Ice Magic

by Matt Christopher

  He didn’t. He hooked it neatly with his stick, passed it to a teammate, and a score followed.

  “Pie!” Terry shouted at him. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

  Ignoring him, Pie skated to his position, sullen and dead tired. Man, I just can’t do a thing right, he thought dismally.

  It was Line 2 that tied up the score again, and then Line 3 that broke it, winning the game for the Penguins 7 to 6.

  They shouted joyously over their victory, and their fans cheered, too. Pie hoped that the win would make Terry forget how he had performed today. But he was sure it wouldn’t. Even though Terry ignored him completely as they headed for the locker room, Pie knew that Terry never forgot someone else’s mistakes — only his own.

  Pie put on his shoes, slung the skates over his shoulder, and walked out to the snow-packed street. The bright sun dazzled like a diamond through the bare trees. The frigid air nipped at his cheeks like sharp teeth.

  “Hi, Pie!”

  Jody and Joliette Byrd sprang from behind a bush to surprise him and laughed when he jumped.

  “You crazy kids,” he said. He remembered the strange comment they had made to him in the locker room immediately after the first period of the hockey game, and asked, “What were you guys saying about a game?”

  “Our toy hockey game!” Jody replied, getting on Pie’s left side while Joliette got on Pie’s right. They both were at least a foot shorter than he, and it embarrassed him every time they greeted him this way. Some guys had kidded him about having these little kids as friends.

  But they had one thing in common with Pie which made him care less what anybody thought. It was their mutual interest in magic. Since the twins had found an old book on magic in their attic and had let Pie read it, all three of them had become so interested in the subject that they had purchased new books. Jody even said that he would become a magician when he grew up.

  “And I’ll be his assistant,” Joliette had promised with that teeth-flashing smile of hers.

  “What about the toy hockey game?” Pie asked curiously

  “Well, Jolie and I played a game last night,” Jody explained. “We named the teams the Bears and the Penguins, and I had the Penguins. I also named each of the players after each of the guys on the Penguins’ team.”

  “So?”

  Jody looked at him seriously. “We played and my team won 7 to 6.”

  “What a coincidence,” said Pie. “That was our score!”

  “Right,” Jody said. “But that isn’t all. The guys who had scored on my team were the same ones who had scored on yours — it’s like magic!”

  3

  Pie stared, his mouth a small round o. He had read a lot about magic. There was the entertaining kind in which a magician pulled doves out of his coat pockets or made a person disappear in a puff of smoke.

  There were also magical spells which believers thought could make rain when crops were poor.

  And there was black magic, too — in which believers thought they could hurt a victim by sticking darts into a doll that they pretended was the victim.

  But this thing with the toy hockey game was different. This was a kind of magic Pie had never read about before.

  “Are you sure that all that stuff in our game really happened in yours?” he asked the twins. “Really sure?”

  “Of course, we’re sure,” Jody replied emphatically. “Remember that last period when that Bear scored against you?”

  Pie nodded. “When I let him take the puck because I was afraid I might plow into him and be called for a penalty.”

  “Right. Well, I had you do the same thing in our game,” said Jody. “Except that I was hoping that Jolie would miss it, and I could take it from her.”

  Pie stared. “That’s exactly what I had been thinking!” he cried.

  The twins’ expression matched his. “You had?” they asked in the same breath.

  “Yes!” said Pie, and felt his nerves tingling.

  They reached the junction opposite the gorge and turned right on Oak, none of them saying a word during the last one hundred feet. They were immersed in the toy hockey game, which seemed to be controlled by some kind of magical power. It wasn’t like anything the three had ever read about before in their lives.

  “I’d like to see that game,” Pie said at last. “Mind?”

  “Of course not. Why don’t you come over right after you change?”

  “I will,” said Pie. “And look — don’t spill a single word about this to anybody. Not even your parents. Okay?”

  Joliette laughed, “Are you kidding? They wouldn’t believe it anyway! Mom thinks all that magic business is just a trick!”

