“Thanks,” he said. “It’s a real pain, trying to keep the fashion photographers out of my room.”
I pulled up a chair and sat beside his bed. I didn’t, however, take off my cowboy hat. That could wait until the rest of the guys showed up.
“Heard you did good in California,” he said.
“Not bad,” I answered. “But let me tell you, the NHL is a whole new game. Those guys are big, fast and smart.”
“You scored a goal.”
“Yup.” I grinned and dug into my pocket. “In fact, here it is. The guys saved it for me.”
My first National Hockey League goal! There had been a scramble in front of the San Jose Sharks’ net. The puck had popped loose in my direction. Without thinking— because there wasn’t time—I’d fired high, catching the top shelf of the net. It had been such a shock, I didn’t remember to ask the referee for the puck. One of the Sabres had done that for me and had brought it over with a grin on his face as big as the one on mine.
Luke held the puck. I watched his face. There wasn’t much color in it and there were dark circles beneath his eyes. Pain had left its mark. But there was a smile in his eyes as he handed the puck back.
“Good job, Cowboy. I mean that.”
“I know you do,” I said. I flipped him the puck. “I want you to have it.”
His eyes widened. “It’s your first NHL goal. I can’t take it.”
“Luke. Here’s the deal. When you get your first NHL goal, you send me your puck. We’ll be even.”
“Sure,” he said, his voice so soft I could barely hear it.
“I mean it,” I said. “From what I heard, you might be back on the ice by next season.”
“And I might not be,” he said. “How much do you know?”
“Leukemia,” I said. “You’ve got early symptoms of it. Not fun.”
Leukemia. It was a form of cancer where the body produced too many white blood cells. It could cause bleeding and shortness of breath, like Luke’s nosebleeds and problems on the ice.
“They’re getting it early,” he said. “My chemotherapy starts soon.”
Luke grinned and rubbed his bald head. “I knew the treatments would make my hair fall out. So I shaved my head. That way no one would know about the leukemia.”
“Stephanie helped me figure that out,” I said. “Your Michael Jordan story was pretty lame.”
This was my first chance to speak to Luke. The morning after the game against the Chiefs, I’d flown to California for my games in the NHL. “How long have you known you have it?”
“Not long,” he said. “I started to get those nosebleeds all the time. It was strange, so I went to a doctor. One in Vancouver, just in case something was seriously wrong. I didn’t want anyone to know, not even my parents. I just wanted to get through the season. I was hoping the chemo would help, and after the summer I’d be ready to play again. I was afraid if anyone knew, the Montreal Canadiens would find out and I’d never have a chance.”
Luke stared at the puck in his hands. “I’m sorry, Josh. I shouldn’t have taken things out on you.”
“Don’t sweat it,” I said.
Luke opened his mouth to say something. Then he shut it and went back to staring at the puck.
“What?” I said.
“All right.” He took a breath. “I might die, you know. I mean, they say with this form of leukemia, I’ve got a great chance of beating it. But there’s still the chance I won’t.”
“I’ll be praying for you,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “That’s what I want to ask you about. You go to church and know about God. I mean, the possibility of dying is scary—”
I think I knew what he meant.
“Luke, I’m not going to paint you some picture where the world is perfect if you believe in God. All I can tell you is what my dad once said.”
I closed my eyes to concentrate. When I opened them again, I said, “We all know that we’ve got a body and a brain. What’s invisible is the third part, our soul. If you can believe in love, something just as invisible, you can understand having a soul.”
This wasn’t something guys talked about much, and I didn’t know if I should continue, but he was listening intently. So I said, “And if the soul is something that truly exists then later, when your body is gone, your soul lives on. Dad tells me to think of my time on earth as the beginning of a journey that will go on forever.”
Luke was nodding. We might have spoken about it more, but footsteps reached us from the hallway. A whole herd of footsteps. It was the other guys from the team.
They crowded into Luke’s room wearing various kinds of hats.
I stood. If Luke had more questions, we’d talk later. For now, though, there was something we had to do.
I took off my cowboy hat and rubbed my head.
Luke’s jaw dropped in surprise.
One by one the rest of the guys took off their hats. Some were grinning. Some were serious. All of them stared at Luke.
Luke stared right back at twenty-one bald heads.
“Need sunglasses, Luke?” someone asked.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“We’re a team,” I told him. I rubbed my hairless head again, almost to convince myself I was bald. The smooth skin of my skull felt weird. “When you start growing your hair back, so will we.”
Sigmund Brouwer is the best-selling author of many books for children and young adults. He has contributed to the Orca Currents series (Wired, Sewer Rats) and the Orca Sports series.
Sigmund enjoys visiting schools to talk about his books. Interested teachers can find out more by e-mailing [email protected].
For more titles in the Orca Sports series, please click here.
To browse titles in the Orca Currents series, please click here.
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