The Ice Chips and the Grizzly Escape

by Roy MacGregor

  “One more cast?” Lucas had asked as he untangled his rod one last time with one of Suchai’s dogs still wagging its tail beside him.

  He was thinking about how this kid said he’d learned to both fish and skate on this creek, and about how much he loved the calm of the outdoors. Lucas took a slow breath and made his final cast, suddenly, finally understanding how it worked. His line drifted back and forth over the water with fluidity and style, his fly skipping along, just as it was supposed to. Lucas could see a trout surfacing, pushing hard with its tail to move its body out of the water—as hard as Lucas moved his legs to go after a puck.

  The trout leaped into the air, quickly closing its mouth around the fly—the hook.

  And the very next second, the leaping kids from Riverton were gone.

  Chapter 11

  Riverton, present

  Jack, who was standing in the centre of the dressing room, had his arm in a box of Cheerios, all the way up to the elbow.

  “Whoa, don’t eat too fast,” Bond said with a smirk as she watched the hockey camp’s trickmaster hold his third handful up to his mouth. “You don’t want a tummy ache out on the ice!”

  That morning at breakfast, Lucas had been eating his Cheerios at his family’s kitchen table while Connor, wearing an extremely small pair of glasses that normally belonged to an owl puppet they owned, was lightly tapping a hard-boiled egg with a spoon. Lucas was thinking about Anahim Lake and some of the things that Shayna and Nolan had told him about Jack after the leaping kids had reappeared on the ice at home.

  When they’d returned to the present, Mouth Guard, Lucas, Shayna, and Swift had rolled over the rink’s centre line as though they’d all just fallen off the back of a horse. In Riverton time, this happened only a split second after the kids had disappeared, as though a light had flickered and that was it. Edge’s and Nolan’s mouths had immediately dropped open—not because of the time trick but because of what Lucas was holding in his hands. He’d managed to bring the small fly rod Suchai’s sister had made back through the wormhole. And attached to it was a rainbow trout!

  “Whaaa—? Where on earth did you go this time?” Edge had shouted, leaping to his feet.

  Nolan burst out laughing with one big, joy-filled “BAA-HAHA!” when he saw Lucas’s catch. And then everyone hurried to get their equipment off and their stuff together before Quiet Dave came back to the rink after his meeting with his daughter. Lucas was giving back Nolan’s light-up puck when Shayna and her brother confided in him.

  The Stars’ defender said she, too, had noticed what Jack ate for breakfast. And she’d asked him about it. Jack told her that he didn’t have parents to make or buy him food. He and his brother, Josh, had been living in a group home—a place where some grown-ups were paid to look after kids who were on their own—until two years ago, when Josh turned eighteen. At that point, the two of them had got their own apartment, and later they’d moved to Riverton. Now Josh worked early mornings at the grocery store to pay their rent, and Jack got his own breakfast, often from a pillowcase of candy he still had left over from Halloween.

  “Look, Lucas! Look!” cried Connor as the egg he was tapping suddenly showed a crack. A piece of the brown shell fell off, revealing the soft, shiny white of the egg beneath it. Instantly, Connor started to cry. “I thought I was getting a pet! He was ap-posed to jump out and be mine! It’s just an egg!”

  Connor’s wish for a pet reminded Lucas of Suchai and his dogs, which in turn reminded him of when the goalie had said that breakfast was an important meal if you were going to be doing sports or learning new skills. That’s why, when he’d packed up his equipment to go to the rink that morning, Lucas had also grabbed his box of cereal.

  “This was really cool of you,” Jack said as he handed the box back to Lucas in the dressing room.

  Lucas smiled shyly. He was upset with himself for not noticing that Jack was in need, but he was happy he’d been able to help.

  “We, uh, also noticed that you’re missing a bit of equipment,” said Slapper. He blushed as he and Lars, halfway through dressing, walked up to the new kid. “Nolan told us that some of yours needed replacing.”

  The Chips’ biggest defenceman held out a pair of shoulder pads that he’d grown out of, and Lars offered some shin pads he said he didn’t need—his uncle, Coach Blitz, gave him a pair every Christmas, along with a bunch of fancy composite sticks.

