The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 4 Page 3

  Muck sent Travis up left wing, and Travis danced around the one defenceman, leaving just Nish backing up between Travis and Sarah and the Owls’ goal. Travis cut one way and Sarah cut the other way, the two of them criss-crossing right in front of Nish. Travis faked a drop pass to Sarah, but Nish was too smart and wouldn’t go for it.

  Travis held, and looked back over his shoulder. Muck was charging up ice, moving as fast as his bad leg would permit. He was rapping the ice hard for a pass.

  Travis zipped it back to Muck.

  Nish read the play perfectly, and dove to cut off Muck.

  Then Muck did something astonishing. He flicked the puck so it flew just over Nish’s sprawling body and then leaped off his good leg and took flight himself, right over the spinning defenceman.

  Muck and the puck landed in the clear. Travis could hear Muck laughing and whooping. Muck faked a pass to Travis, backhanded one to Sarah, and Sarah ripped the puck high into the net behind Jeremy.

  The three of them – Muck, Sarah, and Travis – crashed together into the corner and fell into the soft snow that had built up along the boards. They were all laughing. Their new teammates from the Bears also ploughed in on them, everyone tapping their shins and patting them on the back of their pants.

  The television cameraman was right in there with them. Travis looked back. No, there were two cameras now. No, make that three!

  Sarah skated back, passing Nish, still sprawled on the ice, hands and legs out, red face beaming as he licked the melting snow that fell through his mask and onto his hot face.

  “Get the time of that goal, Rolex Boy?” Sarah asked as she passed.

  “Very funny,” Nish snorted. But he was laughing. One of the cameramen moved in tight to Nish, and Nish obliged by flicking his chin strap and sending his helmet flying along the ice.

  Everyone was laughing.

  Even the head coach was smiling. He, too, was coming out to join in the game. He seemed a bit sheepish at first, but there was no doubt he wanted to play.

  Perhaps he’d never known that hockey could be such fun.

  5

  “That’s me! It’s me! Me! Me!”

  Nish was screaming and pointing, though there was no need for either. They were in their hotel room – Travis, Nish, Andy, Simon, Jesse, and Derek – and no one had trouble recognizing their friend. Of course it was him: who else? Nish, flat on his back, his helmet rolling along the ice, snow falling and melting over his hot, beet-red face.

  The neat thing was, this was NBC Television, the nightly New York City newscast, and after nearly twenty minutes of traffic accidents and closed schools, the anchor had turned to a “lighter side of the storm.” Suddenly there were shots of people cross-country skiing in Central Park and of the great shinny game between the Burlington Bears of Vermont and the Screech Owls from some small town in far-off Canada.

  “It’s Tamarack, idiot,” Jesse shouted at the screen. “Tamarack! And we don’t live in igloos, and we don’t eat snow, and we weren’t all born with skates on!”

  “Speak for yourself,” Nish said. “I could skate before I was toilet-trained.”

  Andy held his nose. “And when did you get toilet-trained? We must have missed it.”

  They were all laughing when there was a knock at the door. Andy jumped up, peeped out the spy glass, and announced, “Fahd.”

  “Let him in,” said Derek.

  “See me on da news?” Nish called to Fahd in his stupid New York accent.

  Fahd shook his head. He looked excited.

  “We’ve got something far more interesting to see,” he announced.

  “What?” several of the boys asked at once.

  “You want to talk to Lars?” Fahd asked.

  “He’s here?” said Simon.

  “Kind of – come on!”

  The room Fahd was sharing with Data was on a lower floor, and everything was spaced out a little more to allow easy passage for Data’s wheelchair. There was even a closet with the shelves and rails set low so that Data could arrange his clothes without having to stand. No closet, of course, was ever as low as Nish’s; his closet was the floor, where he dumped all the clothes he’d need at the start of every tournament.

  Data and Fahd had been busy. Fahd had brought along his father’s digital video camera, which was now connected to Data’s new laptop, which in turn was connected to the phone. Somehow, Fahd and Data had figured out how to hook up to the Internet, dial free of charge to Sweden, and connect with Lars, who had a similar setup at his uncle’s place in Stockholm.

