The Ice Chips and the Haunted Hurricane Read online

  Epigraph

  For the coaches whose players sometimes wonder where practice will get them.

  —ROY MACGREGOR AND KERRY MACGREGOR

  For all the time travellers out there.

  —KIM SMITH

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1: Location Unknown

  Chapter 2: Another Unknown Location: The Others

  Chapter 3: Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia

  Chapter 4: Riverton: A Few Days Earlier

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9: Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16: Riverton

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors and Illustrator

  Also by Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Location Unknown

  Blackness . . .

  Thick as soup.

  And it was rocking. The darkness was moving.

  In front of Lucas Finnigan’s eyes danced a greenish blur, as if he’d been staring at a bright white surface just before the lights went out—just before he’d been sucked into this . . .

  Night? Is this night?

  Lucas moved his head to shake away the darkness, to free his eyes. But the darkness didn’t move. It clung to him like a damp facecloth.

  Where am I?!

  “Do you smell that?” Nica Bertrand’s voice was shaky. Lucas’s couldn’t see her—the goalie he knew better as “Swift”—but he knew she was close. “Is it . . . dirt—the smell? Mud or something?”

  Lucas slid his hand across the floor until he touched Swift’s. Once she felt his hand, she gripped it tightly.

  How could we have been so stupid to try this again?

  “It’s . . . salt,” Ekamjeet Singh said slowly. Lucas’s best friend and the teammate he called “Edge” was somewhere in front of Lucas and Swift, somewhere in the blackness. “The air smells like . . . the ocean.”

  The ocean?!

  Lucas brought his hands to his moist cheeks. He closed his eyes tightly, and then opened them again. Slowly, they were starting to adjust to the darkness.

  His sluggish brain was unscrambling, too . . .

  Scratch had resurfaced the rink with his magical flood, just like last time, and the three Ice Chips had stepped out onto the ice.

  We skated hard and fast. We hit the centre line . . .

  And then, just like last time, Lucas, Edge, and Swift had leaped through time.

  Now they were—well, they could be anywhere, really.

  “We’re . . . moving,” Swift said.

  Lucas looked up and saw the outline of a small round window. Through it, he could see a smudge of light, all on its own in the dark sky, like the only street lamp in a city gone black.

  The moon!

  “We’re on a boat. Try Crunch!” Lucas whispered, remembering their plan. If they could reach Sebastián Strong—the defenceman they’d nicknamed “Crunch” because he was so nuts about numbers—they’d be okay. Crunch had stayed behind at the rink with his tablet, and with his help, they might be able to figure out where they were and what year they’d landed in.

  Edge’s comm-band walkie-talkie crackled to life, but when he said “12” into it—Crunch’s number—no one answered. Either their comm-bands weren’t working, or Crunch was just too far away.

  “Zilch-o-nada,” said Edge, using one of his made-up words to hide his disappointment. “No Crunch!”

  “We’re alone out here,” said Swift, seeming even more tense than before. She began taking off her skates and searching the floor with her hands. She was trying to find her backpack. For this leap—their second one—all three Ice Chips had brought backpacks, and they’d all brought boots to change into. This time, they’d come prepared.

  At least, they thought they had.

  “We can’t call home, but we can’t be completely alone out here,” Lucas said, trying to be encouraging. He hurried into his second boot, slipping into his sock a jackknife he’d packed—just in case—before zipping up his bag. The wind coming through the cracks in the small room had gotten colder. It was as though the air, and everything in it, had become electric. Was there a storm coming?

  “Of course we’re not alone. Someone has to be steering the b—” Edge started. But suddenly the boat pitched sideways, throwing Lucas and his teammates with it.

  It had lurched to the left, as if it had been taken by a wave and was about to keel over.

  Edge, who’d been standing, slammed against a wall—or maybe a door—just as a handful of life jackets and fishing nets rained down onto Lucas’s and Swift’s heads. Lucas gripped Swift’s hockey jersey with one hand and planted his other on the floor to keep from sliding sideways. The boat tried to right itself, but instead it pitched hard in the other direction.

  “Ugh!” Swift called as she rolled backwards.

  “Cover your heads!” Edge shouted.

  A fishing pole detached from the wall and fell with a bang. A heavy utility box slid across the floor, just missing Swift’s prosthetic leg.

  BZZZZ-SHEEEP-ZZZZ!

  It was Edge’s comm-band!

  “Hello? Hello? Is somebody . . . there? Are you . . . in troub—? Hello?” The voice was fuzzy, unsure. And words were dropping out of the signal. It wasn’t Crunch—so who?

  “It’s a kid!” said Lucas, pushing a life jacket off his head and staring at Edge’s comm.

  He realized that a dim light was now flooding the box-like room they were in. The sun was coming up. The door that Edge had banged up against had swung open, and now they could see the mess of life jackets and fishing nets that had tumbled all around them.

  “Wait! This boat isn’t going to—?” Edge didn’t want to finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. The boat pitched to the left again, and the Ice Chips tried to grab on to whatever they could. A storm wasn’t coming—it was here. And it was huge.

  Through the open door, Lucas could see dark waves rising, threatening.

