstairs and opened the door. Pudge waved a Frisbee.
“Wondered if you wanted to toss the bean around at school before dinner?” He paused. “Are you doin’ anything now?”
“I’m workin’ on my book report.”
“Cool. I just finished mine.”
“I’m jealous. I just started. It took me an hour to come up with a title. I can’t seem to get started. Not sure if Hilton’s gonna be impressed with five blank pages.”
“What are you doing it on?”
“I chose Animal Farm.”
“Any good?”
“Actually, it is. I was surprised. I was up half the night finishing. It got pretty exciting at the end.”
“What’s it about?
“Animals take over a farm.”
“How do they do that?”
“The animals can talk to each other. The farmer is this cruel nutbar — and they chase him off. Then the animals start turning on each other. It’s kinda complicated — very intense stuff.”
“When you’re done with it maybe I’ll read it. Sounds kinda interesting.”
Charlie leaned against the door. “Yeah, okay. No problem. I’ll bring it to school tomorrow.”
“So do you need a break from all that heavy thinking?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve barely done any thinking at all.”
Pudge’s face fell. “That’s cool. I understand you wanna get it done.”
Charlie knew he should keep working. It was due first thing Monday morning. Frisbee was tempting, though. And it would be rude to say no. Maybe a game of Frisbee was what he needed to get the creative juices flowing.
“Let’s do it. No point staring at the wall any longer. I’ll finish it after supper. Hold on while I get my shoes.”
Pudge grinned. “Awesome. I’ll wait for you on the road.” He hopped on his bike and rolled down the driveway.
Charlie went into the living room. His grandmother and sister were reading together on the sofa.
“Grandma, I’m just going out with a friend for a bit.”
“Who’s the friend?”
“A guy from school.”
“Okay, dear. Your mother will be back from work soon. She said we’re eating at six-thirty, so don’t be too long.”
“I won’t.”
“Have fun,” she said, resuming her reading.
Charlie put on his running shoes, grabbed his bike from the garage, and joined Pudge.
“I hope I didn’t surprise you too much yesterday … after practice, with the nomination,” Pudge said as they pushed off. “You got dressed pretty fast. I got the feeling that maybe you weren’t too happy about it.”
Charlie shrugged. “I admit I was surprised. You didn’t have to do that, though. I don’t know many guys on the team, so …” His voice trailed off.
“I wasn’t doing it as a favour. I really think you’d make the best captain — and I think you have a good chance of winning.”
“Ethan will be captain, or maybe Jake,” Charlie replied.
“Maybe. I’m not sure about Jake. He’s been a real jerk lately, even by his standards, and I don’t believe he has as many friends as he thinks.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Charlie replied uneasily. He’d never considered the possibility that a grade ten or Jake wouldn’t win.
In a couple of minutes they were there. Charlie put his bike down and took off down the field.
“I’m open — hit me, dude,” he called out.
Pudge got off his bike and flung the Frisbee — a perfect strike. Charlie barely had to break stride. He whirled and fired it back. Pudge bounced the hovering Frisbee off his fingertips a few times before hauling it in. The guy could obviously play. Charlie was impressed. They settled down into an easy rhythm, challenging each other with longer and longer throws. It was still warm, and it didn’t take too long to work up a sweat, as they ran all over the field. After ten minutes or so, Charlie let loose a wild toss, which curved sharply towards the school and crashed into some concrete steps.
Pudge pretended not to see the Frisbee. He held his hand over his eyes, peering all around him. Charlie laughed and jogged over. It was resting against the bottom of the railing. As he leaned down to get it, he heard the familiar sound of a skateboard rolling along the pavement. He looked up in time to see a guy doing a railslide, heading straight for his head. He dropped to the pavement as the boarder flew over him.
The boarder landed easily, threw in an ollie, and then added a 5-0 grind, bringing himself to a full stop.
Incensed at the rider’s recklessness, Charlie leapt to his feet, ready to confront him. He took two steps towards him and then stopped short — it was Zachary.
“Hey, dude, how many times do I have to tell you to keep your head up?” he said.
