The sound was like an explosion. Travis forgot all about his heart. He jumped up as the two robbers hit the tape. They fell face-first, the power tools clattering, the Stanley Cup ringing as it hit the hard floor of the lower hall.

The robbers rolled a couple of times before settling in a heap at the bottom. Both seemed out cold–for a moment. Then they started swearing–worse than Travis had ever heard on a hockey rink–and began moving.

“FACE DOWN ON THE FLOOR!” a huge voice boomed. “NNNNOOOOWWW!!”

Travis spun around, thinking for a moment that the police actually had come. But it was Andy–his voice as deep and powerful and commanding as Travis had ever heard in his life. He almost hit the floor face-first himself.

A big beam of impossibly bright light swept over the two bewildered, swearing robbers. It blinded them, then bounced about the room, sweeping quickly over the two kid dummies so it appeared, just for a fraction of a second, that there were more “cops” present than just the two standing in the entrance hall.

Nish was very effective with his flashlight. He used it to make it seem that there was movement and to show that there were people there, but never let it linger. Every time he bounced it away from the robbers he turned it quickly back on them again, straight into their eyes, so all they could see was what must have looked like one big car headlight coming at them. Travis started to do the same with his light.

“I SAID ON YOUR FACE. MOVE IT!!”

Both robbers did exactly as they were told. They rolled, groaning and swearing, over onto their stomachs, faces down toward the floor but still straining to look up.

All they saw was the blinding flashlights.

“BEND YOUR FEET UP!! HANDS BEHIND THE BACK!! RIGHT NOW, MISTER! MOVE!”

This was Travis’s signal. His heart skipped as he moved out from the shadow of the stairs and approached the robbers from behind.

“FACES DOWN!!” Andy shouted in his deepest voice. His voice was filling the room. It frightened even Travis, who knew where it was coming from.

“DIG YOUR NOSES INTO THE FLOOR, AND NOWWW!!”

The robbers, still cursing, did as they were told. Travis, careful to stay directly behind them so they couldn’t see, quickly taped their hands and feet together with a roll of shin-pad tape. He went through two rolls before the ponytailed one turned and caught a glimpse of him.

“What the hell?! It’s a kid!!”

The scar-face also twisted to see, his eyes bulging. “Ehhh?! What the…?”

When they realized the person doing the tying-up was Travis Lindsay, captain of the Screech Owls, not Chief of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force, they began twisting like fish at the bottom of a boat. Neither could move his hands or feet, but they could still scream.

“You little…”

“You take this tape off right now, you little jerk–or else!!”

Nish came running up now, suddenly brave. He had the security officer’s cap on and was waving the flashlight. He had Dad over his shoulder. He tossed him toward the robbers.

“Stay with them, Officer Dummy!” Nish ordered.

When the two robbers saw they had been fooled by a dummy, they began twisting and cursing even more.

Andy came running out from his hiding place holding the loudspeaker.

“NO SWEARING!” Andy ordered. That only made them curse all the more.

“Such mouths!” Nish said, shaking his head in a disapproving manner.

“Trav,” he called. “You got any of that tape left?”

Travis nodded, pulled half-a-roll out of his pocket, and tossed it to Nish. Nish put down the flashlight and went over to the ponytail. Standing behind him, he pulled out a length of the tape and tried to fit it over the robber’s screaming mouth.

“Now, now, now,” Nish said in his best teacher’s voice. “This is for your own good.”

It took him several tries, but finally he hit the robber’s mouth and the screaming and swearing was partly muffed. He continued to loop the tape around the robber’s head, careful not to cover his nose, and soon he was silent, but still furiously squirming.

Nish moved over and did the same to the scar-face. Soon there was only the sound of the tape coming off the roll. The sound, Travis thought, of a hockey dressing room. How appropriate!

The two robbers were trussed and ready for pick-up. All they needed was the police to come–but Nish wasn’t through. He was scrambling after the sack. He picked up his big flashlight and threw it to Travis.

“Work the spotlight!” he shouted.

Travis hadn’t a clue what Nish meant.

Nish reached into the sack and pulled out the Stanley Cup. He checked it. A new dent, perhaps, but nothing more. He lifted it up and kissed it, just like the victorious NHL players do.

He then hoisted the Stanley Cup high over his head and began pretending he was skating about the hall with it. “My spotlight!” he yelled out. Travis turned on the flashlight and shone it on Nish. It was just like a spotlight!

Nish completed a circuit of the hall, blowing kisses into the stands, blowing kisses at the two squirming robbers, bowing, kissing the Stanley Cup.

He then took the cup and, very carefully, set it on the step behind the taped-up robbers. He kissed it one more time.

“Let’s get outta here!” Nish said.

Travis had two more things to do. With Nish’s flashlight, they went back down the hall to where the two security officers were still tied up and taped silent. They stared and made muffed sounds as the boys came in, but the three had no intention of loosening them, even if one was totally innocent.

Travis rooted around the room until he found a piece of cardboard and a black felt pen. Then he made a quick sign:

 

ONE OF THESE GUARDS WAS
WORKING FOR THE ROBBERS.

 

He turned and showed it to the guards. One looked fiercely at him, the other looked surprised at the other guard. Travis was pretty sure he knew which one was guilty, but he still couldn’t take a chance. He propped up the sign on a chair and they left the room.

At the exit the guard had opened for the two robbers, Travis found a fire alarm and set it off. The security alarms were probably all disengaged, but the fire alarm still worked. It began to ring throughout the Hockey Hall of Fame and it would be ringing at the nearest fire hall. In a few moments fire trucks would begin arriving.

“Let’s go,” he said.