The Ice Chips and the Magical Rink

  Dedication

  To every kid’s first skate.

  —ROY MACGREGOR AND KERRY MACGREGOR

  For Sarah, who introduced me to hockey.

  —KIM SMITH

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Location Unknown

  This can’t be real!

  I HAVE to be dreaming!

  Lucas Finnigan brushed his right forearm over his eyes. His eyelids felt as if they’d been glued together. He couldn’t see a thing.

  The snow was swirling now, the wind whipping it across the field and straight into his eyes, where the flakes stuck and melted, blurring his vision.

  Where was he? And where was Edge? And Swift?

  Both of Lucas’s teammates from the Riverton Ice Chips had been with him only moments ago—hadn’t they?—as they’d started across this field to get to . . . where?

  No, wait—

  This field . . . it wasn’t here before. We were on ice, weren’t we? Skating . . .

  It had to be a dream. Lucas had no idea where he was or how he even got here.

  He took a step and felt an awkward crunch, like a blade scraping a rock. He looked down and saw that he was wearing his skates. They were half-covered in snow. Lucas was standing in a small, flattened-down patch, almost like the imprint of a snow angel, where bits of soil were poking through. No footprints led to the patch and no footprints led away from it.

  It was as though Lucas had landed here . . . like some kind of alien spaceship.

  He shivered. Impossible.

  Lucas looked down at his hands, confused. His stick was here, too. The stick he was holding had to be his. Number 97—that was his number.

  He twisted off his hockey glove and used his shivering index finger to clear the snow off his wrist comm-band—the small walkie-talkie worn by each kid on his hockey team. Lucas first said “17,” for Edge’s jersey number, into the band. The comm-band picked up a signal, but all Lucas could hear was blowing snow. Then he tried “33,” for Swift. Again, the sound of wind or of someone moving—then emptiness. Where are they?

  Lucas brushed his eyes again and stared at his comm-band. Was it broken? Was the snowstorm interfering with the radio signals? For a moment, a red message flashed across the tiny screen:

  “NO SIGNAL!”

  And then the comm-band went black and restarted itself.

  Suddenly, the wind died with a sigh. It was as if this world—wherever it was—had run out of breath. Lucas could finally see as the swirling snow looped once and settled to the ground.

  He looked around. Off in the distance were two horses wearing red blankets and kicking at the snow. Steam rose off their backs like pots simmering on the stove. The horses whinnied and moved on, kicking more snow in search of grass to graze on.

  Lucas was in a field, probably a farmer’s field. It seemed to stretch on forever. The storm clouds were breaking up now, and shafts of sunlight almost as blinding as the snowflakes were breaking through. Behind the vanishing clouds, the sky seemed . . . too big.

  He called out for Swift and Edge—but nothing.

  Up ahead, Lucas could see that the field dipped down into what looked like a surface of polished steel—shiny and grey, like the top of a table he’d once seen in a hospital. He moved toward it, carefully stepping one skate and then the other into the freshly fallen snow, gripping his stick tightly as he went.

  Lucas worked his way down the slope. Then he stepped out onto the steel surface—and his feet flew out from under him, sending him crashing onto his back! Fortunately, his head was cushioned by the thick snow along the edge.

  It’s ice! Now Lucas knew he had to be imagining this. It’s a rink! And it’s . . . outside!

  Both his mother and his father had often talked about winters when they were very young and how Riverton’s lake used to freeze over. Lucas’s grandfather—he called him Bompa—had shown him some faded pictures of kids playing hockey on what looked like the biggest rink in the world. But Lucas had never done it.

  That’s what this is, he thought, breathing in the cold air. A frozen river. Or a small lake. And the wind had cleaned the ice as surely as if a Zamboni had been at work. The ice was thick and hard—hard enough to skate on.

  Lucas pulled himself up so he was sitting on the snowbank that surrounded the rink. He looked across the ice, marvelling at its existence . . . and at the fact that he was the only one there to see it.