  “You can have one of my sticks, too,” said Lars, feeling awkward but knowing this was the right thing to do.

  Wrapping his hands around the new stick, Jack grabbed a lost puck from under a bench, tossed it into the air, and caught it on the toe of his blade. As the other kids watched, he spun the stick around his body, flipped the puck over his shoulder, and caught it again in front.

  “You’d better write your name on that stick,” said Mouth Guard, mesmerized by the quick trick.

  “Write ‘Jack,’ you mean? Is that what you guys do here?” asked the new kid, trying to figure out how things were done in Riverton.

  “Or ‘Jack Dangle,’” said Bond, amused and impressed. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious that’s going to be your nickname from now on.”

  * * *

  Out on the ice, as he rounded the rink to warm up his legs and stretch, Lucas remembered that he would no longer be the Ice Chips’ captain when the new season began. It didn’t matter that he still had the C on his chest for now. Or that he’d “officially” held the title for only part of last season. He couldn’t help but feel he was being punished by Coach Small for being the ringleader of the group suspected of stealing that trophy.

  That wasn’t how his coach had explained the role switch, though. “Being the captain of a team is an opportunity. But at your age, it’s one we’re going to share around,” Coach Small had said when he’d pulled Lucas aside at the beginning of camp. He could tell Lucas was taking it hard. “And don’t forget—not being captain is an opportunity, too.”

  Opportunity for what? Lucas had wondered. No one else had been told about this coming change; Lucas hadn’t even told his best friend, and Edge was the one who would take over the title. Lucas had no idea why Coach Small thought not being captain could be a good thing, but he hoped he’d find out before the start of the season.

  “I do have a new favourite goalie these days,” Swift was saying as she skated by with Shayna, circling in the opposite direction. “But I . . . I’m not sure I should say who. You’ll be kind of shocked.”

  When the kids had leaped back to the present in Riverton, Swift was surprised to learn that no one else had recognized Suchai. They’d told Edge and Nolan that they’d seen Jacques Plante and Manon Rhéaume—and that they’d met a kid who had to play hockey very far away from his home. The Chips’ goalie wasn’t sure why she hadn’t yet told them who that kid was. She was waiting, but for what she didn’t know.

  Mouth Guard was in his skates and on the ice, but he wasn’t moving much because of his ankle. Instead, he was spinning his stick around his body, trying to do the over-the-shoulder trick Jack had done in the dressing room. Like Jack’s, his mouth was also in constant motion.

  “Do you know what keeps this puck on the stick? What makes it like glue? What makes it stay?” he asked Slapper, who was trying to keep his eyes on the black disk.

  “You, uh, glued it?” guessed Slapper.

  “It’s called a force! A centrif—centri . . . Argh, Crunch taught me what kind, but now I forget! I can’t wait till that guy gets back.” Mouth Guard then turned too close to the boards, losing the puck and almost his balance.

  Lucas was giggling but trying not to when Jack skated up to him.

  “Thanks again,” said the player now known as Jack Dangle. “I’ll try to pay you guys back—can I?” This morning he was moving at a more regular speed—he didn’t look like he was full of Halloween candy or about to pass out. He looked more comfortable. More like . . . himself.

  It had never occurred to Lucas that Jack would pay anythi
ng back, but the question did give him an idea.

  “You know, Mouth Guard would love it if you’d teach him a few tricks,” he said, looking over at his high-energy linemate, who’d recovered his puck but was still sticking near the boards in case his ankle gave out. “Just nothing where he has to skate too much.”

  “Absolutely!” said Jack, excited that he’d be able to share some of his moves.

  Lucas was happy to see Mouth Guard’s eyes light up when he noticed that the camp’s best trickmaster was skating over.

  “That’s a good thing you did,” said Lucas’s cousin Speedy, who’d been standing near the door in the boards.

  “Anyone would have,” answered Lucas, smiling. “I mean, that’s kind of what you did for me. You gave me your hand-me-down equipment when my parents were having trouble with their store and couldn’t afford to get me any.”

