All eight Screech Owls scrambled up and over the high snowbank at the end of the lot. They lay on their stomachs, watched, and waited.

“I gotta be in by nine,” Fahd warned.

“I’m good till nine-thirty,” said Sarah.

“Nine.”

“Nine-thirty.”

“Nine.”

“Nine.”

“Nine.”

“Midnight.”

Travis turned to his side and looked crossly at Nish, who was beaming from ear to ear. Nish, the Man About Town, who would tell them he and his uncle sometimes enjoyed a good cigar after dinner. Who once maintained he’d driven the car around the block. Who in his imagination would stay up all night long, drinking and smoking and partying, but who would wake up in his Toronto Maple Leafs pyjamas in the morning and expect his mother to bring him in a bowlful of Fruit Loops while he watched the Saturday-morning cartoons.

“In your dreams,” Sarah said.

How late they could all stay mattered. What if this really was the car they were looking for, and what if the driver was going to be curling and drinking until midnight? Would Nish still be on watch for him? Whoever it was who drove this Chevrolet with the new bodywork, he had to come out before the Owls went to bed.

They waited and talked. About the loss to Orillia. About the team. About Data. Strangely, though they couldn’t help thinking about Data, none of them wanted to talk about him for long. Someone would say something about how well he was doing–how he could sit in a wheelchair now and was learning to drive it with his right hand, which he could move a little–but then, just as quickly, someone else would change the subject.

“I signed up for the Mock Disaster,” announced Fahd.

“You are a disaster,” said Nish.

“What is it?” asked Travis.

Fahd told them that Mrs. Wheeler’s class had volunteered to work on an emergency drill the fire department and the hospital were putting on. It was basic training for the ambulance drivers and emergency-room hospital staff. They were going to simulate a bus accident, and some of the kids from school were going to be made up to look like they’d been injured in the wreck.

“I’m doing fake blood and broken bones,” said Fahd. “It’s fantastic!”

“Only you would think so,” said Sarah, clearly relieved she wasn’t in Mrs. Wheeler’s class.

“Look!”

It was Lars’s voice, low and urgent. The Owls shut up immediately and turned flat on their stomachs to peer over the bank. There was a large man moving out among the parked cars, headed in the general direction of the Chevrolet.

“It’s Booker!” hissed Nish.

Booker? It took several moments before the name registered on Travis. Of course, Mr. Booker had once come out to help Muck with the early-season assessments, but he had been so foul-mouthed on the ice Muck had ordered him off and told him to go home. This was minor hockey, Muck told him, not the military.

The hockey association kept Mr. Booker away from coaching, but thought he’d do no harm as a team manager. They’d been wrong. Even in house league he’d been thrown out of games for abusing the referees, and finally he was banned altogether after he grabbed an opposing player by the scruff of the neck and pinned him to the arena wall when the two teams had left the ice. The player had tripped one of Mr. Booker’s players during the game, but as Mr. Lindsay had explained to Travis later that night, tripping is a penalty, holding a kid by his throat against a wall is assault. Mr. Booker’s career in hockey was over.

“He’s heading for it!” hissed Andy.

They watched as Mr. Booker twisted his way through the cars towards the Chevrolet. He was fumbling in his pocket. He dropped something–keys, probably–and swore loudly as he bent to pick them up.

“Charming,” said Sarah.

“He’s drunk,” said Lars.

Mr. Booker came up with the keys and fumbled with them at the door. Soon the interior light of the car came on as the door cracked open and they could see him getting in. He closed the door, started the car, and let the windshield wipers shake off the light dusting of snow that had fallen since he’d arrived. He sat a moment, letting the engine warm the windshield. Then his headlights came on, and they could hear the crunch of tires on the snow as he moved slowly out of the parking lot.

“Where does he live?” said Fahd.

“I don’t have a clue,” said Travis.

“I do,” said Liz. “My mom and Mrs. Booker are friends.”

“Where, then?” said Nish.

“Across from the farm. At the very end of Cedar.”

“Yes!” Travis said.

The quickest route from the curling rink to the end of Cedar Street passed through the intersection where Data had been struck.

Booker would have been going home! Just like this, drunk, from the curling rink!

They had a third clue.