The Ice Chips and the Grizzly Escape Read online

  “Check this out!” said Shayna, pointing to a patch of clovers near the edge of the field behind the white flag. All morning at hockey practice, she’d watched Mouth Guard trying to win Lucas over. She didn’t know what had happened to their friendship or why Lucas seemed mad at his linemate, but she knew Lucas was always a sucker for good luck charms.

  “Do you think there could be a four-leafer in there?” Mouth Guard asked eagerly, grabbing a stick off the ground and poking at the clump of clovers.

  “Maybe,” Shayna said with a laugh. “At least we know that’s not poison ivy.”

  Earlier in the week, one of the Riverton Stars had been forced to leave camp when blisters broke out on his ankles and legs. Coach Small had immediately recognized the annoying, itchy rash as poison ivy and sent the player to the doctor. They’d been told the kid was getting treatment and wouldn’t return to the rink until it was all cleared up.

  “No one is really going to come through these woods to get our flag, are they?” Mouth Guard asked Shayna, looking back at the field.

  Dynamo had just soaked Beatrice’s right leg, and her face was as red as a tomato. Near the blue flag, the Face was wearing an empty saucepan on his head while he, Bond, and Jessie Bonino tried to tag everyone they could.

  “You know, there are shortcuts all over these woods,” Shayna said with one eyebrow raised. “There’s one right there, to the north, that loops around.”

  “You say that’s north because of the moss, right?” Mouth Guard asked, smiling. Both he and Shayna had spent a lot of time in the woods with their families—they’d figured that out on the very first day of camp. “Moss grows on the north side of trees,” he sang.

  “Yep—but only in the northern hemisphere!” Shayna chimed in, pretending to laugh with a nerd-snort.

  “Is there any duk tang on the trail?” Mouth Guard asked with a giggle as he slipped one of the clovers into his back pocket. He’d forgotten the English name again.

  “You mean green waxy leaves that come in threes?” Shayna asked, guessing that his Cantonese words meant poison ivy. She picked up new languages quickly and loved learning about other cultures. “Not that I can see. Do you want me to tell you where this path goes?”

  But Mouth Guard was already skipping along the wooded trail.

  * * *

  Lucas had been avoiding his own end of the field, but it wasn’t because the blue flag smelled. It was because a new kid on his team—Jack—had been driving him nuts for the past week.

  The kid was kind of like Mouth Guard, but even more hyperactive—sometimes. Jack had zipped around the ice all morning, slapping his stick over and over when he wanted a pass, and showing off with fancy tricks where the puck seemed glued to his blade. The kid did move fast. But then at other times, he didn’t. Lucas could blink and find the kid unconscious . . . sleeping. Anywhere, at any moment.

  Jack was one of those kids who didn’t care where he slept. He’d even nap on the bench when he stepped off the ice to grab a sip of water. He was flashing around like lightning one minute and then barely moving the next. Lucas didn’t get it.

  And he didn’t like it.

  Not only that, but Jack talked constantly—almost as if he was doing both play-by-play and colour commentary while he played. Lucas’s brain didn’t have room for another Mouth Guard in this water fight—especially when the regular Mouth Guard was already someone he was mad at.

  “And here they are, coming in on the left . . . and on the right . . . keeping them guessing . . . until they release—yep, a massive splash of H2O!” Jack was cheering as he and Bond ran in toward the ring of players defending the white team’s flag. Bond’s water hit Slapper square on, sending him out of the game, but as Jack leaped into the air and spun, his water sprayed down over the whole group—making Lucas the second-wettest player.

  “That’s not how this game works! We’re on the same team!” shrieked Lucas, shaking the water from his T-shirt. Seeing his opening, Jared reached out and touched both Lucas and Dynamo on the head.

  “You’re tagged!” Jared shouted, laughing.

  “Back to your base!” Beatrice cheered as she touched both Jack and Bond on their arms.

  While the blue team made their way back to their base, Beatrice called the white team closer to lay out her attack plan.

