I remembered how my legs felt like wooden sticks. I hadn’t gone blind like him, but I hadn’t been my normal self either.
His eyes dropped to the water bottle in my hands. He repeated himself. “Kool-Aid! Are you trying to tell me...?”
I offered him the water bottle. “Still want to share?”
He shook his head no.
“The Kool-Aid,” I said. “And I wonder if that also answers a lot of other things.”
chapter thirteen
When I settled into the corner chair of Coach Estleman’s office on Wednesday afternoon, he didn’t waste any time getting to the point.
“Tyler,” he said, “on Sunday afternoon, with ten minutes left in the game, you had a chance to score the goal to put away the Blazers. Remember?”
I nodded yes. I did remember. It would have almost been better if I hadn’t even had the chance in the first place.
“And you couldn’t have made it easier on the goalie if you had picked up the puck and handed it to him. Remember?”
I nodded yes again. I was highly aware of my gym bag at my feet. Whatever might happen during the next ten minutes of discussion, I had a question of my own.
“I know why,” he said. “I know exactly why you didn’t bury the puck. You had already scored a goal. You thought one was enough.”
“Well...,” I said. He was probably close to the truth, but I didn’t want to admit it.
“Tyler,” he added, “you cause me as much grief as any player I have ever coached.”
I thought back over the three years I had been on the Winter Hawks with him as my coach. I hadn’t once missed curfew. I hadn’t once yelled at him. In fact I hadn’t even been late for a single practice.
I mentioned all of this as I defended myself.
“I almost wish you would give me that kind of grief,” Coach said. “At least I’d know what to do about it. I could bench you. Or I could fine you. But what’s it going to take to get you to play good hockey?”
His face showed concern. I think that made it worse. He wasn’t mad. He wasn’t disappointed. He was, if anything, sad to be needing to talk to me.
“You see,” he went on, “you’re big enough, you’re talented enough. You can shoot.” He winced, no doubt remembering how I had hit him below the belt buckle during one practice. “Yup, you can shoot. But only in practice, not games. Same with your skating and stickhandling.”
He paused and stared at me. “So what stops you from playing good hockey in game situations? You’re not afraid to go into the corners and dig the puck out. When people push you around, you don’t back away. We’ve kept you on the team this long because we keep hoping some day you’ll break through and play the way you can. I half think you’re just happy to be wearing the team jacket. But you don’t want to face any pressure.”
I let out a deep breath. “You’re going to cut me from the team, aren’t you?”
He slammed his fist on his desk. He half stood. He yelled down on me, “Listen to your tone of voice! You don’t even care!”
“That’s not true,” I said. “But—”
“Don’t tell me you care! Look at you! Sitting there like we were discussing the weather. You’re accepting whatever happens! Like if I cut you from the team after two years, it’s no big deal!”
He pounded his fist again. “Where’s your fire, Watson? What’s it going to take to get you to do more than wear the team jacket?”
He repeated himself, spitting the words at me, “Where is your inner fire?”
Coach Estleman sat back down and found his breath. He stared at me until I looked away. When he spoke again, he had himself under control.
“Do you think it was an accident that I paired you with Riley Judd? Sure I wanted you to help make him a team player. I didn’t lie about that. But I was also hoping some of his fire would rub off on you. I was hoping you’d get mad enough and jealous enough of someone like him to actually play the way I know you can.”
He snorted. “Hmmph. It’s more like you managed to tie him to the same piano you drag around on the ice during hockey games.”
Coach Estleman got up and started pacing around the office. He spoke more to himself than to me. “I’ve got Riley Judd, a million-dollar player who’s starting to play like a ten-dollar player. And I’ve got you, a ten-dollar player who doesn’t know he can play like a million-dollar player. Maybe my mother was right; I should have gone into pro wrestling.”
He continued to shake his head and grumble beneath his breath as he paced.
“I don’t want to get cut,” I said to his back.
He whirled and glared at me.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want to get cut.”
