The Screech Owls played their first game in the Big Apple International Peewee Tournament that evening. It was, for the Owls, little more than a warm-up. The team they were up against, the Long Island Selects, weren’t much better than the Burlington Bears. The main difference was that this game would count in the standings; the shinny game against the Bears mattered only as a memory.
Sam and Sarah both played exceptional games. Sam was back on defence, and she blocked shots and carried the puck and helped Jeremy clear away rebounds so easily it seemed she might keep the Selects off the scoreboard all on her own.
Sarah was in one of her playmaking moods. It didn’t matter how many times Travis or Dmitri set her up, she would pass the puck off. She simply refused to take an easy shot on goal, dropping the puck back to the point instead, or spinning around to try to set up Dmitri or Travis. By the third period, Dmitri and Travis had two goals each, and Nish also had two pinching in from the point.
“Slow it down,” Muck instructed during a brief break.
He didn’t need to say any more. Every one of the Screech Owls knew how Muck refused to embarrass another team or coach in a tournament. Even in a tournament where it was possible the standings might be decided by the number of goals scored, Muck would refuse to let the Owls run up the score.
An instruction of no more scoring was like an invitation to Nish. If a game truly mattered, if the Owls absolutely had to have a goal, there was no one they’d want on the ice more than Nish. Nish, even more than Sarah, had the knack of scoring when it counted. But take away a reason to get serious, and Nish would try anything, no matter how crazy. His big ambition, he’d told Travis, was to score a “Pavel Bure goal”: taking the puck behind the opposition cage, flipping it high into the air so it floated back over the goal, and then skating out in front quickly enough to be there in time to baseball the puck into the net. He must have tried it a hundred times in practice, without a single success.
But Nish was nothing if not determined. He picked up the puck behind his own net, skated out slowly, and faked a pass up to Liz on the left, then broke with the puck into the open space.
Travis was sitting on the bench when Nish began his charge. He lowered his head, almost wishing he weren’t in the same building.
“The show’s on,” said Sarah, sitting beside him.
“I know,” said Travis.
And what a show it was. Nish skated up and cut diagonally across centre, stickhandling beautifully. He had his head up, and Travis wondered if it was to see if there were any cameras on him.
Nish worked his way across the Selects’ blueline and down into the corner. He then faked a pass to Sam, who was charging in from the far point. Sam angrily slammed her stick onto the ice when Nish hung on. He had other ideas. He kept stickhandling behind the net, watching.
“Here comes his ‘Bure,’” Travis announced on the bench.
“Such a surprise!” said Sarah.
Nish tapped the puck so it stood on edge, then lifted it high so it floated, spinning, over the net and over the head of the little Long Island goaltender.
Nish dug in hard, churning round to the front. He flew out from the boards and passed the left post moving backwards, away from the net, the puck still in the air.
He swung mightily, the play perfect – except for one small detail. He missed the puck, and fell with the effort.
A huge laugh went up from the sparse crowd watching in this little rink down by the East River.
Nish got up and chased hard back down the ice as the Selects managed a three-on-one break and scored on a good screen shot that ripped into Jeremy’s glove and then trickled into the Owls’ net.
“He’s benched,” Sarah said, as she shifted over to make room for the players coming off.
“Guaranteed,” agreed Travis.
Nish came off, his face beet red, and didn’t even bother looking over at Muck. What was the point? He plopped down beside Travis, ripped his helmet off, picked up the water bottle, and sprayed his face, hair and, a bit, into his open mouth. He swallowed, spat, and turned to Travis.
“What’s with Muck?” he asked.
“You have to ask?” Travis said.
“I’m benched,” Nish said as if it were an announcement.
“You’re surprised?”
“Hey,” Nish grinned. “He told us not to score, didn’t he? What more can I do for this team?”
Travis grabbed the water bottle and sprayed it as hard as he could directly into his own face.
It did no good. When he opened his eyes Nish was still sitting there, smiling at him.
“It’s time!” called Fahd, as if they didn’t know.
It was also way past bedtime. Mr. Dillinger had said there was a 10:30 curfew – “Lights out and no portable CD players!” It was now 11:30, and while the lights were out, no one was asleep. The television was on, flickering like a ghost at the foot of the beds where six of the Owls lay, watching and waiting.
“Think they’ll open with me?” Nish asked no one in particular.
The “Late Show” was just coming on. Letterman was doing his stand-up act, an endless string of jokes about the storm, half of which the Owls didn’t get, and then came an interview with a giggling, gum-chewing actress about being stranded in a taxi and missing her opening-night act at one of the New York theatres.
“Bor-ring!” Nish moaned.
“We’ve got some footage from around the city,” Letterman said to the still-giggling actress. “Would you like to see what the storm did to a few other New Yorkers?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said, snapping her gum.
“Here we go,” announced Fahd.
With David Letterman cracking more jokes in the background, they showed dozens of clips of the city coping with the Storm of the Century.
There was a rhinoceros at the zoo pawing the snow like he’d never seen it before. Letterman cracked a joke about Africa.
There was a beggar lying on the street, cup held out and brimming with snow. Letterman cracked a joke about being poor that Travis didn’t like.
There were shots of cross-country skiers in Central Park, a dozen shots of people trying to push or pull their cars free of snowdrifts, several shots of people falling on the street – all accompanied by more cracks by Letterman.
But nothing about Rockefeller Center. Nothing about the outdoor skating rink.
Nothing about the two “Olympic ice-dancers.”
Nothing about Nish.
“What kind of rip-off is this?” Nish howled when the footage stopped and the show returned to the host and his guest, now with a full-blown bubble hiding her face.
“Maybe they’re saving you?” Fahd suggested.
Nish liked the suggestion. “Yeah, they’re saving the best for last,” he said.
But there was nothing more. Travis grew sleepy, turned around, and tucked himself into his bed. He heard Fahd do the same, and eventually the television was clicked off and the odd colours stopped dancing around the room. It was pitch black, and very, very late.
It grew quiet, very quiet, and then Travis heard Nish clear his throat.
“It means I have to moon now,” Nish said.
No one said anything back to him.
“I’ve no choice.”