Travis Lindsay had two dreams that kept coming back to him, time and time again. In the first, he was at his grandparents’ cottage and something had happened to the water. He would wake in the morning and the lake would be entirely dry but for the odd pool of water and a lot of slippery mud, as if somebody had pulled out a big rubber bathtub plug in the middle of the lake. Instead of snorkelling around the surface with his rubber flippers and mask, he was now able to roam the lake bottom on foot, collecting lost lures and finding out, for once, just how big the trout were.
Travis’s second dream was about winter vanishing. In Travis’s home town, there came a time every late February or early March, when, suddenly, everyone grew sick and tired of winter–even young hockey players like Travis and the rest of the Screech Owls. You got up one morning and, instead of looking forward to practice or a tournament on the weekend, you started looking forward to spring: the first robin, the first sound of flowing water, the first smell of earth wafting up through the snow, the first day you could run out of the house without a winter jacket and boots.
In the dream where winter went away, it always happened instantly. Travis would wake up–at least he’d dream he had woken up–and there would be birds in the trees and the smell of manure being spread in the farm fields at the edge of town, and Wayne Nishikawa, Nish, would be firing pebbles at his window and shouting for him to come out and play.
This time, however, Travis’s end-of-winter dream was different. It was really happening! And not just to Travis, but to Nish–snoring away in the seat beside him–and Data, up a row, and Lars, Jenny, Dmitri, Andy, Gordie, Jesse, Derek, Willie, Jeremy, even Sarah Cuthbertson, two seats back and playing hearts with Wilson and Fahd and the Owls’ newest player, Simon Milliken. Simon was the smallest player on the team–smaller even than Travis, who was finally going through a growth spurt–and was a bit puck-shy. Nish had pounced on Simon’s weakness, tagging him with a dreadful nickname–“Chicken Milliken”–that had, unfortunately, stuck. Fortunately, Nish was sound asleep; otherwise he might have been hounding poor Simon at this very moment.
The Screech Owls filled a school bus, each player allotted an entire seat to him or herself so they could all stretch out and sleep. Even old Muck was on board, in the front seat, the big coach so deep in a thick book that Travis wondered if he even realized they had left Canada and were almost halfway to Florida. Halfway to summer! Halfway to Disney World!
With Mr. Dillinger, the team manager, driving, the Owls had left for Florida at the beginning of the March school break. And though Travis knew it was still March on the calendar, it sure didn’t feel like it. Every few hours it seemed like a whole month had passed. Winter was peeling away. They could now see grass in the fields!
Behind the rented school bus–slow, noisy, and uncomfortable, but cheap, Muck said–there were parents’ cars and Mr. and Mrs. Cuthbertson’s Winnebago, and the two assistant coaches, Barry and Ty, in the rented van filled to the brim with hockey and camping equipment. Camping, Muck had argued, was another way to save them money.
They were off to the Spring Break Tournament, Peewee Division II, with games in Orlando and Lakeland, Florida, with special three-day passes to Disney World and–if they made it to the finals–a chance to play for the championship in the magnificent Ice Palace, home rink of the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning.
“Stupid stop!” Mr. Dillinger called from the front of the bus.
“STUUU-PIDDD STOP!”
All around Travis there was stirring and cheering and even a bit of applause. They’d been waiting for this moment. A trip wasn’t a hockey trip unless Mr. Dillinger pulled off for one of his famous “Stupid Stops.”
Mr. Dillinger, his bald spot bouncing, hauled on the steering wheel and the bus turned sharply into an exit for something called “South of the Border”–a huge restaurant and shopping stop on Interstate 95.
Mr. Dillinger stood at the door as they got off the bus. He had a huge roll of American money in his hands.
“You know what a per diem is?” he asked as the first Owl–Nish, naturally–stumbled down the steps and out into the warm air and surprising sun of the parking lot.
“Huh?”
Mr. Dillinger was enjoying himself. “In the NHL,” he announced grandly as the rest of the team emerged, blinking in the bright light, “every player gets so much money each day–that’s what per diem means, Nish, each day–when they’re on the road. They can do what they wish with the cash. Whatever they want.”
“How much?” Nish wanted to know.
Mr. Dillinger scowled at him, half kidding. “Fifty-five dollars,” he said.
“Allll-righhhtttt!” Nish said, high-fiving Data, who was standing beside him.
“You’re not in the NHL yet, son–but there’s a five-dollar bill here for every player who’s made the Screech Owls.”
“Allll-righhhtttt!” several of the Owls shouted at once.
They lined up and Mr. Dillinger, making a great show of it all, peeled off a bill for each player in turn.
“We can do anything we want with this–right?” Travis said, as he reached for the bill Mr. Dillinger was holding toward him.
“No, you cannot,” Mr. Dillinger said, looking shocked. “You do anything sensible with it–you save it, for example, or put it in a bank, or fail to spend it absolutely foolishly all at once–and we will send you home for being too responsible and mature to be a member of the Screech Owls hockey club.
“Now get in there and throw it away–on something stupid!”
It took Nish about thirty seconds to find the joke’s centre. He was determined to follow the instructions to the letter. Mr. Dillinger wanted stupid, Nish was going to be stupid.
He talked Data into spending money on some hot gum. He talked Wilson into buying something called Play Sick, which looked, sort of, as if someone had thrown up and the mess had instantly turned to rubber. But Nish wasn’t satisfied; he went off in search of more useless stuff, leaving Data and Wilson to fork out their five dollars for things they would never have purchased if Nish had left them alone.
Travis stood looking at a joke display. A hand buzzer. A letter that snapped like a mousetrap when you pulled it out of the envelope. A Chinese finger-trap. A card trick. He didn’t think there was anything he wanted.
Suddenly Nish was at his side, hissing, “Gimme your five bucks!”
“What?”
“I need your stupid money, stupid.”
“What for?”
Nish just looked at Travis, shaking his head. “C’mere!”
With one hand holding Travis’s sleeve, Nish led his friend down an aisle toward a shelf at the back, where he reached up and plucked down something that didn’t look the least bit interesting.
“You want to buy a pair of glasses?” Travis asked. What was wrong with Nish? This was hardly stupid.
“They’re not just glasses,” Nish hissed, holding them out like they were made of diamonds. “They’re X-ray glasses!”
“What?”
“X-ray. You know, see right through things. See right through things like bathing suits. You get what I mean?”
“You’re sick.”
“I’m not sick–I’m short five bucks. Are you in?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Dead serious. Now gimme your fiver!”
Travis reached in his pocket and took out his five-dollar bill. He knew better, but he handed it over anyway. Nish snatched it, giggling, and hurried off to the cash register.
What the heck, Travis told himself. Mr. Dillinger had said don’t come back if you don’t throw the money away on something absolutely useless and ridiculous.
And who better to show how it’s done than Wayne Nishikawa, the King of the Stupid Stop?