The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 4

by Roy MacGregor

  Ten seconds to go, and the little defenceman who’d scored the Bandits’ first goal got a backhand on a puck that was rolling up on its edge and lobbed it hard and high down the ice. It seemed, for a moment, as if the puck might lodge in the rafters, but it came down, bounced sharp to the right, skidded, and slid, and barely nipped into the near corner of the net.

  Tie game!

  The buzzer sounded and both sides cleared their benches, rushing out of habit to congratulate the goalies – only this time there were no goalies on the ice.

  “Ridiculous!” Nish said as he skated out, pretending to be working out kinks and stiffness from sitting so long. “Muck had no reason to pull our goalie, as well.”

  “He wanted a tie game,” said Travis.

  “You know what they say in the NHL,” Nish said.

  “What?”

  “A tie is like kissing your sister.”

  Travis turned, blinking in astonishment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means ties suck, ties are for losers, ties don’t mean anything, ties are like a 50 on your report card – you passed, but your mom’s mad at you and your teacher never wants to see you again.”

  “You’d know about that!” Travis laughed.

  The Brisbane Bandits weren’t taking it like a 50 on a report card. A 5 –5 tie against this top peewee hockey team from Canada was, Travis thought, more like an A+, like skipping a grade, like an extra month of summer holidays.

  Or would it be “winter” holidays in Australia?

  14

  After the game, the Screech Owls took the train back out to the Olympic Park, where all the teams from the Oz Invitatonal had been given a full afternoon for practice.

  It was beginning to sink in that the real joy of this tournament was going to be the Mini-Olympics. They’d had a good time playing the Bandits, and the Bandits had taken inspiration from their incredible tie game, but Muck had just proved that no matter how it was arranged, a competitive game was still more fun to play than a lopsided one.

  The Mini-Olympics would be the real competition. Travis could sense it. The air was electric at the Olympic Park, the same high-tension, thrilling charge Travis normally felt at a top-rated hockey tournament. Everywhere they went there were competitors their own age working out and clocking themselves and trying to lift weights and hitting tennis balls and swimming and diving and dribbling basketballs. Just as the Owls – the visiting star team – felt a special glow whenever they took to the ice in Sydney, the Aussie kids took on their own glow when they appeared on the track and in the pool and on the basketball courts.

  The Wizard of Oz could easily have got his nickname from playing a half dozen different sports. He was, Travis realized, a natural athlete. He could run faster than anyone else. He could swim faster. He could come within a few inches of actually dunking a basketball.

  Everywhere Wiz went, Sarah could be found. Or was it the other way around? They had become a sort of golden couple of the Mini-Olympics – Sarah the best female athlete in the entire Olympic Park, Wiz the best male.

  Nish was out of sorts. He was a star at hockey. He could be something of a star at lacrosse, as well. But Travis had never known Nish to play, or even care about, a single other sport.

  Nish swam, but not very well. He was strong, but not nearly as strong as Sam or Andy or Wilson. He was so slow on the track he wouldn’t even consider running.

  “Why don’t they make Nintendo an Olympic sport?” Nish whined.

  “Well, it’s not,” Travis said.

  “Or burping? Or making your armpits fart? Something I’m good at?”

  “You’re out of luck,” said Travis.

  “Or,” Nish’s eyes suddenly lit up, “why not skinny-dipping as an Olympic event?”

  Travis’s mind recoiled with an image of a packed Olympic pool reacting in horror as Nish, butt-naked, raced in the doors and along the side of the pool and off the diving board – Nish, butt-naked at attention, the gold medal for Individual Skinny-Dipping around his neck while the Canadian flag was raised and “O Canada” struck up by the band, a small tear rolling down his cheek and off, bouncing off his shoulder to land on his other cheek.…

  Travis shook off the thought. “Don’t even think about it,” he warned his unpredictable friend.

  “Well,” Nish moaned, “I gotta do something.”

  “You can practise our dives!” Sam interrupted.

  “I can’t dive from the tower!”