  Data was on-line with Lars as they came in. Fahd’s camera was set up to take in the room, and as they entered, they saw Lars on Data’s computer screen. He was smiling and waving.

  “Hey, guys!” a disembodied voice said from the computer. It sounded a little tinny, a bit hollow, a bit scratchy – but it was Lars’s voice, no doubt. “Yo! Nish!” the voice crackled over the computer. “How’s it going? You moon the world yet?”

  “I’m working on it,” Nish said. He looked slightly confused, almost as if he suspected this was some sort of weird trick Fahd and Data were pulling on him.

  “Hi, Trav,” Lars said, waving.

  Travis waved back, uncertainly. Lars seemed both there and not there. His movements weren’t as fluid as they would be on a video. It was as if a new picture of Lars was being received every microsecond, which, Travis figured, is probably precisely how it worked.

  “Hey, Lars!” Travis called back. “You playing any hockey?”

  “I’m in a tournament,” Lars’s voice crackled back. “Same as you guys. It’s with my old team. I can hardly remember how to play the game the way it’s played over here,” he laughed.

  “Simple,” said Nish. “Never shoot, pass backwards, take a dive whenever anyone comes near you.”

  “Thank you, Don Cherry!” Lars shouted, sending Nish a raspberry across seven time zones.

  They talked a while longer. Data used the mouse to control the camera, zooming in and out and focusing on whichever Owl happened to be talking to Lars.

  Nish took very little part in the conversation. He seemed too interested in how the whole video-telephone call was happening. Travis had never before seen his friend so keenly interested in anything to do with computers. If it was a computer game, in which Nish could destroy the world with bombs and flame-throwers, then he was interested. But never before in how a computer actually worked.

  Nish came back to life after they’d all said goodbye to Lars and promised to check in on him each day. They’d tell him how they were doing in the Big Apple tournament; he’d bring them up to date in how the peewee tournament in Stockholm was going.

  But Nish had other ideas. “How’s this work?”

  Data explained. He talked about Internet long-distance calls and video transmission and how the cameras sent images so quickly it was almost as good as television reception.

  “Television, eh?” Nish said.

  Travis had seen that look before. He half expected to hear Nish’s little brain shift gears, grinding and whining like a truck attempting to break free of a snowbank.

  “Tell me, Data,” Nish began, “when they broadcast the New Year’s Eve countdown, how do they do that?”

  “It’s live television,” Data said. “It’s simple. They have cameras on the guy doing the countdown and project it onto the big screen. They’ll have a temporary studio set up at Times Square.”

  “As simple as this?” Nish asked, nodding at Data’s laptop.

  “No. But not much more complicated.”

  “Can you ‘bump’ a broadcast?”

  “I don’t follow,” Data said, turning his chair around to stare at Nish. He clearly had no idea where Nish was going with this. Unlike Travis, who was cringing at the thought.

  “You know, can you cut in? Could you run your own broadcast and bump the one they’re showing?”

  Data thought about it a moment. “I suppose so. There’d be two or three cameras an
d a director controlling the shots. You’d have to break into their feed.”

  Nish sat, silently working his mouth.

  If a brain could chew gum, his was blowing bubbles.

  6

  Travis understood his crazy friend’s scheme instantly. It hadn’t taken Nish long to put the camera and the computer together in his imagination and end up with his own big bare butt staring into the faces of a billion New Year’s Eve celebrants.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Travis warned his friend.

  “Too late,” Nish advised.

  It was always “too late” with Nish. Travis was well used to that by now.

  Fahd and Data, unfortunately, were intrigued. They hadn’t any burning desire to see Nish’s bare butt exposed for the entire world to enjoy, but they were computer nuts and endlessly fascinated by how things worked. Nish had posed a puzzle, and they just couldn’t resist the challenge.

  “Frighteningly simple,” said Data after he and Fahd had consulted. “Production feeds are done by telephone lines. If you could call into the studio somehow, all you’d have to do is override their broadcast with yours. You’d need numbers and passwords, but if you had that you could bump them for a bit. I don’t know how long, though.”