  “And Dad doesn’t know what to believe!” Jody added, laughing.

  Pie chuckled. “I guess our parents are very much alike,” he said. “My mom and dad used to like magic when they were kids. Now they think it’s kid stuff and pay no attention to it.”

  Pie arrived home and promised the twins he’d be over in an hour or so. They lived next door, which made their visiting each other to talk about their mutual interest — books on magic — very convenient.

  “Hi, Mom,” he said as he stepped into the kitchen. “What’ve you got to eat?”

  Those were the first words he always greeted her with when he returned from a grueling hockey game. Nothing ever made him hungrier than a tough game of hockey.

  “Hash browns, eggs, and bacon,” she said, and asked, “Who won?”

  “We did. 7 to 6.”

  He hurried to his room, took off his uniform, showered, then dressed and returned to the kitchen. His meal was ready for him.

  His mother watched him gulp it down. “Where’s the fire?” she asked.

  He smiled. “At Jody and Jolie’s,” he answered kiddingly.

  After he finished he went over to the Byrds’ house, and the twins invited him into the small recreation room in the basement where the toy hockey game was set up on a table. It was about eighteen inches wide and thirty-six inches long. On it stood four-inch-high plywood figures that were maneuvered by rods protruding from the narrow ends. Clearly the figures were hockey players, each holding a hockey stick. Goals, made of cloth, were at both ends of the “rink.”

  Pie stared at it. “It looks handmade,” he observed.

  “It is,” Jody replied. “There’s a name carved on the side of it. Look.”

  He lifted the game and saw a crudely carved name: SKXROT. After it was a number, 1896.

  “S-K-X-R-O-T,” Pie read. “That’s a peculiar name. 1896. That must be the date this thing was made.”

  “Really? Was hockey played that many years ago?” Joliette asked, incredulously.

  “Oh, sure,” Pie said. “It started —” He paused and stared at the date again. “That’s sure funny,” he said half to himself.

  “What is?” Jody asked.

  “I’ve got a copy of the Official Hockey Guide, and I’m sure I read that the first official ice hockey game was played in 1896!”

  “Oh, man!” Jody whistled. “Weird!”

  “I — I feel shivers crawling up my back,” Joliette stammered, clasping her hands so tightly together the knuckles turned white.

  Pie took hold of the knobs of each rod protruding from the ends of the game and began pushing them back and forth, thereby manipulating the players in the slots on the rink. A twist of the knobs one way or the other turned the players, making them hit the miniature puck.

  “It’s just like games you can buy in stores,” Pie remarked. “Except this one is real old.”

  “You should’ve seen it when we found it,” Jody said. “It was covered with dust.”

  An inch-high wooden wall surrounded the rink. There was a box in one corner where the score was kept. The only thing the rink lacked was a red light like the one that flashed on in a real rink when a goal was scored.

  “Look at this,” Jody said, handing Pie a rolled-up piece of paper that had yellowed with age. “It was wrapped around
one of the rods with a rubber band.”

  Pie unrolled it and saw a neatly printed four-line paragraph.

  To whom it may concern: This hockey game is endowed with magical powers.

  However,

  Beware what happens on a real rink first

  Repeats here not, for fate

  Promises that, as true as bubbles burst,

  The magic will dissipate.

  Pie read the message again, then murmured, “Hmm. This is the strangest thing I ever saw.”

  “Us, too,” said Joliette. “And it is magic. We proved it.”

  “I wonder if anybody else has ever played it,” Pie said.

  Jody shrugged. “I don’t know. It was stuck in a far corner of the attic. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were the first.”

  “Could be,” said Pie. “Well, let’s play a game.”

  They sat at opposite sides of the game and began to play. Pie had difficulty manipulating his men as rapidly as Jody did, and after ten minutes of play Jody won, 5 to 1.

  During all that time Pie looked for something strange about the toy hockey game, something that would prove to him that it definitely had magical powers. But he saw nothing, and in spite of the message that the twins had found with the game, he began to doubt its genuineness. If he weren’t so sure that the twins were sincere believers in magic, he’d think they were pulling his leg.

