He was sure he heard Nish laugh as he picked up the puck.
Nish waited for Sarah’s winger to chase him, then slipped the puck neatly between her skates and bounced a pass off the boards to Derek, who hit Travis at centre.
Travis didn’t have to think, didn’t even have to look. This, he told himself, is when hockey becomes art. He and Dmitri had worked this play so many times, they could do it in their sleep. He lofted the puck up and past the defence, while Dmitri used his astonishing speed to slip around the defence and get instantly clear. The shoulder fake…the Aeros goalie went down…and Dmitri roofed a backhand.
Owls 1, Aeros 0.
Travis closed his eyes when he got to the bench. He could feel Muck’s big hand on his neck. He could feel Nish smack the seat of his pants with his stick. He could feel Dmitri’s shoulder against his, the two of them now so used to each other on the ice that they no longer needed words or even looks to communicate. They just knew where each other was, and where each other would be.
Sarah’s line had stayed out. She was still smiling. And before the face-off, she skated right along the Owls’ bench.
“Hey, Naked Boy!” she called out.
Naked Boy? Everyone looked around, wondering what she meant. She was looking directly at Nish. He had his head down, but was watching her suspiciously.
“What about it, Naked Boy?” Sarah called. “No skinny dipping so far?”
“Tonight,” Nish said.
“Sure,” Sarah laughed. “We’ll believe it when we see it!”
“You won’t see nothin’,” Nish said, shaking his head.
“That’s ’cause there’s nothing to see!” kidded Sarah.
Simon whistled for the centres to come to centre ice for the face-off, and Sarah skated away, still laughing.
Travis leaned back and said to Nish: “What’s this about ‘Naked Boy’?”
Nish shook his head. “I have no idea–but it’s a great improvement over ‘Fat Boy.’”
The game went back and forth for more than an hour. Sarah scored; Gordie Griffth scored on a hard shot from high in the circle; an Aeros defence scored on a deflection; Nish scored on a low shot from the point; Travis scored; and Sarah scored again, on a beautiful solo rush in which she simply skated around poor Wilson and drew Jeremy half out of his net before dropping the puck in over the line.
Owls 4, Aeros 3.
“Last two minutes of play!” Simon shouted before dropping the puck again.
The Owls and Aeros both pulled off quick line changes. Muck wanted Travis’s line out, with Nish and Data back on defence. The Aeros, of course, wanted Sarah out. She had scored twice and set up the third of the Aeros’ three goals, and she was clearly fired up for this match against her old team and coach.
The ice was bad. Travis hated ice toward the end of the period and late in games. He loved new ice, so freshly flooded it was as if his skates were writing his name on the smooth surface. He liked quick, smooth ice for passing, hard ice for his fast turns, quick ice for his shots. This ice was chopped up and snowy. He could barely carry the puck in it.
Nish had the puck behind his own net, watching, waiting. If he could kill some time, so much the better. The Owls had the lead, after all. But at the very least, he wanted to get the puck out clean so the Owls could take it into the Aeros’ end. Sarah Cuthbertson couldn’t score from there.
Travis knew his play. He was to skate back hard and turn sharp right in front of his own net. Heading up ice on a slight angle, Nish would either hit him with a direct pass or else fire it out along the boards for either Derek or Dmitri on the wing to chop out past the defence so Travis could pick the puck up in the neutral zone. Travis could then cross centre ice and dump it in.
Travis dug deep and turned. Nish made a fancy play, firing the puck on his backhand so it hit the boards behind him and bounced out just after the forechecking forward had gone by. Nish had time, and he saw Travis. He went for the up-ice pass. He passed hard, and the puck hit the back of Travis’s blade perfectly, right at the blueline.
Travis was already in full flight. He looked up immediately to see one defence charging him, chancing a poke check. He tried to do what Nish had done earlier in the game–just slip the puck between the checker’s skates. But that had been on good ice, and the ice was now so thick and slow that the puck stopped dead, and the checker had a chance to drag her skate so it picked up the puck.
