Timberwolf Tracks

by Sigmund Brouwer

  TIMBERWOLF Tracks

  Sigmund Brouwer

  illustrated by Graham Ross

  Text copyright © 2009 Sigmund Brouwer

  Illustrations copyright © 2009 Graham Ross

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Brouwer, Sigmund, 1959-

  Timberwolf tracks / written by Sigmund Brouwer.

  (Orca echoes)

  (Howling timberwolves)

  Electronic Monograph

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 9781551436913(pdf) -- ISBN 9781554697571 (epub)

  I. Title. II. Series. III. Series: Brouwer, Sigmund, 1959-.

  Howling Timber Wolves.

  PS8553.R68467T5475 2008 jC813’.54 C2008-903426-0

  First published in the United States, 2009

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2008930032

  Summary: In this sixth book in the Timberwolves series, Johnny Maverick and his friends, Tom and Stu, go on a road trip to the annual fathers-against-sons hockey game.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Typesetting by Teresa Bubela

  Cover artwork and interior illustrations by Graham Ross

  Author photo by Bill Bilsley

  www.orcabook.com

  12 11 10 09 • 4 3 2 1

  Chapter One

  Shoe Check?!

  “Shoe check,” Johnny Maverick said. He sat at a table in the Billy Goat Café on a Saturday afternoon. It was the only restaurant in the small town of Howling.

  “Shoe check?” Tom Morgan echoed. “I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. This town is a lot different than Toronto.”

  Johnny and Tom were friends. And teammates. They played hockey for the Howling Timberwolves. Tom used to live in Toronto.

  “Sure, Howling is different,” Johnny said. “But why do you need to say it again?”

  “I’ve heard of a coat check at a restaurant. But never a shoe check,” said Tom.

  “Huh?” Johnny said. “In Toronto people put ketchup on coats? That’s a mean thing to do. At least you can clean ketchup off shoes without leaving a stain. Who would put ketchup on a coat?”

  “Are you nuts?” Tom said. “We don’t put ketchup on coats in Toronto.”

  “But you said coat check.” Johnny was frowning at Tom.

  “Because you said shoe check,” Tom said. “In Toronto you check your coat in at the door. Usually at fancy restaurants. The Billy Goat Café is not fancy. Why would they want you to check your shoes in at the door?”

  Johnny thought about what Tom said. Then Johnny smiled.

  “You have a lot to learn,” Johnny said. “I’m glad Stu and I are able to help you.”

  Tom frowned. “Where is Stu? I thought he was going to meet us here. He never misses a chance for food.”

  “Don’t worry,” Johnny said. “He got here before we did.”

  Tom looked around the restaurant. Except for the waitress at the back and the two tables with farmers in John Deere hats, there was nobody else to be seen.

  “Just once,” Tom said, “I’d like to be in a conversation with you that makes sense.”

  “Shoe check,” Johnny said.

  “See what I mean?”

  “It’s part of your education,” Johnny said. “Shoe check means everybody at the table pushes back their chairs and looks at their shoes.”

  “I don’t want to ask,” Tom said, “but I don’t see any choice. Why does everybody push back their chairs and look at their shoes?”

  “To see if there is ketchup on the toes of their shoes.”

  “Weird.”

  “Not weird,” Johnny said. “A trick. If you have ketchup on your toes, everybody laughs at you because you were dumb enough to let someone put ketchup on your shoes.”

  “Ketchup on shoes?”

  “Just on the toes, where you can wipe it off. Better than Toronto, where people put it on someone’s coat.”

  “I already explained that coat check means you leave your coat at—”

  “Shoe check,” Johnny said. Johnny pushed back his chair. “My shoes are clean.”

  “Fine,” Tom said. He pushed back his chair. “If it makes you feel better I’ll check my…”

  Tom frowned again as he looked down. “Hey, there’s ketchup on my toes.”

  Johnny started to laugh. “Great trick, huh?”

