by Fran Hurcomb
“Looks like they were chopped with an axe.”
“Somebody hates us,” said Sarah, all of a sudden sounding near tears.
“Well, I don’t know about hating us, but they sure don’t want us to play hockey,” I replied quickly, before she started to cry.
We ran back to the café as fast as we could and almost fell through the door in a heap. All six of us tried explaining to my mom what had happened. Eventually, she got the story straight. Her jaw clenched, and her eyes got very narrow.
“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” she said in a low, angry voice, as she picked up the phone.
She talked with Corporal Smithers for a few minutes and agreed to meet him at the pond. Back we went with flashlights. Word must have gotten out quickly, because there were already several people at the pond when we got there. Everyone was furious. Corporal Smithers carefully looked over the area and shook his head.
“There are at least a dozen holes as well as the paint,” he said quietly to my mom. “Holes like that are really dangerous if a skater doesn’t see them.”
People kept asking the same two questions. Who would do such a thing? And why?
“If we get the answer to one question, we’ll probably get the answer to the other,” said Corporal Smithers. “You girls have any idea who wants you to quit playing hockey?”
We all looked at each other and shook our heads.
“We haven’t even beaten anybody yet,” said Sarah.
“Well,” he said, “we’ll figure it out. In the meantime, we’ll repair the rink. I’ll call the fire hall and see if they have a pump we can use tomorrow. If any of you get any bright ideas about this, come and tell me. Don’t try to do anything on your own.” When he said this, he looked hard at us girls, to make sure we were really listening. We all nodded.
Sam’s eyes suddenly went wide. “Do you think this has anything to do with the skate sharpener?” she asked him.
“Good question. Hard to say right now, but I’ll keep it in mind. Okay everyone, time to go home. We’ll get to work on this tomorrow. You girls won’t miss any more practices.”
We walked home in silence. In a small place like Fort Desperation, everybody pretty well knew everybody else. I wondered who could have done this, and why? We’re nice girls. What had we done to make somebody so mad at us?
It was the main topic of conversation at school the next day. At lunch we narrowed down the field of suspects. It had to have been a male, probably young, maybe with a Ski-Doo. That only left about two hundred suspects. No problem!
“Maybe we should set a trap,” suggested Opal. In addition to figure skating, Opal read mysteries— lots of them.
“You heard what the corporal said, Opal. We’re not supposed to try anything on our own,” replied Geraldine.
“But it’s not like we’re dealing with a vicious criminal or anything. It’s probably some goofy hockey player who’s scared of the competition,” said Opal.
“A hockey player wouldn’t have trashed the skate sharpener,” added Sam quietly.
“That’s true,” I said. “But do we really know that the two incidents are related?”
“So, do we just wait and hope that it doesn’t happen again?” asked Opal in an irritated voice.
“I guess so,” said Sam. “Maybe whoever did it will get bored with the idea and go away.”
We all nodded in agreement. We would keep our fingers crossed.
Chapter Twelve
After school, we all met at the pond to find the ice surface freshly flooded. The head of the volunteer fire department, Len, was just putting away his hoses when we arrived.
“Wow, that’s great,” we exclaimed. “It’s even better than it was before!”
“Thanks. It was a good excuse to get out of the office,” Len admitted. “I even painted some lines on before I flooded it. Scraped off most of the message too.”
We now actually had three lines across the rink: a red center line with a wobbly face-off circle in the middle and a blue line halfway to each net. What a concept. Now the new girls would get to learn about offsides! The nasty message was very faint and impossible to read, and the holes were all gone. Our rink was better than ever.
“Maybe we should thank the idiot who made all of this possible,” laughed Ger.
“We will. When we catch him,” responded Opal.
Len laughed and finished putting away his equipment. “There were Ski-Doo tracks beside most of the holes,” he said, “so I’d guess whoever did it doesn’t like to get too far from his machine.”
“A clue!” shouted Opal. She wasn’t going to give up on the whole sleuthing angle any time soon.
