The Boston Breakout (9 page)

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Nish moaned, his big face pinched beet red.

Mr. Dillinger snorted from the back of the room, where he was busy unpacking his skate-sharpening machine. Mr. D had been in on the joke from the moment he let Andy and Jenny have access to the big bag with number 44 stitched on the side.

“
This is way, way, WAY over the top!
” Nish screamed, his eyes so tightly shut it seemed they would leak blood.

No one said a word. The rest of the Owls shook with suppressed laughter. Nish looked around helplessly, then dumped the contents of his bag all over the dressing room floor.

“
Disgusting!
” he snorted.

The laughter burst like a dam. The Owls roared their approval as deodorant sticks and air freshener sprays tumbled out of Nish’s hockey bag along with his usual equpment, followed by some lovely pink material that fluttered and fell like autumn leaves on top of the pile.

Women’s underwear.

Nish’s beet-red face turned even redder as he fought for the words he needed to lash back at his
teammates. When he could find none, he asked the obvious.

“Where’s my hockey underwear?”

“We ‘disposed’ of it,” Sam said.

“We bought you new stuff,” Fahd giggled. “Nice-smelling stuff – have a whiff – you won’t believe the difference.”

“Are you some sort of sicko?” Nish asked. “I want my own gauchies back!”

Sarah reached into her own equipment bag and drew out a plastic garbage bag tied at the top. She threw it at Nish, who caught it in the air.

“Here’s your stupid gauchies,” Sarah said. “Sam and I took the liberty of washing them at the hotel.”

“Washed them twice!” Sam added.

Nish tore open the garbage bag. His clean underwear, nicely folded by Sarah, tumbled onto the floor. He picked up his long johns and smelled them.

“I can’t play in these,” he said. “They don’t smell like me. They smell like somebody’s stupid garden!”

“Then your only other choice is these,” Sam said, using her stick blade to pluck up some frilly pink underwear from Nish’s jumble of equipment. She raised them up toward Nish, who promptly swatted them away, to the howls of the rest of the team.

“Or maybe you could
invent
some hockey underwear that doesn’t stink like a skunk rolled in horse manure!” Lars shouted.

“Yeah!” declared Andy. “Gauchies with builtin air fresheners like you have in a car!”

“Throwaway gauchies!” shrieked Jenny. “Or underwear that
dissolves
on you right after you’ve played!”

The Owls groaned as one. The image of Nish, standing in the dressing room after a game, his underwear slowly dissolving, was just too much to bear.

“Gross!” said Jesse.

“Disgusting!” said Fahd.

“
I’m gonna hurl!
” Simon Milliken shouted.

The Owls all laughed while Nish kicked at his equipment, as if somehow he could boot the
underwear all the way back to whatever store his teammates had purchased it at.

The giggles stopped quickly when the dressing room door opened and Muck walked in, closing the door quietly behind him. The coach had his game face on.

“Mr. D and I scouted these Mini-Penguins at their last game,” Muck told them. “And they are good. Not just good, but extremely good. They play in some Pittsburgh program that has ice all year long. So just like that Chicago team you met in Game One, they’re in mid-season form. You should bear that in mind.”

Muck looked around. He stared hard at Nish, then looked down briefly at the floor in front of him. Nish was trying to cover up the frilly underwear with his feet. Muck stared hard at Nish again until the embarrassed Screech Owl was forced to look back and hold Muck’s stare.

“Mr. Nishikawa,” Muck said.

“Yes,” Nish answered.

“No glory plays, okay? We need you back there at all times.”

Nish nodded.

“Get dressed,” Muck told them all.

The coach paused, a grin flickering at the side of his mouth. He looked down at Nish’s feet a second time.

“Just make sure you put on your own stuff, everybody. Okay?”

The Owls all giggled as Muck pulled the door closed behind him. Nish was burning red. He kicked hard at the unwanted underwear.

Travis felt it was time to be captain. “Get ready,” he announced. “Time to put on our game faces.”

Sam couldn’t resist. “Care to borrow my lipstick, Mr. Nishikawa?”

P
enguins
, Travis thought. What a strange name for a hockey team. Slow birds that couldn’t fly …

Warm-up was just over. He had hit the crossbar on his third attempt – not the best start, but at least he had done it – and the two teams were getting ready for the puck drop.

These penguins were not small and cute and cuddly like the birds at the aquarium. The Mini-Penguins were big and fast, and even during
warm-up they had seemed mean, as if just waiting to go after the best Owls, which of course meant Travis’s line with Sarah and Dmitri.

Team names were funny. There had once been the Mighty Ducks, named after a movie. And what was even mildly threatening about a team called the Maple Leafs? There had been all that controversy about teams using names like the Cleveland Indians, the Washington Redskins, and the Kansas City Chiefs – even the Chicago Blackhawks – in hockey. And then there were crazy names, like the Maniacs and the Devils.

What about the Screech Owls? Travis wondered. Where had Muck come up with that one? And yet Travis and every other player on the team wore the Owls logo with pride. If you lived in Tamarack, it was the team you dreamed of playing for. So it must be a good name.

The Mini-Penguins played more like hawks, or eagles – swooping down ice fast and fearless, always dangerous whenever they had the puck on a rush.

Travis could see why Muck had ordered Nish to keep back and stay away from glory plays. The
Owls needed their defense to be solid. They couldn’t take any chances.

