The Ice Chips and the Haunted Hurricane Page 5
As the rain around them changed to a light sprinkle, the other boaters in the harbour had started to relax a bit. They tied off the last of their safety lines, and began to shake out their raincoats and umbrellas. Keeping an eye on the skies, they soon made their way to their cars and the shelter of nearby restaurants. The Chips hadn’t seen Captain Brannen leave, but they guessed he’d probably decided to move his boat farther into the harbour.
“We can all train together, Lucas! It’ll be awesome!” Sid called excitedly as he leaped over a large puddle and landed beside the van. He was pointing up the street, past the arena where he’d be skating in a couple of hours, to where a big white clock tower sat nestled in the side of a grassy mound.
Sid’s dad had one eyebrow raised as he rolled down his rain-spattered window. “It’s nice to finally meet your parents,” he said, looking past his son. The eyebrow was for Mouth Guard and Bond—and the three wet hockey players who were now trailing behind them.
“Oh, yeah, we—” Mouth Guard started to say as the Chips gathered around the van. “They’re . . . uh, not our—”
“We get it. They’re not your parents,” Sid’s mom said, laughing, just as baby Taylor started giggling in the back seat. Then, with a forgiving smile, she added: “We know how teammates feel like family.”
Sid’s parents had no idea that Lucas had fallen overboard—nor had they seen him rescued from the water. It was all so embarrassing. Lucas smiled politely and then looked away, hoping they wouldn’t ask him why he was the wetter than everyone else—or why he smelled so fishy.
Luckily, the new kid had already moved on to the next challenge.
“So I was thinking—can we run up the hill?” Sid asked, leaning in the window and making a funny face at his sister. “There’s time before the skate.”
Edge didn’t want to think about training, and neither did Swift. They wanted to find out how Bond and Mouth Guard had ended up on the pier: where they’d come from and how they’d made it here from Riverton. But with Sid around—this kid who was now on a mission to train with the Chips, thanks to Lucas—they knew those answers would have to wait.
Sid’s dad looked over at his wife, and then they both agreed: the kids could run up the hill, but they’d meet them at the top with the van in case the storm got worse again.
“Yesss! You guys ready?” Sid asked as he spun around and flashed the Chips a giant grin.
“Yeah, I’m in,” cheered Swift, with as much enthusiasm as she could manage. She didn’t want to say anything, but she knew it was possible that the storm wasn’t done with them. At least at top of the hill, I’ll have a better view, she thought.
“Okay, one run,” Lucas agreed reluctantly.
“One run,” Sid echoed. His legs were already twitching.
“But wait—where do we leave our stuff while we’re running?” Bond asked, tapping the end of her stick a little too hard on Lucas’s dripping helmet.
“Throw it in the trunk with mine,” Sid said. “Oh, all except you.” He waved toward Swift, who had her stick tucked under her arm and was wringing the water from her ponytail.
“Me—why?” asked Swift, shaking out her hands, confused.
“It’s a superstition. I know it’s silly—I’m sorry,” Sid said shyly. “I just never put my stick next to a goalie stick—bad luck. But you can put yours in the back beside Taylor—she loves goalies.”
Leave our stuff? Lucas thought, remembering what Crunch had told them: keep the backpack on and RECORD EVERYTHING! He looked meaningfully at Edge, then glanced down at the camera hole in his backpack and back up at Edge again.
“Sure, okay, we’ll run . . .” Edge blurted awkwardly. “But Lucas needs his bag—his backpack is . . . karma-tastical.” His acting, as always, was terrible, and his eyes were shifting around like the ones in a painting in a haunted mansion. “You know . . . superstitions. He needs his pack or he’ll completely lose it!”
How could anyone believe this guy? Lucas wondered, trying not to laugh.
“Yeah, Lucas always has his backpack on when he trains,” Bond said, covering for them—even if she wasn’t sure why. All she knew was that she wanted to hear more of the story . . . and Lucas, Edge, and Swift were the only ones who could tell it.