  “Long enough for my butt!” Nish shouted triumphantly.

  “You’ll get caught,” Travis warned. He couldn’t help himself. He was captain, after all. He was responsible.

  Nish shot him a withering look. He looked as if Travis had just suggested he might get in trouble for talking in class – which, for Nish, was pretty much a daily ritual back in Tamarack.

  “If the world was filled with people like you,” Nish sneered, “there’d be no Guinness Book of World Records.”

  Travis said nothing, but he couldn’t help thinking, If the world was filled with people like you, Nish, there’d be no world!

  The snow continued to fall. One of the weather reporters called it “The Storm of the Century,” which made the Screech Owls chuckle. If this was the worst storm New York City had ever seen, they ought to come to Tamarack for a week in January. Back home, every storm was “The Storm of the Century” by New York standards.

  Still, it was coming down hard. The streets were filled with snow. The ploughs couldn’t cope, and even when they did get down one of the jam-packed New York streets, they seemed to be ploughing the wrong way, pushing huge mounds of snow into the centre instead of to the side. They had front-end loaders out to fill the snow trucks, but the snow trucks kept getting stuck, which only made matters worse.

  The mayor declared a city emergency. The governor declared a state emergency. About the only thing that remained was for the president of the United States to declare war on the storm. What would he do? wondered Travis. Blast the cloud cover off with a missile?

  Mr. Dillinger organized a walk to check out the huge Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Everyone came along, even Muck. They threw snowballs and sang Christmas carols as they strolled.

  It was, in its own way, an extraordinarily beautiful day: the snow falling in huge, damp clumps, the streets white and glowing with Christmas lights, the people wandering about as if they’d never seen anything like it. The Big Apple was turning into the Big Marshmallow.

  At Rockefeller Center a crew was struggling to keep the small ice surface clear, but it was almost impossible. There were a few skaters, and they left trails behind them in the snow.

  The Owls were standing around the huge, twinkling Christmas tree when suddenly a familiar sound ripped through the silence of the falling snow.

  “KA-WA-BUN-GA!”

  Travis and Sarah raced over to the railings to stare down onto the rink, which was well below street level.

  It was Nish! He had rented a pair of odd-looking, black-booted skates and was heading out onto the ice all by himself.

  Only he wasn’t skating, he was sailing – swooping about in the exaggerated style of a figure skater. He turned quickly backwards and, with his arms still flying dance-style, picked up speed as he rounded the rink. Suddenly he stabbed one toe down and leaped into the air in a ridiculous attempt at a Salchow – only to slip and land flat on his rear end, spinning across the ice.

  The Owls, now all gathered around the railings, howled with laughter.

  Travis noticed a television crew over by the Christmas tree. They were gathering up their equipment and racing towards the rink.

  “KA-WA-BUN-GA!”

  Same call, different voice. It was Sam – same rented skates, same silly exaggerated drift out onto the ice. She skated over to where Nish lay and stopped suddenly, deliberately shooting snow into his face.

  Nish laughed. He got up, bowed deeply, and held out his arms.

  “What are they doing?” Sarah shouted, laughing.

  Sam bowed in return, like an old-fashioned lady accepting a dance, and then, with her nose stuck high in the air, she linked arms with Nish and the two of them began skating around in perfect rhythm, noses aloft, eyes practically shut, each kick long and exaggerated.

  If Travis didn’t know better, he’d swear he was watching the dance competition at the Olympics.

  The people standing around began to clap and cheer. The Owls were shouting down – KA-WA-BUN-GA!” called Fahd in a voice that didn’t seem to fit – and Muck and Mr. Dillinger were leaning over the railing, laughing. Mr. Dillinger was wiping away tears.

  The camera moved in tight, following the two Olympic “ice-dancers” until, on one corner, Sam decided to turn the tables on poor Nish and lift him over her head.

