“Sounds complicated,” Nolan signed to his sister.
“Sounds like a cool idea,” said August.
“They’re going to do that in a game?” asked Lucas. “But we don’t even know which team Jack will be on next season.”
Yesterday, the last day of camp, was the day that Coach Blitz had come out to take a look at the players. He’d had his eye on Jack most of the time—not even on his own kids, who were obviously trying to impress him. The Stars’ coach, Lucas guessed, already knew that Jack had signed up for the upcoming sort-outs in Riverton.
“Who cares which team he ends up on?” Slapper said, sounding a little jealous. He was still hoping to convince Lucas and Edge to build a clubhouse in the woods behind their arena. The Chips’ defender seemed to think this would cement his place as a member of their secret crew.
Lucas had said maybe to the clubhouse, but he knew that once Crunch was back, that answer would turn into a yes. Crunch was a secret-meeting maniac. He and his science-loving sisters had three treehouses in their backyard, and they’d joined them with a rope bridge that ran alongside a small electric train track—for a train they used to carry messages back and forth. Crunch’s treehouse even had its own running water and shower.
For now, though, Crunch was still at crime camp, living with his grandmother. For now, Lucas was in the clear.
“I think you should put the eagle feather on it, don’t you?” asked Shayna. She was chewing on a curled-up crepe, watching Swift at work.
Lucas’s mom had said that Swift could hang the photo of her wearing the Carey Price mask on the wall, but only if she signed it first. Swift had written her name—Nica Bertrand—with a curly “#33” at the end. But Shayna was right: that just didn’t feel like enough.
“Did you know that Carey Price was drafted fifth overall by the Montreal Canadiens?” Swift asked as she took the thin piece of red tape Shayna was holding out to her. She wrapped the tape into a loop and stuck it to the frame to hold the eagle feather Carey Price had given her.
“Did you know that he’s won the Hart Memorial Trophy for the most valuable player?” asked Shayna, her eyebrows raised, teasing. “And the Vezina Trophy for best goaltender?”
“And did you know that he’s a dad? And that he’s now got more career wins for the Canadiens than Jacques Plante ever had?!” asked Lucas, amused and joining in.
“What is this, some kind of internet search competition?” asked Mrs. Finnigan with a laugh. She knew this was true because she’d helped Lucas on their old computer earlier that morning.
“But did you all know this?” asked August with a smile. “Our coach told us that Carey Price has donated a bunch of equipment to Williams Lake, the place where he first played hockey. He used to fly there in a plane to play—can you believe it?”
Edge, Shayna, and Swift—the kids who’d leaped through time—barely blinked. They did know that, but they didn’t want to give themselves away.
“And in Anahim Lake—that’s the name of his hometown,” August continued as Swift walked over to the pile of equipment donations and hung her photo on the wall, “he runs a breakfast club a lot like this one!”
The other kids at the tables—Stars, Bears, and Chips—went quiet. Even Beatrice. Everyone deserves a good start, many of them were thinking.
“I did actually know that one,” said Mrs. Finnigan, refilling the kids’ juice cups and giving Jack a special smile. “That’s partly where this idea came from.”
* * *
“We’re in trouble! Don’t you get it?!” Lucas said, pushing Swift, Edge, and Nolan behind the post office box outside the Whatsit Shop. With breakfast done, the other kids were filing out of the store, ready to carry on with the rest of their weekends.
“Why?” Nolan signed, just as Shayna, Bond, and Mouth Guard caught up with them. Luckily, Slapper and Lars were already long gone.
Bond was giggling and smiling. She couldn’t believe the good news they’d just been given.
While the kids from hockey camp were in the middle of talking about Carey Price and the good work he’d done, Mouth Guard and Jack had burst into the store, their mouths moving a mile a minute.
“WE’VE GOT AN ANNOUNCEMENT!”
“WE’VE GOT AN ANNOUNCEMENT!”
It wasn’t their announcement, of course. It was Mayor Ward’s. She’d followed in behind the boys and handed Lucas’s mom a page that looked like a schedule for something. Then she leaned over one of the tables to grab a chocolate crepe for herself.