  They were trying to pull the boat under!

  Should we call for help? Blow whistles? Fire a flare gun?

  Lucas pulled on a life jacket and scrambled for the buckle just as another huge wave hit. This time, the three Ice Chips went flying toward some storage shelves. Luckily, they were all still wearing their hockey helmets.

  “Hello? Hell—o?” the young, static-filled voice called out over Edge’s comm-band. Edge lifted his wrist up to his mouth, but then stared blankly at Lucas. What could he say that would help them?

  “We’ve got to get to the steering wheel!” cried Swift, trying to be heard above the violent wind that was whipping against the side of the boat. Sharp raindrops were now flying in through the open door in sheets.

  We’ve reached a kid, thought Lucas. But who is he? And where is he?

  “Be careful . . . There’s a hurri . . . cane . . . coming! And it’s—” the voice continued over the comm-band.

  “The kid—if he can hear us,” Edge yelled, “he can get help!”

  “See, we aren’t alone!” Lucas called to Swift.

  “OF COURSE YOU’RE NOT!” boomed a gruff voice, just as the light pouring into the storage room went out.

  Chapter 2

  Another Un
known Location: The Others

  “Mom, this walkie-talkie’s not working. Where’s the other one?” a boy yelled as he sped down the stairs into the dimly lit basement. He was moving fast, but he didn’t fall. He knew this path far too well and leaped athletically down the last few steps.

  “Mom, where do I look?”

  As the boy’s mother yelled back that it was down there somewhere, Bond’s heart began to beat so loudly that she could barely think. She’d never been so scared, so completely disoriented.

  What in the world just happened? How did we get—?

  As the kid hurried across the basement, Bond and Mouth Guard scrambled to tuck themselves into a dark corner of the room.

  We have to stay hidden until we figure this out, Bond thought as she looked, wide-eyed, at Mouth Guard and tried to slow her breathing. She didn’t want her fear to give them away.

  Mouth Guard opened his mouth, as though about to ask a question, but she glared back at him, warning that for once in his life, he’d better keep his lips zipped.

  Her mind was racing. A minute ago, she and Mouth Guard had watched three Ice Chips step onto the ice at the community arena. And then . . . what?

  Crunch, the team’s technology whiz, had been in the stands, filming with his tablet. Lucas, Edge, and Swift had been on the ice. The three of them had pushed off skating, wearing backpacks and holding hands, just as Bond and Mouth Guard—two of the team’s newest members—opened the door in the boards.

  Bond’s and Mouth Guard’s blades touched the ice only an instant before the other skaters reached the centre line and . . .

  No, it was too wild—too impossible.

  They vanished?

  Bond remembered hearing Crunch yell something. She remembered the feel of her skates scratching a perfect ice surface as she chased after her friends. But then?

  Her brain was scrambled. Mouth Guard, who was now slowly, quietly pulling over a well-used hockey net with a blue tarp taped to the back, looked confused, too.

  He must be trying to shield us from the kid’s view, Bond thought, relieved that one Ice Chip was still with her—even if they had no idea where they were.

  The objects around them in the basement were old—the hockey logos on the posters, the styles of shoes, and the toys—but at the same time, everything looked new. It didn’t make any sense.

  Bond quickly scanned her memory again. She and Mouth Guard, both dressed in full gear, had arrived at the rink for the same reason—to skate. But Bond had also had something big—and difficult—to tell her teammates. Something that meant everything. She’d been thinking about it and, well, crying about it for days.

  Then, when Swift, Edge, and Lucas crossed that centre line and vanished, Bond, who was always looking after other people, including her three younger sisters, had acted on instinct.

  She’d gone after them.

  That had definitely happened. We were on the ice. My skate blades are still cold.

  There’d been a flash of light.

  A swirling motion, like they were being pulled down a drain.

  The light had gotten brighter and brighter, and then Bond and Mouth Guard had landed here—wherever they were—on a pile of old hockey equipment on some kid’s concrete basement floor.

  Kah-SHHHHHHHHHHHH!

  The walkie-talkie went off again.

  “Are you still . . . there? Hey—hello? Hello?” The kid fumbled with the small plastic device in his hand, but there was nothing but static coming from the other end. Desperate, he continued going through storage boxes, opening cupboards, and checking the pockets of old coats, looking for the other walkie-talkie.

  As quietly as she could, Bond grabbed Mouth Guard by his shoulder pads and pulled him toward her, tighter into the dark corner made by the hockey net and the basement wall.

  “Where are we?” she mouthed. But inside her head, she was screaming: Where are Swift, Edge, and Lucas? Why aren’t we with them?

  Since Bond and Mouth Guard were new to the team, they didn’t have comm-bands. They had no way of reaching anyone.

  Tianna Foster—or “Bond,” as the Chips had started calling her after hockey tryouts a few weeks ago—was used to moving around. She’d gone from Jamaica, where she was born and where she’d got her “James Bond” nickname playing roller derby, to Chicago, and then to Riverton. She knew very well how to deal with being dropped into a new place. But moving through a black hole? She had no way to judge how much danger they were in.

  Neither did Dylan Chung.