  “Yeah,” said Speedy, tapping Lucas’s skates—his old skates—with the blade of his stick. “Well, I’m glad you’re paying it forward. Now, wanna help me explain the drill we tried on the beach at Bompa’s cottage last summer? The one where we used rocks for pucks?”

  “Of course!” said Lucas, feeling energized. He loved this drill they’d made up.

  “We’ll split into four groups. Coach Small and I will explain the drill to the first two groups,” said Speedy, looking around as though counting the players on the ice.

  “What about the second two?” asked Lucas, confused.

  Speedy looked straight at him and raised his eyebrows. “You explain it to Shayna and then the two of you can teach it! Cool?”

  Lucas, surprised, immediately nodded yes.

  * * *

  “I just wish I could help August,” Shayna was saying as Mouth Guard skated up, hoping to show off his new trick, and Swift leaned in close. Beatrice had just skated by, and Swift didn’t want the Stars’ biggest bully to hear what they were talking about.

  “Help her learn how to skate better?” Mouth Guard asked—no filter on his mouth, as usual. From where he was standing, he could see August talking to Beatrice. Shayna’s cousin seemed to be doing okay on the ice. She’d obviously skated before, just not as much as everyone else.

  “Help how?” asked Swift.

  “I dunno. With a fundraiser, maybe?” Shayna suggested, but she didn’t sound very sure of herself. “Eabametoong First Nation has held fundraisers to get a new ice pad for our rink up north. Could our Riverton teams do an exhibition game for August’s village, or a challenge where we’d sell tickets? We don’t have to make enough money for an entire arena—just do something.”

  “A challenge? What kind of challenge?” Lucas asked. He’d come over to tell Shayna she’d be helping with the drill. And he wasn’t the only one who’d caught the end of their conversation.

  “You mean a fundraiser for our arena? I love it!” said August, skating up with her new friend Beatrice in tow. “But do you think we could do ball hockey rather than ice hockey? If we can figure out a way, some of the kids from home would definitely come play.”

  “I’d play,” said Beatrice, flipping one of her white-blonde braids back over her shoulder. She knew none of the Chips wanted her there, but she didn’t care.

  “How would we get people to show up? And where would we hold it?” asked Lucas, ignoring her.

  “At the town library!” declared Shayna, banging the ice with the stick she’d re-taped in red that morning. “It’s small, but—”

  “In the driveway of the fire hall!” Mouth Guard suggested. His eyebrows curled slowly as he realized why that wouldn’t work.

  “You guys—?” Beatrice started.

  The others turned toward her, ready for her usual attack.

  But it didn’t come.

  “What, Beatrice?” sneered Swift, just as Speedy blew his whistle to get their drill started.

  The Stars’ captain’s face flushed pink and she seemed like she might turn away, but then she looked down at the ice and spoke.

  “You guys can use the parking lot of the Stars’ arena . . . if you want.”

  Chapter 12

  WHOOOOOOO-AHH-OOOO-RRRR-OOOO!

  Wooo-ROOOOO-AHH-OOOO!!!

  “Connor, you have to let these guys work, please,” Mrs. Finnigan said as she leaned down under the cafe table in her Whatsit Shop and poured some more dry Cheerios in her toddler’s cereal bowl. Connor was still howling like he was part of a wolf pack, but now he was also eating off the floor, panting, and asking people to tell him to sit. Lucas’s little brother had decided he’d be the pet.

  “So how is all this going to work?” asked Beatrice, looking straight at Shayna. She took a hot chocolate and a croissant from the middle of the table where they were all having breakfast and waited.

  “Well, we . . .” Shayna started. Unlike Beatrice, she wasn’t used to being bossy or team captain-y and felt intimidated—even though most of this had been her idea. They were going over which teams had said they’d like to compete in their ball hockey tournament. Once they were done, Mrs. Finnigan was going to help them pitch the idea to her friend Abigail Ward—the mayor.

  “Most of these are ice hockey teams,” said Edge, going down the list. “But there’s one that plays ball hockey all year long.”