The Aero kicked the puck ahead to her stick and then hit Sarah Cuthbertson, who was charging back. Sarah turned instantly, actually passing to herself by leaving a drop pass which she then picked up going the other way. Travis couldn’t believe how fast she had been able to change from one direction to the other.
There was only Nish back. He was too smart to be fooled again by Sarah’s trick of picking up the puck. He wasn’t about to lunge; he was going to wait.
Sarah bent as if to scoop the puck again, but Nish refused to go for it. She scooped snow instead, flicking it in the air at Nish’s head. He instinctively ducked, and when he moved slightly, Sarah dropped the puck into her skates, knocked it from one blade to the other and then back up onto her stick, which was already on the other side of Nish.
A quick wrist shot, and all Travis could see was the net bulge behind Jeremy.
Sarah had tied the game: Owls 4, Aeros 4.
The Aeros leapt from the bench and jumped all over Sarah. Simon blew his whistle, and the game was over. A tie. The best result possible. The parents rose in a standing ovation. Muck raced across the ice and shook Mr. Cuthbertson’s hand, the two of them laughing at what they had just seen.
The two teams lined up to shake hands. Travis followed Nish, who seemed heartbroken that he had let Sarah slip away.
“C’mon, you owed her one,” Travis said.
“I guess.”
They came to Sarah, who had her helmet off and was still laughing.
“Now you know why we call you ‘Naked Boy,’” she said to Nish.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“I just undressed you out there, didn’t I?”
“I’m doing it.”
Travis had never seen such determination on his friend’s face.
“I’m doing it,” Nish repeated.
Tomorrow they would be going home. They had just had the big end-of-camp dinner, both teams present, and special awards had been given to Sarah Cuthbertson, for Most Valuable Player, and to Travis, much to his surprise, for Most Valuable Camper. He had a suspicion that Muck had come up with this one on his own. Before Muck could announce the winner, the entire gathering had risen to their feet to honour Muck with long, loud, spontaneous applause.
They would end this extraordinary week at hockey camp with a marshmallow roast and a moonlight swim.
“I’m going to do it.”
It was a beautiful night. The parents had built a huge bonfire down by the shore, and it sparked and roared, lighting up the entire beach and halfway out to the diving platform at the end of the dock. The stars were out, big and bright and too many even to begin counting. Someone pointed out Orion. Everyone thought of Mr. Clifford, and how sad it was that such a kind, interesting man could have ended up a murderer.
They toasted marshmallows. Data amazed the entire gathering by burning his marshmallows until they were like pieces of black coal, and then biting them whole off the end of his toasting stick. Nish amazed everyone by eating somewhere between fifty and a hundred of them. Some of them he didn’t even wait to toast.
It wasn’t Nish showing off, Travis knew. It was nerves.
“I’m still going to do it,” he said when they were all gathered around the fire. One of the parents had brought a guitar, and a singsong was starting up.
The Screech Owls and Aeros were starting to swim. Sarah was first off the diving platform, and she swam out in the dark, black water and turned on her back. “Any Nish sightings?” she called.
“None!”
“Pssst!”
T
ravis turned just as he was about to dive off the end of the dock. He could barely make Nish out in the shadows.
“Over here! C’m’ere!”
Travis hurried in under the diving platform, where Nish was huddled with Andy. Even in the dim light, Travis could see Nish was shivering. And it wasn’t a cold evening.
“Y-you two are m-my witnesses, okay?” Nish said.
“Okay,” Andy said.
“You’re really going to do it?” said Travis.
“Just watch!”
Quick as a flash, Nish dropped his bathing trunks. He dived off the dock, and swam deep under the water, as far out as he could go.
But when he came up, he was screaming.
“TTTTUUUUUURRTTTTLLLE!!!!!!”
Travis couldn’t believe his eyes. The water around Nish was foaming as he flailed away. Still screaming, Nish raced for the dock, his arms thrashing desperately in the water.
Halfway back, he stopped, reached down into the water, and shrieked.
“HHHELLLPPPPPP MMMEEEEE!”
Andy and Travis raced to the end of the dock as Nish approached, his flailing arms splashing them both. He reached up, still screaming.
“HE GRABBED ME!! THE TURTLE GRABBED MY TOE!!!”
