The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 1 Page 11

  Travis had only described what he had seen, with no suggestions, no accusations, nothing. But Derek had seen through it immediately. Derek had burst into tears in the equipment room and Sarah, also crying, had tried to comfort him, but Derek had shaken her off and, without another word, fled the room, slamming the door behind him as hard as he could pull it.

  They had probably taken too much time to put the skates back and the locks on. When it came time to lock the door up again, they found they had no key–Derek had run off with it. And when they hurried outside to see if they could still catch him, he was nowhere to be seen. Nor was he back at the hotel. It seemed he had run away.

  Travis had found the coach at the gift shop where Muck was buying a copy of USA Today and a pack of gum. Muck took him out into the sun room by the main entrance–no one there but a bellman dozing in the sun–carefully opened the gum and handed a stick to Travis and took one himself, slowly chewing as if the flavour mattered more than whatever Travis had to say to him.

  “Okay,” he said, “shoot. What is it?”

  Travis found he could barely speak. Even with the sweet gum in his mouth, his throat was burning as if he were about to cry. But no tears came; nor, at times, would any sound. Muck waited patiently, saying nothing, slowly chewing and then snapping his own gum. Finally, Travis got it all out. The camera, the keys, the locker, what he had seen, the skates, Derek, the keys…

  Muck took it all in without even blinking. When Travis had finished Muck sat, looking very tired, and stared for a long time at Travis, who figured he was about to get into trouble for the keys and for staying out all night.

  Muck stared, shook his head, and smiled. “Hockey does strange things to people, Travis.”

  Travis had no idea what he meant.

  With the championship game not scheduled until 4:30 that day, Muck and the coaches had time to meet first with Mr. Dillinger and then with the officials of the Lake Placid International. Some of the players who knew what was going on had told their parents, and those parents had told other parents, and so everyone pretty well knew what had happened. But no one knew what was going to happen next.

  And they could not find Derek. Travis and some of the other players had looked for him, and the keys, without any luck. Muck said he would find Derek later. He didn’t seem worried about him.

  Sarah and her parents set off early for nearby Plattsburg, where there were two big malls and where they would have a larger selection of skates to choose from than the little Lake Placid sports stores could provide. Sarah seemed much relieved. Not only had the mystery been solved, but she was coming back to Lake Placid with a brand-new pair of pump CCM Tacks, and it wasn’t even Christmas.

  Muck posted a note on the bulletin board asking all the parents and all the players to meet in the Skyroom at one o’clock. There was no hint whatsoever of what he planned to do.

  Travis sometimes got edgy before a big game, but he had never felt anything like this before. It seemed his heart was once again pounding through his chest. The parents were milling around talking in low, quick voices. Some seemed relieved, some shocked. Mr. Brown looked like he’d just won a game himself. It made no sense to Travis.

  Muck came in and walked to the centre of the room. He said not a word. The murmuring stopped. Every face–players, family, coaches–turned toward him, waiting.

  “Everybody knows the story,” Muck said. “I don’t need to go over it all again. You know what happened by now as well as I do.”

  He paused. The audience shuffled, coughed, waited. No one dared to speak.

  “This incident has left us in a strange situation. I am informed by the tournament organizers that any such interference with another team would have been cause for immediate disqualification and expulsion of the Screech Owls from the tournament. But the organizers say since it is our own affair involving only our own people, then it is up to us to decide how we will deal with the situation.”

  Muck paused again, letting those in the room consider his words. Travis was sure he could hear Mr. Brown muttering under his breath, but he couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  Guy Boucher’s father spoke for everyone: “What is the status of our manager, Muck?”

  Muck breathed deeply, thinking. “Our manager, Mr. Dillinger, has resigned his post this morning.”

  Travis could hear Mr. Brown muttering again. Something about “charges.”

  Muck quickly fixed Mr. Brown with the stare his players seldom saw and, once seen, never wished to see again. The stare of a laser beam burning through steel.

