Rebel Glory (6 page)

He shut the door behind me. He moved to his desk and sat in the chair behind it, still wearing his hockey skates.

“It looks bad, McElhaney. Real bad.”

“I did not put those wallets there.” I was too scared to be mad. My words felt like a waterfall of marbles dropping from my mouth. “Someone else must have. I would never steal from—”

“You’re not listening,” he said. “It looks bad. Whether you stole those wallets or not, we’ve got a real problem.”

“Coach?”

He rubbed his face with both hands. While I waited for him to speak, I stared at a photo on the edge of his desk of his pretty blond wife with their baby boy.

“McElhaney,” he finally said, “I really want to believe you.”

He watched my face. He probably saw I was thinking he
wanted
to believe me. Not he
did
believe me.

“I’m sorry,” he said seconds later. “What I meant is I do believe you. Someone else put those wallets there.”

He had apologized too late, though. It hurt. The Henrys. Coach. Did I keep to myself so much that no one felt they knew me enough to trust me?

“Someone else did,” I insisted. I was starting to be less scared now and more mad. Who was trying to get me? And why?

“Don’t you see?” Coach Blair said. “Unless we prove who did it—”

“It looks like I’m guilty,” I finished.

“Hockey’s a team game,” he said. “Can we be a team if the rest of the guys think you stole from them?”

I couldn’t respond. Not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I couldn’t get the words out.

We stared at each other.

“You’ll have to sit out a few games,” he said. “I hate to do it. The team needs your skills on defense.”

Miss some games? I felt like a miserable wall of bricks standing there in my hockey equipment, sweat running down my face, my stick in my hand.

“How many games?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Until we find out who did this.”

I got the feeling he didn’t expect to find anyone else. I got the feeling he did think I had stolen the wallets but found it easier to pretend someone else had.

“There was fiberglass in Mr. Kimball’s truck,” I said. “And—”

“Stop!” Coach Blair said. He was angry.
“I’m not stupid. I saw the insulation there too. But don’t even try to accuse him. Think about it, McElhaney. Anyone else could have done it. Maybe taken it from his truck. Or gotten their own fiberglass, knowing Kimball’s in construction and how it would make him look bad. A lot of other people had access to the washing machine. Even the stickboys, for crying out loud. And don’t think I’m not looking into all of this.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m sorry. Maybe—” I started to tell him about the phone call to the Henrys, but then I stopped. Maybe Coach Blair wouldn’t think someone was out to get me. Maybe, instead, Coach Blair would think that a person who would steal wallets from his teammates would also beat up a girl on a date.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

He stood. “Maybe you should wait in here while the guys finish showering.”

“Sure.” For the first time in a long time I was close to tears. It was sinking in. I was now shut out from my own team.

“I’ll issue a news release that says you went home for urgent personal reasons,” Coach Blair said. “It won’t be a lie because it might be best if you weren’t in town while this gets sorted out.”

“Sure,” I said.

“I hope we can keep this a team secret,” Coach Blair said. “If it gets out, there won’t be many teams in the league who will want you to play for them.”

chapter twelve

From Red Deer to my hometown of Winnipeg is about a fourteen-hour drive if you don’t hit any blizzards and you don’t take any breaks and you only stop to fill up with gas. It might be a few hours less for someone who has a faster vehicle than my 1972 pickup truck, but it’s definitely fourteen hours for me. I know. I drove to Red Deer from Winnipeg just after Christmas, when I was traded from the Brandon Wheat Kings.

Only this time as I drove I wasn’t quite so happy. This time I wasn’t driving somewhere to play hockey. I was driving because I might never play hockey again.

And it was not a great place to be driving when my head was filled with such depressing thoughts. I was in the darkness at nine o’clock at night, on a deserted two-lane prairie highway somewhere between Hanna, Alberta, and Kindersley, Saskatchewan. The wind blew hard against my windshield, rocking the truck as it groaned along the highway. The noise of the wind as it came through the cracks of my windows was like the wailing of a sad song, and it didn’t help my mood at all.

Never play hockey again?

If the newspapers got hold of why I was driving to Winnipeg, no other team in the league would take me. Without junior hockey, I would never make the
NHL.