  “That’s my team—the Bears,” said August proudly. She gave Beatrice a playful nudge with her elbow, knocking the croissant out of her hand. The Chips were shocked she could do that and get away with it, but it seemed that August and Beatrice had somehow become friends.

  Wooo-ROOOOoooo!

  Rrrrruff!

  Connor—still a puppy, but now a quieter one—put his head on August’s knee so she could scratch his hair. She said he reminded her of the puppies Shayna and Nolan’s neighbour’s dog had just had, only cuter. Connor was delighted.

  The organizing team that Shayna, Nolan, and August had assembled for this task was a big one: Lucas, Swift, Edge, Bond, Jack, and Beatrice were all at the table, and Mouth Guard and Slapper were wandering up and down the aisles. Mouth Guard, restless as ever, had already guzzled his own hot chocolate and Slapper’s so that the two of them could wander around the Whatsit Shop, looking for a tournament prize.

  “What if you did more than just sell tickets?” asked Edge, his mind racing with ideas. Today, Saturday, was the first time he’d met August, but already he wanted her dream of a rink to come true.

  “What do you mean?” Nolan signed.

  “Like sell ice cream?” asked August.

  “What if you had prizes people could win—I mean, bid on?” suggested Edge. “Like sports thing-a-ma-whadayas.” He was thinking about that trophy the kids had been accused of stealing, and about how so many people liked to collect sports memorabilia.

  “You mean like these?” asked Swift, pointing up at the framed photos Mrs. Finnigan had hung on the wall in the Whatsit Shop cafe. There were pictures of Gordie Howe, Sidney Crosby, and a young Hayley Wickenheiser.

  “You’re not touching my signed photos,” Mrs. Finnigan said, laughing. “But that’s not a bad idea. I can ask around at some shops to see if they’ve got anything to donate.”

  “I can ask if the Bears can bring some art from our village,” said August, looking excited.

  “Yeah, and put me down, too,” said Beatrice, popping a piece of gum in her mouth. “I’m sure my dad can find something valuable to throw in.”

  “Really?” asked Swift, surprised by how much Beatrice wanted to help.

  “Sure, why not?” said Beatrice, crossing her arms on the table. “I didn’t care when the Ice Chips lost their rink because I don’t like you guys. August I like. And her cousins are Stars—that kind of makes her one, too.”

  * * *

  The team of players from August’s village and the Eabametoong First Nation arrived a few weeks later with their two coaches. Mrs. Finnigan had set up an online donation site to go along with the tournament’s fundraiser, and a pilot from Southern Ontario had written in to say that he’d donate a few plane ride
s. From August’s village, some of the Bears had taken a motorboat to the Eabametoong airport to meet up with the rest of their teammates, and then they’d all taken one of those donated flights all the way to Riverton. For two of the players, it was their very first time on a plane!

  The organizing committee agreed that Shayna and Nolan would join their cousin August on their “home team”—Nolan on defence as usual, but with Shayna back playing as a forward. For the tournament, they decided that the players from up north would be billeted—hosted—in the various players’ houses while in Riverton. Swift got their goaltender, Charlie, a little fellow with the deepest voice Lucas had ever heard in a kid.

  Lucas’s family would be taking care of Sam, a big kid with thick arms and legs. He looked awfully strong. His long dark hair was tied in a low ponytail. His speech was so soft that Lucas thought he and the little goalie at Swift’s had somehow switched voice boxes on the flight down.

  Over dinner, Sam talked about his village, about how much he loved fishing and hunting, and about how he was hoping to run a trapline on his own that winter. He talked of his grandparents as if they were the wisest people on earth. And he said he had six dogs. His family needed six because his grandfather had built a dogsled and sometimes ran tours around the lake.

  Lucas was fascinated, as were his parents and even little Connor. The landscape of the North seemed, to Lucas, like the most beautiful world possible. He remembered how Suchai had said that there was a peacefulness to being on your own in the outdoors, and that sometimes it was hard to think about leaving a village, even a remote one. The connections were strong.

  Soon, the two hockey players were sent upstairs to brush their teeth before bed. Lucas went first. He put the toothpaste on his brush and then put the brush under the tap water. As he began brushing, Sam stared, wide-eyed.