  Muck was looking at Mr. Brown but speaking to everyone: “I have been around this coaching business long enough to know that sometimes we can all let a simple game matter a bit too much and, before we know it, we’ve made fools of ourselves without even realizing what we were doing. There are some fathers–and some mothers–in this very room who know what I’m talking about. Ripping the head off some thirteen-year-old referee. Swearing at some little kid just because he happened to run into yours. Yelling at your own kid after a game because he missed a pass.”

  “That’s hardly the same thing–” protested Mr. Brown.

  Muck’s stare turned into a hard drive from the point, labelled. “I’ve even heard of grown-ups offering bribes to children,” Muck said. “You don’t get much lower than that in my book.”

  Mr. Brown looked down at his feet.

  “Now,” Muck paused. “Mr. Dillinger would like to say something to us.”

  Mr. Dillinger! He was coming into this room? Now?

  The crowd murmured with dissatisfaction. No one wanted to see Mr. Dillinger again. Not after what he’d done. Some of them as long as they lived. Travis could see Mr. Boucher’s jaw flinch. He could see Muck watching the parents’ faces, not the door, which Ty Barrett was opening into the hallway.

  It seemed every breath in the room was held. Not even Mr. Brown was muttering.

  Mr. Dillinger came in, his head bowed, his usual bouncing walk gone. He walked slowly to the centre of the room and stood beside Muck, his eyes fixing by turn on the floor and the far wall and on Muck, but not once on any of the players or the parents.

  He took a long time to compose himself. He swallowed. He coughed. He seemed on the verge of tears. He seemed about to run. But gradually he was able to speak.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He swallowed again, gathering himself. No one spoke. “I am the one who bent the skates. I hid the sticks. I cut the straps.”

  “Would you mind telling us why?” Mr. Boucher asked. There was anger, and disgust, in his voice.

  Mr. Dillinger waited a long time before continuing. It seemed he could say no more. But everyone waited, demanding more.

  Mr. Dillinger’s voice choked: “I guess I did it because I didn’t think I was hurting anyone.”

  He reacted to the sharp intake of breath that came from several in the room. Mr. Brown swore, a vicious word that Travis had never before heard any of the parents use. Muck’s stare was like a slap in the face; Mr. Brown looked down at his shoes, shaking his head.

  “You can believe me if you want or not believe me if you want,” Mr. Dillinger said. “I’d never want to hurt Sarah. You have to believe that. I love that kid like she was my own.”

  “That makes precious little sense,” said Mr. Boucher.

  “I know,” Mr. Dillinger stumbled. “I know that. But when the girls weren’t able to play that first game and my boy got moved up to the top line, I had this crazy thought that maybe I could help him stay there and get noticed.”

  “At the expense of Sarah?” Mr. Boucher asked.

  “No, not the way I was thinking. She’d already made the Toronto Aeros for the fall. She’d already let us know she’d gone as far as she wanted at this level of hockey. She was the only one whose career wouldn’t be hurt by something like this.”

  “‘Career’?” Mr. Boucher said with a snort.

  “That’s the way I was thinking. I was all mixed up. I just
wanted Derek to have a chance to be noticed. If he played with Dmitri and Travis, he’d get his points. And that’s pretty well what happened…”

  Mr. Dillinger paused a long, long time. The room grew very uncomfortable. He coughed. He wiped his eye, missed a tear that grew and then broke, sliding down his cheek as he continued to talk to them.

  “What I did was wrong. It was crazy. But I just wanted Derek to have this one chance–”

  Mr. Dillinger began sobbing.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated. He swallowed hard once more, turned, and left. Ty Barrett held the door open for him.

  Mr. Dillinger paused at the doorway.

  “Muck,” he said. “I owe you an apology. I disgraced you as your manager.”

  Then he was gone.

  The room was silent. Muck still stood at the centre. He would wait for one of them to speak.

  “What will happen to him?” Mr. Boucher asked. It was the question everyone wanted to know the answer to.