Charlie had to laugh. “A half-second warning is all I’m asking, then you can try to kill yourself on your board.”
“Sometimes you just need to let it fly.”
They came together and punched fists.
“Nice board,” Charlie said.
“Relatively new purchase — a combination Christmas present and forced savings. I just got it before school. Check it out.”
Charlie took the board from him. “Do you like the small wheels?”
“I think they’re 42 or 43 — and hard as granite. The rating is something like 98.”
Charlie was impressed. “I’ve never been on a board like this.”
“I really shouldn’t use it on the street. I felt like a quick ride before dinner, and lent my other board to a buddy. I figured, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“You could put the nose through Charlie’s head!” Pudge said.
He had come over to join them.
“How’s it going, Pudge?” Zachary said.
“Good. Tossing the bean around with Charlie.” He noticed the new skateboard. “Cool machine,” he said. “Check out that deck.”
The deck had a bright orange and red sun, with fluorescent flames radiating in all directions.
“Custom job, dudes. A buddy of mine does them.”
“Who’s that?” Pudge asked.
“You know Griffin Page?”
“I think so. He hangs out at the skate park, right?”
“Hangs out? The guy lives there. You should see him ride. The other day he came flying down a ramp, at maximum velocity, doing a tail powerslide, then after landing he right away cracks off a 360 kickflip, followed by a cab jump, and shuts it down with a nose stall — and I’m talking about within five feet of each other. The guy is a wizard. His vert ramp is totally insane. Gravity has no impact on that dude.”
Charlie was about to ask for a translation, but held off. He didn’t want to sound like a novice. He’d always considered himself a fairly decent rider — he and his friends used to fool around with their boards at recess. He obviously didn’t compare to Zachary, or his friend.
Pudge didn’t hesitate to ask, however. “How come you stop speaking English whenever the subject of skateboarding comes up? What’s a 360 kickflip? And how do you jump over a cab?”
Zachary gave Pudge a good-natured shove. “Sorry, I forgot I was hanging out with a hockey crowd. The 360 is a combination shuvit and kickflip, so you jump up and spin the board around completely. Cab jump is doing a rotation, fakie, and landing forwards. Named after Steve Caballero. Nose stall is popping up on the nos
e and grinding it along the ground.”
“So what’s fakie?” Pudge asked.
“When you do a trick with your weaker foot forward. It’s just harder, that’s all. Hey, you guys need to come with me to the park and learn some tricks. I can’t play with guys with pathetic ollies.”
Pudge started waving his hand towards the school. “Hey guys. Where you off to?” he shouted.
Charlie looked up and saw Scott and Nick riding their bikes towards them.
“You guys must love school,” Scott said. “Did you ever leave, or are ya waiting to get into the library early?”
“We were going over some math formulas, and reviewing our book reports,” Charlie said.
“You need to calm down, Joyce. I don’t know what you did in your old hometown, but that’s a little too wild for these parts,” Scott said.
“So where are you guys off to?” Pudge asked.
“We’re going home,” Nick said. “We just went to check out the new hockey equipment at Dunn’s.”
“What’s Dunn’s?” Charlie said.
“Sporting goods store,” Nick said. “They’ve got all the hockey stuff you need. I had my hands on this Easton — sells for $425, and you can pick it up with your baby finger, it’s so light.”
“Better yet,” Scott said, “I tried on a pair of Mission skates — I think they go for over $700. The sales guy was telling me all about them. Said they have so much support you can carve on a dime. And there’s a flex system that adds power to your stride. Apparently, my entire game would change with those things on my feet.”
“So Scott offers the guy fifty bucks for them,” Nick broke in.
Scott laughed. “You should have been there. He thought I was serious. I kept saying, ‘Look, take the fifty, and we’ll call it even.’ And he kept saying, ‘That wouldn’t even pay for the laces.’ Finally, he figured we weren’t going to buy anything, and he told us to leave. I should have bought the laces — those were nice laces.”
“Maybe you should have bought one, and then saved up for the other,” Charlie said.