It wasn’t as if I had lots to make my life happy. I was on my way to the home that wasn’t really my home, in Winnipeg. My dad had died when I was twelve. A brain tumor. He had found out one month, and the next
month he was gone. My mom had already left by then, so I ended up with my aunt and uncle. They didn’t really mind having me there. But they didn’t go out of their way to treat me like their own kid either. Mostly, I just felt invisible.

Except when I was on the ice. Then, even though I was always scared of making a mistake, I felt like I belonged someplace.

Never play hockey again? My whole life was hockey. What else could there be for me if I couldn’t play hockey or dream about hockey?

With the wind blowing through my old truck, I couldn’t seem to stay warm. I turned up the heater and shivered and bounced behind the steering wheel as my worn-out tires hummed down the highway. In the last ten minutes I had not seen the headlights of a single car or truck.

I had never felt so alone.

So I did something I had told myself I would not do as I drove. I turned on the radio to listen to the Red Deer Rebels as they played the Regina Pats back in the Centrium.

I cranked the volume so I could hear above the wind and highway noises of my old truck.

I was just in time for a commercial. I listened to a singing cow tell me why I should drink milk as much as possible. Finally the game returned.

“Five minutes and thirty seconds left in a very exciting game,” the announcer said. “Red Deer Rebels with five goals. The Regina Pats with five goals. Face-off in the Rebel zone.”

I stared straight ahead into the yellow beams of my headlights. I should have been playing this game.

“Puck dropped back to the Regina defense. He takes his stick back. And—” The announcer’s voice rose with excitement. “A booooomer of a slap shot. A direct shot on net! The goalie makes the save...No! Folks, that puck went into the net! It’s a goal! Six to five for the Regina Pats.”

It figured. All I had to do was turn the radio on for the Rebels to start losing the game.

“It was the strangest thing, folks,” the announcer was saying. “From up here it looked like Robbie Patterson in the Rebels’ net had managed to get his glove out in time to catch the booming slap shot. Then somehow the puck dribbled past him anyway. And folks—What’s this? Here comes Patterson skating out of the net toward the players’ bench. He appears to be holding his glove out. He’s shaking it and pointing at it. I can’t quite see what is—

“Folks, he’s right at the bench. Coach Blair is taking a close look at the glove and—

“Rebel time-out. Coach Blair has called a time-out.”

What was going on? Patterson never got upset like this.

The radio cut back to the singing cow. Then to five reasons I should switch brands of baby diapers. I definitely preferred being on the ice over listening to the game on the radio.

“We’re back, folks,” the announcer said. “In all my years of hockey I’ve never seen a slap shot so hard it actually snapped the
webbing of a goalie glove! Robbie Patterson made the save, and the puck just kept right on going. What a bad break for the Rebels. McElhaney, their star defenseman, out for an indefinite length of time. Now this. What’s it going to take for the Rebels to make the playoffs? If the Rebels keep this bad streak going, and if it’s true the Rebels are for sale, you can figure the team will be worth a lot less by the time this season ends. What can the coach and general manager be thinking about this latest bad break, I wonder—”

The announcer took a breath. He’d done his job of filling airtime until the ref was ready to drop the puck again.

“Here they are, folks. Another face-off with just over five minutes left. Rebels down by a goal. Mancini at center ice, fights for the puck, knocks it ahead. Hog Burnell skating in—”

I snapped the radio off. I couldn’t take listening when I should have been playing. Mancini, Hog, Shertzer. I missed them. And they didn’t miss me.

I banged the steering wheel with the palm of my hand. Hours and hours of driving ahead of me. It was going to be the worst trip of my life, sitting in this old truck with nothing but these depressing thoughts for company.

Bad breaks, the announcer had said. No kidding. It was like someone was doing their best to make sure we lost.

It hit me as my last thought sank in.

Someone was doing their best to make sure we lost.

I added it up. Cockroaches in Jason’s equipment. My skate rivets loosened. Cola dumped on the players’ bench. Flat tires. Fiberglass in the laundry. A wrecked goalie’s glove.