“Well, we know who won the Hockey Heart Cup,” she said, covering her mouth mid-chew. She knew what she was doing was torture for the kids, and that amused her.
“WHO?!” all the players cried at once.
“The Stars!” Beatrice guessed.
“The Ice Chips!” Swift called, just to get on the Blitz twins’ nerves.
“ALL OF YOU! They picked all three teams!” the mayor said, bursting with pride.
The players, crepes and juice cups still in their hands, erupted into cheers.
August didn’t know what to say. None of this money would buy an arena straight away, but it would be a huge leap forward for the fundraising efforts her village had already started. They’d be able to get the major parts of an arena. And maybe they could build slowly from there, just as her aunts and uncles had in Eabametoong First Nation. There, even after they had the building, the boards and the lighting, they’d still had to raise money for a proper ice pad. But that was okay. Each step brought them closer to their dream.
Lucas and his friends couldn’t have been happier for her.
After the ball hockey tournament, the Chips’ (now former) captain had wondered a lot about getting back on Edge’s line—about playing with his best friend on the ice. He was a little sad about the end of summer and the fact that August would be going home. And he’d thought about how Shayna and Nolan would soon be back on the rival team. At least Beatrice, the Stars’ captain, had agreed to let Shayna add her loon call to their team’s cheer, even if Beatrice couldn’t make the sound herself. That was a bright spot. That was something good.
And the fact that the money from the Hockey Heart Cup would go toward August’s village’s arena was definitely amazing, too.
But even as they celebrated, Lucas couldn’t get his mind off the idea that someone might be trying to steal their portal, use the wormhole. Did he have to worry about hockey’s future? Would he have to investigate a break-in?
“What do you expect us to do about this boil-and-bubble trouble?” Edge asked with a smile outside of the Whatsit Shop, still thinking his friend was overreacting. “Tell us, Mr. Team Captain.”
“You’re the captain now,” said Lucas, not meaning to break the news this way. “Coach Small is making you the Chips’ captain next year.”
“Really?” Edge asked, surprised, but also worried about his friend.
“Don’t worry, I’m okay with it now,” said Lucas, waving Nolan over. “Just listen. The mayor said something to me before she left the shop. But I didn’t quite catch it. You guys were too loud with your celebration.”
“Nolan caught it,” said Shayna, understanding. “The mayor said she needs . . . our help. It has something to do with the arena. Something to do with the flooding machine.”
“Did she break in? Wouldn’t she have her own key?” Lucas asked, repeating what he’d asked in the dressing room. The mayor was one of only two people who knew that Scratch’s magical floods were really a time machine. Dave’s daughter has to know, right?
“I don’t think so,” Nolan signed. “She said ‘help.’ That’s all I got. But it sounded very serious. Maybe it’s about more than a break-in?”
“Heyyyyyy!! Who needs our help?”
It was Crunch.
He was back from his summer away and checking in on his favourite shop of “bits and bobs.” He was wearing a funny denim bucket hat and had a bit of a sunburn around his face—everywhere except where he’d clipped his sungl
asses.
“The mayor needs our help,” said Lucas, blinking, trying to look serious. “But we don’t know why or how.”
“Maybe you should go talk to her,” said Swift, seeing that Edge was just shaking his head. “I’ll take the others back to the rink to investigate the break-in.”
“A real one? A CRIME?” asked Crunch, shifting his glasses in his excitement.
The leaping Chips watched as Crunch pulled his tablet and an odd bag—kind of like a makeup bag or a doctor’s kit—out of his backpack. He put the bag under his arm and turned in the direction of the arena. He had a giant smile on his face.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment all summer long. LET THE INVESTIGATION BEGIN!”
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Suzanne Sutherland for always making sure we get off to a good start; to Maeve O’Regan in publicity for her great instincts; and to Jennifer Lambert for believing in us. Thanks to the rest of the team at HarperCollins for allowing us into their club: Janice Weaver, our eagle-eyed copyeditor; Noelle Zitzer and Canaan Chu, our wonderful production editors; and Lloyd Davis, our excellent proofreader. Thank you also to Bruce Westwood and Meg Wheeler at Westwood Creative Artists for their representation, guidance, and friendship.
