“Sure he would,” said Sam, shaking her head. “He’s chicken – we all know that.”
“I saw him a few minutes ago at the snack bar!” Fahd announced.
“He’s here?” Sam shouted.
Travis jumped in. “I’ll get him,” he said to Sam. “You get ready.”
Travis ran up through the stands, and into the corridor where the snack bars were located. He turned right, then left, following his instincts: the fancier snack bar was to the left. He ran down the corridor, past parents and young hockey players who were happily buying up souvenirs and waiting in line for ice-cream bars. Down around the corner and towards the far exit he ran, hoping, praying, that Nish would be there. The Screech Owls’ Olympic hopes lay with him.
It seemed ridiculous to Travis. None of the Owls had taken the Mini-Olympics very seriously, believing that, on average, the Australian kids would be far superior to them at almost anything but hockey. But no one could have predicted how dominant Sarah would be in her events – inspired, no doubt, by Wiz’s equally impressive performance. No one could have predicted that all the Owls would get so caught up in the competition. And now it was all down to one event that they had considered little more than a joke.
Nish, with his great fear of heights, diving from the high tower.
Travis turned the corner and could see the large snack bar in the distance. A bulky body was sitting at one of the tables, his back to Travis, but unmistakable all the same.
“Nish!” Travis called as he flew into the snack bar so fast his sneakers skidded and squeaked on the floor. “You’re on! You’re up! They’re calling the diving event.”
Nish appeared completely calm, but he had a disgusted look on his face. He was sitting before a bowl of soup, a small plastic bag on the table to one side, and he was slowly spooning the remainder of the soup into his mouth.
How can he eat at a time like this? Travis wondered.
“Just give me another minute,” Nish said.
Travis sat, waiting, while Nish carefully finished off his soup, pulling a face for every spoonful.
“If it tastes so awful,” Travis asked, “why finish it?”
Nish grimaced. “Always clean up your plate, Travis. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
Travis shook his head. A lecture on good manners from Wayne Nishikawa was the last thing in the world he ever expected to hear.
“Hurry up!” Travis urged.
Nish tilted the bowl, filled the spoon, and slotted it into his mouth, swallowing quickly.
He burped and set the spoon down.
“You’ll have to run!” Travis warned.
Nish looked at him, then down at his table. “Clean this up for me, then,” he said. “I’ll go ahead.”
“Sure, sure – whatever. Just hurry!”
Nish pushed himself up, the chair growling across the polished concrete, and began hurrying off in the direction Travis had come from. Travis gathered up the bowl and spoon and tray and began heading for the garbage can.
He’d forgotten the plastic bag.
He stepped back and grabbed it. It felt empty, except there was the sound of fine grains of salt or sand running inside.
He set the tray down, opened the bag, and peered in.
Whatever it was, it was very dry, and flaky.
He sniffed at the bag.
He knew that smell!
The ocean … the smell on the boat … a fishy smell …
Nish hadn’t!
He couldn’t have!
Travis sniffed again, his mind racing. There was no doubt about it. He recognized the smell now.
The seadragon. Sarah’s dried-out seadragon. The little creature with the mythical ability to give a man courage.
Sarah’s seadragon ground into powder and mixed in a soup.
And now in the stomach of Wayne Nishikawa, tower diver.
20
Sam was already waiting at the tower when Travis arrived back at the pool. She and everyone else seemed to be looking at exactly the same place: the doorway to the showers and change rooms. Ten seconds later, the doors opened.
It was Nish, in his Mighty Ducks of Anaheim bathing trunks. He raised both arms to the crowd like he was the wrestling heavyweight champion of the world.
The stands erupted in cheers.
Nish bowed.
He’s going to make a fool of himself, Travis thought. He’s going to panic.
The Australian synchronized diving team was already at the top of the tower. It struck Travis, from the way they were joking around and laughing, that perhaps they had taken this particular event no more seriously than had the Owls. Surely, though, they hadn’t entered any hockey players who were terrified of heights.