We had good practices for the next couple of days, except that Alice wasn’t there. I wasn’t exactly worried, but it was kind of strange. She never missed practice. I hadn’t even seen her at school. Finally I asked Michael where she was.
“She’s stayed home the past few days. She broke up with her jerky boyfriend on the weekend, and he keeps hassling her.”
“Oh, that’s not good,” I replied, as if I really knew about these things.
“She figures he’ll calm down when he realizes she really means it, but in the meantime, she’s staying out of his way.”
“She should come to hockey. We’d protect her.”
“Sure you would,” he laughed. “I don’t think he’s dangerous, but he is an idiot. All he thinks about is his snow machine.”
“Kind of like us and hockey?”
“No way. Hockey is important. I mean it’s real…”
“Yeah, you’re right. Hockey is important. Have you heard anything about the arena?”
“They’re saying early December. Hope they’re right. It’s getting too cold to play outside.”
Michael was right. It was dipping down to minus thirty at night and not warming up too much during the daytime. At least the skies were blue and clear, making the days seem a little longer. Someone had dumped off some firewood at the pond, so we sometimes had a bonfire going at practices. It gave us a way to warm up our fingers and toes a bit. Tara was doing a good job of keeping the practices going, but we were all anxious to get into the arena.
Friday morning was warmer and cloudy, with soft snow falling. According to the weather report on the radio, it was going to warm up for a few days. I got an urgent note from Opal in math. It said Get everyone together for an important meeting in the lunchroom. I had no idea what it was about, but I passed the note around. At noon, most of the team met at a table in the back corner.
“What’s so important?” asked Sam.
“I have an idea,” said Opal. Her sister nodded in agreement. “Since today is Friday and it’s warming up, I thought maybe the Hockey Vandal might be getting ready to strike again. I think we should set a trap.”
There was a long silence. A trap? Us? Everyone began to talk at once.
“Corporal Smithers told us to bring our ideas to him, and not to do anything on our own,” said Ger.
“Yeah. Dad would be furious if we tried anything,” added Daisy. Her sisters nodded.
“Well,” said Opal, “maybe you three shouldn’t be involved, but the rest of us could just sort of hang out at the pond tonight after dark and see if he shows up.”
“We’ll just freeze for nothing,” said Sam.
“Maybe, maybe not,” replied Opal. “It’s worth a try. Say for an hour or so after everyone goes home.”
“What are we going to do if he does show up?” asked Sam. “Beat him with our hockey sticks?”
There was a long silence while we thought about that one. I, for one, was definitely not into violence.
I had a brainwave. Without thinking, I blurted it out. “I know. We could take his picture.”
“Yeah,” said Opal with enthusiasm. “We’ve got a new digital camera.”
“So do we,” added several other excited voices. “We could all bring cameras, with flashes on them, and take a whole bunch of pictures at once. The
n we’d run away.” Oh boy. Was this a bright idea, or a really stupid one? I wasn’t sure.
“Let’s vote,” said Opal, obviously totally keen on the idea. “Who’s in favor?” Seven hands shot up.
“Who’s against?” Four hands…the Smithers girls and Ger.
“Jess, you didn’t vote,” said Sam.
“This is all happening too fast for me. I’m still thinking about it.” It’s not that I’m a chicken or anything, but I really don’t like jumping into things without thinking a bit first. I’m like my dad that way.
“Well, whatever,” said Opal, with a flip of her chin. “Seven of us are ready to go. But we have to keep this secret. No telling anyone.” We all nodded in agreement.
Daisy, who had been looking very unhappy, said, “After you take the pictures, you can bring them to our house, and we’ll download them onto the computer. We really can’t go to the pond with you, but I don’t think Dad would be too mad if we just printed the pictures.”
Sam looked at me for a moment, and then said, “I think it’s a good idea. You should come.”
I sighed. “Yeah, okay. I’ll come.”
