He ran through the puddle. The water splashed his ankles and made his saggy track pants a little heavier. Rocket wiped his eyes with his sleeve, jumped down off the curb and crossed the road to the park.
Other than the occasional delivery truck and the odd early riser, the streets were deserted. Although at six in the morning he didn’t expect much action. The path around the park was muddy from the rain, so he shifted over and ran through the trees. The sloshing sound as his feet slogged through the soft turf was comforting; it was almost like having a running buddy. Three laps and he’d be done. He found it a struggle to breathe in the damp, cool air. He needed to push through it, though.
Had his fitness been the difference at the Huskies tryout? When you were his size, you needed to be the fittest guy on the ice.
Rocket slipped between two evergreen trees. Water from the branches fell onto him. This was no fun. He saw his apartment building and longed to go back and slide into bed for another hour before he had to get up for school. Instead, he put his head down and rounded the corner. He’d promised himself he’d run to the library and back, then do three laps in the park, so that’s what he was going to do. He trudged along and finished his second lap. That cheered his spirits and he picked up the pace, pretending it was late in the third period and it was up to him to win it for the Huskies.
He checked himself. The Huskies weren’t his team anymore.
“Hey, Marathon Man. You’re wet. Trust me.”
He waved at Maddy and held up his finger to show her he had one more lap. Then he began sprinting full out.
At the end, he blasted between the evergreens, slid on two feet and stopped in front of Maddy, throwing in some jazz hands.
“If hockey doesn’t work out you can always fall back on your mud-boy dancing act,” she said.
“It’s more a hobby than a passion,” he said, his hands falling to his sides. He was tired.
“You in the NHL yet?”
“Soon,” he said.
They walked back to the building. He liked running early, before all the cars and people showed up and things got noisy. Somehow the streets and buildings weren’t so ugly and grey in the morning.
“I forgot to tell you,” he said. “I got some major news—”
“I heard already,” Maddy interrupted. “You memorized your phone number. You’re such a clever boy, aren’t you?”
“I forgive you for being sarcastic, because I know you’re only covering up your insecurities.” He grinned and gave her a little shove.
She held her arms out. “And the news is?”
“Guess.”
“Bryan, you’re so lame.”
“C’mon. Guess. I’ll give you a clue. It’s about Grady.” Maddy looked surprised.
He waited.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Okay, fine. I’ll tell you,” he said. “I did a search on Grady’s name. He told me he’d played for Springfield, which used to be a famous hockey team in the American Hockey League. And he did! There was a Grady Graham who played for Springfield about twenty-three years ago. He didn’t play for Eddie Shore, but he really did play professional hockey.”
“Get out of here!” Maddy shrieked. “No way it’s him — and who’s Eddie Shore?”
“Tsk, tsk. How can you not know Hall-of-Famer Eddie Shore? The Bruins retired his number. He played from the 1920s to the 1940s, and then he bought the Springfield Indians and coached for years. He was dead before Grady played.”
“How do you know it was our Grady?”
“I saw the team picture. I can’t believe how much he’s changed, but you can still tell. They called him the G-Man, I guess because of his initials. He was pretty good, too. Got lots of penalty minutes, but in his last year he scored twenty-seven goals, which isn’t bad for a tough guy.”
“What happened to him?”
“I read an article from back then that said he got hurt. I guess old Grady was telling the truth when he said he’d wrecked his knee.” Rocket kicked a pop can to her.
She dribbled it a couple of steps and kicked it back. “Weird story.”
“It is,” Rocket agreed. He kicked the can ahead. “So, you coming over tonight?”
She eyed him closely, then sighed. “You’ve forgotten already.”
“Huh?”
“The tryout? Griffen’s all freaked out because your mom’s borrowing his precious car.”
Rocket crunched the can. “I haven’t decided to go.”
“Because?”
He shrugged.
Grady was sitting by the doors, slumped against the wall, his head bobbing up and down.
“Yo, Grady, I read about your hockey career at Springfield. Major props,” Rocket said.
Grady groaned and buried his head into his chest.
“Grady?” Rocket said.
Maddy pulled on his arm and pressed her finger to her lips. They walked past him and into the lobby.
“That’s about the worst I’ve seen him,” Rocket said.
