The Ice Chips and the Haunted Hurricane Page 4

  “You really think they’ll beat us again?” Mouth Guard asked, picking up Bond’s rebound. He tried to pass it to Edge, who was moving in front of the net, but he shot it too far behind him. Another miss.

  “Will they beat us? What do you think?” said Lucas, not even reaching for the ball as it rolled down the driveway.

  Chapter 8

  The moment Lucas stepped into the Riverton Community Arena, the smell of hockey filled his nostrils. Quiet Dave the Iceman—the man who’d made Lucas promise never to break into the rink again—had completely resurfaced the ice for last Saturday’s game. And although Lucas hated the memory of that embarrassing loss to the Stars, he still loved the smell of Dave’s cleaning products.

  There weren’t many pleasures in the world that Lucas cared for as much as those first few steps into a hockey rink: the smell of cement floors freshly cleaned and swept; the motion of the Zamboni making its final circle of the ice; and soon, the feel of the fresh, cold ice itself. That was Lucas’s paradise.

  “You made it! Finally!” Crunch called out as he grabbed Lucas’s backpack off his shoulder and started running with it toward the dressing room.

  “You could’ve taken the heavy one!” Lucas called, letting out an excited giggle as he shifted his hockey bag to the other shoulder and picked up his pace.

  We should have two hours, easy, to pull this off, he thought. That’s at least how long the parents’ welcome dinner at the mayor’s house would last tonight. All the Chips’ parents had been invited, and Coach Small and Quiet Dave would be there, too.

  On this night—the night before the big rematch—Lucas and his friends would be the only ones at the rink.

  “Top Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeelf! Let’s go!” he could hear Edge calling from the dressing room. Swift would be there, of course. She had to be—without her dad’s keys, they wouldn’t have been able to sneak into the building!

  It was in the dressing room, after their final practice last night—the worst practice Lucas had had in his life—that Edge had come up with this plan.

  “We do know one way to get more practice time,” he’d whispered into Lucas’s ear as he’d unstrapped his second shin pad.

  “No, absolutely not—we can’t!” Lucas had replied, a little too loudly, while zipping up his hockey bag. Then he lowered his voice. “Edge, you know we can’t. We promised.”

  But that’s when Swift leaned in, too. “Lucas, I thought you’d do anything for this team. If you want to get used to that longer stick in time for the rematch on Saturday, we’re going to have to leap again.”

  They’d still travelled through time only once—the day of the final skate, when they’d done it by accident. They’d thought about leaping a second time after the end of this year’s tryouts, but they hadn’t done it. Quiet Dave the Iceman was always around, watching them. And in fact, Lucas was a little relieved—he never liked going back on a promise.

  Tonight is the first night that Quiet Dave’s been gone, Lucas thought as he followed the others out of the dressing room. And now look at what we’re about to do!

  Lucas, Edge, and Swift were all in full equipment, but none of them stepped through the gate. No one dared to touch that perfect shining surface—not until the magical flood was done.

  Scratch, the tractor-like flooding machine Crunch had discovered before their first leap through time, was still making circles around the ice as Lucas pressed his helmet up against the Plexiglas above the boards. He was grinning, mesmerized.

  Maybe this really is a good idea—or even a great one!

  It was still a mystery how Scratch was able to make such a beautiful, almost silky sheet of ice. And the fact that it opened some kind of portal that led to another place and time was . . . well, ridiculous. But how else could they describe what had happened?

  Skating after Scratch’s flood, the three of them knew, was like learning that their team had made the NHL playoffs, or that one of them had won the Hart Memorial Trophy. Skating on it made them feel special—chosen, almost—even though Quiet Dave had warned them it was dangerous.

  “How do we know it will work again?” Lucas’s voice was almost a whisper.

  Edge wasn’t sure if his friend was talking to him or the hockey gods, but he decided to answer anyway. “If it doesn’t work . . . well, at least Quiet Dave will be happy that we can’t leap through—”

  “It’s gotta work!” Crunch cried as he came running over from the stands. He wasn’t in his hockey gear, but in full Crunchy mode: his glasses were perched crookedly on his head, he had his tablet under his arm, and he’d been pacing around, mumbling to himself.