He moved directly in front of me, crossed his arms and stared down at me.
“I can’t quite hear you, Watson.”
“I don’t want to get cut.” I kept my voice even.
“Louder. You sound like a ballerina.”
“I don’t want to get cut.”
“Shout it!”
I stood and stared right back into his eyes. “I am not going to play your dumb army-sergeant game. I will not shout like this is some kind of pep rally. But I will tell you this again: I want to play.”
He grinned. “Finally, I see some fire in your eyes. You’ve got two more weeks, Watson. Show that fire on the ice, and you’ll stay on the team.”
I did not grin in return. My teeth remained gritted.
“We have a light skate in forty-five minutes,” he said. “You’d better get moving. And tonight, play hard.”
I did not move.
He arched his eyebrows in surprise. “Yes, Tyler? Anything else?”
“Coach,” I said, “it’s about the piano you blamed me for tying to Riley Judd.”
“This ought to be interesting,” Coach Estleman said.
“You know how sometimes players are tested for drugs?”
His face grew dark. “Drugs? Is Riley Judd into drugs?”
“Nothing like that,” I said quickly. “I’m just hoping you know which doctor to call for drug testing.”
“What exactly do you want to test?” he asked. He was frowning.
“This,” I said. I leaned forward and pulled a water bottle out of my gym bag. “It looks and tastes like Kool-Aid, but I think it’s a little stronger than the regular stuff.”
chapter fourteen
A cut requiring five stitches definitely hurts. But it didn’t hurt near as much as the smirk on Coach Estleman’s face.
“Yup, five stitches, Coach,” Scotty, our trainer said again, “maybe six. That flying puck cut him good.”
Less than a minute earlier, I had been standing in front of the Medicine Hat Tigers’ net, hoping to deflect a puck in for a goal. Instead, when our defenseman had fired the slap shot from the point, the puck had ticked off the stick of a Tigers forward as he tried to block the puck. It had changed direction too quickly for me to duck and had nicked the edge of my jaw, sending me to the ice and stopping the play.
Now I was sitting in the players’ box. Scotty had my head tilted backward to examine the bottom of my jaw. All I saw above me was his face. Along with Coach Estleman’s face and that know-it-all smirk.
I felt the warmth of blood as it trickled down my throat. Scotty wiped it away with a towel. On the ice, play continued. The third period had just started, and we were ahead of the Tigers 5–3.
“Pretty deep cut, Scotty,” Coach agreed. Out came another smirk. “It’s the perfect excuse for Tyler to leave the game. An injury sounds a lot better than just plain quitting.”
“Unnunnh,” I tried to say. It is difficult to speak when someone is holding your chin. I yanked my head away. More blood gushed down the skin of my throat. I pulled the towel out of Scotty’s hand and pressed it against the cut.
“Butterfly it,” I said. “The stitches can wait.”
“You’re sure?” Coach Estleman asked. “If you step back onto the ice, you’re
going to face pressure. Leave now, and you can walk around the stands with your Portland Winter Hawks jacket and look cool.”
“Butterfly it. I want to play.”
Coach’s smirk changed to a grin. “This afternoon’s talk made a difference?”
“I want to play.”
Coach nodded at Scotty. “Butterfly it. The boy wants to play.”
Coach Estleman left me and started his usual pacing behind the players. He shouted instructions to players jumping onto the ice as others stepped into the players’ box. I could barely hear him above the crowd’s constant noise.
Scotty opened the first-aid kit and took out a bottle of iodine and a butterfly-shaped bandage. He dabbed iodine carefully over the cut, and then he used the bandage to pull the skin together tight enough to stop the bleeding until the game ended. They would send me to the hospital for stitches later.
The good thing about getting cut in the heat of a game is that the pain doesn’t hit until much later. I was ready to play. One shift later, Coach Estleman sent me onto the ice.
Fine, I told myself. Coach thinks I’m a quitter? I’ll score a goal and then make him eat the puck for breakfast.
