The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 1

by Roy MacGregor

  He tried to imagine himself playing in Waskaganish, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t picture the rink. He couldn’t imagine the village. He could not, for the first time in his life, even imagine the players on the other side. Would they be good players? Rough? Smart? Would they have different rules up here? No, they couldn’t have. He was getting tired, too tired to think…

  “…put your seats in the upright position, fasten your tables back, and ensure that all carry-on luggage is safely stowed under the seat in front of you. Thank you.”

  The announcement and the sudden sense that something was happening woke Travis with a start. He could hear seats being moved, tables being fastened, excitement rising.

  “I can see the village!” Derek shouted from behind.

  Travis leaned toward the window. He could see James Bay stretching away like an ocean, the ice along the shore giving way to water that was steel grey and then silver where the sun bounced on the waves.

  The plane was beginning to rock again. The plane came down low over the water, then began to bank back toward the village. Travis could see a hundred or more houses. He could see a church, and a large yellow building like a huge machine shed. The rink? He could see the landing strip on the right: one long stretch of ploughed ground.

  Just then, they hit a huge air pocket. The plane banked sharply and seemed to slide through the air sideways before righting itself with a second tremendous jolt.

  “HELP MEEEEEEEE!!”

  Travis could hear Nish screaming over the roar of the engines and the landing gear grinding down into position. No one could go to him. They were landing.

  “I’M DYINNNGGG!” Nish screamed from beneath his blankets.

  The big plane came down and hammered into the ground, bounced twice, and settled, the engines roaring as the pilot immediately began to brake. The howl was extraordinary.

  Nish moaned and cried until the plane slowed and turned abruptly off the landing strip toward an overgrown shed that had a sign, WASKAGANISH, over the doorway. There was a big crowd gathered. It seemed the whole town was out to greet the Screech Owls.

  “HELP MEEEE!!” Nish moaned. Travis had never heard such a pathetic sound.

  Finally, as the plane came to a halt, the attendant got up and began pulling off Nish’s blankets, digging him out, until his big, red-eyed face was blinking up at her in surprise.

  “I thought we’d crashed,” he said, “and I was the only survivor.” Everyone on the plane broke up.

  The attendant just shook her head. Travis couldn’t tell if she was amused or disgusted.

  “You wouldn’t want to survive,” the Chief told him. “You’d never make it out of the bush alive, my friend.”

  Nish looked up, blinking. “I wouldn’t?”

  “Of course not,” she said, then reached over and pinched Nish’s big cheek.

  “The Trickster eats fat little boys like you!”

  Nish looked blank. What was she talking about?

  Travis felt the difference as soon as the door of the Dash 8 opened. It was like walking into a rink on a hot day in August. The unexpected cold was shocking. The Screech Owls had started the journey in spring-like weather, but it seemed now they had travelled all they way back into winter.

  Quickly pulling on their team jackets, the Owls spilled out of the plane and down the steps, where they were met by a greeting party the likes of which none of them had ever imagined. People stood in the backs of pick-up trucks, banging their fists on the cab roofs while those inside the cabs honked their horns. Young men and women revved their snowmobile engines. Some two hundred villagers stood about in thick winter clothing, stomping their feet to keep warm and applauding, the laughter and shouts of the people of Waskaganish hanging above their heads in quick clouds of winter breath.

  A gang of youngsters moved toward the Screech Owls. They had to be a hockey team, Travis figured; they wore matching jackets with an animal face on it. But it was an animal he had never seen before. It looked a bit like a bear, a bit like a wolf, a bit like a skunk. The letters underneath the face (if they even were letters) meant nothing to him.

  Giggling, the Cree team moved to one side to reveal one shorter player carrying a huge boom box. He hit a button and the air filled with the pounding lyrics of the rock group Queen:

  We will,

  We will,

  ROCK YOU!

  Everyone laughed–everyone but the Screech Owls, who didn’t know what to make of this. It seemed a great joke to all the locals, including Chief Ottereyes, who made her way to the front of the gathering and held up her right hand. Instantly, the boom box was switched off.