The two Aussies moved to the edge, high above the water, talked over their planned dive, high-fived each other for luck, and leapt off at the count of three.
One flipped frontwards, the other managed only a half-flip, and they crashed heavily into the water, bodies badly out of time.
They surfaced to a loud chorus of good-natured booing from the Australian players in the stands.
Both waved, laughing.
Thank heavens, Travis thought. They’re not taking this seriously, either. But they’ll still win, he realized. Because Nish won’t even be able to climb up, let alone jump off – and the Mini-Olympic championship will be theirs.
Nish was at the steps. He had one hand on the railing. Sam was just ahead of him, pleading with him to hurry. From the look on her face, she seemed a lot more agitated than Nish.
Nish smiled, turned and waved again, causing a ripple of laughter to move through the crowd.
He scurried up the steps to join Sam.
He must have his eyes closed, thought Travis. This is where he froze last time.
But Nish didn’t freeze, he didn’t even pause. He took Sam’s hand as he reached her and almost hauled her up the next series of steps to the top of the tower.
The Owls gasped. Nish was now ten metres above the water. He was standing on a small platform four storeys high, with nothing but air between him and the water.
And he wasn’t screaming!
He wasn’t screaming. He wasn’t crying. He didn’t have his eyes shut. He wasn’t shaking. And he wasn’t hanging on to anything but Sam’s hand while he waved with the other.
Sam looked as baffled as anyone else in the crowd. But she shrugged, turned to Nish, went over some quick instructions as to what they’d do, and the two of them approached the edge of the tower.
The entire pool took one breath and held it, as if they, not the divers, were about to plunge underwater.
In the eerie silence, everyone could hear Sam’s soft voice doing the countdown.
“Three … two … one!”
At “one!” both left the tower. Nish held a swan dive, as did Sam, and then both, almost in perfect unison, did a quick flip before entering the water. The splash was so small it seemed more like two coins striking the water than two hockey players who’d never dived competitively in their lives.
A huge cheer went up from the crowd, the Aussies louder than the Canadians.
Sam and Nish surfaced, fists pumping.
“KAAA-WAAA-BUNGA!” they shouted together.
“KAAA-WAAA-BUNGA!” the crowd shouted back, laughing.
Twice more they dove, Nish each time racing fearlessly up the steps and onto the tower. They tried back dives that almost worked, and a double flip that worked remarkably well. The Australians pulled off a nearly perfect flip and twist, but their third dive might as well have been called “Cannonballs off the High Tower.” They hit the water so hard, with such a huge splash, that the crowd gasped with relief just to see they were still alive.
“The results of the synchronized diving event!” the announcer’s voice echoed throughout the large pool. “Canada takes the gold medal!”
The crowd, Aussies as well as Canadians, exploded in cheers.
Nish and Sam had won the g
old.
The Canadians had won the Mini-Olympics!
It seemed impossible to Travis that it was over so soon. He had looked forward to the Mini-Olympics since they’d been announced, and now they were history.
The flag had been raised, the national anthem sung, the medals strung about Nish’s and Sam’s necks, and everyone in the crowd had congratulated each other on such a marvellous day. Travis’s back had been slapped until it burned. Wiz had given him a hug so hard he thought his ribs would break – though it seemed like half the hug Wiz had reserved for Sarah.
Everyone was asking to see Nish’s medal. He had it off his neck now and was handing it about, when suddenly he stepped back from the gathering of well-wishers.
How unlike Nish, Travis thought. He’s finally got exactly what he wants, why wouldn’t he revel in it?
But then he got a better look at his friend. Nish was a little green about the gills again.
“You okay?” Travis asked his friend.
Nish burped lightly. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Something you ate?” Travis asked, grinning.
Nish looked hard at him, eyes narrowing. “Who told you?”
Travis shook his head. “Who’s going to tell Sarah?”
“What do you mean?”
“She wanted to keep that seadragon, don’t you think?”
