Travis woke with the sun on his face. He lay blinking for a while, then shifted out of the direct light of the window and lay for a while longer staring at the beam of light that seemed somehow solid and filled with hundreds of tiny, floating dust particles.
He had no idea what, if anything, could have stirred the particles up. The boys had settled down shortly after Nish gave up trying to figure out how he could re-wire the television so he could finally see an adult film–“I gotta get some tools,” he kept saying, “gotta get some tools”–and all had fallen asleep quickly. Travis had even managed to be last into the bathroom, which allowed him to “forget” to turn off the light again.
There was sound in the hall. People were talking, laughing, excited. But Travis couldn’t make it out. Nish rolled over, grunting, and pulled a sheet up over his head, uncovering his body. His feet wiggled for blanket warmth but could find none. He sat up.
“Wazzat?” Nish asked.
Travis’s mom had often told him at breakfast his eyes were still full of sleep. But Nish’s whole face was still full of sleep, as twisted as the sheets, one eye stretching open and the other stuck shut, as if he had Scotch-taped himself to sleep rather than dozed off quietly the way Travis and Wilson and Data had. Nish’s stuck eye popped open so suddenly Travis expected to hear a snapping sound.
“Who’s making all the noise in the hall?” Nish wanted to know.
“They woke me up!” Data called, as he, too, sat up blinking. “jIyajbe’!” (“I don’t understand.”)
“Let’s get dressed and go see,” Travis suggested.
It was worth getting up for; even Wilson made it in time. The recreation area downstairs was filling with guests, some of the younger ones still in pyjamas, all talking and pointing, some laughing and some very much upset. There were workers with pails and towels standing around the far corner of the pool where the Jacuzzi was completely hidden behind a huge, still growing cloud of soap bubbles. The bubbles were spreading onto the pool and beginning to drift across the water. The workers were trying to find the control button amid the suds so they could turn off the hot tub and stop the swirling that was only making more and more bubbles. They were not having much luck.
Norbert Philpott came running to tell the four roommates what was happening as they arrived. “Someone dumped laundry detergent into the Jacuzzi!” Norbert shouted. He had his father’s Camcorder.
There were men in business suits running around and looking very annoyed. Several women with gold hotel badges stared at the youngsters from the hockey teams as if they’d all been in on it. The Screech Owls were one of four teams booked in the hotel. Several members of one of the teams–the Portland Panthers, Travis knew, since two of the kids had Panthers T-shirts on–were laughing and pointing, much to the fury of one of the hotel women who was scowling directly at them.
One of the workers emerged from the bubbles with three opened soap boxes, the tiny ones from the machine in the laundry room, and held them out to some of the others as evidence.
“I bet they washed off their prints,” Nish said, giggling.
But none of the adults was laughing. The men in suits and one woman with a hotel badge were huddled with Muck and three other men in sweatsuits–coaches’ uniforms–and all were talking very quietly, very seriously. Muck was shaking his head.
“He’ll think it’s me,” said Nish.
“Was it?” Travis asked.
“Up yours.”
Muck called the Screech Owls to the Adirondack Room for 9:30 a.m. Everyone knew what it was about. Everyone also knew that the soap storm had been caused by someone else, not one of them. Another team, perhaps. An angry hotel employee. But not the Screech Owls.
Having nothing better to do, Travis and Nish showed up early, and at the top of the escalator on the way to the Adirondack Room, they came across a tearful Sarah Cuthbertson and Sareen Goupa being led into a corner by Muck and Mrs. Cuthbertson. Sarah’s mother seemed very distraught.
The two girls had dark circles around their red eyes and looked as if they had been crying. Could it be that they had soaped the Jacuzzi? Sarah? Sareen? Nish and Travis could not believe it. The girls never goofed around. The idea of either of them even thinking of such a thing, let alone carrying it off, was too mind-boggling to consider. But why the tears? Why were they so upset?
The boys soon found out.
When everyone got into the room, Muck called order. Mr. Dillinger, looking just as serious as Muck, shut the big doors and the place fell eerily silent, everyone waiting for Muck to speak. He seemed to start and catch himself several times, unsure of what to say.
“First off, I don’t believe it was any of our team, all right?”
“Couldn’t be,” Mr. Dillinger said from behind the gathering.
“I don’t have to tell the Screech Owls how to behave. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a hotel, a motel, or you’re being billeted with families, you treat where you are like it’s your own home. Understand?”
No one had to answer. They had heard this line from Muck since the first time they’d headed out of town for a tournament.
“I don’t know who did that stupid prank and I don’t much care. I know it wasn’t anyone in this room. But that being said, you have to understand you’re all under suspicion because I would doubt very much that those responsible are about to own up.
“I have been informed by the manager that one more incident and every one of the teams booked in here is out, no matter who’s responsible. Out in the streets.
“You understand the seriousness of the situation. It doesn’t matter if any of us did it or not, we do one slightly foolish thing and we may as well have done it. So be on your very best behaviour from here on out.”
There were mumbles of agreement from around the room. Travis was confused. None of this explained why Sarah and Sareen had been crying. It wasn’t as if they had planned to spend the day in the Jacuzzi.