  “What I’d give for that kind of authority,” Muck muttered just behind Travis. He could hear some of the parents laughing, but they obviously didn’t know Muck, Travis thought. When Muck had a certain look in his eyes, he didn’t even need to raise his hand to bring the Screech Owls’ dressing room to full attention.

  The Chief turned to address the Screech Owls. She seemed to be smiling right at Travis.

  “The people of Waskaganish welcome the Screech Owls to our village. Please consider our home your home for the next five days.”

  The villagers applauded in agreement. Even the team was clapping, Travis noticed. Perhaps they weren’t so bad, after all.

  The Chief then spoke in Cree. It was a language Travis had never heard before, and every so often the villagers laughed as if it were some great inside joke.

  Nish, too, was laughing.

  “What’s she saying, Data?” he whispered.

  “How the heck would I know?”

  “You’re the only one on the team who speaks Klingon, aren’t you?”

  Chief Ottereyes returned to English. “Could we have the Screech Owls’ captains come forward, please?”

  Travis felt a slight nudge at his back. It was Muck, gently encouraging. Travis stepped forward and signalled for his assistant captains, Derek and Nish, to follow him. Nish seemed extremely reluctant, shaking his head and giggling nervously as he pushed through the protection of the Screech Owls crowd.

  “And the captains of the Wolverines…?” the Chief added.

  Wolverines? Was that the animal on their jackets? Travis had never seen a wolverine.

  A lanky young man shrugged and moved forward. On the arm of his jacket was the number 7, the same number Travis wore. On the other arm the name “Jimmy” was stitched.

  Behind the Wolverines’ captain came the three assistants. Travis studied them quickly. One, a big, thick kid with a bit of a scowl. The second, a skinny kid with a Toronto Maple Leafs cap on backwards, and, underneath the cap, fur earmuffs. And the third…a girl! Travis hadn’t noticed her. He was surprised, but he knew he shouldn’t be. The Screech Owls’ previous captain had been Sarah Cuthbertson, and she had been their best player. And they’d had Sareen in goal back then, and now they had Liz and Chantal and Jennie. But still, he hadn’t expected to find a girl on a team up here in the North. He thought it would be more like when his dad played and his mother had never even learned how to hold a hockey stick. He didn’t know why he thought it would be that way here. He just did.

  “Travis Lindsay and Jimmy Whiskeyjack are the two team captains,” Chief Ottereyes announced. “And Jimmy has a gift for Travis.”

  Travis didn’t know how to react. A gift? He hadn’t brought anything to give in return.

  Jimmy Whiskeyjack reached inside his pocket, withdrew a small flat blue box, and handed it to Travis. Travis took it, and then took Jimmy’s free hand, which was also extended. Travis shook, wondering if his grip was strong enough.

  Travis looked up at Chief Ottereyes. She was smiling encouragement. “Go ahead,” she said. “Open it up so we can all see.”

  Travis knew everyone was looking at him. He lifted the lid and stared at the object inside. He hadn’t a clue what it was: a twig tied in a circle containing a loose web of string, and feathers tied to the side.

  He looked up at the Chief. “Go ahead
, Travis. Take it out,” she told him.

  Travis removed the strange object and held it up. Some of the Screech Owls’ parents ooohed and ahhhed. It was beautiful. The sun danced in the colours of the feathers.

  “It’s a dream catcher,” Jimmy Whiskeyjack said.

  Chief Ottereyes explained. “It’s an Ojibway dream catcher. There’s an old legend that says one of these will catch all your dreams. The good ones pass through into your future. The bad ones are caught, and when the sun comes out in the morning, it destroys them.”

  “Looks like a goldfish net,” Nish hissed to Derek. Travis heard, and hoped no one else did. He wished Nish was still buried in blankets.

  “It was made by Rachel Highboy,” the Chief announced, “the Wolverines’ assistant captain.”

  Everyone applauded the slim girl who had stepped out with Jimmy Whiskeyjack. She blushed and looked at Travis, who was still holding up the dream catcher for all to see. Travis felt funny inside. The effects of the plane ride maybe. He hoped he wouldn’t have to say anything.

  He didn’t. On a cue from Chief Ottereyes, Jimmy Whiskeyjack stepped forward and shook Travis’s hand again. Jimmy then stepped past him and shook hands with Derek and Nish. The other assistants from the Wolverines came to shake hands as well.