But whatever Nish was thinking, it had nothing to do with what Sarah wanted or not. He was very green now.
He put his hand over his mouth.
With his other hand, he pushed Travis aside, running hard for the washroom.
21
There was much laughter and shouting on the train ride back to the hotel. Nish and Sam were cheered, and Fahd returned Nish’s treasured gold medal to its rightful owner. Travis told the story of the plastic bag and the funny smell and how he’d finally figured out that Nish had powdered up the dried seadragon and eaten it with soup to give him the “courage” he lacked. And who could now argue that it was just a silly myth? It had worked, hadn’t it?
“How much did you say a bowl of that soup cost?” Sarah asked Data.
“In Taiwan, four hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Well, then, that’s what Nish owes me, I guess,” she said.
“That’s nothing compared to what you all owe me!” protested Nish, only to be drowned out by happy boos.
When they finally got back to the hotel, Mr. Dillinger and Muck had them all gather in the lobby. There was news, and Muck wanted them all to hear it.
Mr. Roberts was there with a uniformed member of the Coast Guard.
“This is Captain Peterkin,” Mr. Roberts said. The Coast Guard captain nodded. “They’ve made a series of arrests today and would like to talk to you.”
Captain Peterkin cleared his throat. He had a finely clipped, sand-coloured beard, and a large moustache that wiggled oddly as he spoke. Some of the Owls fought off giggles as he began speaking, but when they realized what it was he was saying, they all grew quiet.
“The man whose head was discovered at the Sydney Aquarium,” the Coast Guard officer said, “has been identified as a Filipino fisherman who was illegally trapping seadragons off the south coast of Australia, mostly in an area just off Sydney Harbour.”
“How was he killed?” asked Fahd.
Captain Peterkin cleared his throat again. “Executed, we believe,” he said. “Several different poaching operations were competing for the same ripe area for seadragons. Thanks to photographic evidence produced by” – he consulted a small index card in his hand – “Miss Sarah Cuthbertson, we were able to make a positive ID on a Philippines fishing boat in our waters and conduct a stop and seizure operation. We found several kilograms of expired seadragons. We also seized a number of weapons, including a high-powered hunting rifle and several machetes.”
“I thought so,” said Fahd.
“We also have a confession from one of the apprehended fishermen. There had been a battle for these particular seadragon grounds, and, it seems, our unfortunate headless man was one of the losers.”
Travis couldn’t stop himself. He had to know. “I don’t understand something,” he said.
The Coast Guard captain raised one eyebrow in Travis’s direction.
“Why would that man attack Nish? He must have been trying to kill him, but all he had to do was swim away and we’d probably never have noticed.”
The Coast Guard captain looked around, puzzled.
“Which one of you is Nish?” he asked.
Nish stepped forward, blushing hard.
The captain looked a long time at him. Nish grew redder and redder. Finally the captain scratched his beard and nodded, satisfied.
“Put a diving mask on this young man,” Captain Peterkin said, “and put him underwater, and you’d all probably mistake him for a Filipino poacher.”
“Impossible,” Nish said, a smile returning to his beaming face.
“And why’s that, son?”
“Because I can’t stand seadragons – that’s why.”
22
There was one final hockey game still to play. It would be the grand finale of the Oz Invitational, the Screech Owls of Tamarack, Canada, against an all-star team of the best peewee hockey players in all of Australia. Wiz Roberts would captain the Aussie All-Stars against Travis Lindsay and the Screech Owls.
They played at the Macquarie Ice Rink, but so many curious spectators wanted to watch, they could almost have filled an Olympic stadium. The organizers packed in as many as could legally fit and then turned a blind eye as dozens more squeezed in. At 7:00 on a Saturday night they dropped the puck.
“Dah, da-da-da, da-ahhhh!” Nish sang as he lined up beside Travis before the anthems.
“Hockey Night in Australia?” Travis asked, smiling.
“You got it, myte,” Nish answered in an Aussie accent.