  “We’ll use a diversion,” she said. “Lars and Zia, you guys stay here. August, you’ll trick them into thinking we’re circling and coming in from behind—but go slowly. That’s when Jared and I will slip in from the side and rush straight up the middle. When they’re trying to scare you with their water, I’ll take their entire flagpole down.”

  “Uh, okay, I guess . . .” August said, smiling as though she’d just made a new friend.

  August and her group headed out on a wide sweep of the soccer field that would take them behind the blue flagpole, where they would pretend to launch their attack. Beatrice waited for them to get a good distance away and then gave Jared a thumbs-up. The Blitz twins began working their way up the other side, using small pine trees for cover whenever they could.

  The blue team players, with newly filled buckets and ladles, were ready to fight back. They defended in waves, racing one by one toward August and her gang, sending sprays of water in their direction and then backing off to return to base for more ammunition.

  “You’re tagged! Go back to your base!” Lucas shouted out a few times, only to be ignored.

  The three players from the white team were still pushing forward—but almost lazily.

  Are we tiring them out? Lucas filled his soup ladle with water and prepared to swing it at all three of them. Bond held three small tin cups filled with water. And Jack had picked up the biggest bucket he could find.

  Lucas couldn’t believe the white team would risk getting so close to the blue team’s water supply. Do they want to be out of the game?

  He leaned back to launch his water and . . .

  “SSSSSWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHH!”

  It felt like Niagara Falls had gushed over Lucas’s shoulders. It felt like the Atlantic Ocean had drenched his shirt, shorts, shoes. It felt like the Pacific was drowning him.

  Gasping for breath, shocked by the cold water and sheer quantity of it, Lucas turned to see a grinning Beatrice. She was holding Jack’s bucket—the biggest container of water in the blue team’s arsenal. She and Jared had stolen it and poured it directly over Lucas’s head.

  “That was your plan?” August asked Beatrice. She was shocked and a little embarrassed that she’d been tricked, too. What about the flag?

  Jared was grinning from ear to ear. And Jack, who looked like he was about to fall asleep again, was blushing because it was his bucket that had ruined Lucas’s game.

  “You’re out,” Beatrice said matter-of-factly, stepping toward the blue flag—just as Shayna appeared from the woods and plucked it right off its cone.

  Lucas felt cheated. The three attackers had seemed like easy targets—but they were being sacrificed so that Beatrice and Jared, the two dirtiest players in the world, could sneak up and dump a truckload of water over his head.

  Shayna had snatched the blue flag. The white team had won. And now the winners—laughing and cheering—were racing back to their base in victory.

  And leading that parade was Beatrice, who had Mouth Guard’s blue long underwear—the stinky underwear she never wanted to touch—placed over her head like a crown.

  Lucas, soaked from head to toe, had never felt like such a loser.

  Chapter 3

  Lucas had been practising his autograph since he was old enough to write. He had worked on it while watching hockey games on television and on drives to his grandparents’ cottage. He had perfected it, he thought. A high looping L to start “Lucas,” a fancy F to begin “Finnigan,” and all finished off with a small “#97,” the number on his Ice Chips jersey.

  He’d imagined his first autograph request might come when he and his best friend, Ekamjeet Singh—know
n as “Edge”—reached junior hockey. Even though Edge was at basketball camp this summer, they both hoped to eventually play hockey for a team like the Calgary Hitmen or the London Knights or the Rimouski Oceanic. Lucas loved the Oceanic logo, a ferocious shark rising out of the water, and he also loved the fact that Sidney Crosby had once played for the team.

  Never in his wildest imaginings did Lucas think that first autograph would be on a pair of blue long johns!

  But that is exactly what Beatrice Blitz asked him and the other blue team members to do—sign their names to their flag.

  After Beatrice had run across the field wearing Mouth Guard’s long underwear on her head, the Chips’ talkative forward had said he didn’t want them anymore. The magic of his only good luck charm had been ruined; it didn’t matter that he was on the winning side. Beatrice was delighted that she got to keep a souvenir of her team’s capture the flag victory—even if it was a stinky one. She said she planned to tape the long johns to the wall in the hockey camp dressing room so everyone would know the names of the players who really stunk.