The Chips tossed the rest of their gear in the trunk. And a moment later, they were racing flat out down the street, leaping over puddles and fallen tree branches, climbing up stairs, and dodging bike racks, as though they were running an urban obstacle course.
“Let’s crush this hill!” Mouth Guard cheered as he grabbed on to a railing and launched himself up a set of concrete steps.
Edge pushed hard with his legs, trying to catch up to Swift, but she was already at the head of the pack—keeping pace with Sid. Behind Edge was Mouth Guard, followed by Lucas and Bond.
“You owe me,” Bond hissed into Lucas’s shoulder as she pumped her arms hard. “After this run, you tell us everything!”
“Higher! Lift your knees HIGHER!”
Lucas was nearly on the ground, he was laughing so hard. Sid was putting the Chips through his regular training routine—running them up the hill and giving them little exercises along the way—but with all the rain that had fallen, it had turned into more of a grass-stained mud run.
“I can’t, I can’t!” Bond protested, laughing as she wiped a muddy hand across her forehead. She was trying to lift her knees to her chest as she jogged, but she kept losing her footing—just like the rest of her teammates.
Swift, an experienced runner, was having the most success, but she, too, was out of breath.
Sid was making polite suggestions as he did the moves along with them, but Edge was repeating every instruction like he was a military drill sergeant.
“Now five twists!” Sid said, giggling because he knew what was coming.
“He said twist!” Edge yelled. “HE SAAAAAAID TWIST!”
The Chips lifted their right legs and twisted them to the left, while twisting their arms to the right. But Mouth Guard slipped on the fourth lift and took out the only leg Lucas was standing on. Lucas tumbled on top of Mouth Guard, making him cry out and sending a spray of mud across the front of Swift’s jersey.
Bond rolled her eyes, but Swift just laughed: they’d taken a leap into the past for some training time, and even in this awful weather, it seemed that was exactly what they were getting!
“Get ready for another sprint! Forget the mud! Forget the weather! SOLDIERS, DO YOU HEAR ME?!” Edge wasn’t even waiting for Sid’s instructions now—but then he, too, burst out laughing.
The scene in front of him was just too funny: Swift was trying to rub the mud off her jersey, but she’d smeared it into a big circle, giving herself a teddy bear tummy; Bond’s forehead mud had worked its way into her hair; Mouth’s pants and socks were covered in grass stains and mud; and Lucas, who was dirty up to his elbows, had so many pieces of grass stuck to the side of his face that it looked like he needed a shave!
Lucas had never laughed so hard. Bond had the biggest smile he’d ever seen. And even through the mud on their faces, Swift and Mouth Guard were beaming.
Their trainer, on the other hand, had barely broken a sweat—and he was perfectly clean!
Sid was laughing, too, but he wanted to get the Chips to the top of the hill, where he said there’d be even more areas for them to train.
“Great!” Bond said sarcastically, working hard to keep up with her taller teammates.
They were exhausted, but none of them seemed able to resist Sid’s calm, friendly voice: “Now ten jumping jacks, one front roll—and we’ll run all the way to the top!”
“AND GET THOSE KNEES UP!” Edge yelled, grinning, as they all took off.
Chapter 11
“Wow—this is awesome!”
Lucas, who was now massaging the cramp under his rib cage, couldn’t believe what the Chips were seeing. None of them could.
At the top of the hill, the grass merged with a gigantic stone wall,
or rampart. There was a long, deep indent behind it—almost a ditch or a waterless moat—and then a second wall with grass on top, making it look like a fortress growing out of the earth.
Edge, who loved anything military, was amazed.
“And this view! It’s so big!” Swift said, turning around in a circle to see how far they’d come. From the top of the hill, they could see the water stretched out in front of them. Through the haze, they could still make out the small island they’d passed in the trawler, the many buildings that made up the harbour, and what Sid said was the Macdonald Bridge—a huge metal structure that reached all the way to another city.