  “Are you ready for this, Crunch?” Swift asked with a slight curl in her lips.

  Lucas, Swift, and Edge were excited to go back in time, but Crunch was ecstatic. He was determined to measure, record, and analyze this jump—to try to understand it.

  “I’ve made a table where I can collect all the quantitative data that we—” Crunch started to say, but instantly, Lucas’s and Swift’s eyes glazed over.

  “Of course you have,” Swift said, smiling as Scratch, now finished, rolled off his shimmering ice surface and into the Zamboni chute, where the gates closed behind him.

  “It’s time!” Edge said eagerly, clapping his gloves together.

  Lucas was nodding with a big grin on his face as Crunch tossed the camera-equipped backpack to him.

  “Are you ready?” Crunch asked Swift, teasing.

  “One hundred and fifty percent,” she said, stepping up to the gap in the boards.

  She was the first to push off onto the perfect ice surface.

  Then Edge.

  Then Lucas.

  Swift always started with her prosthetic leg—an old habit, to test that it was working right. While playing, she never favoured that leg—the one she’d had to have replaced below the knee when she was five—but when you play a game like hockey, some rituals are hard to get rid of.

  How could we not have come back here? Look at this ice! Lucas thought with amazement as the three Chips stopped in front of the goalie crease.

  Soon, they were all holding hands and gliding as one. They had their eyes on the blue line . . . then on the red. They were moving fast. And they were focused, excited, and afraid—all at the same time.

  That’s probably why they didn’t notice when the door in the boards opened again . . . and Bond and Mouth Guard, also fully dressed, stepped onto the perfect ice surface and began skating toward them.

  “Don’t forget to—” everyone could hear Crunch yelling as Lucas, Edge, and Swift hit the centre line at the same time and then . . . poof.

  They were gone.

  Chapter 9

  Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia

  “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  Bond couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She and Mouth Guard had finally found the boat they were looking for, and now it was careening dangerously in the white-capped waves, coming in hard and fast toward the harbour!

  It was out of control. And it was headed straight toward them!

  They’d been so lucky up until now: the kid had figured out where the Ice Chips’ boat must be with the help of his walkie-talkie, then they’d found the right end of the harbour and the right pier—all without Crunch’s tablet or comm-bands or anything!

  Bond and Mouth Guard had made their way through the storm—and they were finally here!

  But were they too late?! Had they arrived only in time to watch their friends crash and sink to the bottom of the harbour?

  Just as they were running along the pier, waving and shouting, the boat pitched sideways—it seemed to leap out of the water. It turned—with Lucas, soaked, holding on to the railing at the front—and skidded dangerously across the water.

  There wasn’t any time to think, to yell, to get help . . .

  And then the boat, with Lucas clinging on desperately, crashed sideways into the pier with a loud crack!

  “Lucas!” Bond and Mouth Guard both yelle
d, shocked, as the boat rebounded with enormous force, sending their friend tumbling overboard into the violent, rising water!

  We can’t lose him now!

  The thought hit Bond like a lightning bolt: How will we get home without him?

  “Top Sheeeelf!!” she yelled over the edge of the pier, squinting down at the crashing, churning waves. She’d been out in the rain for only a moment, but already she was dripping. “Lucas! Where are you? LUCAS! LUCAS!!”

  On the boat, Swift was yelling, too.

  Mouth Guard, however, was just staring at the white-capped waves, his mouth wide open.

  He was the one who’d convinced the kid—Sid—to get his parents to drive them from their home in Cole Harbour to Halifax. Sid’s parents had seemed a little suspicious at first, but with a hurricane on its way, they weren’t about to let two kids run off on their own. Mouth Guard had lied—he’d said that he and Bond were meeting their mom and dad on a boat in the harbour. He’d talked and talked, and somehow he’d managed to sound convincing.

  Luckily, Sid’s family was already headed to Halifax: Sid had a meeting with some hockey scouts. They were really just higher-level coaches looking for up-and-comers to recruit in the future, his dad had explained, but the Chips could tell it was a big deal for a kid Sid’s age to be invited to the scrimmage.