“It’s that new bar that’s opened around the corner, The Grove. Guys go out back to the laneway to smoke, and Grady gets drinks from them. That place is bad news,” she said.
“This neighbourhood is bad news,” he said.
“Yeah, well … at least it’s ours.” She pushed the elevator button. “Thanks for helping me deliver my papers, by the way.”
“Seriously? I have to stretch, do my push-ups and sit-ups, and then get ready for school.”
She rolled her eyes. “Really?”
“The Huskies did me a favour; it was a wake-up call. I’m going to get stronger, go harder on the puck, fill the net with pucks and show them they made a mistake. I’ll make them take me back.”
“Why play for them after what they did?”
The elevator opened. They stepped in, and she hit the button for the second floor.
“The Huskies are the best.” Rocket shrugged. “Scouts look at the players on the best teams. It’s as simple as that.”
“But … since you can’t play for the Huskies, who are you going to play for?”
“I … That’s the part of the plan I haven’t figured out.”
“Then?”
“I don’t know!” he yelled, and kicked the elevator door with the side of his foot. “Everyone keeps asking me who I’m going to play for. What am I supposed to say? That all the AAA teams stiffed me and that I’m trying out for some lame AA club called Bowmont? The rest of this year, and next, is going to be a nightmare.”
“Hockey players are hard to take sometimes,” Maddy said. The doors opened and they walked out. A pile of newspapers was stacked on a trolley.
“What does that mean?”
“There are some AAA guys at my school; they’re all puffed up and they wear their jackets all the time. They act like they’re in the NHL already,” she said.
“So I’m puffed up?” Rocket felt himself getting mad. Of course guys wore their hockey jackets to school. He did.
“You put other guys down all the time if they’re not playing AAA or if they’re not on the Huskies — like how good people are at hockey is the only thing that matters. How do you know what Bowmont’s going to be like? Maybe they’re going to be better this year. You haven’t even seen them play — and you haven’t made the team, by the way.”
“Is this you cheering me up?”
“This is me telling you to stop whining about the stupid Huskies and get on a team and play already or I’m going to kill you.” She was red in the face and her fists were clenched. For a second he thought she was actually going to hit him.
They stood looking at each other. Rocket wanted so badly to yell something back, to tell her that she didn’t get it. Except she did get it; she always did. He had been a stuck-up AAA player, but he couldn’t be anymore. Not if he wanted to play hockey.
Maddy’s fists slowly unclenched. “I know you’re mad and embarrassed and seriously pissed. But aren’t you the guy who told me the game is won by the team that wants it the most? This is your third period. If you really want to make it, so what if a bunch of puffed up AAAers at your school start making fun of you? Forget them. Does the Rocket quit that easily?”
He shook his head. Then he reached for one of the papers.
“I want you to know that I’m only going to help you deliver your stupid papers because you’re too useless to do it yourself,” he said. “Also, you can’t kill me — I’m your only friend. And, just for you, I’ll go to the stupid tryout.” He grinned and looked down at the paper in his hand. “Do people still read these? Why don’t they download them like normal people?”
“You got doors 201, 202, 207, 208, 211 and 214.”
“You can count on me.”
“I know I can.” She said it very seriously.
Rocket began to put the papers in front of the doors.
“I forgot to ask. What did Ty and Adam do when you got cut?” she called out.
He threw a paper in front of apartment 214. “Nothing. What could they do?”
“Speak to the coach. Get you back on the team. Do something? Aren’t they your best friends?”
“Yeah. But it doesn’t work that way.”
Maddy pulled the trolley to the elevator and pressed the button. The doors opened right away and she pushed it in. They rose to the third floor. “Thanks for helping,” she said, “and you got 301, 302, 303 and 306.” The doors opened. “Now get to work.”
Rocket went to the end of the hall. He’d been struggling over the decision to go to the Bowmont tryout for two days, and she got him to agree to go in two minutes! She was wrong about school, though. It wasn’t going to be easy to ignore what the guys would say — not when he’d been known as the Rocket: the big shot hockey player with the Huskies jacket. When they found out he was playing for the worst team in AA, that whole image was going to backfire on him.
“Hurry up. Papers don’t deliver themselves — and there’s a Crunchie bar in it for you,” Maddy said.
“Can’t do a Crunchie. Got a tryout tonight,” Rocket said.