  Travis took Rachel Highboy’s hand and was surprised by how small it felt in his. No way could she be a player, Travis thought. She held on.

  Travis looked up. She had large dark eyes and her long black hair was whipping in the wind. She smiled, and Travis felt like he was still in the plane, with the bottom dropping out of it.

  Travis had heard about getting your sea legs–when you could finally stand on the deck of a ship and roll with the waves instead of hanging weak-kneed and sick over the railing–but after the plane ride he had to wonder if Nish was having trouble getting back his land legs.

  They had been on the ground for more than three hours, but Nish was still wobbly. That was fine when they had just been getting set up with their billets–Travis and Nish were placed with the Wolverines’ captain, Jimmy Whiskeyjack, and his family–but it was quite another matter now that they were all out on the ice, about to play their first game of the First Nations Pee Wee Hockey Tournament.

  The Screech Owls had drawn the Moose Factory Mighty Geese as their first opponents. The Owls would have an easy time of it, Jimmy had predicted as he helped Travis carry his equipment over to the rink. The Mighty Geese didn’t have much of a team; they didn’t even have a proper rink to practice or play in. Instead they played outside, and the last time the Wolverines had gone to Moose Factory, they had been forced to cancel the third period on account of the wind. It was knocking players over.

  None of the teams over on the Ontario side of James Bay were all that good, Jimmy continued. They were all Cree, but the Ontario Cree were very poor and didn’t have much to spend on hockey. The Quebec Cree were better off. It was on the Quebec side, through land owned by the Quebec Cree and Inuit, that the big rivers flowed into James Bay and where the huge hydro-electric dams had been built. They had opposed the projects, he explained, but when they realized they couldn’t stop them, they made a deal with the governments that had given them things like airstrips and new houses and a school and a brand-new hockey rink. They had two Zambonis, just like Maple Leaf Gardens!

  “If one breaks down,” Jimmy had explained, “you can’t just drive a new one in through the bush.”

  The ice was terrific. As usual, Travis let the Owls’ two goaltenders–Jenny Staples and Jeremy Weathers–lead the team out onto the ice, but he made sure he was next. And while Jenny and Jeremy both skated straight to the near net to place their water bottles, Travis burst for centre ice, his head down so he could see the marks his skates left as they dug in deep. Good old Mr. Dillinger: another perfect sharpening job, with the blades sharp enough that when he cornered on new ice they made a sound like bacon frying.

  The other Screech Owls came out behind him. Dmitri Yakushev, the Owls’best skater, dug down deep and flew around the new ice. Derek, Gordie, Data, big Andy Higgins, Liz, who was fast becoming one of the team’s smoothest skaters, Lars–all leaned deep into their turns to produce that sweet clean cut and spray that is possible only on fresh-flooded ice.

  After looking around at the others, Travis found Nish, flat on his back in the Owls’ far corner. He dug in and raced around, stopping in a one-skate spray.

  Nish just lay there, staring straight up.

  “What the heck are you doing?” Travis asked.

  Nish blinked once. “Stretching,” he said.

  Out by the red line at centre ice, Travis began his own stretches, alone and quiet, the way he liked it. While he stretched, he studied the Moose Factory team. Their sweaters were all right, with a laughing goose on the front that looked a bit like Daffy Duck. But no matching socks. And the equipment! Travis had never seen a team so poorly outfitted. The Mighty Geese were lined up at the blueline to take shots, and two of the players were sharing a stick, one of them waiting until the other had shot and then throwing the stick to him when he raced back.

  The referee called for the two captains, and Travis skated over. When the captain of the Mighty Geese joined him, Travis saw he was one of the players who had been sharing the stick.

  “Shake hands, boys,” the referee said. “Let’s have a good, clean game, okay?”

  The Mighty Geese captain stared as Travis slapped his stick, not his hand, into his opponent’s outstretched palm.

  Travis had done it without even thinking. He had brought three sticks with him, all brand new, but he didn’t need all three.

  “You’re short a stick,” Travis said. “Take this. I brought extras.”