  Sid was probably only nine years old, and already coaches were coming to check him out? Wow! No one wants to see us play, Mouth Guard thought to himself, not realizing the words were also coming out of his mouth.

  “I’d like to see you play,” Sid had said with a smile.

  Just before they all squeezed into the family’s van, Sid’s mom had to run upstairs with his sister, Taylor, to change the baby’s diaper one last time, so Sid handed Mouth Guard his stick and puck to take some shots on the basement net.

  Mouth Guard made a few quick, precise goals, but Bond’s shot hit the bar and the basement wall, and then rebounded off Sid’s parents’ dryer—leaving a horrible black dent—before landing in an old snow boot. Mouth Guard had never had trouble firing on a net, but Bond obviously still needed practice. Luckily, though, her shot had solved another problem: if the two Ice Chips were going to travel, they’d need something to wear on their feet.

  Sid’s parents were slightly nervous as they drove the two Ice Chips—each dressed in a pair of Sid’s old boots—to Halifax Harbour, where they’d said their parents would be waiting at their boat. The harbour wasn’t far from the big arena where Sid was hoping to impress the coaches, but the road there had been tough—trees down, electrical poles lying on the road, and emergency workers trying to get through.

  Bond and Mouth Guard were lucky to have made it so far, so quickly.

  But they weren’t there just yet . . .

  “Lucas! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!” Bond yelled, waving the hockey stick she was holding as Swift ran for shelter on the boat. Bond and Mouth Guard were still in the van when they’d spotted the boat and had taken off running. She had no idea why she’d brought her stick with her.

  “He probably can’t hear you!” Mouth Guard sputtered, coming back to life. “We need something to throw into the water! Something bright—a lifeguard thing, whatever they’re called!”

  That’s when Swift reappeared on the bow of the boat. She was soaked, terrified, and carrying two bright orange life jackets like the one Lucas was wearing, bound together with a long white rope. Her shouts sounded distant, as though they were coming from the other side of a canyon. “Ready?!” was all Bond and Mouth Guard could make out.

  Bond gave Swift a nod and laid down her stick. She grabbed on to the edge of the pier so she could get as close to the water as possible.

  Mouth Guard quickly dropped onto his stomach beside her. “He’s wearing a life jacket, right? I don’t see any orange in the water!”

  “He has to be in the water!” Bond shouted back, desperate.

  “Noooo! I . . . don’t! I’m not . . . ”

  Bond could hear the words, but only faintly—and with a strange echo. She wasn’t even sure they were words at all, except that she could tell Swift had heard them, too.

  The fishing trawler was close enough now to dock safely, but Bond could see that Edge was hanging back. He was waiting so he didn’t run Lucas over.

  “I’m down here!”

  Bond and Swift exchanged looks. This time, they were both sure—it was Lucas!

  Swift was the first to spot him. Bond had to grip the edge of the pier tightly so she could look straight down to where Swift was pointing.

  Lucas was there!

  Their teammate had fallen over the side of the boat, but then he’d been carried by a wave that had crashed into the pier—a pier with long vertical slats of wood running along it like train tracks. That’s what Lucas was clinging to. A mass of fish netting had also washed up against the long boards, and both he and the pier were now caught in it. Lucas looked soaked and desperate—like a wet fly trapped in a bright green spider web.

  Luckily, the netting seemed to be helping him hold on—just inches above the rising, heaving waters.

  “Lucas? LUCAS!” Bond yelled, motioning for Swift to throw her roped life jackets to him.

  Swift nodded and launched the tied jackets over the side of the boat, but she hadn’t let out enough rope. She let out more and tried again—and again. But because of the wind, she just couldn’t get it to him.

  You need a paddle—something hard, Lucas was thinking, looking up toward the underbelly of the trawler.

  The waves were rocking Lucas, splashing and taunting him . . . and slowly loosening his grip. He knew he had to try harder—he’d have to escape the net if they were ever going to get him out of the water. Carefully, he reached into the top of his sock and pulled out the jackknife he’d hidden there earlier.