Thanks to Carey Price, for being such an inspiration both on and off the ice. And thank you to Lynda and Jerry Price for bringing us closer to the amazing world of Anahim Lake.
Thank you also to the friends and acquaintances who helped us shape our characters: Miigwetch to Allison Norman, Leo Atlookan, and Kyle Jamieson for their help with the characters of Shayna, Nolan, and August. Thank you to the JCY Rez Girls 64 Wolves for their inspiring love of the game. (We hope you get your ice pad!) And thank you to Logan Prosper for drawing our attention to the Red Tape Movement against racism in sport. Thanks to Elizabeth Hay for her horse expertise, and to Manu Singh for his flight knowledge. Thank you also to Jeff Bignell, a former player on the Canadian Deaf Hockey Team, and Marty Rabu, a team manager of ice hockey with the Canadian Deaf Sports Association. And thank you to everyone who helped us with our Cantonese: Candace Chan (and her parents), Emily Chung, Suzanne Ma, Anita Ma, Gabriel Jai, Fuman Jin, and Amy Hong at the Toronto Chinese Academy.
Thank you to Kim Smith, whose nature illustrations always brighten our day.
And thank you to our families, who’ve allowed us the time to take these stories and fly.
ROY MACGREGOR AND KERRY MACGREGOR
A big thank you to Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor for another wonderful adventure, to Suzanne Sutherland for her expert guidance, and Kelly Sonnack, my wonderful agent.
KIM SMITH
About the Authors and Illustrator
ROY MACGREGOR, who was the media inductee into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012, has been described by the Washington Post as “the closest thing there is to a poet laureate of Canadian hockey.” He is the author of the internationally successful Screech Owls hockey mystery series for young readers, which has sold more than two million copies and is also published in French, Chinese, Swedish, Finnish, and Czech. It is the most successful hockey series in history—second only to Anne of Green Gables as a Canadian book series for young readers—and, for two seasons, was a live-action hit on YTV. MacGregor has twice won the ACTRA Award for best television screenwriting.
KERRY MACGREGOR is co-author of the latest work in the Screech Owls series. She has worked in news and current affairs at the CBC, and as a journalist with the Toronto Star, the Ottawa Citizen, and many other publications. Her columns on parenting, written with a unique, modern perspective on the issues and interests of today’s parents, have appeared in such publications as Parenting Times magazine.
KIM SMITH is an illustrator from Calgary. She is the New York Times–bestselling illustrator of over thirty picture books, including Boxitects, the Builder Brothers series, and the Pop Classics picture book adaptations of popular films, including Back to the Future, Home Alone, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Growing up, Kim’s favourite hockey player was Lanny McDonald. She admires his iconic moustache to this day.
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The Ice Chips Series
The Ice Chips and the Magical Rink
The Ice Chips and the Haunted Hurricane
The Ice Chips and the Invisible Puck
The Ice Chips and the Stolen Cup
The Ice Chips and the Grizzly Escape
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Copyright
The Ice Chips and the Grizzly Escape
Text copyright © 2021 by Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor.
Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Kim Smith.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Cover illustration by Kim Smith
FIRST EDITION
Epub Edition JANUARY 2021 Epub ISBN: 978-1-4434-6003-3
Version 11262020
Print ISBN: 978-1-4434-6002-6
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: The Ice Chips and the grizzly escape / Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor ; Illustrations by Kim Smith.
Names: MacGregor, Roy, 1948- author. | MacGregor, Kerry, author. | Smith, Kim, 1986- illustrator.
Series: MacGregor, Roy, 1948- Ice Chips ; 5.
Description: Series statement: Ice Chips ; 5
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200321579 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200321587 | ISBN 9781443460026 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781443460033 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS8575.G84 I337 2021 | DDC jC813/.54—dc236
LSC/H 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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