  Tom’s face looked like he had sucked on a lemon. “How did ketchup get on my shoes?”

  That’s when their friend, Stu Duncan, crawled out from under the table with a bottle of ketchup.

  “Hi, Tom,” Stu said. “Johnny’s right. You sure have a lot to learn. Good thing we are here to help you get ready for the Wassabee.”

  Chapter Two

  Road Trip!

  Just then Mrs. Green, the waitress, brought three orders of French fries. She set them on the table.

  “Thanks,” Stu said. He shook the ketchup bottle. “Could we have more? This one is empty.”

  Mrs. Green nodded. “I saw you under the table. Who got shoe-checked?”

  “Not me,” Johnny said.

  “Not me,” Stu said.

  “That leaves you,” Mrs. Green said to Tom. She shook her head in sympathy for Tom. “But you’re new to town. Better luck next time.”

  Mrs. Green went for more ketchup.

  Stu put a French fry in each of his nostrils and stared at Tom. The French fries looked like tusks sticking out of Stu’s face. Stu looked like a walrus. “Don’t take it personally. This is training. We’re trying to get you ready for the Wass abee.”

  Tom sighed. “Why me?”

  “You should feel lucky,” Johnny said. “Not everybody gets to play in the legendary Wassabee. It’s two weeks away, and we need to start getting ready for it.”

  “I didn’t even hear about it until today,” Tom said. “Until you phoned and said we needed to meet here to talk about it. What is the Wannabee anyway?”

  Johnny stared at Tom in horror.

  Stu stared at Tom in horror. One of the French fries fell from Stu’s nose onto the table. Now he looked like a walrus with a broken tusk.

  “What?” Tom said. “What did I do?”

  “You mocked the Wassabee,” Stu said. He picked up the French fry and ate it.

  “Yes,” Johnny said, “it’s not the Wannabee. It’s the Wassabee. WHA. SAH. BEE. Never, ever, ever let anyone know that you made fun of it.”

  Mrs. Green returned with the ketchup. She looked at the other French fry in Stu’s nose, but didn’t say anything. She walked away.

  Stu put ketchup on his plate. He took the French fry from his nose and dipped it in the ketchup. He offered it to Tom.

  Tom sighed again and shook his head.

  Stu shrugged and ate the French fry.

  “Tell me about the WHA-SAH-BEE,” Tom said. “Is it some kind of Egyptian curse, like I’ll be swarmed with frogs for saying it wrong?”

  Johnny stared at Tom in horror. “You’re mocking it again.”

  Stu stared at Tom in horror. “Johnny, if this keeps up, I may lose my appetite.”

  Stu grabbed another French fry. “But then again, maybe not.”

  “
The Wassabee is the annual fathers-against-sons hockey game,” Johnny explained. “The winning team gets the Wassabee trophy and bragging rights for the rest of the year.”

  “Yahoo,” Tom said. “Just thinking about it gives me chills. In a town this big, there must be, what, two entire teams? The fathers and the sons? So if we lose, we still finish second in all of Howling.”

  “He’s still mocking it,” Stu said. “Make him stop.”

  “There’s a couple of things you don’t know about the Wassabee,” Johnny told Tom. “First, it’s always played out of town. At a winter camp. On outdoor ice. On Lake Wassabee.”

  “That’s four things already,” Tom said.

  “Focus,” Johnny said. “I haven’t got to the first one yet.”

  “But—”

  Johnny interrupted Tom. “First. Because it’s out of town, there are no women allowed. Ever.”

  “It’s a road trip,” Stu said. “Always remember, what goes on the road, stays on the road. The only thing the mothers ever learn is who won. Not what happened.”

  “Like shoe checks, I suppose,” Tom said.

  “See,” Johnny grinned. “I knew you’d catch on fast.”

  “Anything else?” Tom said. “You know, while I’m getting so excited about this.”

  “One last thing,” Johnny said. “There are two ways to score points. On the ice. And off.”

  “Off? How do you score a goal from off the ice?”