  Muck shook his head. “I suppose that’s up to us, isn’t it? The tournament organizers want nothing to do with it. They say it’s our affair.”

  “He should be kicked out of organized hockey altogether,” Mr. Brown burst out.

  “I suppose he would be if someone here wished to file a report with the association. I won’t be. It will have to come from one or more of you.”

  “He betrayed a position of trust,” Mr. Boucher said. He was so much calmer than Mr. Brown. And what he said made sense.

  “He did,” Muck said. “And I think he knows that better than any of us.”

  “Just so his damn kid could get ahead,” Mr. Brown exploded.

  Muck had had enough. “His ‘kid,’ Mr. Brown,” Muck said with that voice that could wither a player at the far end of the bench, “is the one most betrayed here, would you not say?”

  Mr. Brown, his face red as a tomato, could only shrug.

  “What Mr. Dillinger did was wrong. Very wrong. He has admitted that and I, for one, respect him for doing so. But we have a saying on the Screech Owls: you’re allowed one mistake.”

  “This is hardly the same thing as skipping a practice,” Mr. Brown argued.

  “I didn’t say it was the same,” Muck countered. “But to tell you the truth, I’m less interested in what we think is right or wrong than what those who matter most here think–and they are Sarah Cuthbertson and Derek Dillinger.”

  “They’re just kids,” Mr. Brown sputtered, shaking his head.

  “Exactly,” Muck said, and turned and left the room, his two assistants falling in behind him.

  Travis went out into the parking lot with the other kids. The parents went off down the hotel halls in smaller groups, buzzing with concern. Mr. Brown was talking too loudly, swearing. Mr. Boucher seemed to be the one they were listening to.

  Travis couldn’t figure out how he felt. He had liked Mr. Dillinger so much. In a crazy way he still liked Mr. Dillinger. He felt sorry for him. Sorry that Mr. Dillinger had wanted so badly for Derek to shine that he had worked it so Derek would get a chance to shine. He felt sorriest for Derek.

  “You’re the hero!” Nish said, slapping Travis’s back.

  He didn’t feel like a hero. He felt horrible. He felt as if he had ruined someone’s life, for Mr. Dillinger’s life was the team, the driving, the joking, the working. He was a good manager, darn it, and how could something like this ruin it?

  “You can see how it happened, kind of,” said Data. Data, always analyzing, always looking for explanations.

  “How?” Nish laughed. “He shafted Sarah for his own kid’s sake. Get a life, Data.”

  “He never would have done it if he hadn’t known Sarah was going anyway,” Data said. “It was kind of like he figured she’d understand.”

  “Yeah, right!” ridiculed Nish.

  “Like she’d understand being kept awake all night, so long as it helped Derek,” said Data.

  “Derek’s got nothing to do with this!” said Gordie Griffith sharply.

  “Besides,” added Data, “Mr. Dillinger had nothing to do with that first night. He said that was what gave him the idea.”

  “Who kept sending the pizzas then?” Nish asked.

  “Maybe no one. Maybe it was a mistake.”

  “Mr. Dillinger admitted he’d made a mistake,” Travis said.

  “And that makes it all right?” Nish said with heavy sarcasm.

  “No, it doesn’t,” said Travis. “But at least he had the guts to go in there and apologize.”

  “He had no choice,” Nish argued. “Muck made him.”

  “I doubt it,” Travis said. Muck would never force anyone to do anything.

  Muck was coming out the door into the bright light, shading his eyes from the sun, searching. He was looking for the players. He saw the group talking and walked over.

  “We have a centre to find,” he said when he got there. “Any ideas?”

  He was looking straight at Travis. It seemed that Travis had somehow become the team leader, the one who spoke for them all. But he had no idea what to say this time. “I don’t know. Maybe down by the water.”

  Travis’s hunch had been right. They had all started walking down the hill toward the lake, but Muck had stopped them in their tracks and sent every one of the kids back–except for Travis. He wanted Travis with him when they found Derek.

