“There was fiberglass in Mr. Kimball’s truck,” I said. “And—”
“Stop!” Coach Blair said. He was angry. “I’m not stupid. I saw the insulation there too. But don’t even try to accuse him. Think about it, McElhaney. Anyone else could have done it. Maybe taken it from his truck. Or gotten their own fiberglass, knowing Kimball’s in construction and how it would make him look bad. A lot of other people had access to the washing machine. Even the stickboys, for crying out loud. And don’t think I’m not looking into all of this.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m sorry. Maybe—” I started to tell him about the phone call to the Henrys, but then I stopped. Maybe Coach Blair wouldn’t think someone was out to get me. Maybe, instead, Coach Blair would think that a person who would steal wallets from his teammates would also beat up a girl on a date.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
He stood. “Maybe you should wait in here while the guys finish showering.”
“Sure.” For the first time in a long time I was close to tears. It was sinking in. I was now shut out from my own team.
“I’ll issue a news release that says you went home for urgent personal reasons,” Coach Blair said. “It won’t be a lie because it might be best if you weren’t in town while this gets sorted out.”
“Sure,” I said.
“I hope we can keep this a team secret,” Coach Blair said. “If it gets out, there won’t be many teams in the league who will want you to play for them.”
chapter twelve
From Red Deer to my hometown of Winnipeg is about a fourteen-hour drive if you don’t hit any blizzards and you don’t take any breaks and you only stop to fill up with gas. It might be a few hours less for someone who has a faster vehicle than my 1972 pickup truck, but it’s definitely fourteen hours for me. I know. I drove to Red Deer from Winnipeg just after Christmas, when I was traded from the Brandon Wheat Kings.
Only this time as I drove I wasn’t quite so happy. This time I wasn’t driving somewhere to play hockey. I was driving because I might never play hockey again.
And it was not a great place to be driving when my head was filled with such depressing thoughts. I was in the darkness at nine o’clock at night, on a deserted two-lane prairie highway somewhere between Hanna, Alberta, and Kindersley, Saskatchewan. The wind blew hard against my windshield, rocking the truck as it groaned along the highway. The noise of the wind as it came through the cracks of my windows was like the wailing of a sad song, and it didn’t help my mood at all.
Never play hockey again?
If the newspapers got hold of why I was driving to Winnipeg, no other team in the league would take me. Without junior hockey, I would never make the NHL.
It wasn’t as if I had lots to make my life happy. I was on my way to the home that wasn’t really my home, in Winnipeg. My dad had died when I was twelve. A brain tumor. He had found out one month, and the next month he was gone. My mom had already left by then, so I ended up with my aunt and uncle. They didn’t really mind having me there. But they didn’t go out of their way to treat me like their own kid either. Mostly, I just felt invisible.
Except when I was on the ice. Then, even though I was always scared of making a mistake, I felt like I belonged someplace.
Never play hockey again? My whole life was hockey. What else could there be for me if I couldn’t play hockey or dream about hockey?
With the wind blowing through my old truck, I couldn’t seem to stay warm. I turned up the heater and shivered and bounced behind the steering wheel as my worn-out tires hummed down the highway. In the last ten minutes I had not seen the headlights of a single car or truck.
I had never felt so alone.
So I did something I had told myself I would not do as I drove. I turned on the radio to listen to the Red Deer Rebels as they played the Regina Pats back in the Centrium.
I cranked the volume so I could hear above the wind and highway noises of my old truck.
I was just in time for a commercial. I listened to a singing cow tell me why I should drink milk as much as possible. Finally the game returned.
“Five minutes and thirty seconds left in a very exciting game,” the announcer said. “Red Deer Rebels with five goals. The Regina Pats with five goals. Face-off in the Rebel zone.”
I stared straight ahead into the yellow beams of my headlights. I should have been playing this game.
“Puck dropped back to the Regina defense. He takes his stick back. And—” The announcer’s voice rose with excitement. “A booooomer of a slap shot. A direct shot on net! The goalie makes the save...No! Folks, that puck went into the net! It’s a goal! Six to five for the Regina Pats.”
It figured. All I had to do was turn the radio on for the Rebels to start losing the game.
“It was the strangest thing, folks,” the announcer was saying. “From up here it looked like Robbie Patterson in the Rebels’ net had managed to get his glove out in time to catch the booming slap shot. Then somehow the puck dribbled past him anyway. And folks—What’s this? Here comes Patterson skating out of the net toward the players’ bench. He appears to be holding his glove out. He’s shaking it and pointing at it. I can’t quite see what is—
“Folks, he’s right at the bench. Coach Blair is taking a close look at the glove and—
“Rebel time-out. Coach Blair has called a time-out.”
What was going on? Patterson never got upset like this.
The radio cut back to the singing cow. Then to five reasons I should switch brands of baby diapers. I definitely preferred being on the ice over listening to the game on the radio.
