“They’re coming to murder us!”

Travis woke sharply to two screams, one coming from Nish, the other coming from a chainsaw right outside the door.

There was light–daylight. Travis must have slept while the storm had passed. Nish was sitting straight up in bed, his sleeping bag pulled over his head, his arms wrapped around his pillow, and he was still yelling about murder. Travis shook his head: his friend had watched too many bad horror movies for his own good.

“They’re cutting up the tree!” Travis shouted over the din.

Slowly, Nish pulled off his sleeping bag. He blinked in the bright morning light, then smiled sheepishly.

“I knew that.”

It was amazing what a few hours had done. The rain and wind and clouds had all vanished. Sunlight was dancing in the wet grass, and the air smelled new and full of fresh-cut wood.

Two men, wearing hardhats and safety glasses and orange plastic earmuffs, were cutting up the big hemlock. Their chainsaws roared into the wood, the chips flying in a rooster’s tail straight into their chests. The men were beginning to look as if they’d been coated in wet sawdust.

There were some spectators gathered off to the side. Travis could see Muck, the only one not in shorts. No one had ever seen Muck in shorts. He had a bad leg, with a long scar that Travis and Derek Dillinger had seen the time the three of them had gone wading after the keys that Derek had thrown away during the trip to Lake Placid.

Travis had trouble imagining Muck in shorts–in fact he had trouble getting used to seeing him in summer at all. Coach Muck Munro went with wintertime. He was at the rink when hockey season began, at the rink when hockey season came to an end. The players rarely, if ever, saw him in the months between.

It was almost as if Muck was something they pulled out of the equipment box in September and stored away again in April with the sweaters–all washed and folded, in his team jacket, baggy sweatpants, hockey gloves, skates, and whistle.

Muck was having words with a man standing on the other side of a thick branch of the fallen tree: it was Buddy O’Reilly, who ran the Muskoka Summer Hockey School, which included both the girls’ camp on the island and boys’ camp on the mainland. Willie Granger, the Owls’ trivia expert, said Buddy had played three NHL games for the Philadelphia Flyers–“No goals, no assists, no points, thirty-two minutes in penalties”–but he carried himself as if he’d won three Stanley Cups. Buddy had on shorts, a tank top, and thongs. He was also wearing neon-purple wraparound sunglasses. And he was chewing gum, fast, using just his front teeth. He was holding a cellular telephone in his right hand, as if waiting for an important call, and had a whistle around his neck. His tank top had the logo of the hockey camp on the back and one word, Coach, stitched over his heart. He seemed to be laughing at Muck.

Suddenly, both chainsaws quit at once. A red squirrel seemed to be razzing them from the hemlocks that still stood. The workers laid the chainsaws down so they could twist a large branch. In the lull, the conversation between Muck and Buddy drifted through the cabin’s screen door.

“…irresponsible,” Muck was saying.

“Nobody got hurt, big guy,” Buddy O’Reilly said through the thin opening between his teeth. He popped his gum. “Nobody got hurt.”

Muck stared fiercely, trying to find Buddy’s eyes behind the mirror shades. He was very upset. Travis knew Muck would be furious at being called “big guy.”

“Look at the core of that tree,” Muck said. “It’s rotted right out.”

“And it’s down now,” Buddy replied impatiently. “It’s down and nobody got hurt.”

“Lucky for you.”

“Relax, big guy. It’s summer-vacation time, okay?”

Muck said nothing. He continued to stare, frustrated by the ridiculous sunglasses.

Buddy ignored Muck completely. He poked a finger hard into the numbers of his cellphone, then waited impatiently while the number rang.

“Morley!” Buddy shouted when his call was finally answered. Morley was the gentle, white-haired manager of the girls’ camp. “Morley! Get your butt over here! And find that lazy goof, Roger! We got a tree down between ‘Osprey’ and ‘Loon.’ He’ll have to clear out these branches!”

Shaking his head in disgust, Muck finally turned away as the workmen took up their chainsaws. He glanced over at the boys’ cabin.

“What are you staring at, Nishikawa?”

“Nothin’,” replied Nish. He wasn’t convincing.

“Dry-land training at eight-fifteen,” Muck said, and turned away.

The workers both pulled their chainsaw starting-cords, then gave the smoking engines full throttle. The roar made any more talk impossible.

The boys hurried to dress for breakfast.

The girls paddled over from the island camp for the dry-land training session. When they reached the mainland, they carried their canoes up from the beach and turned them over, stuffing paddles and life-preservers underneath. It was a wonderful way to start the day, thought Travis. Sarah paddled as well as she skated: smooth and elegant and strong. It was great to be all back together again.

Travis had been looking forward to this ever since Mr. Cuthbertson, Sarah’s father, had approached Muck Munro with the idea of the two teams, the Owls and the Aeros, all coming to the Muskoka Summer Hockey School for a week. The camp covered an area the size of three schoolyards, the land falling away from the boys’ cabins to the beach and dock, where they could swim and dive from a tower. A large boathouse at the far end of the beach held a speedboat and equipment for tubing, kneeboarding, and waterskiing. There were also sailboats and paddle boats.

