Action & Adventure

ALL AT SEA
We steamed along below the stars, half a thousand miles from land. All I could see were the dim shapes of the boys, and the hulk of the engine in the middle of the boat. But up from the bow flew splashes of green, like emeralds sliced from the black sea. In our wake they lay scattered, swirled by the churning of our paddle wheel.
All night I listened to the chant of the steam engine, the chuckatee-chickadee, chuckatee-chickadee that shook every plank and every nail. When the sun came up behind us, our smoke hung over the sea like a greasy pennant streaming from the funnel, a tattered flag that could be seen for many miles. So Gaskin Boggis pulled the fire from its box, dousing each stick over the side with a hissing gout of steam.
Through eleven nights we'd bored through the blackness; through eleven days we'd drifted on a blazing sea. On this morning, our twelfth since we'd last seen land, it was Walter Weedle's turn to stand watch, to keep a lookout for the black sails of the Borneo pirates. As usual, he went grumbling to his place atop the dwindling pile of firewood.

"There's some what never take a turn," he said, with a dark look in my direction. "Should be turn and turnabout, that's what I say."

Only Midgely bothered to argue. "No one minds what you say, Walter Weedle. You can hop it, you can."

Weedle's clumsy feet knocked the logs askew. "There ain't no pirates. We ain't seen a pirate yet. Don't know why we have to stop at dawn."

"'Cause you're a half-wit," cried Midgely. In his blindness he was squinting toward the engine, mistaking its shape for Weedle. "Try steering by the sun, and you'll go in circles, you stupid. But the stars is like a compass, and that Southern Cross is the needle. Ain't that so, Tom?"

"Yes," I said.

"It's going to lead us home. Ain't it, Tom?"

"Of course," I said, as though I actually believed him. Midge thought the Southern Cross hung in the sky like a painted sign. He didn't know how strange and pale a thing it was, so hard to find that I wasn't certain I had ever really seen it. I feared we were already lost.

"Tell him about them other islands, Tom," said Midgely. "Tell him how the Cross will take us there." He rattled off their names again, the Cocos, the Chagos, the Mascarenes. "We can't miss 'em, can we? We'll hop from one to the other like on skipping stones."

He was smiling now, proud as Punch of this notion of his. He had made it sound so simple that we'd all believed it was possible. We had tackled the oceans as only boys might dare to do, chasing the Southern Cross toward islands rich with food and firewood. But now, if we didn't find land within the week, we would have no water left to drink, no food to eat, no wood to burn.

The sea was too huge, the sun too hot. I felt like a candle melting away. Weedle and Boggis and Benjamin Penny were as brown as old figs, while poor Midgely--red and peeling--looked like a lobster boiled in his skin.
He was taking shelter now as the sun climbed over the bow. He tucked himself into the shade of a sea turtle's shell, the last remains of a beast we had slaughtered ten days before. It was nearly as long as Midge was tall, and the boy peered out from one end like the turtle itself.

His eyes were gray, almost covered by his drooping lids. It seemed at times he had no eyes, when all I could see were the darkened crescents below his lashes. But he still smiled in his cheerful fashion. "All's bob, Tom," he said. "We'll reach them islands tomorrow, I think."

I didn't understand how he could never lose hope. I felt like flinging myself down in the kicking tantrum of a child, screaming about the unfairness of it all. I was the owner of a fabulous jewel, of a wealth beyond imagining. I had only to get home to London to claim it. But the Fates, it seemed, would never allow me that.

As I settled down beside Midgely, my thoughts ran their endless circle, beginning--as always--with the notion that I was cursed by the Jolly Stone. I believed absolutely that it brought ruin to all who touched it, and I vowed that I would one day unearth the jewel from its London grave just to pass on the curse to Mr. Goodfellow. I imagined with great pleasure how his greedy eyes would glow when I put the stone into his butter-soft hands.

Then, as always, doubts leapt in to chase this thought. How could a simple stone, a thing of the earth, carry such unearthly power? Wasn't Mr. Goodfellow really to blame? It was he who had sent my father to debtors' prison, and me to the South Seas in the hold of a convict ship. Give the diamond to him? Hardly! I would keep the stone for myself, and use its wealth to crush the man like a cockroach.
But what if the Stone were cursed, I wondered; and round I went again.