  Dylan, who always said whatever came into his head, had become “Mouth Guard” at tryouts after Bond had joked that he should wear a mouth guard full time—to keep the words from spilling out of his mouth. Now, hiding silently in the shadows beside a washer and dryer, he just looked frightened.

  “I can’t hear you anymore! Is it the hurricane?” the kid suddenly shouted, holding the walkie-talkie up to his mouth again. He was surprised when it had gone off in his room a few moments ago, but shocked when he’d learned that the person on the other end was actually in trouble.

  Bond and Mouth Guard stayed frozen, listening to the static. The boy flicked the Talk button over and over in frustration, then moved into the centre of the basement, where he absent-mindedly picked a hockey stick up off the floor.

  “Let’s go! The storm is getting worse,” the kid’s dad called, just as a baby somewhere upstairs started to cry. “Grab your equipment and get in the van!”

  The kid paused for a moment, then hooked the walkie-talkie onto his pocket and scooped a puck up onto the blade of his stick. He bounced it once, twice, and then smacked it down onto the cold basement floor.

  Is he going to shoot at us?

  Bond couldn’t believe it.

  Mouth Guard’s eyes grew wide. He’d moved the net up against them for cover, and now he and Bond were too close to it. Any shot fired at the net would be fired at them, too.

  Then he’ll find us for sure, thought Bond. He’ll knock our teeth out and we’ll get caught.

  With his eyes on the net, the kid drew back his stick.

  And then suddenly, just as he was about to fire, an answer came through.

  BZZZZ-SHEEEP-ZZZZ!

  “We’re . . . here! The captain—”

  SHEEEP-ZZZZ!

  “We’re on a boat . . . and we’re heading toward the . . .” The voice trailed off.

  Caught off guard by the response, the kid stumbled and took a slapshot that veered to the left and missed the net completely. But the shot was so strong, so powerful, that it ricocheted off the clothes dryer and then off a cracked plastic sink before it slammed into a steel support pole, making it ring like a bell.

  “Where are you? Where?” the kid asked desperately, throwing down his stick and pulling out the walkie-talkie as fast as he could. “Do you need help?”

  “We’re coming into . . . what? Halifax Harbour. If the waves don’t flip us ov . . . over . . . first.” The voice was shaky, scared, but also familiar.

  How can a scratchy voice on a walkie-talkie feel so . . . like I know him? Bond wondered. But before she could figure it out on her own, she had her answer.

  In an instant, Mouth Guard was standing, facing the kid who’d just shot the puck off the dryer, and his mouth was moving.

  “That’s Lucas!”

  Chapter 3

  Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia

  Lucas couldn’t believe his eyes—or his stomach.

  He was starting to feel seasick, and he didn’t know what to do about it. There was no time for puking.

  The waves crashing over the sides of the boat, tossing the small fishing trawler from side to side, were enormous white-capped monsters. But the ones smashing up against the wharf in the harbour ahead of them, jostling the other boats around like they were sticks going over a waterfall, were full-on Godzillas.

  “Are we even going to make it back to shore?” Lucas asked the captain nervously. He felt inside his pocket for his lucky quarter—in case l
uck was something they’d need—and realized he’d forgotten to pack it.

  The captain’s thick black trench coat and clunky rain boots were still glistening from when he’d snuck around the side of the ship in the blowing rain, bursting through the doorway of his storage room to find three damp hockey players.

  At first he’d thought they were stowaways, but Swift had quickly explained that they were desperate to get off this ship, not stay on it, and he seemed to have believed them.

  “Will we make it? Can’t be sure, son,” the captain answered with his big, gravelly voice. The boat teetered to the port side again with even more force than before, but Captain Horatio Brannen didn’t flinch. He said he’d seen far worse out on the water years ago, back when he used to drive a tugboat.

  Lucas had been on boats at his grandfather’s cottage many times, and he’d never felt sick. His grandfather—he called him Bompa—would ride in the back of the canoe, making large, sweeping strokes, while Lucas rode in the front, trying not to grip his paddle like a hockey stick. It was fun. He loved it.

  But fun wasn’t how this boat ride felt.

  This is more like a theme-park ride, Lucas thought. He tried to steady himself as another big rolling wave hit.

  “How fast is that wind?” asked Swift, mesmerized by the storm. She leaned in toward a window that was spotted with spray from the downpour, her eyes as wide as hockey pucks. “This is really amazing.”

  Swift loved weather of any kind. She loved lightning storms, snow falling on outdoor rinks, and warm, windy summers where she could take out her strawberry-blonde ponytail and let her hair fly around until it ended in knots.

  She even loves weather that might kill us, Lucas thought.

  “Those winds are probably going 120 kilometres a hour—and that hurricane’s not done with us yet,” said Captain Brannen, leaning back in his seat. “Ha, but nothing can kill me!”

  Then why aren’t you the one steering the boat? Lucas wondered, but he was too timid to say it out loud.

  The captain, tired from a long night of steering through bad weather, had handed the wheel to Edge. And Lucas couldn’t believe his friend had actually taken it! He’d also taken a compass that the captain had given him—to keep!