The girls were on the larger of the two islands nearest the shore, and they were allowed to swim or paddle out to the smaller island, where they could hold marshmallow roasts. And best of all, at week’s end, they were going to have a one-game, winner-take-all, Owls-against-Aeros Summer Hockey Camp World Peewee Championship.

Muck had never been too keen on the idea of summer hockey–“Ever seen a frozen pond in July?” he’d ask–but was finally talked into it by the other parents and the enthusiasm of the kids on both teams. Besides, the hockey school was just outside Muck’s old home town, and he said he had a score to settle with a thirty-pound pike that was still lurking somewhere in the narrows that led out of the lake toward the town of Huntsville.

 

“This guy’s a jerk,” Sarah whispered to Travis when the boys and girls were assembled together on the training field.

She didn’t need to explain. Travis knew she was talking about Buddy O’Reilly, who was indeed acting like a jerk. He had a new shirt on now–candy-apple red with the sleeves cut away at the shoulders to show off his muscles and a tattoo of the Tasmanian Devil chomping a hockey stick in half–and he was blowing his whistle and barking out orders. He had placed his clipboard beside him on the grass, and on top of the clipboard was the ever-present cellphone. No matter what the situation, Buddy wanted everyone to know exactly who was in charge.

“BEND! C’MON, BEND WHEN I SAY ‘BEND’!”

Buddy had them doing warm-ups in unison: neck twists, shoulder rotations, leg stretches. Next he ordered everyone to do bends from the waist, and then, bent double, to roll their heads from one side of the knees to the other.

Nish fell over, face forward, which made everyone laugh…with one predictable exception.

“WHATSAMATTER, FAT BOY? THAT BIG GUT OF YOURS THROW YOU OFF BALANCE?” Buddy screamed at Nish. And though he wasn’t laughing, he was smiling–delighted, it seemed, to have someone to pick on. Nish flushed the colour of Buddy’s muscle-shirt.

Travis winced. Fat Boy! All Nish had meant to do was put a little humour in the situation. Travis had seen him do dumb things like that before, and even believed that Muck kind of liked Nish’s hi-jinks, although Muck would never let on.

Travis looked around for Muck. He was standing off to one side, staring. Muck was the only coach the Screech Owls had at the camp–Barry and Ty, the Owls’ two assistant coaches, couldn’t take the time off work–and he seemed terribly alone here. Muck didn’t have the camp personality. He just didn’t fit in. He didn’t allow any of the players to call him “coach” (“I don’t call you ‘forward,’ or ‘defence,’ or ‘goaltender,’” he once explained), and he didn’t wear wraparound sunglasses, and he sure as heck didn’t have any T-shirts with the sleeves ripped off them.

“KNEES UP! KNEES UP!”

Sweat was already pouring down Buddy’s face. If this was warming up, Travis wondered, what was working out going to feel like? He could hear Nish puffing and chugging behind him. Travis didn’t have to turn around to know that Nish’s face would still be shining red. Only by now it would be from anger, not embarrassment. Fat Boy! What was with this guy?

At least Travis didn’t have to worry about Nish fooling around any more. Usually, if Nish was standing behind you where you couldn’t see him, you were in just about the worst place on earth. Just when you least expected it, Nish would be likely to reach out, grab the sides of your shorts, and yank down, showing the world your boxer shorts.

Data was so wary of Nish and his stupid pranks during gym class that he once took the precaution of joining his gym shorts and boxers together with safety pins. But the idea backfired. When Nish snuck up behind Data and yanked, the pins held all right–but Data’s shorts and boxers both came down!

No, Nish wouldn’t be risking another “Fat Boy!” insult. If anything, Travis thought, he would be plotting his revenge. And Nish was very, very good at revenge.

As the Screech Owls and Aeros worked out, a work crew moved the chainsawed logs from the cabin area over toward the tool shed. Travis could see a white-haired man struggling with one of the wheelbarrows. It was Morley Clifford, the manager of the island camp. Sarah and the other girls said he was a nice old guy, and Travis couldn’t understand how he had ever got involved with Buddy in this summer hockey-school deal.

When the players had finished their field work-out, they ran cross-country around the camp: twice around the playing field, then up along the nature trail, down along the rock trail to the beach, and back, finally, to the main camp building where they ate their meals.

Travis ran with Sarah, and as they ran he wondered what it was that Sarah had been born with that allowed her to be so good at everything she did: skate, paddle, run. Sarah could even talk as she ran: “Word has it that Nish is planning the World’s Biggest Skinny Dip.”

“H-how d-did you hear that?” Travis panted.

“Data told me yesterday at lunch. It’s all over the island.”

“H-He’s just k-kidding. You know N-Nish.”

“He’s nuts.”

“T-tell me about it.”