I could sometimes spend hours thinking in circles. But today I had only begun when the boat suddenly rocked, and my head banged against its ribs. Benjamin Penny shouted, "Watch where you're going, you great oaf!" Gaskin Boggis was moving to his place beside the engine. That was where he always slept, nestled with the machinery. To him it must have been like a favorite old dog, a friend to be fed and watered by night, to be petted through the day.

I tried to find a bit of shade behind Midgely's turtle shell. But with each roll of the boat, sunlight flashed across my face.

I lay on planks that were, at most, an inch in thickness. On their other side was water so deep that it made me dizzy to think of it. What manner of things lurked down there?

With the engine silenced, I could hear the slop of water beneath the boat. My horrors paraded in my mind: man-eating fishes; serpents and leviathans; storm and tempest; and every man who'd ever drowned. Of them all, this last fear was my greatest. The splash against the planks became the thrashing of lost sailors swimming up behind us. Every scratch and tap of wood was the sound of their fingers feeling at the boat, and I dared not lift my head lest I see them reaching for the gunwale.

From the Hardcover edition.

Travis would have to find an elevator. There was no other way to get Nish up to the next floor to the Great Hall where they kept all the nhl trophies, including the Stanley Cup.

He asked one of the custodians for directions. There was an elevator at the rear, she told him. It was for the staff to come and go from their offices on the third and fourth floors, but it was also available for the use of anyone in need — and his friend in the wheelchair was certainly in need.

Travis pushed Nish down a long corridor, at the end of which were sliding doors and a single button. Travis pushed the button and the doors opened on an empty elevator.

“Lingerie, please.” Nish announced, as if he were addressing an elevator operator in a department store.

“You’re sick,” Travis said.

Nish grinned: “And proud of it.”

They rose to the second floor and the doors began to open.

Suddenly, both were blinded by a flash of light!

At first Travis ­couldn’t see, but as the flash faded from his eyes he could make out two bulky figures, one with a camera half-hidden in his opened coat.

The men seemed caught off guard. The man taking the pictures — dark, surly, with a scar down the side of his face as if he’d run into a skate — seemed to be trying to hide the camera. The other ­— tall, balding, but with a ponytail tied behind his head — seemed nervous.

“How ya doin’, boys?” the tall man asked.

“Okay,” Travis answered, unsure.

“We’re just taking some shots for a few renovations,” the man explained.

Travis pushed Nish past. It ­didn’t make any sense. The Hockey Hall of Fame was almost brand new. Why would it need fixing up already?

“What the heck’s with them?” Nish asked as they moved further down the corridor.

“I have no idea,” said Travis.

When they got to the Great Hall where the trophies were — a dazzle of lights on silver and glass, the Norris, the Calder, the Lady Byng, the Hart, the Vezina — several of the Screech Owls were already positioned in the designated area for taking their own photographs.

The scene made Travis even more suspicious of the men. If they had come in here with a camera, surely it was for this. Why would they want to take a picture of an elevator?

“There’s the Stanley Cup!” Nish shouted, pointing.

Derek and Willie were already there. The cup looked glorious. So shining, so rich, so remarkably familiar, even though none of them had ever seen it in real life before this moment.

“This ­isn’t the real one,” said Willie, who knew everything.

“Whadya mean?” Nish scowled, disbelieving.

Willie pointed back over his shoulder. “The real one, the original one that Lord Stanley gave back in 1893, is back over there in the vault. This building used to be a bank, you know. They keep it back there because it’s considered too fragile to present to the players, so they present this one — which in a way makes this one the real Stanley Cup as well.”

Travis looked to see what Willie was talking about. He could see another room back behind huge steel doors — “lord stanley’s vault,” the sign overhead said. There were more lights in there and what appeared to be another, smaller trophy.

And the two men were there, too!

The shorter, dark one had his camera out again. He was flashing pictures as fast as he could. But not of the cup, of everything else: the walls, the vault doors, the base the trophy stood on.

What were they up to?

“Wait here,” Travis said to Nish.

Nish turned back, hardly caring. He could get Data to push him if necessary. But anyway he ­wasn’t much interested in leaving the cup he was planning to carry around Maple Leaf Gardens.

Travis circled wide around the other trophies so he could come up on the entrance to the smaller room without being seen.

There was no one in the vault but the two men, still taking photographs. It made no sense.

Travis kept close to the wall and edged to the doorway. He could hear the taller man talking.

“It’s perfect,” he kept saying. “Perfect.”

“No one can see from any of the other areas. There’s only the one surveillance camera, the main alarm, and a secondary alarm on the display case. We plan it right and we can be in and out of here in less than thirty minutes.”