Although the crowd was roaring its usual hometown support, I didn’t look around the stands the way I usually did. I only had eyes for the puck.
Our shift began with a face-off on the left side in the Tigers’ end. The ref dropped the puck. Pat Casey, my center, managed to pull the puck back toward our defenseman on the Tigers’ blue line.
Casey broke hard for the net.
Instead of clogging the middle by breaking for the net myself, I drifted backward, finding open ice.
John Mason, on defense, faked a slap shot.
The Tigers’ forward, rushing up, fell for the fake and dropped, sliding with his body stretched to block the shot. John easily pulled the puck to the side, and the Tigers’ forward slid harmlessly by.
I yelled for the puck. I had my stick high in the air, ready for a slap shot.
John snapped a pass toward me. It was coming so fast, I didn’t have time to think about what I was doing. I just reacted, going into motion the way I had done hundreds of times in practices.
Timing it perfectly, I hammered my stick down at full speed just as the puck arrived. I redirected the puck, slapping it two feet off the ice at the net. It drove through a maze of players and found the mesh of the net behind the goalie.
The red light blinked as the goal judge behind the Plexiglas confirmed what I already knew.
I’d scored!
I was mad enough at Coach Estleman that I didn’t raise my arms in triumph, the usual reaction anytime a player scores. Instead I shrugged like hitting the prettiest slap shot of my life was just routine.
I’d scored so quickly that our line still had plenty of time left on this shift.
In my head, everything seemed quiet, like I had no thoughts. No worries. Just a calm peace and total concentration on the puck. Almost like when Sam and I had chased the kidnappers and they’d stepped out of their van armed with switchblades. Then, I’d only worried about how I was going to protect myself. Now, I only worried about the swoosh of my skates on the ice, the click of the puck on my stick. I liked the feeling, the tightness of determination that seemed to fill my stomach.
Casey lost the draw at center ice. Their center drew the puck back to their left defenseman, directly ahead of me. I charged ahead.
As expected, the defenseman passed around me to the Tigers’ center who was cutting through the middle. I turned back and jumped into full speed, chasing down the Tigers’ winger I was supposed to guard on my side of the ice. I followed the winger all the way to the top of our own face-off circle, staying so close their center couldn’t pass to my side and was forced to dump the puck behind our net.
John Mason, as defenseman, picked up the puck. I stayed along the boards, giving him an outlet if he needed to pass to me.
The Tigers’ forward stayed right beside me, guarding against a pass to me, just like I’d earlier guarded against a pass to him.
In theory, I was playing my position. No one could fault me for staying along the boards and tying up my man. It was the safe play. Nobody could blame me for any mistakes if I remained there.
I pushed off the boards, catching the Tigers’ forward by surprise.
All right, Estleman, I thought, you won’t be able to say I don’t try.
I busted for center ice, angling to keep myself open for a pass. I kept my stick down on the ice, giving the defenseman a target. I yelled for the puck.
He snapped it forward.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw their defenseman. He’d moved up to bodycheck me, hoping I’d have my head down as I tried to receive the long pass.
At the last second, I hit the brakes so hard that my skates skidded across the top of the ice. I braced for the hit, let the defenseman bounce off me and then I scrambled for the puck.
No thoughts cluttered my mind except to pump my legs as hard as I could. I chipped the puck ahead, sprinted to go wide around the remaining defenseman.
He slashed his stick down across my arm, trying to knock the puck loose. I didn’t feel any pain; I felt detached from anything but the single thought of getting the puck to the net.
Clear of the final defenseman, I cut back to the center of the ice. There wasn’t much time left as I reached the net. Without thinking, I made a fake to the left, drew the puck back in near my skates, flipped it to my backhand side, pulled it out of reach of the goalie and banged it into the net.
The crowd went berserk.
I didn’t. I skated back to the bench as if scoring two goals in one shift was no big deal.
Coach Estleman thumped me on the back as I stepped into the players’ bench.