  He was sure they were sincere, though. The expression on their faces when they had first told him about the real game was plenty of proof.

  He was sure, too, that they wouldn’t pull a mean trick on him about such matters. Magic to them was a real, wonderful thing, and they loved it. You don’t pull practical jokes about something you love.

  “Can I come over before our next hockey game?” Pie asked. “I’d like to see if it’ll work like the first time.”

  “Sure, you can,” replied Jody.

  “Maybe it won’t work if you play it,” Joliette said, her blue eyes looking at him avidly.

  “Then I’ll watch you guys play,” Pie said.

  4

  On Friday Pie went next door to the Byrds’ house and knocked on the door. No one answered, and he knocked again. Still no one answered.

  “Hi, Pie,” said a voice behind him. “Aren’t your little friends home?”

  Pie turned and saw that it was Terry “the terrible” Mason. A calico cat was at his feet, sitting on its haunches and looking at Pie with large, yellow eyes.

  “I guess they aren’t,” Pie said, and started off the porch.

  “I heard that you and the twins are really crazy about magic,” Terry said, an amused glint in his eyes. “That right?”

  “That’s right,” agreed Pie.

  Terry chuckled. “Why don’t you use magic when you’re on the rink? You could be the greatest.”

  Pie forced a smile. “Maybe I don’t want to be the greatest,” he said. “But I suppose you would.”

  Terry shrugged. “Why not? What’s wrong with being the greatest?”

  Pie considered. “Nothing, if you don’t let it go to your head.”

  The cat at Terry’s feet suddenly rose on all four paws and looked across the street. Its tail swished back and forth, and Pie looked up. What had caught the cat’s attention was another cat.

  Two cars were coming down the street, one behind the other, and for a moment Pie held his breath. Does Terry see what could happen, or should I warn him? he thought.

  Too late! The cat leaped off the curb and started to run across the street!

  “Tipper!” Terry yelled.

  There was a loud screech of tires on asphalt as the first car tried to come to a sudden stop. Then, bang! The second car rammed into it.

  By now Terry was running after the cat, Pie behind him. They saw it limping off the street on the other side, favoring its right hind leg. It reached the curb, lay on its side, and began licking the wounded limb.

  Terry knelt beside it. “You dumb cat!” he scolded. “You want to get killed?”

  Pie watched Terry take hold of the leg and stroke it gently and tenderly, and he suddenly saw a part of Terry that surprised him. Sarcastic and humiliating though Terry was at times, he was kind and merciful to an animal.

  He looked up as the two drivers came running from their cars. “How’s the cat?” the first man asked anxiously.

  “His leg was hit,” said Terry.

  “Want me to take him to a vet?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll take care of him. He’ll be all right.”

  “You sure?”

  Terry nodded. “I’m sure.”

  “Okay. But watch him, will you? He might not be so lucky the next time.”

  They left, stopped to look at the rear of the first car, carried on a brief discussion, then got into their vehicles and drove away, waving as they went by.

  “Guess neither car got damaged,” Pie said.

  “Glad about that,” Terry replied, then turned his attention back to his cat. “You dumb cat, if I have to get a leash for you I will,” he said gruffly.

  He picked it up, held it close in his arms, and walked away. Pie watched. You’d think that Terry wasn’t even aware that he was there.

  5

  As usual, Pie arrived at the rink the next morning with one minute to spare. And, as usual, Terry “the terrible” Mason had a remark for him.

  “Hi, early bird. Why’d you get here so soon?”

  Pie ignored the sarcasm, believing that it was the best way to handle Terry. “How’s your dumb cat?” he asked.

  Terry shrugged. “He’ll be okay. No broken bones or anything.”

  “Good.

  Pie put on his skates and got on the rink with the rest of the team. He wondered if the twins had played with their toy hockey game last night. He looked up at the stands but didn’t see them.