The man with the camera stopped and turned, scowling.

“Keep it down. You wanna tell the whole country?”

The tall one laughed. “The whole country will know soon enough — and they’ll pay whatever it takes to get this baby back, believe me.”

Travis could feel his legs shaking, and it ­wasn’t from the CN Tower run.

Kidnapped in Sweden
1
“Eeee-awww-keee!”

The moment Travis Lindsay heard the ridiculous yell, he closed his eyes and shook his head. It meant the Screech Owls’ big defenceman, Wayne Nishikawa, had come up with a new call.

“eeee-awww-keee!”

Nish had certainly been this loud before. He’d screamed worse when he fell through the ice on his snowmobile when the Owls had gone up north, and he’d yelped in real terror that day at summer hockey camp when he’d gone skinny-dipping with the snapping turtle. But the biggest difference was that this time Nish’s call was filled with joy rather than horror.

Nish, stripped naked again in the middle of a lake, was having the time of his life.

“eeee-awww-keee!”

This time, however, the lake was frozen solid, and Nish wanted the world to see him! This time he was fully expected to have absolutely nothing on, and this time he ­didn’t have to worry about drowning or an attack from a snapping turtle!

Did they have snapping turtles in Sweden? Travis wondered.

He shivered. He, too, was bare naked, and on a day so cold he ­couldn’t even breathe through his nose. If they did have snapping turtles, Travis thought, there was nothing to worry about today. If one was hiding anywhere around here, it would be suffering from lockjaw, frozen solid!

Travis ­couldn’t believe how quickly the air could change from unbearable heat to unbearable cold. A moment ago the sweat had been pouring off his face so fast it seemed as if Lars Johanssen, the Owls’ nifty little defenceman, had dumped the bucket of water over Travis’s head instead of over the white-hot rocks of the club sauna. The water had sizzled and steamed and the temperature had risen so dramatically that Travis had trouble breathing.

Now, standing outdoors, naked and skinny as the birch trees that grew down to the edge of this frozen Scandinavian lake, he had trouble breathing again. Travis’s nostrils were frozen shut. He was breathing through his mouth and the air was coming out in a fog as thick as the exhaust from his father’s car when they headed out for an early-morning practice back in Canada.

Travis looked around him. Except for Nish and Lars Johanssen, most of the Screech Owls — Data Ulmar, Willie Granger, Andy Higgins, Jesse Highboy, Dmitri Yakushev, Gordie Griffith, Derek Dillinger, Fahd Noorizadeh, Jeremy Weathers, Wilson Kelly, Mike Romano, the new third-line winger — were all still huddled next to the sauna building, their hands wrapped around their naked bodies like too-small blankets.

The Owls looked ridiculous. They were trying to use the building to shield themselves from the wind. Steam was rising from their heads and shoulders the way Travis had once seen it curl up from the team of horses that had drawn the Owls around the maple-sugar bush that belonged to Sarah Cuthbertson’s grandparents.

Sarah was here. Well, not here — not now, with crazy Nish standing bare naked out in the middle of the lake. But she was here in Stockholm.

Sarah would return to her own team after the tournament. Her parents thought the trip would be an excellent opportunity for her to get a feel for the larger Olympic-sized ice surface, where Sarah hoped to play for the Canadian women’s team one day.

Travis would have to find an elevator. There was no other way to get Nish up to the next floor to the Great Hall where they kept all the nhl trophies, including the Stanley Cup.

He asked one of the custodians for directions. There was an elevator at the rear, she told him. It was for the staff to come and go from their offices on the third and fourth floors, but it was also available for the use of anyone in need — and his friend in the wheelchair was certainly in need.

Travis pushed Nish down a long corridor, at the end of which were sliding doors and a single button. Travis pushed the button and the doors opened on an empty elevator.

“Lingerie, please.” Nish announced, as if he were addressing an elevator operator in a department store.

“You’re sick,” Travis said.

Nish grinned: “And proud of it.”

They rose to the second floor and the doors began to open.

Suddenly, both were blinded by a flash of light!

At first Travis ­couldn’t see, but as the flash faded from his eyes he could make out two bulky figures, one with a camera half-hidden in his opened coat.

The men seemed caught off guard. The man taking the pictures — dark, surly, with a scar down the side of his face as if he’d run into a skate — seemed to be trying to hide the camera. The other ­— tall, balding, but with a ponytail tied behind his head — seemed nervous.

“How ya doin’, boys?” the tall man asked.