  Where are Swift and Edge?

  Have they vanished? Are they in some . . . other world? Or in danger?

  Just then, two figures appeared over the crest of the snowy slope with the sun behind them. Lucas squinted: he saw a spray of snow kicked up by a boot and heard voices—voices he didn’t recognize.

  And they were coming toward him!

  Chapter 2

  Lucas wiped his eyes again. He could see the two strangers swinging their arms and lifting their knees as they worked their way through the deep snow. As they drew closer, he noticed they were wearing thick, funny-looking coats, like the ones in Bompa’s old photos, and had knitted toques pulled over their ears. The girl’s toque was a bright, bright red, and the boy’s was grey. The girl had a burlap bag slung over her shoulder, and both were carrying what looked like hockey sticks.

  Lucas dropped his stick, unsure of what he should do next.

  The kids were now almost at the pond, laughing as they half-fell down a steeper slope to the ice surface. Lucas didn’t think they’d seen him yet, but he wasn’t sure . . .

  Should I hide?

  They were just kids, but Lucas still didn’t know where he was—where he’d landed.

  Quickly, he scrambled a few feet away from the ice and ducked down behind a snowdrift that had built up against some small trees. He was breathing quietly, trying to stay low, when suddenly—

  BZZZZ-SHEEEP-ZZZZ!

  Lucas’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest. Edge was calling him! NOW!

  But from where?

  Panicked, Lucas quickly turned his comm-band off. It was too loud . . . too risky. Had the strangers heard it? What would they do if they found him?

  He tried to stay calm.

  The two kids were now on the ice, getting ready to skate—but each of them had only one skate! The girl had taken a skate from her burlap bag and put it on her right foot, but her left foot was still in a green rubber boot with a grey sock sticking out the top. The boy had done the opposite: he had a skate on his left foot and a similar rubber boot on his right. Both kids looked awkward. Even with their thick socks, the skates were far too big for them.

  But they were trying. With their mismatched footwear, they hopped and glided, hopped and glided. There was something different about their hockey sticks, too, Lucas noticed. They were made of wood and they were flat, as if they’d been cut straight out of a thick piece of plywood with a cookie cutter—all one piece.

  How can they hoist a puck without a curve in their blades?

  And what was that . . . puck they had? It looked ev
en weirder than the sticks.

  With their strange equipment and single skates, the boy and girl stopped in front of the snowdrift where Lucas was hiding, both dragging their rubber boots as brakes. The girl was smiling. The boy, taller, had his mouth open in a big grin.

  They had seen him, Lucas realized. It could have been the buzz from the comm-band—or maybe they’d seen him all along.

  “Hi!” the girl said, looking over the snow and stepping off the ice. The boy followed. “I’m Edna. This is Gordon, my little brother.”

  He doesn’t look so little, Lucas thought as he stood up. The boy seemed so shy he couldn’t speak—or even look Lucas in the eye when he was being introduced.

  “I’m Lucas.” He brushed the snow off his coat.

  “We don’t know you,” Edna said, without any meanness. “Where you from?”

  “I’m . . . uh, visiting . . . my aunt and uncle.” Lucas figured he should change the subject quickly, before she asked for a name. He looked down. “Don’t you have a regular puck?”

  The boy blinked. “No . . . we use . . . road apples.” He spoke with long, awkward pauses.

  “What’s a road apple?” Lucas asked. “An apple that fell off a delivery truck?”

  Gordon turned and pointed back to the horses, still kicking the snow in search of grass.

  “Ha, ha. Not quite. Our pucks . . . fall . . . out of their butts.”

  Edna giggled. Lucas looked from the road apple to the horses, from the horses to the road apple—and got it. If it weren’t so cold, he thought, I could probably smell this puck. But if it weren’t so cold, the horse manure likely wouldn’t hold together. The idea was gross, but Lucas couldn’t help but giggle, too. His little brother, Connor, would have found the idea of a frozen poop puck hilarious.