  Everyone on the losing side had signed before the camp’s on-ice workout began the following morning. Lucas felt foolish adding his name, especially to the flag he’d just lost, but he did it to stop the Blitz twins from bugging him. Now they could forget capture the flag and get back to hockey.

  Coach Small and Speedy had some fun drills for the morning. They even played British bulldog, a game where one player was “it” and the other players raced from net to net, trying not to get tapped. Whoever “it” tagged then also became “it,” until the “its” outnumbered the players who hadn’t been tagged. Jared was the last player standing, and he’d of course done an annoying celly—celebration dance—to make sure everyone knew he’d won. The Blitz twins always cheered for themselves.

  Next, the campers set to work on their stickhandling skills. To explain the rules, Speedy had gathered the players around him, just as he had for capture the flag.

  “Who can do this?” Speedy asked, grinning. He was rubbing his left hand around his stomach in a circle like he was hungry. Then with the other hand, he started tapping his head.

  Bond burst out laughing—she was trying, but she couldn’t get it at all. Slapper was rubbing his head and patting his tummy instead, and although Swift mostly had it, it was obvious that she already knew this challenge. Mouth Guard was trying it at turbo speed but was really just shaking and twisting his body around. And Lucas could do it, but very slowly and only if he really concentrated.

  Jack was the one who surprised them all. He had both speed and precision—it seemed like he didn’t even have to think about it. His body just knew.

  “The key is to separate the different parts of your body but keep them moving,” said Speedy, laughing at how well his challenge was working. “Sometimes that means concentrating hard, and sometimes that means not thinking at all.”

  “But what does this have to do with hockey?” Bond asked, pouting. She was still struggling.

  “This,” said Speedy, grabbing a stick from Nolan, who was patting his head behind the boards.

  Coach Small tossed a puck onto the ice, and Speedy started stickhandling back and forth. He went faster and faster, and then suddenly broke into a shuffle stride across the ice, keeping both feet down on the surface the whole time.

  “You have to learn to separate your hands from your feet,” Speedy said as he made his way back to the group with his feet moving fast but his hands doing double time. “It’s all about tempo.”

  Lucas knew that Speedy had a drum set in his basement, and he’d always marvelled at how his cousin could work both the kick drum and the cymbals at the same time but in different ways. He also knew that the other kids at hockey camp were having trouble understanding what Speedy was saying.

  “Push with your heels,” Lucas called out as he watched the other players try to imitate what Speedy had done—with some of them falling flat on their faces. “Get your skates started, then bring your hands into the mix. If you—”

  “Hey, but what about this? Can you do this?!” Jack interrupted, not caring that Lucas was trying to help. With a smirk, he scooped up the puck he was carrying and sent it flying around his body, glued to the toe of his stick. The kid was like a Harlem Globetrotter of stickhandling, spinning his stick this way and that, sending the puck up toward the rafters and then scooping it out of the air again. And of course, he gave colour commentary the entire time.

  “That’s cool, but can he score?” Slapper asked, sounding jealous.

  Hearing him, Jack turned quickly and backhanded an air shot right into the net.

  “Yep! He’s so fast,” said Blades, impressed. “Looks like he can do just about anything.” Her shuffle, of course, was perfect—thanks to her years of figure skating.

  Annoyed that he hadn’t been able to finish explaining how Speedy’s trick worked, Lucas left the group and set off across the ice. Soon, his hands were moving twice as fast as his skates—he had it, but slowly. The next step would be to speed it all up.

  “Jack can stickhandle through his legs and back again,” Bond said, skating up beside Lucas. All the roller derby she’d done in Chicago meant she could skate well, but she was still working on her stickhandling. “My hands will never be fast enough.”

  “You’ll get it,” Lucas said gently. “You just need to loosen up a bit. It’s a soft tap on either side of the puck. See Dynamo over there with Speedy? Soft hands. Don’t try so hard.”

  Lucas was slow, but he understood the drill. He’d watched tons videos of Connor McDavid doing this kind of training. In fact, he’d watched training videos of all the hockey players as they worked on their best skills. He not only breathed hockey and dreamed hockey, but also studied it; he was always looking for ways to improve.