If the storm hits the harbour again—if there’s more of it, Swift thought excitedly, there’s no way we’ll miss it from here.
While a few of the Ice Chips checked out the long black cannons that were peeking out over the wall, Lucas took a moment to get closer to Edge. He knew what Bond was going to ask them: How do we get home? And he had no idea what to tell her . . .
In fact, the moment he’d considered the question, Lucas had shuddered. How were they going to get home from here?
When they’d last leaped through time, Edge, Swift, and Lucas had skated against the wind on an outdoor rink in Saskatchewan, and then—poof!—they’d found themselves back skating on their own ice in Riverton. But there was no rink here—or not one they’d be allowed to use. So how were they supposed to leave the harbour? By swimming?!
“I’ve seen this view before,” Edge said in an exaggerated voice as Lucas got closer. “And the clock tower.”
“Great—anything that can help us. If we can figure out how to—” Lucas started to say, but Edge cut him off.
“It’s in this video my mom loves. The Maritime Bhangra Group—you know those guys? The Sikhs who make viral dance videos where they’re shovelling snow or dancing near the beach? They filmed one here—right here!”
Why is he talking about videos when we could be stuck here with no way home? Lucas wondered, taken aback.
That’s when Swift approached them, her cheeks still rosy after the big run, and whispered out of the side of her mouth: “Shhh! Lucas, we can’t talk now.”
“You came for training, remember?” Edge was now whispering, too, trying to look like he wasn’t talking at all. “This guy is good—really good. Learn from him first . . . then we’ll worry about everything else.”
“What is this place?” Bond asked Sid, marvelling at how the entire structure seemed to be built in the shape of a star—all long walls and pointy corners.
“A pirate hideout?” guessed Mouth Guard. “A secret spy camp? An alien base?”
Sid was grinning as he walked the Chips over to an opening in the wall, where a soldier in a red jacket, a fluffy black hat, and a Scottish kilt was standing stone-faced and ignoring them.
“This is the Citadel,” Sid said proudly as he led the kids through a stone archway, over a bridge that crossed the ditch, and into a wide, funny-shaped courtyard.
“This must be a tough day to be a guard,” Edge said, impressed. “You have to keep a straight face no matter what—can’t even complain about the horrible weather!”
“Okay, but what’s a citadel for?” Mouth Guard asked, looking at the three-storey stone buildings that now stood in front of them.
“It’s a fort that was built to protect the city—built by the British more than two hundred years ago. It’s been rebuilt four times, and this last one was finished in 1856,” Sid said, smiling like a tour guide. “In Halifax, this is almost sacred ground.” With a mischievous grin, he added: “It’s also one of our best training facilities.”
“You train inside the Citadel, too?” Lucas asked between quiet gulps of air. He was still puffing from the hill but trying to hide it.
“Sure,” Sid said with a friendly smirk, motioning toward the many stone staircases along the walls of the courtyard.
“So—who likes stairs?!”
The Ice Chips were doubled over, puffing and coughing, by the time they saw the soldier from the gate leading a small group of wet visitors across the courtyard. He was waving his arm, telling the tour group to follow him toward a building without even saying a word.
A half hour earlier, Sid had bet the Chips that they wouldn’t be able to run all of the stairs with him—up one set and down another until they’d made their way around the entire courtyard.
Lucas had done his best, but he’d found it a tough grind. He was hardly alone. Sid had raced up and down the uneven steps like he was flying—dancing sideways on the way up, sometimes taking two steps at a time, and then jumping down again, three at a time.
Edge was shocked that none of the park employees they’d passed—all dressed in period costumes—had burst out laughing as the group of dirty, heavy-breathing kids ran by. Of course, with the rain and the wind, they were probably all busy trying to keep warm!
That wasn’t a problem for the Ice Chips. By the end of their circuit, they were pouring with sweat. Their legs stung. Their butts hurt. Their feet were sore from jumping. Their brains were still spinning from making sure every step and jump landed perfectly on the hundreds of uneven steps.