  “I’ve got a real puck for you,” Lucas offered, taking off his hockey gloves.

  He checked the pocket of his coat—he almost always had a puck on him. But the only thing he found was his lucky quarter. It was an old commemorative one that Bompa had given to him, from the 2002 Winter Olympics. It reminded him of the lucky loonie that had been placed under the ice that year, when Canada’s men’s and women’s hockey teams had both won gold. His quarter was for the men’s team, and on it was a hockey player skating in front of a dark red maple leaf with his stick held high in celebration. It was Lucas’s lucky charm.

  Still searching for a puck, Lucas plunged his hand into his other pocket.

  This one was filled with Cheerios! Connor must have put them there. His little brother was wild about Cheerios. The Cheerios spilled out of Lucas’s pocket and onto the snow.

  Edna, Gordon, and Lucas all reached down to grab the tiny cereal rings, so none of them noticed when Edge and Swift arrived at the top of the snowy slope on their right and began to climb down in their skates. Nor did they notice the two other hockey players who were just stepping onto the ice on the other side of the pond—two mean-looking boys with thick, dark sweaters and scowls on their faces.

  “What’re they?” Edna asked Lucas, holding a few pieces of cereal in her hand.

  “Cheerios,” Lucas answered, distracted. He was still wondering where his puck had gone.

  Gordon blinked.

  “What’re . . . Cheerios?”

  Chapter 3

  Riverton

  Lucas Finnigan was hunched over his puck, smiling. He was focused, he was ready . . . and he was about to make the perfect shot.

  Lucas paused for a moment and then, quick as lightning, pulled back his stick and fired—

  Smack!

  Squooosh!

  “Wooo-hooo!” cheered Lucas’s little brother, Connor, from across the kitchen table. A soggy Cheerio had landed just above Connor’s left eyebrow, fired there by the curved blade—well, actually, spoon—of his older brother.

  “Again!” Connor squealed. A drop of milk slid down the curly-haired toddler’s cheek and landed on the tray of his high chair. He opened his mouth wide and shut his eyes.

  Ever since he was Connor’s age, Lucas had turned everything imaginable into a hockey game. He wore hockey pyjamas, slept with hockey sheets, and always went with a hockey theme for Halloween (even though last year’s puck costume hadn’t made it to the end of the night). Lucas also shot Cheerios the way Wayne Gretzky fired pucks—or at least that’s what Connor thought.

  On the ice, the “top shelf” Lucas aimed for was the highest area inside the hockey net, just above the goalie’s shoulders and below the bar. During breakfast, his “top shelf” was Connor’s screeching, laughing, wide-open mouth.

  “’GAINNNN!” Connor screeched as Lucas drew back his spoon and lobbed another shot.

  Connor beamed as Lucas’s Cheerio flew by him and the one from his forehead fell onto his hand. He shook it off so it squished onto the side of the fridge, where it stuck like a magnet to the glossy photograph of Lucas’s hockey team.

  Lucas moved quickly to wipe away the wet cereal.

  He treasured this picture of the Riverton Ice Chips, all posed together on the ice of their beloved rink. Lucas was right in the middle, beside his best friend, Ekamjeet Singh—or “Edge” to everyone on the team. Edge had made a joke and Lucas had laughed just as the photo was snapped. In it, his thick brown hair seemed to spring out of the holes in his helmet and his pudgy baby face was smiling from ear to ear. He looked hilarious and he loved it.

  At the time the photo was taken, Lucas suddenly realized, he still thought that he was going to make it to the National Hockey League—that he’d play with the pros, win the Hart Memorial Trophy, and bring the Stanley Cup back to his hometown.

  But not now.

  Now Lucas was almost sure he’d never make the NHL.

  He wasn’t even sure he’d make it through novice—not with the way he would look on the ice this year.