It was agreed. We’d go to the pond after supper for a skate and then, after everyone else left, we’d hide behind the snowbank and wait one hour, no longer. Everyone would bring some kind of camera.
“Don’t forget to wear warm clothes,” said Sam as we headed off to classes. Oh boy, I thought, what are we getting ourselves into?
Chapter Thirteen
“Mom, can I borrow the digital camera tonight?” I asked innocently when I got home from school. She was going to ground me forever when this was all over…if I was still alive to ground.
“Sure, honey. It’s on my desk,” she replied from the kitchen. The café was quiet, as it usually is at that time of the afternoon. It gave her an hour or two to get the supper menu ready. We had about a dozen or so regulars for supper every night and sometimes a few travelers. Being Friday night, there might even be a family or two.
I unloaded the dishwasher and tidied up the tables in front. Mom likes to do the cooking and prep work herself, so there really wasn’t much more I could do. I couldn’t stop worrying about tonight. If only I could talk to Mom about it. But there was no way. She’d put a stop to the whole thing right away, and that would not do a lot for my popularity on the team. Besides, it wasn’t very likely that the Hockey Vandal would show up at the pond again. Most likely, we’d just get very cold for nothing.
After supper we met at the pond and skated around, waiting. I brought Spider along for moral support. Spider isn’t much of a guard dog, but he is big. One of the strangest things about Spider is that he’s afraid of ice. That’s actually a good thing, because it means I can bring him to the pond when we play hockey, and he stays off the rink. He runs round and round the edge, whining, but at least he doesn’t steal the puck.
Soft snowflakes were still drifting down, but enough people had shoveled when they arrived to keep the ice fairly clean. Someone had lit a big bonfire, and groups of little kids were zooming around, screaming and chasing each other. The generator was going, so our floodlight was on. Normally this was one of my favorite things to do, but tonight I couldn’t enjoy it. My stomach was in a knot, and my whole body was tense.
In all there were eight of us on the ice. Sam, Opal and Ruby were definitely the ringleaders tonight. They were excited. They decided that the best place for us to wait was behind the snowbanks on the far side of the rink. The snowbanks were pretty high now, so we’d be invisible from the ice itself. Behind them, the bush was thick. It wouldn’t be too hard to disappear into it if we had to. At about 9:00 pm the owner of the generator shut it down and loaded it into his truck. A few kids continued to skate in the dark, but fairly soon they too took off their skates and went home. The eight of us skated over to the bench and removed our skates. All of a sudden, it seemed very quiet and isolated.
“I wore extra socks,” said Opal, “and my neck warmer.”
“It’s a good thing it’s not too cold tonight,” added Sam.
“A perfect night for vandalism,” said Ruby, with a wicked grin.
We trooped across the deserted rink and stationed ourselves behind the snowbanks. Spider settled down beside me with an eager expression on his face that said, “Now what?” The moon was covered by clouds, but the outlines of the rink and the bush were very easy to see. At either end of the rink, homemade wooden goal nets stood on guard, while three benches lined the side closest to the road. The coals from the bonfire still glowed. In the winter, we’re pretty slack about putting out fires. They’re pretty much left to take care of themselves.
We pulled out our cameras and got them ready. Sam and Opal had brought flashlights, which were very helpful. There were five digital cameras and three film cameras.
“This camera hasn’t been used since last Christmas,” said Ruby, holding up a little point-and-shoot. “It will be fun to see what’s on the film.”
“So what are we going to do if this guy actually shows up?” I finally asked.
“Well, I guess we should wait to see if he’s really going to do something bad, and then, on a signal, we should all stand up and take a picture at the same time,” said Opal.
“Yeah. And then we run.”
“In eight different directions.”
“We’ll meet at the Smithers’ house.”
Everyone was throwing out ideas. To pass the time, we all tried to guess who the vandal could be. The suggestions got pretty bizarre. Someone even suggested Joe, the hockey coach for the boys, because he didn’t want us to humiliate his teams. It was past nine thirty, and we were starting to feel the cold. Ski-Doos could be heard in the distance, but nothing seemed to be coming this way.