Finally, Sid had stopped running and sagged, catching his breath. The Ice Chips caught up and did the same. All anyone could hear was the loud gasping for breath; all six kids had their hands on their knees and were sucking air back into their lungs as if they’d spent the last ten minutes under water.
Then Sid saw the soldier with the tour group and had another idea . . .
With the mud slowly drying on their equipment, the Chips watched as he ran over to his parents for a moment and then quietly tucked himself into the back of the visitors’ group, signalling for the other kids to join him.
“Is this part of the training?” Swift asked once she stood shoulder to shoulder with Sid, her lungs still burning. “Do they put you in jail and you have to dig your way out?”
“You’d be surprised,” Sid whispered. “This is a little different . . . but it will definitely get your hearts racing!”
The door of the building had just opened and a man dressed in black with a swinging lantern was now calling them all inside.
“I must warn you,” the shadowy guide whispered as he led the tour group into a small, dark room, “this is a ghost tour, but the stories you are about to hear actually happened . . . here, in this citadel. Ask any of our employees—especially the ones who work the night shifts.” He had a deadly serious look on his face, but Lucas could tell the guide was enjoying this. “Oh, and if you hear the windows rattling a little more than usual today, it could be the hurricane, or it could be . . . well, something else . . .”
Lucas shivered. Edge felt chills. And Bond decided she wasn’t letting Sid out of her sight.
“Follow me,” the man with the lantern said as he turned and walked deeper into the darkness. “Careful not to fall too far behind.”
The tour group walked up and down many stairs, through narrow doorways and dark halls, listening to tales of how the fort was built, how it had never actually come under attack, and how it was haunted.
“One of our resident ghosts is the Grey Lady,” the guide said. “We used to have a worker who sat in a chair right over there, and one day, this woman in a flowing white dress came in, sobbing. When the worker stood up to greet her, she just vanished”—the guide snapped his fingers loudly—“and after that . . . well, every time he sat in that same chair, he swore he could smell her perfume.”
Lucas’s heartbeat quickened and his palms started to sweat.
“Sometimes workers think they hear the Grey Lady moving in the halls above them,” the guide continued, swinging his lantern around the dark room, “or walking, very slowly, up and down the steps of one of our hidden staircases.”
Sid was giggling. He’d probably heard these stories a dozen times. “Come on,” he whispered to the five Ice Chips as the tour moved down another hallway. “Let’s get some more training in.”
Chapter 12
There was definitely more. Lots more.
“Sid’s amazing!”
“He is!”
The kids had just spilled back out into the mist-filled courtyard, and already Sid had them moving again.
“He’s like a machine!” Lucas said under his breath as he fell in with the group. First was a lunge with the right leg, then a lunge with the left, and then ten very slow squats.
“You’re killing us!” said Swift, laughing.
He must know the coaches will pick him—or put him on their lists, thought Lucas. That’s how Sid can keep going, keep training so hard.
He probably doesn’t even bite his nails.
“Who can go the lowest?” Sid asked with a friendly smirk before looking around for their next challenge.
“He’d better not be looking at those stairs,” Bond moaned as she went too low and tipped over onto the wet ground.
“You know,” Sid’s mom said, grinning as she approached the little exercise group, “maybe you should try on some of the dress-up clothes they have here. The soldier ones. Warm up a bit.”
“Yeah, get into something dry for a few minutes!” Sid’s dad chuckled as Taylor bounced along in his arms, smiling at Swift.
But Sid had already taken off running, with Mouth Guard following close behind.
When Sid returned a moment later, his arms were piled high with red, white, and black material.
“Un-be-lievable!” Edge shouted excitedly.
Sid’s arms were loaded up with enough uniforms to dress an entire army (or a hockey team!): shirts, kilts, red Highland coats, socks, boots, and little bonnets bearing a brass badge for the 78th Highlanders.
“Thank you!” Bond and Swift yelled, each pulling on a coat and a pair of socks. The wind was starting to pick up again—and they needed to stay warm!