The X-ray escapade was the talk of the Screech Owls’ dressing room as the team prepared to meet the powerful Boston Mini-Bruins. Some of the Owls laughed so hard they had tears in their eyes. Nish, of course, was convinced his tricking the others to pay a dollar each for a look erased the trick the joke store had played on him when he bought the glasses.

“No way anyone’s going to make a fool out of Wayne Nishikawa,” he announced as he began lacing up his skates.

“Is that right?” Sarah said, fumbling in the side pocket of her equipment bag.

“That is correct,” Nish grandly announced.

Sarah pulled out the Polaroid snapshot Data had taken in the lineup for the Tower of Terror.

“What’s this, then?” she asked no one in particular.

Nish looked up from tightening his left skate. His jaw dropped as he realized what he was looking at: a glorious photograph of the bird poop he had worn on the ride.

“Where’d you get that?” he demanded, the smile gone from his gaping mouth.

“Oh,” teased Sarah, “let’s just say a little birdie gave it to me.”

“You better hand that over!” Nish said, standing up and falling at the same time, as his untied skates gave way.

Everyone in the dressing room again started howling with laughter. Nish scrambled back to his feet and began advancing across the room toward Sarah, who was quickly stuffng the photograph away.

“You’re the big deal-maker,” she said. “I’ll make a deal with you, okay?”

“I’m not paying anything for that.”

“No money,” she said. “You take us to the championship, the evidence is yours to destroy.”

Nish stopped halfway. He mulled it over a moment, then stared fiercely at Sarah. She had him; Nish couldn’t resist a challenge.

“Agreed,” he said.

 

 

Too bad they didn’t have a few more embarrassing pictures of Nish, Travis thought halfway through the opening period.

The Boston Mini-Bruins had been a force. They had worried the Owls during the warm-up–no fog this time–with their size and shots, and Travis had worried himself when he failed to hit the crossbar on any of his pre-game shots.

The Mini-Bruins had taken an early two-goal lead, scoring first on a fluke breakaway that Jesse Highboy gave them when he tried a drop pass, and then on a point shot that went in between Jenny Staples’ pads.

Muck had not been amused. He had warned them about the good teams from the Boston area. He had reminded them that many of the best players in the National Hockey League–Brian Leetch, for instance–were coming out of programs similar to that of the Mini-Bruins. “You’ll probably be playing against some future NHLers,” Muck had said.

And yet, if someone had walked into the Lakeland arena this hot March morning and been asked to point out the two peewee hockey players most likely to reach the NHL, they would have pointed to the Owls’ top centre, Sarah Cuthbertson, and the big kid on defence, Wayne Nishikawa. Sarah’s deal with Nish was working wonders. He was playing a magnificent game–blocking shots, completing long breakaway passes to Dmitri and Travis, playing the point perfectly, and carrying the puck, for once, at exactly the right time.

How to figure out Nish? To Travis, Nish was his best friend as well as the silliest kid he knew. He was a lazy hockey player one game, the hardest worker the next. This, fortunately, was one of those good times for Nish. He got the Owls back into the game on a brilliant move when he jumped unexpectedly into the play. Sarah had taken the puck up ice and had curled off toward the right corner. Travis knew this was his signal to rush the net, and he raced in, fully expecting her pass. Instead, Sarah threw a saucer pass out into what seemed like nowhere. The puck flew lightly through the air, over the outstretched stick of her checker, and landed flat, perfectly, in open ice, where Nish, racing up past the Mini-Bruins’ backcheckers, gobbled it up on his stick, deked once, and, using a surprised defenceman as a screen, roofed a hard shot the goaltender never even saw. Two minutes later, Nish fed Sarah a perfect breakaway pass that tied the game at two goals apiece.

How, Travis wondered, could Sarah and Nish seem such a natural mix on the ice and so different off the ice? When they weren’t playing hockey, they were often at each other’s throats, Nish baiting Sarah with his big mouth, Sarah refusing to allow him to get away with any of his nonsense. But watching them play this game, watching the way Nish jumped into Sarah’s outstretched arms after she had tied the game, Travis had to wonder if, in fact, Sarah and Nish were actually quite fond of each other.

The game remained tied right into the final minutes, Jenny Staples brilliant in the Owls’ goal, the Mini-Bruins’ goaltender spectacular in his end, stopping first Dmitri and then Travis on clear breakaways.

With less than a minute to go, Nish broke out of his own end and hit Dmitri with a hard, accurate pass as Dmitri cut across centre, Travis criss-crossing with him so they could change wings.

Travis loved this play. There was nothing he liked better than coming in on his off-wing, a left-hand shot on the right side, perfect for one-timers into the corner, where he turned, looking for a passing play. He saw Travis and fired the puck across, Travis one-timing it perfectly off the crossbar!

A Mini-Bruins defenceman knocked the puck down, turned, and fired it high to get it out of the Mini-Bruins’ end. Travis turned fast, just in time to see Nish floating through the air like a basketball player about to dunk a ball, only Nish had his glove held high and had somehow snared the puck just before it made it across the blueline. The linesman signalled the play was onside.

Nish dropped the puck even before his own skates touched the ice again. The defenceman who had shot the puck was down to block it, sliding on his side toward Nish.

Nish poked the puck and hopped again, this time right over the sliding defender, the puck squeezing through under his knees, the only space large enough.

Nish was in alone.

The Mini-Bruins’ goaltender charged to cut off the angle. Nish deked once and sent a perfect backhand to Travis, who had an unexpected second chance–except this time the net was empty. He made no mistake, the puck bulging the twine in the centre of the net.

The Owls had won!

“I’ll take my picture now,” Nish announced after the cheering and back-slapping and high-fiving had died down in the Owls’ dressing room. Even Muck had come to shake Nish’s hand, while shaking his own head at the same time. Travis figured Muck was as baffed as he was by Nish’s erratic bursts of brilliance.

“This just gets us into the championship game,” Sarah said. “You still have to win it.”

“Aw, come on!”

“That was the deal, okay?” Sarah said.

“No fair!” Nish said, slamming his gloves and helmet into his equipment bag. He slumped in his seat, exhausted.

Sarah looked up from her skates, and smiled. “Nice game, though,” she said.