  Sam was strong. There wasn’t a member of the team who didn’t marvel at her strength, but Nish was still Nish. Sam grunted and tried to hoist him high. For a moment Travis’s imagination got the better of him and he could see Sam skating triumphantly about the ice surface, one hand waving free while the other held Nish high in the air, her partner’s arms swaying to the music and a rose between his teeth.

  Sadly, the truth was not so elegant. Sam tried, and Nish lost his balance. For a second he left the ice – screamed, “I’M GONNA HURL!” – and then, with the crowd gasping, the two of them crashed in a pile and flew into the corner. They lay on their backs, laughing and letting the snow fall into their open mouths.

  The camera caught it all.

  The Screech Owls raced down the wide steps, turned onto the ice surface, and ran, sliding, across to the fallen Olympic heroes.

  Nish blinked up towards the camera zooming in on him. “Which newscast?” he asked, as if being filmed had become a daily experience for him.

  The cameraman continued to shoot. A woman – the producer? – leaned over from behind the camera and smiled.

  “Not news,” she said. “ ‘Letterman.’ ”

  Nish’s eyes went wide. “ ‘Letterman? ’ ”

  “ ‘The Late Show,’ ” she said. “You know.”

  “This is for ‘Letterman’?” Nish said.

  “We’re just doing shots of the storm,” she said. “This was great. Thanks a lot.”

  “When?” Nish asked.

  “Tonight,” the woman said.

  Nish closed his eyes, huge flakes falling onto his face and melting instantly on his hot, sweating flesh. He looked as if he had died and gone to heaven.

  “I’m gonna be on ‘Letterman,’” he kept saying to himself. “I’m gonna be on ‘Letterman’!”

  7

  Nish walked back towards the hotel as if the air was filled with falling ticker tape, not snow. Travis had rarely seen his puffed-up pal so full of himself.

  “I’m gonna be on ‘Letterman’! I’m gonna be on ‘Letterman’!”

  Not we’re going to be on ‘Letterman’! Not Sam and I are going to be on ‘Letterman’! I’m gonna be on ‘Letterman’! If I hear that one more time, thought Travis, I’m – I’m gonna hurl!

  They passed Lexington on their way to the little hotel. They were tired, and Mr. Dillinger and Muck had suggested they get back and rest up for the evening game. The t
wo men saw them back to within sight of the hotel and then turned in the other direction. Muck wanted to see the New York Public Library, which might have struck the Owls as a bit odd if it had been anyone but Muck. But they knew him only too well; he’d rather read a book than go to a movie, rather visit an old Civil War battleground than go to DisneyWorld.

  Nish and Travis and several of the boys were lagging behind the rest when a strange sound cut through the falling snow.

  “Pssssst!”

  Travis wasn’t sure it was a voice at first. But then it came again, sharp and fast: “Psssst – Nish!”

  They were just passing by a small alley, so narrow a car couldn’t get through. There was a large, dark figure looming there, covered from head to toe in heavy winter clothing.

  It was Big!

  “Yo! Big!” shouted Nish as if he’d just bumped into a long-lost friend. “Whazzup?”

  The New York accent was back.

  Big waved them into the shadowed alleyway. “You still want them watches ’n’ things?” he asked.

  “Sure do, man,” said Nish. “Right, boys?”

  Andy, Fahd, and Wilson all agreed. They pressed closer as Big opened up his “treasure chest.”

  Travis couldn’t help himself. It seemed as if the watches and sunglasses had a magnetic quality. They were pulling him into the alleyway.

  This time there were no police passing by. Travis supposed they were all tied up with traffic problems. Big didn’t seem at all worried as he showed his fake Rolexes and sunglasses.

  Andy, Wilson, Fahd, Jesse, and Derek all bought stuff. Even Travis found his hand reaching for his wallet as he rolled a fancy-looking Swiss Army watch around in the palm of his hand.

  “I’m gonna be on ‘Letterman,’” Nish told Big.

  Big blinked. He clearly didn’t believe it. A man who dealt in fooling people wasn’t going to be easily fooled himself. “How so, man?”

  Nish grinned from ear to ear. “They filmed me skating up at Rockefeller Center.”