“We’ve got a bigger problem than that on this team,” Muck said. He looked over at Sarah and Sareen, who were standing with Mrs. Cuthbertson, their heads down and backs slightly turned so no one would see their red eyes.
“These two young women say they were awake all night long. Pizza deliveries coming to the wrong door, banging on the walls, someone partying half the night.”
Travis thought he saw Muck’s gaze flicker sharply toward the back of the room. Travis turned. Mr. Brown and some of the other men stood there. Mr. Brown’s face was red. His eyes looked little better than Sarah’s. But not from crying.
“We’re here to play in a hockey tournament. We’re not here on vacation and we are most assuredly not here to keep young players up all night long when they need their sleep. I’d like a little more co-operation. Understand?”
Travis walked down the hill to the rink with Nish, Derek, Data, Willie, Sarah, and Sareen. The girls said they were in the south wing with parents on all sides of them; all the boys were in the west wing of the hotel, with the coaches at the end of the hall. Sarah thought there had been several parties going on, but the only parent’s voice she recognized was, of course, Mr. Brown’s.
“But it wasn’t only him,” Sareen said.
“The pizzas were worse,” Sarah said. “They came three times. The last one was at 4:30 in the morning! And it wasn’t Mr. Brown who ordered them. We could hear him yelling at the poor guy when he went to his door.”
Maybe the yelling was part of it, Travis thought. Maybe Mr. Brown was getting back at Sarah for going to Muck about the bribes.
And maybe it was nothing but too much noise. It had happened before at other tournaments. But usually it was other teams’ parents. The Screech Owls’ parents were generally pretty quiet–for hockey parents.
Travis’s group arrived at the Olympic Center at the same time as the Portland Panthers, who had come down the big hill in their very own bus–no rental for them, it even had the team name and colours painted on the side.
The Panthers’ coaches and managers were dumping the equipment out onto pull carts to take into the arena. The bags all matched and sported the team logo, and each had a number on it that would match a sweater and a player. Just like the NHL. The coaches and managers wore matching blue track suits with “Panthers” in bold yellow lettering across the back. They, and all the team, had blue caps with similar lettering. They looked almost professional.
Travis always felt funny running into the players from another team. He was always amazed at how big and tough the other team seemed, always bigger, always tougher, always seeming more cocky, more sure of themselves than Travis’s team. He wondered if perhaps the Screech Owls appeared the same way to the Panthers. But since he knew the Owls so well, had seen most of them cry at some time, afraid at others, he didn’t see how that could be possible. How could the Screech Owls scare another team?
The Screech Owls dressed quickly, quietly, efficiently. Travis adored these moments before a big game, the way zippers sounded coming undone on bags, the way some of the players could rip shin-pad tape around their pads so quickly and loudly that it sounded like a dirt bike was coming right through the wall. He liked the sound of Mr. Dillinger filling water bottles, the sound of old tape coming off a stick and new tape going on.
Travis divided players into two groups: those who taped from the tip of the blade to the heel, and those who began at the heel and worked to the tip. Those who began at the heel, he believed, were sloppier and did bad jobs. Travis himself would never use a stick that had been taped heel to tip.
Mr. Dillinger taped tip to heel, the right way, and sticks taped by him were perfectly smooth, each wrap perfectly overlapping the next. Still, Travis preferred to do his own sticks, even if they didn’t look quite as good.
Mr. Dillinger wasn’t whistling. He wasn’t joking. Perhaps he was upset about what had happened to Sarah and Sareen. Perhaps it was just that he knew how important this first match would be against the powerful Panthers. He came into the room with a pair of newly sharpened skates in each hand, one pair for his son, Derek, the other for Dmitri, who had a thing about freshly sharpened skates. Dmitri had to have them done immediately before a game. If his skates had been sharpened the day before–even if they hadn’t been used since–he would ask for a fresh sharp. And Travis thought his own thing about ringing a shot off the crossbar during the warm-up was weird.
Derek, on the other hand, rarely worried about his skates. Travis smiled to himself. Perhaps with this being Lake Placid and the Olympic arena and the Screech Owls’ first international tournament, it was a case of the trainer being more nervous than the player–especially since the trainer was the player’s father.
Muck began speaking, slowly, his words smooth and long, meaning he was relaxed and ready.
“You don’t know this team. From what we can gather, they can put a lot of rubber in the net. The ones to watch are their big centre, number 5, and they’ve got a very quick little defenceman, number 4. They move the puck around well.
“We know we can sometimes panic and run around like chickens with their heads cut off. We can’t have any of that against a team like this. So we stay calm out there no matter what happens.
“We get down a couple of goals I want you to forget there’s even a scoreboard out there. We play our game and it’s either good enough or it isn’t. Understand?”
No one had to answer. They did.
“I may have to make some line changes as we go. If I change you, it doesn’t mean anything except I think you’ll help us more on another combination. It doesn’t mean you’re hurting us where you are, understand?”
No one did. No one dared to ask. Every player thought Muck was talking directly to them. Everyone thought it meant exactly what Muck had said it did not mean–that he was worried about certain players hurting the team. Travis swallowed hard and figured everyone else in the room was swallowing at the same time.