“Okay,” Travis answered, unsure.

“We’re just taking some shots for a few renovations,” the man explained.

Travis pushed Nish past. It ­didn’t make any sense. The Hockey Hall of Fame was almost brand new. Why would it need fixing up already?

“What the heck’s with them?” Nish asked as they moved further down the corridor.

“I have no idea,” said Travis.

When they got to the Great Hall where the trophies were — a dazzle of lights on silver and glass, the Norris, the Calder, the Lady Byng, the Hart, the Vezina — several of the Screech Owls were already positioned in the designated area for taking their own photographs.

The scene made Travis even more suspicious of the men. If they had come in here with a camera, surely it was for this. Why would they want to take a picture of an elevator?

“There’s the Stanley Cup!” Nish shouted, pointing.

Derek and Willie were already there. The cup looked glorious. So shining, so rich, so remarkably familiar, even though none of them had ever seen it in real life before this moment.

“This ­isn’t the real one,” said Willie, who knew everything.

“Whadya mean?” Nish scowled, disbelieving.

Willie pointed back over his shoulder. “The real one, the original one that Lord Stanley gave back in 1893, is back over there in the vault. This building used to be a bank, you know. They keep it back there because it’s considered too fragile to present to the players, so they present this one — which in a way makes this one the real Stanley Cup as well.”

Travis looked to see what Willie was talking about. He could see another room back behind huge steel doors — “lord stanley’s vault,” the sign overhead said. There were more lights in there and what appeared to be another, smaller trophy.

And the two men were there, too!

The shorter, dark one had his camera out again. He was flashing pictures as fast as he could. But not of the cup, of everything else: the walls, the vault doors, the base the trophy stood on.

What were they up to?

“Wait here,” Travis said to Nish.

Nish turned back, hardly caring. He could get Data to push him if necessary. But anyway he ­wasn’t much interested in leaving the cup he was planning to carry around Maple Leaf Gardens.

Travis circled wide around the other trophies so he could come up on the entrance to the smaller room without being seen.

There was no one in the vault but the two men, still taking photographs. It made no sense.

Travis kept close to the wall and edged to the doorway. He could hear the taller man talking.

“It’s perfect,” he kept saying. “Perfect.”

“No one can see from any of the other areas. There’s only the one surveillance camera, the main alarm, and a secondary alarm on the display case. We plan it right and we can be in and out of here in less than thirty minutes.”

The man with the camera stopped and turned, scowling.

“Keep it down. You wanna tell the whole country?”

The tall one laughed. “The whole country will know soon enough — and they’ll pay whatever it takes to get this baby back, believe me.”

Travis could feel his legs shaking, and it ­wasn’t from the CN Tower run.

From The Screech Owls' Reunion (#20)

It had been a quiet, uneventful mid-june Sunday at the Lake Tamarack public beach — right up until Muck lost his diaper.

The water was still and bright as a mirror. There were nesting robins by the gravel parking lot, and a pair of loons was calling farther out on the lake. The only ripples had come from Muck's chunky legs as he waded out among the reeds, staring down at the freshwater clams and darting minnows in the surprisingly warm water of what had already been a pleasantly warm spring.

Distracted by the wonders in the water, Muck didn't realize how deep he was getting. The water rose over his knees, then crept up his diaper, the tabs straining until, finally, the soaking diaper simply popped off and began floating out into deeper water.

Muck paid it no heed. Giggling at his newfound, bare-bottomed freedom, he began splashing through the shallow waters, much to the amusement of an older couple who had decided to walk home from church by the path that looped down around the bay and back toward the river mouth at the edge of town.

Naked as the minnows, Muck began screeching with delight and splashing the water all around him until a small, quick rainbow formed almost within reach.

The man and woman applauded.

"Muck!"a younger woman's voice broke in. "Where is your diaper?"
Muck looked up, bright blue eyes blinking innocently.

He turned his hands palm out and shrugged helplessly, smiling.

"Gone," he said.

"Diaper gone."

********

Travis Lindsay had been running for nearly an hour, but it still felt good. He had already run down River Road, across the bridge, up to the Lookout, and back down to the new recreation path that would take him down along the river mouth to the beach. The delicious smells of pin cherry blossoms were in the air and his lungs were greedily reaching for even more.

It was a day to be grateful for life, a day to let your mind go, like the young dog running off in all directions around Travis.