This game was different. The two teams were perfectly balanced. Wiz was the equal of Sarah on the ice, and each of the Aussie teams in the tournament had one, two, or three youngsters good enough to play for the Screech Owls. And the Aussies were so fired up by the chance to play on an all-star team in front of such a loud, boisterous crowd that they all seemed faster, smarter, and bigger than before.
“These guys are good,” Travis said on the bench after his first shift.
“They’re amazing!” said Dmitri.
Travis and Sarah leaned back and winked at each other behind his back. It was great to be back with Dmitri. It had been fun playing with Wiz, but the three Owls had a special connection.
Dmitri scored the first goal on a play Travis had seen so many times it seemed he was watching an old movie. Sarah won a faceoff and got the puck back to Nish behind Jenny’s net. Nish moved up towards the blueline and lifted the puck so high it almost hit the rafters. Dmitri, anticipating perfectly, chased the puck down when it landed and came in on a clear breakaway. Shoulder fake, shift to backhand, a high lifter – and the Aussie water bottle was in the air, saluting Dmitri’s trademark move.
Travis realized that playing against Wiz was very different from playing with him. He was astonished at how strong he was on the puck; he simply refused to be knocked off. He scored once and set up a second, and halfway through the first period Muck countered by insisting Travis’s line go head-to-head with Wiz’s line whenever the Aussie sensation was on the ice.
That meant Sarah against Wiz, Wiz against Sarah. They checked each other. They faced off against each other.
Travis wondered how they would handle this, but he had his answer almost at once when Sarah shouldered Wiz hard out of the faceoff circle and used her skate to kick the puck to Travis.
Travis curled back, losing his check. He looked up and down the ice. Lars was free on the far side, and he fired the puck back to him.
Lars took stock of the ice, faked a pass over to Wilson, and instead chopped the puck off the boards to Dmitri. Dmitri took off like a shot up the far wing and slipped a quick pass to Sarah, now hi
tting centre.
But the pass never got to her. Using his shoulder, Wiz easily knocked Sarah off the puck, grabbed it, and turned hard back the other way.
Lars and Wilson tried to take away his space by closing in on him, but Wiz saw it coming. He plucked the puck off the ice so it sailed between the two squeezing defenders and leapt into the air over them, Lars and Wilson crashing together in a tangle of sticks and skates.
Wiz was in alone. He deked out Jenny and fired the puck hard into the goal. He turned, laughing, and plucked the puck off the ice as it rebounded out of the net, twisting his stick perfectly so the puck lay on the blade, just like an NHLer, and handed it to the linesman.
Heading into the third period, the Owls were down 5–3. Muck, for the first time, seemed really into the game. He had his coach’s face on, giving away nothing, but telling each and every one of the Owls that this was the time to get serious. No more shinny. No more glory plays. Just real hockey.
“Nothing stupid, Nishikawa,” he said. “We need you on the ice, not in the penalty box.”
Nish nodded and he stared straight down at his skate laces.
Nish is in the game, Travis told himself. Nothing to worry about there.
“We need you, Sarah,” Muck said.
Sarah nodded, her face streaming with sweat. It would be up to her, both to hold off Wiz and to make sure the Owls came back.
The crowd had grown so loud Travis wondered if they were pumping in a tape of a Stanley Cup game. It seemed impossible that so few people could make so much noise. But they were all Aussies, he reminded himself, and there was no louder fan on earth than the Aussie at full volume.
Besides, they could sense a win. They could smell victory. To beat the Canadians at their own game would be something special.
Travis slapped his stick against Nish’s shin pads before the faceoff. Nish never looked up. His face was as red as the helmets on the Aussie All-Stars. Sweat was rolling off him, and they hadn’t even started the final period. He was in the Nish Zone – and Travis was glad to see him there.
Nish began the charge. He picked up a puck in his own end, faked a pass up to Travis, and carried out, playing a sweet give-and-go with Dmitri at centre ice.
The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 4 Page 24