  “You promised,” Sam reminded him. “I put us down. We’re on the list. You can’t back out now – unless, of course, you’re chicken.”

  Travis tried the 200-metre run and then the 400 metres – he liked the second distance better, not too short and not too long, a good test – and after he’d warmed down he decided to check out Nish and Sam’s practice for synchronized diving.

  A crowd had gathered at the pool. They were watching Wiz and Sarah race for fun – Wiz barely winning over eight lengths – and they were watching Liz and Sam practising their diving.

  Sam noticed Travis coming in and waved to him from the top of the tower. She pointed down to the floor below her, and there Travis found Nish, huddled against the rail.

  “You don’t have to do it,” Travis told him.

  “Of course I have to. She dared.”

  “A dare doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “Maybe not to you, pal. It means everything to me.”

  There was no use arguing. Nish was the only human being Travis knew who came complete with buttons. You couldn’t see them, but they were there. Sarah knew exactly how to push them to get the reaction she wanted. Muck knew how to push them when he needed a good game. Sam was fast learning how to push them, too.

  “You ready, Big Boy?” Sam called down.

  Nish nodded. Sam dived, a perfect one-and-a-half somersault before she cut neatly into the water. She surfaced, pushing her hair back, and smiled up at Travis and Nish.

  “We’re going to win gold, you know – Nish ’n’ me.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Travis.

  They began on the one-metre boards. With Sam advising, Nish dove again and again and again. She counted out “one-two-three” and then they both bounced and tried to leave their boards at the same time.

  It took a while, but Nish was a fast learner. He might have a large body, but he had great control over it, and it didn’t take him long to perfect the somersault and back dive and even a small twist. The more they dove, the more coordinated they became. Some of the dives were horrible, and everyone watching laughed mercilessly, but an increasing number were perfectly in time. A few times they dove so perfectly in tandem the pool erupted in a smattering of admiring applause.

  “You’re a natural, Big Boy!” Sam shouted.

  Nish said nothing. He nodded. He didn’t seem even remotely comfortable.

  They moved to the three-metre boards, and Nish looked, for a moment, terrified. But Sam cajoled and prodded and coaxed, and eventually he began diving from the three-metre with the same surprising grace he’d shown on the one-metre.

  “We’re headed for the gold medal!” Sam shouted, pumping a fist after one perfectly matched dive.

  It was time to try the tower. Sam went up first, and stopped at the first platform to wait for Nish.

  Nish mounted the steps like a convicted murderer brought to a scaffold. He moved like a sloth, both hands firmly on the handrails, his feet so reluctant to leave the steps it seemed they might be glued there.

  He made it to the first level and froze. Nothing Sam could say or do could convince him to climb higher. He stayed there, eyes closed, his entire body shaking.

  “Travis!” Sam called. “You better come and help him down!”

  Travis scrambled up the steps and took hold of Nish’s wrist. His fingers were locked solid.

  “Let go,” Travis said. “We’re going back down.”

  “I … can’t … move,” Nish said.

 
“You can’t stay here.”

  “Keep your eyes shut,” Sam said, “and we’ll guide you.”

  Slowly, they brought Nish back down. There were a few giggles from the crowd, but no open laughter. It was one thing to kid Nish about his stupid ideas, but no one wanted to humiliate him.

  As soon as Nish’s feet touched the floor he opened his eyes – they were brimmed red, but perhaps that was just the chlorine in the pool.

  He didn’t say a word. He headed straight for the door and was out, gone.

  “There goes my gold medal,” sighed Sam.

  15

  Most of the Screech Owls were relaxing in a small park near their hotel. It was another warm, beautiful day. They had shopped for souvenirs along Harrington and Argyle – Nish bought his traditional tournament T-shirt, this one with a kangaroo with a pouch full of ice and cold beer – and they’d all bought ice-cream cones to eat while they sat about on the iron benches.

  “Well,” Sam said with a snicker, “would you look at that?”

