Winter Hawk Star (5 page)

“Breeaaakkkaaawaayyyyy!” I yelled. And it was a breakaway. Longer than any breakaway in the history of hockey. The kids had turned to stampede after me, but they were well behind me. I had the empty parking lot ahead, all of the courtyard and finally, far, far away, there was Riley at the other net, leaning on his stick and waiting for me to arrive.

I thundered toward him. I didn't need any fancy stickwork at this point. We used a street hockey ball—made of orange plastic and heavier than a hockey puck. It wasn't going to get stuck in the cracks of the pavement.

When I reached my own net again—with all of the courtyard ahead of me and the kids now thirty steps behind—I yelled, “Riley, prepare for the shot of doom!”

“Tyler,” he yelled back, “you don't have a chance!”

I kept sprinting toward him. Then without warning, I stopped. Close enough to have a good chance at scoring. Far enough away so that Riley would still have time to make the save if he was fast enough.

I set the ball up carefully and backed up two steps.

Riley knew exactly what I was going to do. He set himself up like a goaltender.

The kids were yelling and screaming.

“Ready, Riley?”

“Sure, marshmallow man!” he said, insulting my slap shot even before I hit it.

“Marshmallow?” I roared back.

The kids were almost on me. I couldn't wait any longer.

I raised my stick above my head, took the two steps and timed it perfectly so
that I was bringing the stick down and launching my body weight into the world's biggest, baddest slap shot.

I crunched that ball with everything I had.

And I watched it soar over Riley's head to smash directly through a window behind him.

“Oops,” I said. I waited for someone to yell through the window at me.

Nothing.

The kids gathered around me.

“Well,” I said, reminding myself I was supposed to be a good example, “I'd better go tell someone what I did.”

“Hey, Tyler,” little Joey said at the back of the crowd.

“Yeah?”

“When you're in there, if it looks like you're going to be in big trouble, can you at least throw us the ball?”

“Huh?”

“This street hockey is fun,” he explained.

“We want to keep playing.”

“Thanks for the support,” I said.

He nodded. I guess kids at that age have a tough time understanding sarcasm.

I waved at Riley. “See you in a few minutes.”

“Tell you what,” he said, “let them know we'll both pay for the window.”

“It was my shot,” I said.

He shrugged. “Our game.”

I grinned. Riley was getting more human all the time.

I waved again and trotted toward the side doors that would let me inside the church building.

It wasn't difficult to find the office with the broken window. All I did was walk down the hallway and open doors until I found a room with natural air conditioning.

Finding the ball, however, wasn't so easy. There was no one inside the office to tell me where it went.

I saw gray steel filing cabinets against one wall. I saw a big, gray, steel desk in the corner of the other two walls. I saw a crooked chair
on swivel wheels. I saw broken glass sprayed on the yellow tile floor. But I didn't see an orange hockey ball.

I dropped to my knees.

Naturally, the ball had rolled beneath the desk, right into the far corner.

I looked around for something to use to reach the ball.

Nothing.

I'd have to get on my hands and knees and crawl.

I pushed the chair away and crawled into the opening beneath the center of the desk. I bent lower and reached into the corner. My fingertips just barely touched the ball. I stretched farther.

Then I heard footsteps in the hallway, coming in my direction. And I heard voices. I recognized one voice as Samantha's.

How good would this look, me with my butt pointing at the ceiling?

I grunted and stretched as far as I could, finally able to get enough of the ball to roll it toward me. I grabbed the ball and backed out.

My sleeve snagged on a screw that poked out of the bottom of the desk.

The voices grew louder.

For a moment, I nearly yanked hard. But it felt like I was stuck good, and I didn't want to rip my Winter Hawks jacket.

The voices moved past the open door and continued down the hallway. Two voices. Two sets of footsteps. The other voice belonged to a man. I didn't recognize his voice.

There was a click as the door to the office next door opened.

