Mr. Dillinger, the team manager, had done a wonderful job of organizing the team’s time in Toronto. They’d been to the Leafs’ practice, and they were going to see the game against the Blackhawks. It wasn’t the Red Wings, but it was still an Original Six team, and Chicago had two of Travis’s favourite players: Jeremy Roenick and Ed Belfour.

Mr. Dillinger had also laid out a full program of sightseeing for both the players and those parents who had come on the trip. Parents and players weren’t always interested in the same things. This morning the players were going to walk down Yonge Street on their way to the CN Tower, and they were all going up to the top–even Nish, who hated heights.

Travis should have been more excited, but all he could think about was what to do about Andy Higgins. No one else seemed bothered by it, or maybe they just wouldn’t say. Who wanted to be called a wimp by their teammates?

It was a beautiful early spring day for the walk. Since they could see the CN Tower from the hotel and there was no chance of anyone getting lost, Muck and Mr. Dillinger said the players could walk on their own, so long as they stayed in groups. Andy joined Travis’s bunch, which both surprised Travis and bothered him.

They had barely gone a block when Andy stopped, took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket, and made a big show of lighting it.

“Muck better not see you,” Travis said. He thought he sounded like his mother.

Andy blew smoke out and waved it away as if he’d like to wave Travis away too.

“‘Muck better not see you,’” Andy whined, impersonating Travis. The others laughed. “Muck’s the coach, not my mother.”

Travis half-felt like walking away, but he couldn’t. He knew he had to stay with the group. He had to.

“You guys?” Andy said, holding the stolen cigarettes out and raising his eyebrows as he offered them around. Nish helped himself–“For later,” he added sheepishly–but no one else reached for one. Travis wouldn’t even acknowledge the offer.

“Suit yourselves,” Andy said. “Which way’re we going?”

“I’m checking out the Zanzibar,” Nish announced.

“What’s the Zanzibar?” Data asked. Travis had no idea either.

“Just the biggest strip joint in the world, that’s all,” Nish said, as if it were common knowledge.

“Yeah, I heard about it,” said Andy.

Travis knew he was lying.

“My cousin told me about it,” Nish said. “A hundred barenaked women.”

Travis closed his eyes. Nish was, as usual, out of control. Mr. Markle had told their class this year that puberty would be coming on soon for some of them. He talked about shaving and voices dropping and moods–but he had never said anything about Nish being committed to a psychiatric hospital.

“And how do you expect to get in?” Travis asked.

“I’ll worry about that when I get there,” Nish said.

They walked on down Toronto’s busiest street, the sights and sounds and smells almost too much for a head to hold at once. The hint of good weather had brought out the sidewalk vendors: hot dogs, jewellery, T-shirts, sunglasses. There were kids not much older than himself with green hair and safety pins through their cheeks. There was a man reading aloud from the Bible and another screaming in a strange language at everyone who passed by.

“Isn’t this fantastic?” Nish shouted.

Travis didn’t know if that was quite the right word for it, but it was something–fascinating and frightening at the same time.

“There it is!” Nish shouted again, pointing ahead of them. They could see the sign, “ZANZIBAR,” and they could see a rough-looking crowd milling around the photographs of the dancers on the front of the building. Loud rock music burst out every time the door opened and closed. Travis felt alarmed–but also curious. He hadn’t the nerve to walk up and look in.

But Nish did. He elbowed his way through the crowd and stood, hands in pockets, staring at the photographs as if he were shopping for something and knew exactly what he wanted. Andy joined him, his cigarette now burned down near the filter. He stomped it out on the sidewalk and spat. The two of them looked ridiculous, Travis thought.

Travis, Gordie, Fahd, and Data hurried on past the bar and stood waiting nervously.

Finally Andy came along, putting a fresh cigarette in his mouth. He stopped to light it, acting as if nothing at all was happening, when he knew perfectly well that the others were almost in full panic about Nish’s whereabouts.

“Where is he?” Gordie shouted. Andy raised his eyebrows as if he hadn’t heard. But of course he had.

“What’d you do with him?” Data asked, smiling.

“He’s probably on stage by now,” Andy chuckled.

“He is?” Gordie and Data said at the same time. Andy nodded, drawing deep on his cigarette, then choking. Good, Travis thought.

Before they had time to ask anything else, the crowd behind them parted as if a mad dog were coming through, and out from the middle burst Nish in full flight, a huge, angry man close behind him shaking his fist. He swung at Nish but missed, Nish’s thick legs churning on down the street and past the other boys.

At top speed, Nish turned the first corner he came to, but his hip caught the edge of a vendor’s table, flipping it as he tore by. The table, covered with sunglasses, spilled out onto the street, blocking the man from the Zanzibar, who came to a halt and between gasps for air screamed after Nish.

“And don’t you ever…try that again, punk!”

The vendor was tempted to take up the chase but turned instead to his more-immediate problem: a street covered with sunglasses. After looking twice in the direction Nish had run, he cursed and bent down to pick up his spilled goods. People in the street, including the boys, came to help, and soon the table was back up and the vendor was trying to pop a lens back into a pair of glasses.

“Thanks,” the man said. He didn’t look too pleased.

The boys hurried on down the street, the CN Tower periodically looming high to their right when the skyscrapers gave way to open space. They knew they would eventually come across Nish again. At least they hoped they would. If someone didn’t kill him first.

“Hey!”

They looked across the street. It was Nish, waving. They crossed at the light and joined him. He was red as the stoplight and puffing hard. He must have crossed and doubled back. He kept looking back up the street for his assailant, but he was grinning.

“What happened?” said Data.

“Did you get in?” Gordie asked.

“’Course I got in,” Nish said angrily. Travis knew Nish too well not to know the truth. He hadn’t even come close.

“What’dya see?” Data asked.

“More’n you can imagine, sunshine.”

Travis knew it was really just as much as Nish could imagine. Some people could look at a cloud and see things; Nish could look at an empty blue sky and see anything he wanted.

“You’ll probably need these after that eyeful,” Andy said.

He was handing Nish a brand-new pair of sunglasses. He’d swiped them when they were helping the street vendor clean up.

“Where’d you get these?” Nish asked, impressed.

“Found ’em on the street,” Andy said.

Everyone laughed.

Everyone but Travis. This wasn’t some rich hotel that “would never miss” a few lighters and chocolate bars; this was a real person trying to make a living. Travis was furious that Andy would do something like that to the vendor–who had thanked them, for heaven’s sake.

Nish put the glasses on and checked himself out in a store window.

“Cool,” he said. “Thanks.”

Andy and Nish began walking down the street together, leaving the other three behind them.

Data and Gordie moved to catch up, swept up in the adventure, the fun, the daring.

Travis followed along, furious at himself for being there, for saying nothing.

He was a failure as a captain.