  Wiz and Sarah were walking towards them, hand in hand. Sam whistled loudly. Sarah let Wiz’s hand drop. She obviously hadn’t expected to run into her teammates.

  “Where’d you get the ice cream?” Sarah asked as they came closer. Her face was pink.

  “It’d melt before you two got within a mile of it,” Liz giggled. Everyone else laughed. Wiz and Sarah looked embarrassed.

  “We walked over to the aquarium,” Sarah said.

  “Find out anything?” Andy asked, licking the drops away from the bottom of his cone.

  Everyone gathered around to get the news.

  “The Great White has been let go,” Sarah said. “They just wanted to be sure it was all right. It’s fine, so they took it out to sea and released it.”

  “Won’t the police need it for evidence?” Fahd asked.

  “Not really,” said Sarah. “They know it swallowed just the head without the rest of the body.”

  “Apart from that, the police aren’t saying anything,” said Wiz. “But one of the marine scientists at the aquarium told us they think it was an execution.”

  “An execution!” shouted Sam.

  “That’s right,” Wiz said, lifting his right hand and chopping the air. “Someone probably sliced it off with a machete. He was probably on his knees with his hands behind his back when it happened.”

  “I’M GONNA HURL!” groaned Sam.

  “That’s my job,” corrected Nish.

  “But why?” Wilson repeated. “Did they have any thoughts on why?”

  Sarah and Wiz shook their heads. “They don’t know,” said Wiz. “They figure it must have happened at sea. I mean that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? The shark didn’t crawl up on a beach somewhere and gobble down the head. It probably happened in a boat. But only the person who did it knows where, and why.”

  “Creepy,” said Jenny.

  “We also talked to someone there about traditional Chinese medicines,” Sarah said. “She knew everything about seahorses and why they’re considered such powerful medicine. She says hardly anyone knows much about the seadragons, though, only that they’re considered to have even stronger powers.”

  “She found out we were in the Mini-Olympics,” laughed Wiz, “and you wouldn’t believe the things some of the athletes did at the Olympic Games.”

  “Like what?” Wilson pressed.

  “Like drinking the stomach contents of honey bees,” Sarah said, laughing.

  “Disgusting!” shouted Liz.

  “If you think that’s bad, how about injecting your veins with spider blood?” Wiz said. “That’s what the Chinese swimmers said gave them so much energy.”

  “That’s crazy!” said Fahd. “It makes no sense.”

  “Hey,” Wiz interrupted. “They won gold medals, didn’t they? They’re the best in the world, aren’t they?”

  Nish was listening intently. His eyes were wide open and he was nodding up and down. Normally, he would have been the first to make a joke about spider blood or bee vomit, but instead he looked like he was sitting in a church pew nodding in agreement to a sermon.

  What, Travis asked himself, could Nish possibly be thinking?

  16

  The Screech Owls were up for another game in the Oz Invitational, this time against the Perth Pirates. They went ahead 6–0 in the first period on two goals by Jesse Highboy, a breakaway marker by Simon Milliken, and a goal each by the Travis–Sarah–Dmitri line.

  At the break, Muck called Sarah and Travis aside and told them to take off their sweaters and follow Mr. Dillinger. Mr. Dillinger led them to the Pirates’ dressing room and knocked on the door. The Pirates’ manager opened it, welcomed them with a big “G’day, mates!” and tossed a couple of fresh sweaters their direction.

  “You can join your mate around the corner – we cleared some space for the three of you.”

  Sarah, a half step ahead of Travis, suddenly pumped a fist in the air and shouted. “Yes!”

  Someone else was also pulling on a Pirates sweater.

  Wiz!

  He pulled his head through the neck hole, shook his curls, and grinned at them. “I made a special request for my old linemates,” he laughed.

  Three of the Pirates’ weaker players were already off to join the Owls. The coaches were mixing things up a bit again. Wiz had been invited down out of the stands, where he and some of the Sharks had come to watch the Owls play, and with the addition of Travis and Sarah the Pirates would have one line better than anything the Owls could put on the ice.

  Now they had a game going.