“I wish we had a thermos of hot chocolate,” said Ruby. “Yeah,” agreed Opal. “On our next stakeout, we’ll have to remember hot chocolate.”
“Listen,” said Sam in a loud whisper.
Slowly, the sound of a Ski-Doo got closer and louder. It was coming from the trails behind the school. Suddenly, a headlight came into view through the trees. We held our breath and watched intently. The machine was traveling slowly, approaching the rink from one end. It stopped for a moment while the driver seemed to look around, and then crept ahead until it came to a stop beside the glowing firepit. The driver shut the motor off and just sat there, very still. We froze in our places. He pulled off his helmet and looked around without leaving his machine. It was too dark to see his face, but he looked big. My heart was hammering like a drum. Surely he could hear it. I looked sideways at Sam and the others. Their breath was coming out in tiny streams. Nobody moved a muscle, not even Spider.
Finally the guy on the Ski-Doo seemed to relax. He placed his helmet on the ground and pulled something from the carrier behind his seat. An axe! He walked slowly over to the closest goal net, not far from the firepit. He looked around once more and then swung the axe. The left side of the goal crumpled to the ice. He swung at the other side, smashing it to the ice as well. Then he started to drag the mangled carcass toward the firepit. He poked at the glowing fire with his boot, stirring it up and getting a small flame going. Then he lifted the goal and tossed it onto the fire. With new fuel, the fire flared up again quickly. Behind the snowbank, we all tensed. How long should we wait? Should we really do this, or just stay hidden until he left?
“On three,” came a whisper from Sam. “Pass it on.” I turned to Alyssa on my right and passed the message.
“One, two, three,” came a loud whisper from down the line. We all stood up, cameras raised.
“Hey, you!” shouted Opal.
The Vandal turned toward us and froze. Camera flashes started going off, one after the other.
“What the—” He stood up and stared, stunned for a moment, it seemed. We stood and stared too. For a moment everything was still. Deep in the bush, an owl hooted. Then the Vandal was all motion. He turned and jumped onto the Ski-Doo, cranked its motor into
action and was gone in a roar and a cloud of snow, across the rink and down the trail.
We all jumped up and down and hollered. High fives all around.
“Let’s get out of here fast, before he comes back,” said Sam.
We ran across the rink to the firepit, where our goal was engulfed in flames. I took a few photos of it, just for good measure.
“Hey, he left his helmet and the axe. I’ll bring them,” said Ruby.
Then we hit the road, running as fast as we possibly could, our skates slung over our shoulders. Spider was so excited that he kept jumping up on everyone and nipping at our heels. It only took about five minutes to get to the Smithers’ house, but it seemed like hours. We kept watching over our shoulders, ears tuned for the sound of a solitary Ski-Doo. We charged onto the Smithers’ front porch and knocked hard.
“Everyone here?” asked Sam. A quick head count revealed all eight of us. Daisy opened the door, and we piled in. Everyone was talking at once. I sank to the floor in relief. My legs felt like rubber.
“That was really scary,” I said to Sam when I was able to speak.
“Yeah. That axe made me think twice about the plan.”
“Not me,” replied Opal. “I knew we could do it.” There was silence while we thought about what could have happened. But we had survived, and our plan had worked. We had evidence!
Chapter Fourteen
We piled into the living room, where a computer sat on a desk in the corner. The five digital cameras came out of our pockets and onto the desk beside the computer. We’d keep the film for backup if the digital photos didn’t turn out.
“This could take a while,” said Daisy. “Let’s start with this one,” she said, taking Sam’s camera. She plugged a cord into the camera and then the computer, and clicked on a few icons. “It’s downloading. How many shots did you take?”
“Two or three, I think,” replied Sam.
“Okay. Here they are.” Three small photos appeared on the screen. The fire was bright in the background, and in front was a dark figure. How would we ever be able to tell who it was?