“Great goals!” he shouted. “I knew you could do it!”
“Hmmph,” I said.
I scored my third goal five minutes later, snapping a wrist shot into the top left corner of the net from the top of the face-off circle.
At the end of the game, two things happened.
Coach Estleman told me to expect to play on the second line next game. And he sent me to the hospital.
Scotty was right: the cut took exactly five stitches.
chapter fifteen
Driving my Jeep, I was daydreaming about my hat trick the night before. Because it was a Thursday afternoon, Riley was beside me on our way to Youth Works. We had hockey sticks for the kids in the far back portion of the Jeep, our gym bags in the backseat. We had made this trip twice a week so many times now that I didn’t have to concentrate much to get us there.
As usual, just past the Chinatown gate, I swung into the right-hand turn lane. One block ahead, the light was green. I signaled for the turn and slowed down for the corner at Fifth Avenue. Although it was green for me, a pedestrian stepped onto the crosswalk in front of the Jeep, and I had to slam on my brakes.
That took me out of my daydream in a big hurry.
“What an idiot!” Riley said. “Honk your horn.”
“No sense,” I said. “I’ve already stopped.”
At the front of our hood, the man turned to face us. He had one hand in his pocket. There was something too familiar about his face.
Then I remembered! The walrus mustache!
He was one of the kidnappers who had taken Ben. He was one of the two men who had pulled a switchblade on me.
He grinned at the shock that must have shown on my face.
He stayed in front of the Jeep. Cars behind us began to honk.
I was too stunned to do anything. Besides,there was no place for me to go unless I ran him over.
He grinned more and motioned with his free arm like he wanted me to roll down my window. He pulled his other hand from his pocket and flashed us a switchblade.
“He’s the guy!” I told Riley. “One of the kidnappers from the van!”
Riley didn’t have a chance to reply. The rear passenger door clicked open.
We had been so busy staring at the guy in front of us that we hadn’t noticed another man step off the sidewalk. Before I could react, the second man slid into the rear passenger seat, pushing the gym bags onto the floor.
“Boys,” he said, “nice day, isn’t it?”
Riley spun around. “Get out of—”
“Shut your mouth, kid,” the guy said with a sneer. “I’ve got a Forty-five Magnum pointing at your back. If I pull the trigger, it will blow the stuffing out of the seat, and you’ll be smeared all over the dashboard.”
The other man walked around the side of the Jeep toward the rear door on my side.
“If you hit the gas, kid,” the guy in the backseat said, “I pull the trigger on your friend.”
The light was still green; that was how fast this had happened. Cars behind us kept honking for me to complete my right turn through the intersection. To them, it must have looked like I’d stopped to pick up a couple of friends. Despite the honking, I forced myself to wait until the second man got into the backseat directly behind me. He slammed the door shut.
He laughed.
“Thanks for stopping,” he said. “Looks like a great day for a drive.”
I was tempted to drop the Jeep into reverse and slam backward into the car behind me. A car accident would get these two out of the Jeep.
I lifted my hand to the gearshift. “Don’t try anything stupid,” the guy behind me said. He spoke in a cheerful tone, as if we were old friends. “I’ll slit your throat so deep your tongue will become a necktie.”
I hesitated. The honking grew louder.
“And while people are trying to stop your bleeding, Ron and me will make another getaway. Understand?”
I eased the Jeep forward.
“That’s better,” he said. “You just keep taking directions and you’ll be just fine. And hand me your cell phones.”
“This is nuts,” Riley said. “You can’t do this to us.”
“We’ve got a switchblade and a gun,” the second guy said. “I think we can do whatever we want.”
We handed him our cell phones. Fifteen minutes later, we drove around the back of an abandoned one-story warehouse near the Willamette River and stopped. They forced us out of the Jeep at gunpoint and took us to the trunk of a huge, rusty, old, baby-blue Cadillac.
Winter Hawk Star Page 6