  The Pirates came to life thanks to the new line. Wiz, teamed up once more with players equal to his extraordinary talents, was getting better and better every shift. He made miraculous passes to Sarah and Travis, and always seemed to be in position whenever one of them ended up with the puck in a corner of the Pirates’ end.

  Wiz scored twice on hard one-timers after being set up in the slot. Sarah scored a beautiful goal on an end-to-end rush. Travis scored on a pretty tic-tac-toe play in which Sarah left a drop pass for Wiz coming in late, who worked a perfect spinnerama around the Pirates defence before rapping a backhand pass to Travis on the open side.

  They were within two goals of the Owls when Wiz picked up the puck in his own end and flew the full length of the ice with only Nish scrambling back in time. Wiz came in over the Owls’ blueline, dropped the puck into his skates, and tried, once again, the spinning move that had worked so perfectly only minutes before.

  This time, however, Nish was ready for him.

  Nish stepped forward, bringing his gloves up into Wiz’s face, and he flattened the Australian so hard Travis could hear the crack against the ice two lines away.

  Wiz spun into the corner, his body limp.

  Nish picked up the puck, ignoring the referee’s whistle, and slapped it all the way down the ice.

  The whistle went again.

  Suddenly everyone was shoving. Travis had been in shoving matches before, but usually in defence of his silly friend. This time it was Travis shoving Nish, and Sarah coming in screaming at him.

  “What was that all about?” she shouted.

  Her face was red with anger. Nish’s face was redder yet. He looked like a tomato about to explode.

  “He’s a hot dog!” Nish shouted back, shaking off Travis’s grip.

  “Who are you to call anyone a hot dog!” Sarah yelled, her voice shaking.

  Wiz, who was now up on one knee in the corner, looked more puzzled than shocked. Travis figured it was probably the first time anyone had ever taken a run at him. From what he’d seen of Wiz’s talents, though, it wouldn’t be the last.

  “Bug off!” Nish snarled, shaking everyone off and skating away to take his rightful place in the penalty box.

  Sarah skated towards Wiz, now trying to get on his feet.

  He wobbled slightly, his legs suddenly rubber.

  “You better get to the bench,” said Sarah.

  “I�
��m okay,” Wiz said, but he slipped and almost fell again.

  Sarah took one side and Travis the other, and they skated him back to the bench, where the manager and coach reached out and helped him to a seat.

  Wiz was smiling.

  Travis had never seen such a reaction. In any other hockey game he’d ever been in where something stupid like this had happened, the anger would last through the rest of the game and sometimes into the next. There’d be bad feelings and talk of revenge.

  “I guess I was asking for that,” Wiz said. “Tell your mate I owe him one, okay, Trav?”

  Travis nodded. He would certainly do that. Nish deserved whatever was coming to him.

  After Nish had served his penalty, Muck sent him to the far end of the bench to sit in a spot all too familiar to him – hockey’s equivalent to the desk in the far corner of the classroom.

  Wiz took one more shift but was still a little unsteady from the hit and skated off early. He didn’t return for another shift.

  The game never regained its energy. Fahd scored on a point shot that hit a defenceman’s skate and went in. Wilson scored on a long shot that bounced once and skittered between the goalie’s pads. Travis scored a second on a nice breakaway pass from Sarah. Dmitri scored on his customary high backhand. Sarah set up their new winger, probably the quickest of the Pirates, for a breakaway, and he scored when he fanned on the shot.

  The Owls won 9–6, but the Pirates acted as if they, in fact, had won the entire tournament. Never before had they scored so many goals – even if five of the six had come from players “on loan” to them – and they seemed delighted merely to be on the same ice surface as such skilled players from Canada and the legendary Wizard of Oz from Sydney. Several of the players even insisted on getting their photos taken with Sarah and Travis before they took off their equipment.

  One of the Pirates, the quick little player who’d scored on the fanned shot, said he’d see them again in the Mini-Olympics. “We’re a lot better at those sports than we are at this one, y’know,” he told them.