Imoo was a golden retriever. He was one year old, and still far more puppy than fully grown dog - especially in his behaviour. He was also Travis Lindsay's new best friend in the world and constant companion, running with him by day and sleeping with him, usually across Travis's legs, by night.

Travis had named him after the toothless, scrappy, hockey-playing Buddhist monk Travis and his former best friend in the world, Wayne Nishikawa, had met and befriended in Nagano, Japan. With Nish in goal and Mr. Imoo's famous "force shield" helping protect the Owls' net, the Screech Owls of Tamarack had won the gold medal in hockey's first-ever "Junior Olympics."

Travis never forgot that experience - though that had been such a long, long time ago.

Ten years now.

Travis would have to find an elevator. There was no other way to get Nish up to the next floor to the Great Hall where they kept all the nhl trophies, including the Stanley Cup.

He asked one of the custodians for directions. There was an elevator at the rear, she told him. It was for the staff to come and go from their offices on the third and fourth floors, but it was also available for the use of anyone in need — and his friend in the wheelchair was certainly in need.

Travis pushed Nish down a long corridor, at the end of which were sliding doors and a single button. Travis pushed the button and the doors opened on an empty elevator.

“Lingerie, please.” Nish announced, as if he were addressing an elevator operator in a department store.

“You’re sick,” Travis said.

Nish grinned: “And proud of it.”

They rose to the second floor and the doors began to open.

Suddenly, both were blinded by a flash of light!

At first Travis ­couldn’t see, but as the flash faded from his eyes he could make out two bulky figures, one with a camera half-hidden in his opened coat.

The men seemed caught off guard. The man taking the pictures — dark, surly, with a scar down the side of his face as if he’d run into a skate — seemed to be trying to hide the camera. The other ­— tall, balding, but with a ponytail tied behind his head — seemed nervous.

“How ya doin’, boys?” the tall man asked.

“Okay,” Travis answered, unsure.

“We’re just taking some shots for a few renovations,” the man explained.

Travis pushed Nish past. It ­didn’t make any sense. The Hockey Hall of Fame was almost brand new. Why would it need fixing up already?

“What the heck’s with them?” Nish asked as they moved further down the corridor.

“I have no idea,” said Travis.

When they got to the Great Hall where the trophies were — a dazzle of lights on silver and glass, the Norris, the Calder, the Lady Byng, the Hart, the Vezina — several of the Screech Owls were already positioned in the designated area for taking their own photographs.

The scene made Travis even more suspicious of the men. If they had come in here with a camera, surely it was for this. Why would they want to take a picture of an elevator?

“There’s the Stanley Cup!” Nish shouted, pointing.

Derek and Willie were already there. The cup looked glorious. So shining, so rich, so remarkably familiar, even though none of them had ever seen it in real life before this moment.

“This ­isn’t the real one,” said Willie, who knew everything.

“Whadya mean?” Nish scowled, disbelieving.

Willie pointed back over his shoulder. “The real one, the original one that Lord Stanley gave back in 1893, is back over there in the vault. This building used to be a bank, you know. They keep it back there because it’s considered too fragile to present to the players, so they present this one — which in a way makes this one the real Stanley Cup as well.”

Travis looked to see what Willie was talking about. He could see another room back behind huge steel doors — “lord stanley’s vault,” the sign overhead said. There were more lights in there and what appeared to be another, smaller trophy.

And the two men were there, too!

The shorter, dark one had his camera out again. He was flashing pictures as fast as he could. But not of the cup, of everything else: the walls, the vault doors, the base the trophy stood on.

What were they up to?

“Wait here,” Travis said to Nish.

Nish turned back, hardly caring. He could get Data to push him if necessary. But anyway he ­wasn’t much interested in leaving the cup he was planning to carry around Maple Leaf Gardens.

Travis circled wide around the other trophies so he could come up on the entrance to the smaller room without being seen.

There was no one in the vault but the two men, still taking photographs. It made no sense.

Travis kept close to the wall and edged to the doorway. He could hear the taller man talking.

“It’s perfect,” he kept saying. “Perfect.”

“No one can see from any of the other areas. There’s only the one surveillance camera, the main alarm, and a secondary alarm on the display case. We plan it right and we can be in and out of here in less than thirty minutes.”

The man with the camera stopped and turned, scowling.

“Keep it down. You wanna tell the whole country?”

The tall one laughed. “The whole country will know soon enough — and they’ll pay whatever it takes to get this baby back, believe me.”

Travis could feel his legs shaking, and it ­wasn’t from the CN Tower run.