Others were screaming now and racing to get out. Travis couldn’t believe it. Had Mr. Clifford lied to them about snapping turtles? He’d said they’d never attack.
Nish used his friends’ outstretched arms to pull himself up and clear of the water.
He reached under the diving platform for his bathing suit. It was gone!
“NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” Nish screamed.
Covering himself with his hands, Nish took off. Stark naked, he ran the length of the dock and onto the shore, past the singsong, which had come to a sudden halt, and up the path to the cabins, screaming all the way.
“NNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
“Go, Naked Boy!”
Sarah was in the water at the end of the dock. She had a scuba mask and snorkel pulled up off her face.
Sarah, the snapping turtle.
She reached out, and someone behind Andy and Travis threw her a pair of dark bathing trunks.
They turned. It was Liz Moscovitz and Jennie Staples. They must have swiped Nish’s trunks when Andy and Travis were “witnessing” Nish’s skinny dip.
Laughing, Sarah held Nish’s bathing suit above her head.
“This trophy I’m keeping,” she said. “You hit somebody from behind, you’re going pay for it!”
In the distance, Travis was sure he heard a screen door slam. And then the inside door.
And even then, he could still make out the call of the Nishikawa.
“NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
THE END
THE SCREECH OWLS SERIES
1. Mystery at Lake Placid
2. The Night They Stole the Stanley Cup
3. The Screech Owls’ Northern Adventure
4. Murder at Hockey Camp
5. Kidnapped in Sweden
6. Terror in Florida
7. The Quebec City Crisis
8. The Screech Owls’ Home Loss
9. Nightmare in Nagano
10. Danger in Dinosaur Valley
11. The Ghost of the Stanley Cup
12. The West Coast Murders
13. Sudden Death in New York City
14. Horror on River Road
15. Death Down Under
16. Power Play in Washington
17. The Secret of the Deep Woods
18. Murder at the Winter Games
19. Attack on the Tower of London
20. The Screech Owls’ Reunion
Roy MacGregor has been involved in hockey all his life. Growing up in Huntsville, Ontario, he competed for several years against a kid named Bobby Orr, who was playing in nearby Parry Sound. He later returned to the game when he and his family settled in Ottawa, where he worked for the Ottawa Citizen and became the Southam National Sports Columnist. He still plays old-timers hockey and was a minor-hockey coach for more than a decade.
Roy MacGregor is the author of several classics in the literature of hockey. Home Game (written with Ken Dryden) and The Home Team (nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Non-fiction) were both No. 1 national bestsellers. He has also written the game’s best-known novel, The Last Season. His most recent non-fiction hockey book is A Loonie for Luck, the true story of the famous good-luck charm that inspired Canada’s men and women to win hockey gold at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. His other books include Road Games, The Seven A. M. Practice, A Life in the Bush, and Escape.
Roy MacGregor is currently a columnist for the Globe and Mail. He lives in Kanata, Ontario, with his wife, Ellen. They have four children, Kerry, Christine, Jocelyn, and Gordon. You can talk to Roy MacGregor at www.screechowls.com
Copyright © 2006 by Roy MacGregor
This omnibus edition published in 2006 by McClelland & Stewart
Mystery at Lake Placid copyright © 1995 by Roy MacGregor
The Night They Stole the Stanley Cup copyright © 1995 by Roy MacGregor
The Screech Owls’ Northern Adventure copyright © 1996 by Roy MacGregor
Murder at Hockey Camp copyright © 1997 by Roy MacGregor
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher–or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency–is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
MacGregor, Roy, 1948-
The complete Screech Owls / written by Roy MacGregor.
Contents: v. 1. Mystery at Lake Placid—The night they stole the Stanley Cup—The Screech Owls’ northern adventure—Murder at hockey camp.
eISBN: 978-1-55199-237-2
I. Title. II. Title: Mystery at Lake Placid. III. Title: The night they stole the Stanley Cup. IV. The Screech Owls’ northern adventure. V. Murder at hockey camp.
PS8575.G84C64 2005 Jc813'.54 C2005-903880-2
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
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v1.0
The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 1 Page 34