  He was lost in thought until the sound of the referee’s whistle brought him back to reality. The ice was cleared. A second blast of the whistle brought on the first lines. The Penguins were playing the Hawks, a team wearing white helmets and green uniforms with yellow trim. Crouched opposite Terry Mason at the face-off position was the Hawks’ tall center, Phil Adams.

  The whistle shrilled again. The puck was dropped. Both centers sprang into action, pounding at the small black disk with short, vicious swipes. Up on the scoreboard the seconds began ticking away. 11:59 … 11:58 … 11:57 …

  The puck turned on end and rolled into Hawk territory. Pie, the closest to it, sprinted after it. The loose fit of his skates made him glance down at the laces. They were tight, but when he looked up again a Hawk defenseman was swooping in after the puck, stick extended far forward.

  They crashed into each other, their sticks striking the puck at the same time. They fought for control of it; then Pie’s skate hooked the Hawk’s. He lost his balance and fell.

  He looked for the puck and saw it again in the Hawks’ possession. He heard his name yelled and saw Terry Mason speeding by him, his eyes smoldering.

  Quickly, Pie clambered to his feet and sprinted down center ice, trying to ignore Terry’s flaming look. He knew what Terry was mad about. A pass to him might have meant a score. Except for the Hawks’ goalie, the space between Terry and the goal had been wide open.

  A pass to a Hawk at the right of the Penguins’ goal was deflected by left defenseman Frog Alexander. Frog flipped it to Chuck Billings, and a wild scramble followed as the two Hawk wingmen tried to pokecheck it away from him.

  “Ice it! Ice it!” yelled Coach Joe Hayes.

  The Penguins weren’t able to get a clear shot at the puck, and at 10:51 the Hawks scored.

  They threatened again during the next minute and almost knocked in their second goal except for a great save made by goalie Ed Courtney.

  “All right, first line! Off!” yelled Coach Hayes. “Get going, second line!”

  Sweat beaded Pie’s forehead as he skated toward the bench. He was warm but not tired, and he wished that the coach hadn’t called the lin
e off the ice so soon.

  At 7:28 Brad Krupa, right forward on the Penguins’ third line, sank in a fifteen-footer to tie up the score.

  The first period ended with the score still knotted, 1 to 1.

  It wasn’t till then that Pie thought about the twins again. He looked behind him and saw several faces he recognized, including his father’s and mother’s. They saw him and waved, and he waved back.

  He kept searching for the other pair of familiar faces — faces that looked exactly alike — but didn’t see them. Something important must have happened to keep Jody and Joliette Byrd from attending the game. Had they gone somewhere last night and not returned yet? More important, had they been home long enough to have played a game on their toy ice hockey rink?

  During the second period the Hawks’ Phil Adams knocked in two goals, both times assisted by one of his wingmen. The Hawks had possession of the puck most of the time, and it was only because of Ed Courtney’s great saves that they were not able to drive the puck into the net more often.

  With the score 3 to 1 in favor of the Hawks as the teams went into the third period, Pie Pennelli was determined to make every move count, oversize skates or not. Line 1 wasn’t doing as well as the other lines up to now, and that was another reason why Terry Mason was getting hot under the collar.

  Terry hadn’t been doing so well himself, and Pie figured it was because the irritable center had been trying to dribble the puck to the goal and shoot it in without any help. “The terrible” Mason was disgusted with his wingmen and was trying to win the game by himself. Coach Hayes warned him about it, but after exercising caution for a minute or two, Terry started playing again as if he couldn’t trust his wingmen down at their end of the rink.

  It was while Line 1 was on the ice for the second time during the third period that Pie struck a Hawk’s leg accidentally with his stick as he tried to pokecheck the puck and was given a minute’s sentence in the penalty box for tripping. He sat there, his brows heavy with sweat, helplessly watching his teammates fight to keep the Hawks from shooting in a score. But even Ed Courtney s fantastic moves couldn’t stop them this time. It was Phil Adams again who swished the puck past him. The score was Phil’s third, a hat trick. Hawks 4, Penguins 1.