I think it was the wind.”

Travis couldn’t follow Lars’s argument. Lars was saying that maybe the chinook had somehow addled Nish’s brain. He said there was a similar wind in Europe, the föhn, and it was famous for the effect it had on people’s minds. Some people, he claimed, even killed themselves when the warm föhn began blowing north across the Mediterranean from North Africa in what should have been the dead of winter. Perhaps Nish had just been struck with a similar kind of sudden terror while out on the trail, Lars suggested, and had imagined an Albertosaurus because he’d seen the Royal Tyrrell model just the day before.

“Maybe,” Travis said. But he wasn’t convinced.

There seemed no rational answer. Nish could act the fool, but he wasn’t a fool. Nish loved tricks, but he wouldn’t trick about something like this. He knew Nish well enough to know that Nish had been terrified, frightened as badly here in Drumheller as he had been that time in James Bay when they’d been lost in the woods at night and Nish had dreamed he was being attacked by the Trickster and had wet his sleeping bag.

Whatever had really happened, Lars and Travis decided to keep Nish’s story to themselves. Nish had been so frustrated he’d gone to his room after breakfast complaining of a headache so severe he couldn’t make the exercise class that was about to start. When Kelly Block heard the news, it seemed as if he was somehow satisfied. Maybe he thought Nish was reacting to hearing the sad truth about his personality.

Nish had said nothing more. And neither Travis nor Lars would say anything until they had a better idea of what had happened to their friend on his dawn bicycle ride. Besides, even if they had told the rest of the Screech Owls that Nish had seen a living, breathing dinosaur, it would have paled against the topic that was currently holding the Owls spellbound.

The new team roster.

Kelly Block had posted it while Ty was leading the team through a light workout in the main yard of Camp Victory. It was Sarah who saw it first when they came into the camp kitchen for a short break and some Gatorade.

She wasted no words in her response: “Is this a joke?”

But it was not a joke. Based on his “psychological profiles” and interviews with the players, Kelly Block had designed a roster that he claimed would result in “improved team chemistry.”

Sarah Cuthbertson was now playing left defence.

Wayne Nishikawa had become a centre.

Travis Lindsay was on right wing, not left.

Dmitri Yakushev, the quickest skater on the team, was now a penalty killer.

Fahd Noorizadeh, who scored about once every twenty games, was on the power play.

And so it went. Those who were defence were now mostly forwards. Scorers were now checkers. Checkers were now scorers. The only positions that hadn’t changed were Jeremy and Jenny in goal, but the way Kelly Block was going about redesigning the Screech Owls, maybe Mr. Dillinger would be in net for the next game.

Travis felt as if his world was spinning out of control. The other players were turning to him, as their captain, in the hope that he might have some answers.

He felt he needed to talk to Muck–but Muck wasn’t here. He couldn’t even talk to his parents. They weren’t here, either. The only Screech Owls parent, apart from Mr. Dillinger, who’d made the trip to Alberta was Mr. Higgins–and Kelly Block was his idea! As for Ty and Mr. Dillinger, both of them seemed overwhelmed by Block’s bully tactics and his energetic way of taking charge of everything that happened at Camp Victory.

“I don’t mind,” said Fahd.

“You’re on the power play,” said Derek. “Why should you?”

“I’m going to refuse to dress,” said Lars, who was now a forward.

“We have to,” said Travis. “We’re guests here. We can’t ruin the tournament just because of Mental Block.”

“No way! Absolutely no way! I won’t. I won’t.”

“You have to.”

Travis was alone with his friend, but getting nowhere. Nish was still in his bed, his pillow pulled down over his face, the covers up to his neck, as if he was expecting snakes to come pouring in under the door. Travis wondered how Nish could stand it. It was boiling hot in the cabin, the chinook still burning down from the hills.

“Look,” Travis finally said, “you’ve got to think about the team, not Mental Block. We’re the Screech Owls and we have to show up. We always show up.”

“We’re not the Screech Owls. He’s turned us into a bunch of turkeys.”

“It won’t work. He’ll start out with his new line-up and it won’t work, and before you know it you’ll be back on defence and Sarah will be back on forward and we’ll be the Owls again. You just wait and see.”

“You’re wrong,” Nish said, lowering the pillow just enough to look out with one eye. “You’re wrong and I’ll prove you’re wrong.”

“How?”

“I’ll go, okay? And I’ll play. And you watch. He’s too stubborn to change his mind.”

 

Game two was against the Winnipeg Werewolves, a good-but-not-great peewee team from Manitoba that would normally have been hard pressed to stay within three goals of the Screech Owls, let alone beat them.

But this was no longer the Screech Owls. This was confusion.

Kelly Block was now firmly in place as the lead coach of the Owls. Ty was plainly very upset, but, really, Ty was still just a kid himself. He was only a few years older than most of the Owls, and they looked up to him as a fine hockey player and an even better person, but he had no hope of standing up to the force of Kelly Block’s personality. Neither did Mr. Dillinger, who was keeping very much to the background, sharpening skates and taping sticks and, for once, not smiling as he went about his job.

Mr. Higgins was no help, either. Poor Andy felt like he had to apologize for his father. “I’m sorry,” he said to Travis at one point. “But my dad thinks Kelly Block walks on water.”

“I know,” said Travis. “Don’t worry. We’ll soon be back home and all this will have gone away.”

But when he thought of Nish, Travis wasn’t so sure. Some of the damage done there was going to take more than a flight back to Tamarack to cure. But he couldn’t explain that to Andy. No one but Lars and Travis knew about Nish’s strange mental state, which Travis thought was probably all due to Kelly Block. And no one but Lars and Travis would be able to help Nish get over it.

The Owls dressed for the game in disturbing silence. It seemed as if they weren’t even breathing. Mr. Dillinger was keeping to himself, and Ty was nowhere to be seen.

Kelly Block looked as if he’d been waiting for this moment. He had on a suit, just like a coach in the big leagues, and a tie with so many cartoon characters on it, it looked more like a bad comic book than something anyone would ever wear. He had even been to town to get his hair cut.

“All right, now!” Block had shouted as he stood in the centre of the room. “This is a brand-new start for a brand-new team. We begin today to become the team we were always meant to be.”

Travis heard Nish’s sigh from the far corner. But no one raised a head.

“We’re going to ‘envision’ this game right now,” said Block. “When I stop speaking I want each and every one of you to see the game that’s coming up. I want you to breathe the Werewolves. I want victory to be rushing through your blood. I want the Screech Owls to be the only thought that’s in your head–the Screech Owls, victorious. Understand?”

He stopped speaking. In the sudden silence Travis was aware of his own breathing. The silence descended in layers, building on them until he wanted to scream.

He wondered if anyone was actually “envisioning” the upcoming game against the Werewolves. He couldn’t. He didn’t think Nish could. He figured his brain and Nish’s brain were locked onto the same image–and it had nothing to do with any hockey game.

It was of a monstrous creature that hadn’t been seen for a hundred million years.

 

The game against Winnipeg could not have gone worse. Nish lost every faceoff he took. Sarah got caught out of position on two goals. Fahd had a breakaway on the power play and missed the net. Lars had trouble reading the play. Travis, forgetting that he was now a right-winger, kept criss-crossing at centre ice and bumping into the left-winger, leaving the right side open for every rush the Werewolves cared to start.

If it hadn’t been for Jenny and Jeremy, who split the game in net, the score would have been even worse than it was. But in the end the Winnipeg Werewolves had five goals, the Screech Owls only three.

It was the worst team they had ever lost to.