  “That’s the fun part,” Johnny said. “We call them Wassabee points. Trust me. You’ll learn.”

  Chapter Three

  The First Wassabee Point

  The next Saturday afternoon, Tom stepped into the kitchen at Stu’s house. Johnny and Stu were already sitting at the kitchen table. Stu held a black marker. There were sheets of paper on the table. There was a small camera on the table too.

  “Guys,” Tom said. “What’s up?”

  “Getting ready for the Wassabee,” Stu answered. Stu said to Johnny, “I’m so great, I’m jealous of myself.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “When I was born, I was so surprised, I didn’t talk for a year.”

  “Nope,” Johnny said. “Still not good enough.”

  “I stopped to think and forgot to get started again.”

  Tom began to frown. “This is getting ready for the Wassabee?”

  “Yes,” Johnny said, “how about this, Stu? Four out of three people have trouble with fractions.”

  “Huh?” Tom said.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Stu said. “Four out of three people have trouble with fractions?”

  Stu thought about it. A second later, he said, “Oh, I get it. Very funny.”

  Johnny grinned. “Or this: There are three kinds of people in this world. Those who can count. And those who can’t.”

  “Huh?” Tom said again. “Will one of you tell me how this is getting ready for the Wassabee?”

  “Hang on,” Stu said. “Johnny, you said three kinds of people, but you only counted two kinds. Oh, I get it. That’s funny too.”

  “Funny enough for a sign?” Johnny asked.

  “No,” Stu said, “that takes too much thinking.”

  “Please, please, please,” Tom said. “Make sense!”

  “Shhh,” Stu said. “My dad is in the living room.

  On the couch. Watching golf. Don’t wake him up.”

  “How can he be watching golf if he’s asleep?”

  “Have you ever watched golf?” Stu answered.

  “I see your point.” Tom nodded. “But why don’t you want to wake him up?”

  “We need to score the first Wassabee point,” Johnny told Tom. “Remember, we leave next Friday, right after school.”

  “You told me that playing a trick was like scoring a goal. This doesn’t look like a trick.”

  “Not yet,” Johnny answered Tom. Johnny turned to Stu. “How’s this then?”

  Johnny took a marker. He began writing on a sheet of paper. He used big bold letters and printed something for Tom and Stu to read. He also drew a big arrow pointing at the edge of the page.

  “I like it,” Stu said. “I like it a lot.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Tom said, frowning at the sign.

  “You mean I have to explain what it means?” Johnny said. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

  “I mean I don’t get what you are doing.” Tom moaned. “Why did my parents have to move to Howling from Toronto?”

  “So people wouldn’t put ketchup on your coat in a restaurant,” Johnny said. “How can anyone live in a cruel city like that?”

  Tom moaned again.

  Stu patted Tom’s back. “Tom, it will be okay. Just wait here. But be quiet.”

  Stu picked up the camera. Johnny picked up the sheet of paper. Tom sat at the table as Stu and Johnny tiptoed to the living room. But for Stu, it wasn’t exactly tiptoeing. Stu always ate a lot of French fries.

  Less than a minute later, Stu and Johnny tiptoed back into the kitchen.

  “Perfect,” Stu said. “Dad was fast asleep.”

  “He snores like you,” Johnny said. “At least I hope that was snoring. It did smell bad in there.”

  “Ha, ha,” Stu said.

  “Please tell me what’s going on,” Tom said.

  “I’ll show you instead.” Johnny turned the camera around so Tom could see the photo they had just taken of Stu’s dad.

  It was a close-up of his head. His eyes were closed. The sign Johnny had made was right beside Stu’s dad’s head.

  “What do you think?” Johnny said. “Will this photo be worth a Wassabee point?”

  Tom finally understood why Johnny had drawn the arrow on the paper. He smiled. “Yes, and for the first time, I’ll admit I’m glad to be part of the Wassabee. It’s going to be fun, isn’t it.”

