“Wedgie stop!”

Travis Lindsay could not believe his ears. “WEDDD-GEEE stop!”

The big Ford van had been travelling nonstop since the last bathroom break–and Travis had no idea how long ago that had been. He knew only that they had finally turned off that boring four-lane highway and that, far in the distance over the trees, the high green bridge over the St. Lawrence River was now visible. Beyond lay New York State and the road to Lake Placid. Finally.

Travis had fallen asleep as they drove. He’d had the craziest series of dreams, the kind you always have when half asleep and half awake, head bobbing and eyes drifting. He had dreamed he’d finally found his father’s long-lost hockey card collection, the one he searched high and low for, without success, every visit to his grandmother’s old house in the country. He had dreamed he was back in grade six, that he had failed his year, and that he was failing again because someone had stolen all his workbooks from his locker. And he had dreamed he was taking a face-off in the Olympic Center in Lake Placid–the American Stars and Stripes and the Canadian Maple Leaf flying high overhead, the two anthems still echoing in the rafters, in the stands his mother and father, his teachers, his friends from school, NHL scouts, Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr and Gordie Howe, Alexei Yashin and Paul Kariya, Eric Lindros, the “Hockey Night in Canada” crew–and just as the referee held out the puck, Travis looked down at the circle and saw that he had forgotten to put on his skates!

His toes were blue! His feet were wiggling and slipping on the cold ice surface. But no one else had noticed! The referee’s skates dug in, sending ice chips flying. The other centre’s skates kicked in toward the circle, the skate heading toward Travis’s toes with more sharp blades than a Swiss Army knife. NNNNOOOOOOO!…

Travis had woken up in the van shouting, and everyone on the Screech Owls had laughed and slapped at his shoulders and the back of his head. He had refused to tell them what had scared him. Let them think whatever they wanted. It was a ridiculous dream anyway. He’d never forget his skates. Besides, he wasn’t even a centre.

Mr. Dillinger had been driving since they left Tamarack and would be driving until they got there. He would have to–Mr. Dillinger was the only one in the rented twelve-seater van old enough to have a licence. Muck and the assistant coaches, the other parents who were coming, and four of the players were in other cars, some far ahead, some somewhere behind. Travis was secretly pleased that his mother and father had decided not to come, because now he got to travel with the team for once–and delighted, too, that Mr. Dillinger was in charge of the rented van.

Travis looked ahead three seats to where Mr. Dillinger was sitting. He certainly didn’t look like a kid–what kid has curly grey hair, a bald spot, and a potbelly big as a hockey bag?–but he sure did act like one. He had started the trip with a “Stupid Stop,” pulling off and parking by a little variety store and then standing by its entrance handing out two-dollar bills with only one instruction: “Remember, it’s a ‘Stupid Stop.’ I want you to spend every cent of it in one place on something cheap and useless that won’t last.”

Travis had bought a gummy hand that he could flip ahead two seats, past Derek Dillinger, who was reading quietly, and wrap right around the face of his best friend, Wayne Nishikawa. “Nish,” the sickest mind by far on the Screech Owls, had bought a pen with a bathing beauty on it and when you turned the pen upside-down the bathing suit seemed to peel off. But you couldn’t see anything.

Mr. Dillinger had tapes like “Weird Al” Yankovic singing silly songs like “Jurassic Park” and “Bedrock Anthem” and “Young, Dumb & Ugly.” He had licorice, red and black, to hand back, cold pop in the cooler, and comic books–X-Men, Batma, Superman, even a Mad magazine–for them to read. He had pillows packed for anyone who, like Travis, wanted to snooze, and, best of all, he had the most outrageous sense of humour Travis or any of the other kids had ever seen in an adult. Not once had anyone whined, “Are we there yet?”

Mr. Dillinger made the perfect team manager. He even made the best jokes himself about his lack of hair, one time showing up for a tournament with a T-shirt that said, “THAT’S NO BALD SPOT? IT’S A SOLAR PANEL FOR A SEX MACHINE.” He was fun and funny, but serious when it mattered. Because he also served as the team trainer, Mr. Dillinger knew first aid. Nish’s parents believed he had probably saved Nish from being crippled the year before when he crashed head-first into the boards and Mr. Dillinger refused to let the game continue until an ambulance came. They had carried Nish off the ice on a stretcher, treating him like a cracked egg about to spill. Then their ice time ran out and the game had to be called with the score still tied. Some of the other parents–mostly from the other team, but also loud Mr. Brown, Matt’s father–had been yelling for them to get Nish off the ice so the game could continue. The two young referees had looked like they were going to cave in, but Mr. Dillinger had angrily ordered them to clear the ice of players so that no one could slip and fall onto Nish. It turned out that Nish had a hairline fracture of his third vertebrae–almost a broken neck–but thanks to Mr. Dillinger taking charge he hadn’t needed anything more than a neck brace and a couple of months off skates and Nish was right back, better than ever. Nish adored Mr. Dillinger.

Mr. Dillinger organized the car pools, made the telephone calls, printed up the schedules and handed them out and replaced those ones the players lost. He ran the fundraisers–if Travis never saw another bottle drive he’d be happy–and he taped the sticks and sharpened the skates. He sewed the names on the sweaters, washed the sweaters, and even got a local computer company to sponsor the Screech Owls. The computer company had bought the team jackets and hats and redesigned the logo so it looked, Travis and the rest of the team thought, better than most of the NHL crests and almost as good as–Travis thought just as good as–the San Jose Sharks’ and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim’s.

Wedgie stop!

“WEDDD-GEEE stop!”

Mr. Dillinger was still shouting and laughing as he put the big van in park and hopped out onto the shoulder of the road. He ran around to the front of the van, bending over and wiggling so his big belly rippled right through his shirt, and with his hands pulling at the seat of his pants, he pretended to be yanking a huge “wedgie” of bunched-up underwear out of his rear end.

Howling with laughter, the team followed suit, a dozen young players out on the side of the road yanking at their pants to free up their underwear and wiggling their rear ends at the other cars that roared by, the drivers and passengers either staring out as if the Screech Owls should be arrested or else pretending the Screech Owls were not even there, a dozen youngsters at the side of the road, bent over, with a hand on each side of their pants, pulling wedgies.

“All ’board!” Mr. Dillinger hollered as he jumped in the van. The team scrambled back in, Nish and several others laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes.

Mr. Dillinger started up the van, then turned, his face unsmiling, voice as serious as a vice-principal’s.

“The United States of America takes wedgies very seriously,” he announced. “At the border they will ask you where you were born and whether or not you are having any difficulty with your underwear. If they suspect you are having problems, you will be body-searched. If they find any wedgies, you will spend the rest of your life…”

He paused, waiting.

Nish finished for him: “…in prison?”

Mr. Dillinger stared, then smiled: “In Pampers, Nish, in Pampers.”