The Penguins had one particularly gifted player. To Travis, he seemed like Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby rolled into one. He was tall, with a tremendous reach, which meant he could hold on to the puck like Lemieux; but he was also powerful and could twist and turn in the corners like Crosby.

The big kid soon had the Penguins up 2–0, and the opening period was still far from over. Every time Travis’s line came out, the big kid’s line was also out. The two coaches were clearly matching lines. Best against best.

Travis knew his job would be to stay back and help out the defense whenever needed. He would trail any rushes by Dmitri or Sarah and always be prepared to turn on a dime if the Penguins broke up an Owls rush and sent the puck back the other way. Twice already, Travis had been able to help out, once lifting the big Penguin’s stick just before he could shoot, and once intercepting a pass from
the same guy that would have given the Penguin’s winger a sure goal.

Travis knew he was playing well. He knew from what he saw on the ice but also from a brief moment on the bench. He had felt Muck’s big hand on the back of his neck, just above the throat protector. One quick squeeze and the hand was gone. Muck’s way of saying “Well done.”

With time running out in the opening period, Sarah picked up the puck in the Owls’ end and darted straight up center. Travis was right with her, but still aware that he might be needed back if the puck turned over.

Dmitri was breaking ahead of her. Sarah flipped a pass high over the outstretched stick of a backpedaling defender, and Dmitri caught the puck in his glove and threw it down onto his stick. He was in free.

Sarah moved fast in case there was a rebound. Travis still held back. Dmitri moved in, went to his classic play – forehand fake, backhand high to the roof of the net – but the Penguins’ goaltender got his left shoulder up and blocked it.

The puck flipped through the air like a horseshoe, coming to rest right on Travis’s stick. He fired hard and turned back, expecting the goaltender to kick out the rebound.

But the puck squeezed right through the sliding goalie’s pads and into the net.

Travis was having a great game.

At the face-off, just before the puck dropped, the big Penguins’ center looked hard at Travis. Travis couldn’t be certain, but behind the player’s face shield he could swear he saw a quick smile and a nod.

It felt as good as Muck’s hand squeezing the back of his neck.

Late in the third period, with the game tied at 3–3, Lars and Jesse having added goals for the Owls, Nish wiggled over on the bench until he was beside Travis’s forward line.

Nish’s face was red and covered in sweat. Travis knew his friend was in full Nish game mode. He was playing his heart out, and he was listening to instructions from Muck and staying back.

Nish was breathing hard, gulping for air from his last shift, but he had something to say.

“Hail Mary,” Nish hissed at Travis.

Travis nodded. He understood at once. The crazy Doug Flutie desperation pass that had won the football game for Boston College so long ago. Nish was going to send the puck high and deep, and he expected Travis to catch it.

Sarah leaped over the boards as Andy came off on the fly. Travis jumped onto the ice as soon as Derek reached the bench. Dmitri replaced Jesse on the far wing.

The big Penguins’ center was circling his own net with the puck, readying for a rush up ice. Sarah moved in to check him, but he deftly turned back, using the net as a shield, and came up the far side. A nice bit of stickhandling, and he was through Dmitri and coming up hard over center.

Travis could see Nish skating backward fast, trying to cut off any lane the big center might use to set a winger free on a breakaway. He knew he’d have to cover for Nish if Nish overcommitted.

Travis dug deep and came back hard. But Nish had read the play perfectly. The big center was hoping to draw Fahd and Nish, the Owls’ defense, his way and then loop a pass across ice to his right winger, coming fast down Travis’s side.

The center sent a perfect saucer pass when he saw Nish moving to cut off the lane. The puck flew high over the outstretched sticks of Fahd and Nish and landed flat, with a slap, in the center of the ice.

Travis had anticipated the play. He gobbled up the puck before the winger could get it and turned hard back up ice.

But the big winger had seen Travis snare the pass and was now bearing down on him. Travis had two options: he could dump the puck out, delivering it right back to the Penguins, or he could drop it back.

Nish was well back, according to Muck’s instructions, and Travis sent him a backhand pass off the boards. Nish got the puck as he moved behind Jeremy and the Owls’ net.

Travis knew what to do. It was Hail Mary time. He took off as fast as he could skate.

As Travis crossed the blue line, Nish looked up and fired the puck as high and hard as he could.

Travis sensed the puck sailing past his head as he cleared center ice. It was just barely ahead of him. The puck dropped, skipped twice on the ice, and he was on it.

Breakaway!

Travis corralled the puck on the blade of his stick, making sure it settled flat. He was well ahead of the Penguins’ defense.

Travis knew he was alone. No one to pass to. No one to grab a rebound. He had to score on his own.

As he came down, slightly on his off wing, Dmitri’s patented play popped into his head.

The goalie was in position, barely wiggling as he moved deeper into his net as Travis came closer.

Forehand fake, backhand high. The puck pinged in off the crossbar.

Goal!

Screech Owls 4, Pittsburgh Mini-Penguins 3.

Travis could not have been happier. He’d been chosen player of the game for the Owls, while the big center had, naturally, been named player of the game for the Penguins. Thanks to the public address announcement, Travis now knew his name: Alex Schultz. They had both been given tiny medals, and as they skated back to their teammates, who were lined up on opposite blue lines, Schultz used his long reach to tap Travis on the shin pads.

Travis was smiling as he skated back, and the Owls all came out to tap his gloves or rap their sticks off his pads and pants.