  Between waves, Lucas sliced the net in three different spots: one near his hip and two near his ankles. Then he started to wiggle . . .

  He kicked his feet out and turned as he often did on a breakaway—with one leg bent, the other one out. He was desperate to get free—and it was working! Parts of the net started to loosen, and then suddenly, the last piece holding him snapped . . .

  And Lucas was falling again!

  “Wahhhhh!” he screamed, his arms and legs flailing. He reached out, but only grabbed air. He reached farther and felt wetness—the crest of a wave—then something hard!

  He was terrified at what it could be. A shark? A piece of debris? The pier, crumbling in the hurricane? But a second later, he was being lifted up and pulled from the water . . .

  Even through his fear, Lucas snorted when he realized what he’d grabbed: one of the objects he knew best in the world.

  A hockey stick!

  Some kid Lucas had never seen before was holding Bond’s stick, dangling it off the edge of the pier, and now Lucas was clinging to it—for his life.

  “Hold on!! HOLD ON, Lucas!” Bond was yelling as she and Mouth Guard wrapped their arms tightly around the kid’s waist.

  Lucas’s equipment was waterlogged—he weighed a ton. But they were determined to reel him in.

  “Uuuuugh!!!” Bond, Mouth Guard, and Sid all groaned together. Then with one big heave, Lucas was up and over the side of the pier.

  “Thank you—uhh-huhhhhh. Bletch. Thank . . . you!” Lucas sputtered as he rolled onto his side and let the water trapped inside his equipment spill out onto the pier. He was out of breath and exhausted, but he was on shore.

  “You . . . okay?” Bond asked, unsure of what they should do next. Take shelter from the storm, probably. But where?

  “That was incredible!” cheered Mouth Guard. He and Sid helped Lucas sit up and then stand, while Edge finally, slowly, brought the boat into the pier. Captain Brannen was still unwilling to take the helm, but at least now he was offering some docking instructions.

  Lucas looked at Bond, at Mouth Guard, and then at the new kid. “You saved my life,” he said, still overwhelmed.

  The boy shrug
ged, embarrassed, and rebuttoned the top of his raincoat. Then with a chuckle, he said, “I’ve done a lot of fishing, but I’ve never reeled in a hockey player before. You okay?”

  Lucas’s cheeks flushed red as the kid reached out his hand.

  “Hi, I’m Sid.”

  Chapter 10

  “There’s no way they’ll let you do it!” Bond was hurrying along beside Sid, gripping her stick and shaking her head. “I mean, really—are you ridiculous? There’s a hurricane!”

  The Chips were following Sid back to his parents’ van, but they knew there wouldn’t be enough room for all of them. Plus, they were wet—especially Lucas, who was still dripping like a lobster freshly pulled from the ocean.

  Sid had told them to follow him anyway—he said he had a plan.

  “They’ll say yes, just watch.” Sid grinned back at Bond. He was talking about running up Citadel Hill—a long, steep mound of grass just a few blocks away. “My mom and dad know I need to warm up before the scrimmage. If I feel good during training, I always feel good on the ice.”

  “What kind of . . . training are we talking about?” asked Edge, whose arms were still sore from steering the boat through the waves.

  “It’s running, Edge,” Mouth Guard said with a friendly smirk. “And it’s just a hill. How tough can it be?”

  Before Swift and Edge stepped off the boat, Sid had asked the Chips what they were doing in the harbour, and Lucas, still dazed, had blabbed that they’d come to Halifax to practise their hockey skills. They were lucky he hadn’t said anything about Scratch or their magical ice surface—or how they’d really ended up in the harbour. Mouth Guard, of course, was ready to talk, too, but Bond had moved fast and clamped her hand over his mouth.

  “You have some serious explaining to do,” she’d whispered to Lucas—her hand still sealing Mouth Guard’s lips.

  That’s when the wind had suddenly lightened and grown warmer. It seemed as though the rain might stop for good. Swift wasn’t sure if this was the calm before the storm—a pause before the wind-whipping, house-destroying hurricane they’d been warned about finally made landfall—or if the storm had already passed over them.