“Step inside, Samantha,” I heard the man's voice say. The clearness of the sound surprised me. Then I saw the vent on the wall, just inches from my face. I easily guessed that's how I was able to hear.

I was still stuck though. I tried wiggling my arm. It didn't help.

“I don't understand what this is about,” Samantha told him.

I didn't want to listen. Their conversation was none of my business. I made myself into a pretzel and tried to reach my sleeve with my other arm.

“Sit down,” the voice said. “It's about your brother.”

I heard her gasp. “He's all right, isn't he?”

“Yes,” the man's voice said, “for now.”

I frowned. I'd heard the voice before somewhere and it did not sound pleasant.

“You're still asking around about the kids,” the voice said. “Didn't you get the note telling you to stop?”

“But—”

“But nothing. It wasn't an accident that your brother was taken. It was a warning. Even if the muscle-brained jerk with the hockey stick hadn't gotten in the way, your brother would have been returned the next day.”

“Tyler? He's not a—”

“Listen to me, Samantha. Listen good. You stop asking questions. Otherwise next time something permanent will happen to your brother. You could go to the newspapers. You could go to the police. You could let the whole world know about this. But your brother would be dead. Understand?”

I'd stopped caring about my sleeve. There was long silence in the other office.

Finally Samantha answered. “I understand,” she said.

“That's a smart girl.”

There was a scraping of chairs.

He must have stood. Which meant they were leaving. Which also meant they might see me as they left the office.

I pushed hard, trying to get the rest of me under the desk.

Neither of them spoke as they left the office next door. One set of footsteps headed one way. Another set headed the other. No footsteps stopped at this office, and no one looked in to find me under the desk.

To get free, I had to slide and bend and work myself loose from my jacket. I backed out and then crawled in from another angle to unhook the sleeve from the screw. Then I tossed the ball down to the courtyard.

The waiting kids cheered.

Cheering or not, I didn't feel better.

On my way outside, I passed the office where Samantha and the man had been talking.

It didn't help my mood.

The sign on the door showed that the office belonged to Earl Chadley, director of Youth Works.

An hour later, when we got into the Jeep, Riley reached into the gym bag. He tossed the water bottle into my lap.

“Kool-Aid,” he said.

I started the Jeep and began to drive.

I didn't start drinking.

“Aren't you thirsty? We ran those kids ragged. I hope we'll have energy for practice.”

“Yeah,” I said. It was six o'clock. We had a half hour to get to the rink and another half hour to get into our hockey equipment. It was going to be a light practice tonight since tomorrow was a game day.

Riley guzzled from his own water bottle. He smacked his lips. “Good stuff,” he said. “I borrowed it from their snack cart. You
know, the one with the cookies and big Kool-Aid jugs that shows up for the kids.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I guess you can't really say we're borrowing this Kool-Aid,” Riley said. “I mean, they probably wouldn't want it back when we're through with it. Or when it gets through us.”

“Yeah,” I said, finally drinking some Kool-Aid from my own water bottle.

“What's the matter?” Riley asked. “I just made a joke.”

I drank in silence.

“Did Samantha turn you down?” he continued. There was a high school dance coming up. I'd made the mistake yesterday of mentioning to Riley that I'd like to take Sam to it.

“Didn't ask her,” I said. At least I hadn't asked her about the dance. After tracking her down, I'd told her about the window. Then I had worked up enough courage to ask her why her brother was in danger. She'd gotten angry and told me to mind my own business.

“You've got to go for it,” Riley said. “Only two weeks until the dance.”

I turned a corner and headed past the Chinatown gate toward the Burnside Bridge.

“She might say no,” I said. My mind, though, was on Earl Chadley, director of Youth Works. Riley and I had met him only briefly. He had introduced himself to us on our second visit and thanked us for our help with a big smile that didn't seem real.