  “Hey, Top Shelf!” Shayna called out from across the ice. Next to her, Nolan made the sign of a question mark with his glove. They were having trouble, too.

  Lucas took off, making his way past groups of skaters working on the drill, but suddenly he felt his feet go out from under him.

  In a split second, he was flying through the air, spinning and landing hard on the seat of his hockey pants. He looked up expecting to see one of the Blitz twins, but instead Jack was there, with a puck he’d launched into the air and caught flat in the curve of his stick. He was the one who’d swung his stick around in front of Lucas’s skates!

  “Sorry,” Jack said with a smile, reaching out his hand—but then, as usual, his play-by-play took over. “Top Shelf Finnigan is down for the count. No, wait! He’s up. He’s okay. He’s dusting off the snow, pushing out with his back skate, and he’s off again . . . Is he mad? Embarrassed? No one knows, but he’s shaking his head!”

  * * *

  Every night since the beginning of camp, Edge had called Lucas at home on his comm-band—the walkie-talkie-like wristbands that each of the Ice Chips wore. It was always too late for them to get together, but Edge wanted to hear what he’d missed at hockey camp that day. He loved basketball camp . . . and yet, it was hard to think of all his hockey teammates hanging out without him.

  “I STILL WISH YOU WERE ON MY LINE THIS SUMMER!” Lucas shouted into his comm-band that evening, rather than saying hello. He missed his best friend, and he wanted to make sure Edge knew it.

  “Another bad day with the new kid?” Edge asked sympathetically. “Why do you think he’s always so . . . wild?”

  “Not sure—well, he does have pockets full of sugar,” said Lucas. “This morning Slapper saw him stuff a bunch of chewy candies into his mouth before practice. He thinks that’s Jack’s breakfast. Yuck!” Lucas, who ate his Cheerios every morning, was still annoyed that the new kid had kept interrupting him—and that he had so many tricks to show off.

  “You think that’s gross-o-rama? I think it’s kind of awesome,” Edge said. “Maybe he’d already had a piece of toast or something at home?”

  “How would I know?” Lucas asked
with a shrug that Edge couldn’t see. He was tired of talking about the new kid. He and Edge had something much more important to discuss. “I heard that Quiet Dave has a meeting this Thursday with the mayor—his daughter. You know, that’s the only night the arena will be empty before—”

  WHOOOOOOO-AHH-OOOO-RRRR-OOOO!

  Wooo-ROOOOO-AHH-OOOO!!!

  “What is THAT?” Edge asked. “Are you being attacked by wolves or something? Where are you?”

  “In my room,” Lucas said, getting up to close his bedroom door. “Connor is in what they call the wolf pack at his forest camp. He’s obsessed with howling—that’s him in the bath.”

  “Your little brother’s a hilari-saurus,” said Edge, using another one of his made-up words and laughing.

  “Sure,” said Lucas, “but this is important! Do you want to time-trav—”

  WHOOOOOOO-AHH-OOOO-RRRR-OOOO!

  Connor had just burst through the door of Lucas’s room and thrown his towel on the floor. Now he was crawling around on all fours, howling like some kind of werewolf turned back into a naked human. Mr. Finnigan, chuckling, came in after him carrying a hairbrush and some underwear. Soon he was chasing the toddler around the room.

  “Er, my dad is in my—” Lucas started to say, but he didn’t have to finish. Edge got it and buzzed off.

  After the catastrophe that had happened at the end of last season—the trouble they’d got into—the time-travelling Chips had made a new rule about their secrets: NO ADULTS ALLOWED—EVER.

  * * *

  Lucas’s Cheerios tasted like cardboard the next morning. He rode to the rink not saying a word to his mother apart from a weak goodbye when she dropped him off with his equipment. He was feeling down. He was still mad at Mouth Guard, and now he was mad at Jack, too. On top of that, with Edge at basketball camp, it was hard for him to make plans—and his gang desperately needed a plan before Saturday.

  What was about to happen was devastating: Scratch, the ice-resurfacing machine that helped the leaping Ice Chips travel through time, was going to be taken away for good.