  “Only if we win,” Stu said.

  Tom looked at the photo one more time and smiled again.

  The arrow pointed at Stu’s dad’s head. In big bold letters, the sign said: I’M THE BOSS. MY WIFE SAID I COULD BE!

  Chapter Four

  Emergency Food Stop

  It was Friday. The beginning of the legendary Wassabee weekend. All the fathers and all the boys of the Howling Timberwolves stopped at a restaurant along the highway. They were halfway to Wassabee Lake.

  The fathers went inside first. The boys on the team were wearing their Howling Timberwolves team jackets.

  “I love this restaurant,” Stu said to Johnny.

  “Let me guess,” Tom said. “It has an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

  “Take my advice and stuff yourself,” Stu said. “The dads are cooking at Lake Wassabee. All weekend. This is your last chance for civilized food until we get back to Howling.”

  “Yeah,” Johnny said. “Remember last year? One of the dads left a can of baked beans on the woodstove while we played hockey. It exploded. There were beans everywhere.”

  “I don’t remember,” Stu said.

  Johnny elbowed Tom. “He doesn’t want to remember. We caught him scraping beans off the wall with a spoon.”

  “Nothing surprises me anymore,” Tom said. “Nothing.”

  “I hope it stays that way,” Johnny told him. “The dads are going to try to spring surprises on us all weekend.”

  “But no matter what happens,” Stu said, “don’t forget. What goes on the road, stays on the road.”

  “Like last year,” Johnny said, “when my dad crawled under a table with a ketchup bottle to do a shoe- check trick on us. Except we saw him crawl under it.”

  Stu laughed. “I remember that. We switched tables with some truckers, so they sat at the booth instead of us. Johnny’s dad didn’t dare move for the

  whole meal. We counted that as a Wassabee point for us.”

  “I never heard about that.” Tom shook his head.

  Stu giggled. “And you never heard that the truckers accidentally kicked him at the end of the meal. They didn’t think
it was funny when they caught him under the table. We did though. We counted that as another Wassabee point.”

  “I never heard about that either.” Tom kept shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe it.

  “Neither did my mom,” Johnny said. “Even though I really wanted to tell her.”

  “What goes on the road, stays on the road,” Stu reminded Tom. “That’s part of the Wassabee weekend.”

  Johnny smiled. “Including the best shoe check in all of history. Coming up next.”

  Johnny and Stu looked at Tom.

  Tom nodded. “Don’t worry. I have the water pistol right here in my pocket.”

  Chapter Five

  World’s Best Shoe Check

  In the restaurant, all the players on the Howling Timberwolves team sat at one long table. All the fathers sat at another table. Everybody ordered the buffet. Everybody stood up to go to the buffet table.

  Tom pulled out his water pistol. He walked up behind his dad. He squirted his dad on the back of the neck.

  “Hey!” Tom’s dad turned around. “What are you doing?”

  All the dads looked over. They saw Tom with the water pistol.

  “Wassabee!” Tom said. “It’s worth a point, right?”

  “I don’t think so,” Tom’s dad said. “That wasn’t much of a trick.”

  Tom squirted the water right in his dad’s eyes. “Is that better?”

  His dad got mad. “No! Don’t do that again. Even if this is the Wassabee weekend.”

  “Come on,” Tom answered. “It should be worth a point. Maybe we could vote on it.”

  All of the dads were shaking their heads against Tom’s idea.

  “Oh well,” Tom said. “Maybe next time I’ll do better.”

  The dads walked to the buffet table and lined up with all the other people.

  “Good job,” Stu whispered to Tom. “It worked. All the dads were watching you. None of them saw Johnny crawl under the buffet table.”

  Stu and Tom were standing at the end of the buffet line. They saw what nobody else saw.

  The buffet table had a tablecloth that stretched to the floor. As each dad passed the spot where Johnny was hiding under the table, Johnny lifted the cloth a little. Then he reached out and squirted ketchup on top of all the dads’ shoes.