  “Loo-KASS! Aaaaa-GAIN!” Connor cried, but their mother shushed him so she could hear the radio in the kitchen.

  An advertisement for Henry Blitz’s new sports complex was playing. Mr. Blitz was the richest man in town, as well as the coach of the Riverton Stars, the other competitive novice team. Apparently, his new high-tech complex was going to include a synthetic rink—a plastic “ice” surface—and all its lights could be controlled with a phone. The radio ad made the building sound unbelievably futuristic, almost like it belonged on another planet.

  The Stars were moving to the new complex this year, leaving the Ice Chips by themselves at the Riverton Community Arena with their beloved coach, George Small. Lucas was glad. The community arena, his dad often joked, was the Ice Chips’ second home. The Stars and the Ice Chips would still hold tryouts together, as they did every year, but now they each had a practice space all their own.

  And today was the beginning of it all: those tryouts would start right after school.

  Normally, Lucas looked forward to them, but this year, his stomach felt tight—nervous.

  So much had changed . . .

  Lucas had grown taller—quite a bit taller. At school, he was now as tall as most of the boys in the next grade up. He was skinnier but also stronger; he could skate faster, and his reach was longer. His mom had even cut his hair shorter with a razor, which looked cool. The problem? He could no longer fit into his old equipment.

  Lucas needed new gear. Badly. And he wasn’t getting any.

  His family just couldn’t afford it.

  Six months ago, Mrs. Finnigan had opened her own store, the Whatsit Shop. It sold things that people couldn’t find anywhere else. The store’s motto was “Bits and bobs for the oddest jobs.” Then, just after the Whatsit Shop opened, Lucas’s dad had lost his job as a mechanic. Reluctantly, he’d gone to work at the store as well.

  Now the boys’ parents were always busy, always rushing—especially in the mornings—and always worried about money. Lucas didn’t understand it all, but it was obvious to everyone that life in the Finnigan house had changed.

  Even Lucas’s oldest cousin, Speedy Finnigan, knew
it.

  Just before the start of the school year, Speedy had quietly dropped off a worn hockey bag filled with his old equipment. None of it fit quite right and all of it stunk, but it was all Lucas had. He’d have to make do.

  Lucas shook off the thoughts of his reeking hockey gear and leaned across the kitchen table, ready to fire a few more breakfast pucks at his little brother.

  “That’s enough, boys,” their mother called from the hallway as she tossed Lucas’s lunch into his backpack.

  “Don’t you still have some homework to do? Your journal?” Lucas’s father reminded him from the living room. He’d been digging toys out from under the couch with a hockey mini-stick and rushing around with the vacuum.

  “Nope, it’s done,” Lucas said proudly, holding up the picture he’d been working on between cereal shots. Each day, he drew one of hockey’s greats for his journal entry: Connor McDavid, Steve Yzerman, Gordie Howe . . . But today, he’d decided to draw a player who wasn’t so great: himself.

  At least I can have new equipment in a drawing, Lucas was thinking, feeling sorry for himself, when his comm-band suddenly buzzed.

  He ignored it. It would just be Edge, who was always up early, calling so they could walk to school together. Edge’s mom had given all the Ice Chips comm-bands as a gift last season, but Edge was definitely the one who used his the most.

  BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZ!

  Lucas rolled his eyes. “Edge, come on! I’m still in my pyjamas!” he said under his breath, making Connor laugh. Connor was still in his pyjamas, too. His mother had just released him from his high chair, so now he was running around the living room.

  Connor giggled as he wobbled over to the front door and back again.

  BZZZZ-SHEEEP-ZZZZ!

  This time, the buzz sounded right in Lucas’s face—Connor was holding the comm-band up under his chin.

  Reluctantly, Lucas said, “Hello, comm,” and the wristband crackled to life. He’d barely finished answering when the shouting began.

  “You gotta get here fast!” Edge yelled through the comm. “I’m already at the school with Swift and Crunch!