Maybe it wasn’t that someone was trying to wreck my life with the skate rivets and the phone call to the Henrys and the stolen wallets in my duffel bag. Maybe those were just more ways to try to hurt the team.

As the wind noise died down, I realized I had taken my foot off the gas pedal and had let the truck slow down.

If someone really was trying to make the Rebels lose, I had to find out. Because if I could find out, we still might make the playoffs. And I might be able to play hockey again.

I hit the brakes and swung the truck back toward Red Deer.

chapter thirteen

A little over an hour later, I was halfway back to Red Deer. I passed a service station just as dark and lonely as the highway. The only light shone in the parking lot over a telephone booth.

Just down the highway from the service station, an idea hit me. I told myself it was a dumb idea. But I couldn’t get it out of my head. And I kept thinking about the telephone booth in the parking lot.

I turned the truck around and spent a few minutes driving back to the closed service station.

I parked my truck beside the telephone booth. Again I tried to tell myself how stupid my idea was. Except I couldn’t think of another way. If I could figure out what questions to ask, who else in Red Deer might help me?

I got out of the truck, still telling myself it was a stupid idea.

I also half hoped the telephone book would be missing. But there it was, dangling from a steel cable.

I sighed.

I half hoped there would be a whole bunch of Holbrooks in the book, because that would give me the perfect excuse to quit even before I started. Unfortunately, there was only one Holbrook listed in the Red Deer section of the telephone directory. A Frederick Holbrook. On 53rd Street.

I sighed again. I dialed the number before I could change my mind.

A voice came on the line and told me to deposit seventy-five cents. I thanked the voice
before I realized it was a recording. I wasn’t sure if this was a good start to making a phone call at ten at night to a girl I had hardly ever spoken to.

I pushed three quarters into the coin slot and listened to the phone ring.

I half hoped no one would answer. Unfortunately, it only rang twice before a quiet voice said hello.

“Hello,” I said back, trying to sound mature. “May I speak with Cheryl Holbrook.”

“This is Cheryl.”

Great. What do I say next?

I must have waited too long.

“This is Cheryl,” she said again.

I couldn’t do it.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I must have dialed the wrong number. Good-bye.”

“Wait!” She laughed. “How could you have dialed the wrong number if you asked for me?”

I wanted to hit my head against the wall of the phone booth. So much for being a guy who always used logic. All it took was a girl’s soft voice and my mind turned to mush. I tried to think of something fast.

“I got the wrong Cheryl Holbrook,” I finally said. “So sorry. Good-bye.”

“Wait!” She laughed again. “How do you know it’s the wrong Cheryl Holbrook?”

This was much harder than facing 200-pound forwards who wanted to smear me into the boards. I again did my best to find an excuse.

“Are you old and fat and wrinkled?” I asked.

“Um, no,” she said.

“That’s it then. Wrong Cheryl Holbrook,” I told her. “The one I’m looking for is old and fat and wrinkled. I guess I should be going now.”

“Is this Craig McElhaney?” she asked.

I wanted to crawl under my truck. I should have hung up, but I was too rattled. I clutched the phone and gulped a few dozen times, trying to get some air. No wonder I stayed away from women and concentrated on hockey.

“Is it?” she asked again. “Is this Craig?”

I mumbled it was.

“I thought I recognized your voice from English class. How nice you called.”

“Um, thanks,” I said. I wondered what to say next.

“Well,” she said after a few seconds of silence, “did you get your homework done for Mr. Palmer’s class tomorrow?”

Hadn’t she heard I was leaving town for urgent personal reasons? Hadn’t she heard what Coach Blair had told the newspapers and radio?

“I didn’t,” I said. “It might not be that important if—”

A voice interrupted and told me to put in another fifty cents for two more minutes.

I reached into my pockets. Nothing.

“Hang on!” I shouted into the phone.

I dropped the phone and raced back to the truck. I usually had some change in the ashtray. I found three gum wrappers, five pennies and one quarter. I rammed my hand into the seat cushions. Sometimes money fell from my pocket when I drove. I ripped a fingernail on a spring in the cushion but managed to find another quarter. I raced back to the phone and plugged the money into the slot.