Earl Chadley was a skinny man with long hair that he flipped back while he was speaking. He wore sandals and blue jeans and a ratty old shirt, which might have been cool if he were twenty instead of closer to fifty.

Why was he threatening Samantha Blair with something as serious as killing her brother? What secret did she know that she was supposed to keep hidden? What were the questions she wasn't supposed to ask?

“Hey, Watson, snap out of it,” Riley said, “I was telling you something.”

“Sure,” I said. “What?”

“It's advice,” Riley said. “The only way you get anywhere in life is by taking chances.”

“Sure,” I said.

He snapped his fingers. “It's the window, right? You're bummed out about that. I already told you, I'll pay for half the damage.”

“Don't worry about it,” I said. My mind was still on Samantha and the weird conversation I had overheard. “There are a lot worse things in life than broken windows.”

I found myself yawning as we skated our warm-up patterns to begin the practice.

I moved past a bunch of guys leaning and stretching from side to side to loosen up. I put on a burst of speed and caught up to Riley.

“I think it was a dumb idea to play street hockey before practice,” I said, cruising beside him. “My legs feel like wooden stilts.”

Riley didn't answer.

“Hey, Goofball! Didn't you hear me?”

He turned his face toward me. A strange
frown crunched his face into a look of worry.

“You all right?” I asked.

He stumbled; then he caught his balance. “I don't know.”

He stumbled again.

Now panic crossed his face.

“Tyler!” I heard fear in his voice.

Someone fired a pass in our direction. The puck bounced off his skates.

“Tyler!”

“I'm right beside you,” I said. The fear in his voice scared me too.

“Skate closer,” he said. “Let me grab your arm.”

I moved tight beside him. With his hockey glove still on, he pulled at my sweater.

“Get me to the players' bench,” he said. “Move slow, so it looks like we're talking about stuff.”

“I don't get it,” I said.

“Just do it, all right?”

Guys skated past us. Some were moving at full speed, getting ready for the regular skating drills that Coach Estleman used to keep us in shape.

I felt like a Boy Scout helping an old lady across the street.

“We there yet?” he asked.

“Don't be dumb,” I said. “You can look for yourself.”

“No,” he said. “I can't.”

“Huh?”

“Tyler,” he said. “I have weird allergies. Sometimes they act up. But never this bad.”

He stumbled a bit.

“I'm scared,” he said, “real scared. I can't see. It's like the whole world is gray.”

It took Riley an hour to get his vision back. Although he could see again, he was no longer the same person he'd been before. I discovered that a few days later as we were driving toward Youth Works for our next visit. Riley turned down the volume of the car stereo.

“Why you listen to country music is beyond me,” he said.

I took my right hand off the steering wheel and turned the volume up again. “Because I can understand the words.”

I braked hard to miss a truck that had suddenly slowed in the left lane.

He took advantage of the distraction and turned the volume down again. “Words? That's dumb. It's called listening to music, remember? You jam a CD in your stereo and listen to music. Not words.”

Safely past the truck, I turned onto Fifth Avenue, toward Youth Works. I also turned up the volume. Again. “It's not music when the singers are screeching like they've slammed their fingers in a door.”

He turned the knob down. Again. “Sometimes you act like an old man,” he said. “‘Screeching singers' is something my dad would say.”

I turned it up. “I act like an old man?”

He turned it down. “Yeah, an old man. Like you don't want to take chances.”

I turned it up. “If I need a psychologist, you'll be the first person I call.”

He turned the volume down. It wasn't funny anymore.

“Could be I'm the one who needs a psychologist,” he said. His voice was quiet
and serious. “Do you ever think about dying?”

I left the volume turned down. Maybe I hadn't heard him right. “Dying?”

“Dying,” he repeated.

I let the word hang in the air, trying to decide what to say. But I didn't know what to say to Riley. So I just listened.

“Look,” he said, “I trust you. But if you ever tell any of the guys on the team I started talking about this, I'll kill you.”