“We’re back, folks,” the announcer said. “In all my years of hockey I’ve never seen a slap shot so hard it actually snapped the webbing of a goalie glove! Robbie Patterson made the save, and the puck just kept right on going. What a bad break for the Rebels. McElhaney, their star defenseman, out for an indefinite length of time. Now this. What’s it going to take for the Rebels to make the playoffs? If the Rebels keep this bad streak going, and if it’s true the Rebels are for sale, you can figure the team will be worth a lot less by the time this season ends. What can the coach and general manager be thinking about this latest bad break, I wonder—”
The announcer took a breath. He’d done his job of filling airtime until the ref was ready to drop the puck again.
“Here they are, folks. Another face-off with just over five minutes left. Rebels down by a goal. Mancini at center ice, fights for the puck, knocks it ahead. Hog Burnell skating in—”
I snapped the radio off. I couldn’t take listening when I should have been playing. Mancini, Hog, Shertzer. I missed them. And they didn’t miss me.
I banged the steering wheel with the palm of my hand. Hours and hours of driving ahead of me. It was going to be the worst trip of my life, sitting in this old truck with nothing but these depressing thoughts for company.
Bad breaks, the announcer had said. No kidding. It was like someone was doing their best to make sure we lost.
It hit me as my last thought sank in.
Someone was doing their best to make sure we lost.
I added it up. Cockroaches in Jason’s equipment. My skate rivets loosened. Cola dumped on the players’ bench. Flat tires. Fiberglass in the laundry. A wrecked goalie’s glove.
Maybe it wasn’t that someone was trying to wreck my life with the skate rivets and the phone call to the Henrys and the stolen wallets in my duffel bag. Maybe those were just more ways to try to hurt the team.
As the wind noise died down, I realized I had taken my foot off the gas pedal and had let the truck slow down.
If someone really was trying to make the Rebels lose, I had to find out. Because if I could find out, we still might make the playoffs. And I might be able to play hockey again.
I hit the brakes and swung the truck back toward Red Deer.
chapter thirteen
A little over an hour later, I was hal
fway back to Red Deer. I passed a service station just as dark and lonely as the highway. The only light shone in the parking lot over a telephone booth.
Just down the highway from the service station, an idea hit me. I told myself it was a dumb idea. But I couldn’t get it out of my head. And I kept thinking about the telephone booth in the parking lot.
I turned the truck around and spent a few minutes driving back to the closed service station.
I parked my truck beside the telephone booth. Again I tried to tell myself how stupid my idea was. Except I couldn’t think of another way. If I could figure out what questions to ask, who else in Red Deer might help me?
I got out of the truck, still telling myself it was a stupid idea.
I also half hoped the telephone book would be missing. But there it was, dangling from a steel cable.
I sighed.
I half hoped there would be a whole bunch of Holbrooks in the book, because that would give me the perfect excuse to quit even before I started. Unfortunately, there was only one Holbrook listed in the Red Deer section of the telephone directory. A Frederick Holbrook. On 53rd Street.
I sighed again. I dialed the number before I could change my mind.
A voice came on the line and told me to deposit seventy-five cents. I thanked the voice before I realized it was a recording. I wasn’t sure if this was a good start to making a phone call at ten at night to a girl I had hardly ever spoken to.
I pushed three quarters into the coin slot and listened to the phone ring.
I half hoped no one would answer. Unfortunately, it only rang twice before a quiet voice said hello.
“Hello,” I said back, trying to sound mature. “May I speak with Cheryl Holbrook.”
“This is Cheryl.”
Great. What do I say next?
I must have waited too long.
“This is Cheryl,” she said again.
I couldn’t do it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I must have dialed the wrong number. Good-bye.”
“Wait!” She laughed. “How could you have dialed the wrong number if you asked for me?”
I wanted to hit my head against the wall of the phone booth. So much for being a guy who always used logic. All it took was a girl’s soft voice and my mind turned to mush. I tried to think of something fast.
“I got the wrong Cheryl Holbrook,” I finally said. “So sorry. Good-bye.”
“Wait!” She laughed again. “How do you know it’s the wrong Cheryl Holbrook?”
This was much harder than facing 200-pound forwards who wanted to smear me into the boards. I again did my best to find an excuse.
“Are you old and fat and wrinkled?” I asked.
“Um, no,” she said.
“That’s it then. Wrong Cheryl Holbrook,” I told her. “The one I’m looking for is old and fat and wrinkled. I guess I should be going now.”
“Is this Craig McElhaney?” she asked.
I wanted to crawl under my truck. I should have hung up, but I was too rattled. I clutched the phone and gulped a few dozen times, trying to get some air. No wonder I stayed away from women and concentrated on hockey.
“Is it?” she asked again. “Is this Craig?”
I mumbled it was.
“I thought I recognized your voice from English class. How nice you called.”
“Um, thanks,” I said. I wondered what to say next.
“Well,” she said after a few seconds of silence, “did you get your homework done for Mr. Palmer’s class tomorrow?”
Hadn’t she heard I was leaving town for urgent personal reasons? Hadn’t she heard what Coach Blair had told the newspapers and radio?
“I didn’t,” I said. “It might not be that important if—”
A voice interrupted and told me to put in another fifty cents for two more minutes.
I reached into my pockets. Nothing.
“Hang on!” I shouted into the phone.