  Derek was sitting on the end of the old wooden toboggan run by the park and the beach. He had climbed the fence and was sitting well out of sight, but Travis had seen a stone plunk into the water as he and Muck came walking down, and he knew immediately where it had come from and who had thrown it.

  Muck seemed so casual about it all. He came and stood by the water, his hands in his pants pockets, looking out over the lake, giving not even the slightest hint that he knew Derek was sitting above him on the end of an ancient toboggan run.

  “How’re you doing?” Muck finally said.

  Travis, who had come and stood beside his coach, knew Muck wasn’t speaking to him. He said nothing himself, only waited.

  Finally, Derek’s voice broke. “Go away,” he said. He was obviously crying.

  Muck never turned to look. So Travis did not look. If Derek was crying it would be his business alone. They would not embarrass him.

  “You’ll want to get some lunch in you,” Muck said. “You’ll need energy for the game.”

  Derek bit off his words: “I’m not playing.”

  “We’re on at 4:30,” Muck said. “Your teammates will need you there.”

  Derek sniffed hard. “They won’t want to see me.”

  “And why would that be?” Muck asked.

  “After what happened,” Derek snapped. As if he couldn’t believe Muck’s stupidity.

  “And what was that?” Muck asked.

  “Give me a break,” Derek said angrily.

  “You’re not the one who needs the break, son.”

  No one spoke for some time. There was only the sound of sniffing and the distant gurgle of a small stream heading into the lake.

  Finally, Derek spoke again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Your father apologized to the team,” Muck said. “And to the parents. And to the players.”

  “Big deal.”

  “It’s neither a big deal nor a small deal with me, son. It’s just a fact. I happen to think it took some courage to do that.”

  “He shouldn’t have done what he did,” Derek snapped, angry.

  “That’s exactly what he said, son.”

  “He had no right.”

  “He knows that. He said that, too.”

  Muck said nothing after that. Derek sat and sniffled, and a couple of times choked with new crying. Travis felt terrible being there, as if he was witness to something he had no right to see. He could only wait.

  Finally, Muck broke the moment with a small, short laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Derek demanded.

  “Nothing,” Muck said. “Just that I
’m beginning to wonder if anything I say to you guys ever sinks in.”

  “I don’t follow,” Derek said. Neither did Travis.

  “What is it I say to you more than anything else?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do. What is it I say at every practice and before every game and between every period. One phrase. Always the same thing.”

  Derek said nothing. He was sniffing again. Travis knew.

  “What is it, Travis?” Muck finally asked.

  “‘Hockey is a game of mistakes.’”

  “You got it.”

  Muck said nothing more after that. He stood staring out over the water and, after a while, a sniffling, red-faced Derek Dillinger climbed over the fence and dropped down onto the sand beside them. He had said nothing either. Yet it seemed to Travis as if they had somehow talked it all out, that now they could get on with the game.

  “Sarah’ll need her new skates sharpened soon as she gets here,” Muck said. “And I’m afraid we’re missing the key to the skates box.”

  Derek sniffed once more, then sort of giggled. “I threw it in the lake.”

  Muck turned and stared at Derek. But it was not the stare he had used on Mr. Brown. It was the stare he used when a play had gone particularly well. “I’d have done it myself,” Muck said.

  Muck then sat down in the sand and removed his shoes and socks and rolled up his pants. They could see the scar on his bad leg, red and stretching practically from knee to ankle. It must have been a terrible break.

  “How far out and how deep?” he asked.

  “Not far,” Derek said. “Over this way, toward the dock.”

  “Am I all alone?” Muck asked.

  Immediately, Derek and Travis started taking off their socks and rolling up their pants to join in the search. Their track pants wouldn’t hold in a roll, though, so they both yanked them off and tossed them up on the sand. They were in their underwear now, their skinny legs shaking in the cold.

  Muck was already headed straight out in the water, his white, white legs growing pink, and then purple, as he calmly limped back and forth, looking.