  The other captain stared at it, tried it once (he shot left, the same as Travis), then nodded. He took Travis’s hand and shook hard.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Just don’t score too many goals,” Travis said, and grinned.

  The captain smiled back. He had two broken front teeth. Travis wanted to ask what had happened. Was it a puck? A stick? Not likely–everyone here wore a full face-mask. It had to be from something other than hockey. A fall?…A fist?

  Muck seemed concerned. Before the actual face-off, he called the Owls over for a quick huddle by the bench. He usually did this only when they had a big game, a championship, to decide, but this time he seemed every bit as serious.

  “No fancy stuff, now,” he said. “I want to see a team out there, not fifteen individual superstars.”

  By the end of his first shift, Travis knew exactly what Muck meant. The Screech Owls were badly outclassing the Mighty Geese. The Owls were better skaters, better positional players, better passers and shooters, and they had three good lines, whereas the Geese only had the one, centred by the captain with Travis’s stick.

  Nish couldn’t resist. You put Nish on the ice against a weak lineup, and it was as if he’d had too much sugar on his cereal. Wobbly-legged or not, he couldn’t help himself. He picked up the puck at the blueline and skated, backwards, into his own end and around the net past Jennie, who’d been given the first start. He then slipped it through the other captain’s skates, and came hard down the ice, with Dmitri on one side charging fast.

  Nish turned backwards as he reached the last Mighty Geese defenceman and attempted the “spinnerama,” a move Nish claimed had come to him in a daydream during music class but which Willie Granger said had been used in the NHL by everyone from Bobby Orr to Denis Savard before Nish was even born.

  It didn’t matter to Nish. He believed he had invented it, and he had certainly invented this version of it. He spun directly in front of the defender, lost his footing, and crashed, butt first, into the backing-up defenceman. Both went down. Travis heard the scream of the poor defenceman as Nish’s full weight landed on his chest and they slid in a pile past the puck, left sitting there for Travis as if it were glued to the ice.

  Dmitri gave one quick rap on the ice with the heel of h
is stick and Travis cuffed the puck quickly across. Dmitri one-timed his shot into the open side of the Mighty Geese’s net to the shriek of the referee’s whistle.

  First shift, 1–0 Screech Owls!

  Travis threw his arms around Dmitri as Dmitri spun around behind the net, his arms raised in triumph. They smashed into the boards together and felt the crush of their teammates hitting them. Travis could hear, and feel, Nish, and there was no mistaking the whine in his voice.

  “They better give me an assist on that one–I set it up!”

  Travis could see the referee out of the corner of his eye, and he didn’t like what he saw. The ref’s arms were crossing back and forth down low, the sign of a goal being waved off. And now he was raising one hand and pointing with the other at the crush of Owls in the corner. The whistle blew again.

  “No goal?” Travis called out. The scrum of players broke, all turning to look at the referee.

  “You’re outta here, Number 4!” the referee shouted as he closed in on the celebrating Screech Owls. “Two minutes for interference!”

  “What the h–?”

  The curse was barely out of Nish’s mouth when up went the arm again, and again the whistle blew.

  “And two more for unsportsmanlike conduct!”

  Travis looked at Nish. His face was scrunched up like a game’s worth of used shinpad tape, but at least his big mouth was shut.

  Nish got into the penalty box, and the Mighty Geese went ahead when a shot from the point took a funny bounce off their captain’s stick–the stick Travis had given to him–the puck dribbling in behind a flopping, scrambling Jennie.

  Nish got out on the goal. He skated over as if he were dragging the Zamboni behind him, and never even lifted his head to see what Muck was thinking. He knew. He was in the doghouse. Without being told he moved down the bench and took a place on the very end.

  Travis got a tap on the back of his shoulder and leapt over the boards onto the ice with Dmitri and Derek. They knew what to do. Travis won the face-off back to Data, Data clipped it off the boards to a breaking Dmitri–and Dmitri swept around the Mighty Geese defenceman so fast the defenceman fell straight backwards as his feet tangled. Dmitri went in and deked twice, sending the goaltender down and entirely out of the net, and then he roofed the puck so high he broke the goalie’s water battle open. It was like a fountain bursting behind the empty net.