I dropped the phone and raced back to the truck. I usually had some change in the ashtray. I found three gum wrappers, five pennies and one quarter. I rammed my hand into the seat cushions. Sometimes money fell from my pocket when I drove. I ripped a fingernail on a spring in the cushion but managed to find another quarter. I raced back to the phone and plugged the money into the slot.
“Craig? Craig?” she was asking. “Are you trying to be funny?”
“No!” I said. I sucked in some air.
“It has been a strange phone call,” she told me.
“I don’t always think too well when I’m in trouble,” I said.
“Trouble?” Her voice instantly sounded worried. To my surprise, I found I liked that.
“Not big, big trouble.” No, I told myself, only trouble that might mean the end of my hockey career. “Could you meet me tomorrow morning before school starts?”
“Sure,” she said. “At the main doors of the school?”
“No!” I took a breath. “I mean, would it be okay if we met somewhere else?”
The last thing I wanted was to risk running into one of the guys on the team.
“Where?” she asked.
I thought of one of the main streets in Red Deer. “Maybe a restaurant. Do you know the one on Ross Street down by City Hall Park?”
She waited a few seconds. I hoped the phone wouldn’t run out of time. I didn’t think I had any change left in the cushions of the truck.
“Sure,” she said. “Quarter after eight?”
“That would be great.” I found myself grinning into the darkness of the phone booth. “Thanks.”
She said good-bye and hung up.
I continued to drive back toward Red Deer and stopped in Innisfail, a small town just south of Red Deer. I found a motel there and spent a lonely night staring at the ceiling in the rented room. It didn’t help that I heard on the late news that the Rebels had lost again. We needed to win eleven games, and we only had fourteen games to do it.
chapter fourteen
“Why did you call me for help?” she asked.
We sat in the restaurant by the park. It was only half full. Our waitress dropped off our toast and coffee and then decided to ignore us.
I took a sip of my coffee. The stuff tasted awful. I tried not to make a face, because I wanted the coffee to make me look more mature.
“Good question,” I said as I looked across the table at her. Cheryl Holbrook was definitely not old and fat and wrinkled. I had known that from the first time I saw her in class. But in class I’d always been afraid of getting caught staring at her.
Now, in the restaurant by the park, I had every excuse to look. Her eyes were light green, which was a nice contrast to her blond hair. Her nose had a few light freckles, and her cheeks had little dimples when she smiled.
However, she soon stopped smiling at me. She leaned forward, her elbows on the table, and she watched me with a serious half-frown.
“Come on,” she said. “If it’s a good question, answer it. Why me?”
“Why you? Easy.”
Only it wasn’t easy. How could I explain I didn’t have any friends in Red Deer? How could I explain I hoped she would remember how I had argued with Mr. Palmer for her when I first got to the school?
“Easy,” I repeated. “It’s...um...because—”
“You think I’m a sucker for a pretty face,” she said.
I felt myself blush. I knew I didn’t have a pretty face.
She laughed. “Don’t sweat it. Why not tell me about your trouble and how I can help?”
I nodded and sipped more coffee. The taste hadn’t changed at all. I dumped three spoonfuls of sugar and some cream into it.
“My trouble is that someone has been doing things to make hockey real tough for me,” I said.
Her eyebrows lifted. “During the games?”
“During and after and before.”
“Oh,” she said. I noticed she wasn’t drinking her coffee. “How tough has it been?”
“You probably
know I didn’t play last night,” I answered.
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Please don’t take it personally, but I don’t follow hockey.”
I thought about that for a second. “Actually, I think I like that. Some girls chase anybody who plays junior hockey. At least if you help me, I’ll know it won’t be for that reason.”
Tiny circles of red appeared on her cheeks, and she quickly looked down at her coffee. She added some sugar to it.
“What kind of trouble?” she asked without looking up.
I took a breath. This was the hard part. I either trusted her completely and told her everything or I didn’t ask for her help at all.
I told her everything. The cockroaches, the skate rivets, the fiberglass in our long johns, the snapped glove, the phone call to the Henrys, and the way I had been blamed for stealing the wallets.
She watched me as I spoke. She listened carefully until I was finished.
“You are innocent.” She said it like a statement, not like a question.
“I didn’t take the wallets. I don’t even have a girlfriend.”
For some reason those tiny circles of red showed on her cheeks again, and she went back to looking at her coffee.
“How do you think I can help?” she asked. “I don’t know anything about hockey.” She stirred her coffee.
“I have two problems,” I said. “One is that I don’t know where to begin asking questions to find out who’s behind this. Two, even if I knew the questions, I couldn’t ask them. I’m supposed to be in Winnipeg.”
Cheryl took a notebook from the backpack she had dropped onto the chair beside her. She set the notebook on the table and got a pen ready.
“Repeat everything you told me,” she said.
I did. She made notes. Then, for about five minutes, she carefully studied what she had written.
The waitress stopped by to pour more coffee into our cups. It made me grumpy because that meant I’d have to start over trying to finish the horrible stuff.
Cheryl flipped to a different page of her notebook and began writing again.
Rebel Glory Page 5
