Line Change (13 page)

Bosko was quiet and I couldn’t tell if I’d managed to change his mind.

“Look,” he finally said. “I respect your dad, and I respect his coaching, okay? I don’t like the idea of centre, but I’ll roll with the position change if I have to.”

Yes!

“Cool,” I said, nodding.

“Yeah, well, my dad won’t be quite as cool. It was better to miss practice this morning than let him chew your dad up.”

Chew him up?

I swallowed hard. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem,” he said. “For now, anyway.”

I sat at my desk and waited for Mr. Holloway to pass all of the tests back.

I closed my eyes and imagined a seventy-five or an eighty marked in red ink at the top of the page. All of Bosko’s tutoring had to pay off, didn’t it?

I opened my eyes when I heard the teacher’s steps walking toward me.

“Mr. McDonald,” he said, handing me the page and giving me a slight nod.

Barely breathing, I glanced at the page.

A seventy-seven.

Yes!

Bosko turned to face me and I whispered my score.

He gave me a thumbs-up.

Whew.

So, Math wasn’t going to keep me off the ice (for that week, anyway). I closed my eyes again, totally relieved.

After all, without Kenny and Colin, the Cougars’ hockey season was in more than enough trouble already.

Chapter Fourteen

Bosko and I left Mr. Holloway’s class together, ready to head to the library for tutoring. But I hadn’t even made it to my locker when I heard my name over the P.A. system.

“Jonathan McDonald, please report to the principal’s office.”

What?

“Busted,” Bosko, said, punching my shoulder.

“I didn’t do anything,” I told him.

“That’s your story. Stick to it,” he laughed.

I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d done that would get me sent to the office. Geez, I’d been in school all stinkin’ day!

As Bosko and I walked, a bunch of kids made stupid comments about what kind of trouble I was in.

When we finally got there, I walked in the door and almost crashed into my sister.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Picking you up, dork.” She pulled her purse onto her shoulder and walked past me and Bosko, who was staring at her, as usual.

My sister was almost six feet tall and ninety percent of her height was legs. She walked in huge steps and I was always hurrying to catch up.

But not Bosko. My giant was right at her side, grinning like a fool.

“Where are we going?” I called out to her.

“Where do you think?” she asked, over her shoulder.

“I don’t know. The mall?”

“Ha! As if I’d be seen with you toads at the mall.”

Hadn’t she tried dragging me there just a few days ago?

“Then where?”

“Home, dummy.”

“But we’re going to the library,” I told her.

“Not anymore.”

“Wendy, seriously, what’s going on?”

She stopped and turned to face me with her hands on her hips. “The only way Mum would let me borrow the van was if I picked you up.”

“But —”

“Get moving.”

Once we found the van, even Bosko cringed.

It was parked diagonally and took up almost three spaces. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible if I hadn’t seen it myself.

“Whoa,” Bosko said, under his breath.

“Just wait,” I told him. “It gets worse.”

And it did.

When Wendy wasn’t slamming the brakes on the way home, she was swerving toward the double line, and just when I thought I wouldn’t survive the ride, she pulled out her cell phone.

“What are you doing?” I gasped.

“What does it look like?”

“You’re not allowed to call people when you’re driving.”

“I’m not going to,” she said.

I let out the breath I was holding. “Good.”

“I’m sending a quick text.”

“What?” I choked.

“Isn’t that illegal?” Bosko asked, with a gulp.

I’d never seen him scared before, and it would have been funny if I hadn’t been terrified, myself.

“What are you, a hall monitor?” she sneered.

I stared at her. “Okay, that doesn’t even make sense.”

“Shut up, Nugget,” she snapped, steering with one hand while she typed letters with the other.

“You’re going to kill us,” I told her.

“Yeah, right,” she said.

“Stop, Wendy,” I said, seeing the traffic slowing down in front of us.

“I’m almost done.”

“No, I mean stop!” I shouted.

The car in front of us wasn’t moving.

But we were.

Fast.

There was a huge crunch and I was thrown forward, hard. I was glad I was wearing my seatbelt, because otherwise I would have been hurled in the air for a couple of blocks, probably all the way into a booth at KFC.

When all the noise stopped, we didn’t say anything for a moment. We just stared at the car in front of us.

“No way,” Wendy whispered, covering her mouth with her hand. “No way did that just happen.”

“Are you okay?” Bosko asked.

Even he looked kind of shaken up.

“
No way did that just happen
,” she said again.

“I heard you the first time, and it did,” I told her. I watched the driver in front of us get out of his car and check for damage.

He didn’t have to look very hard.

He frowned and signalled for Wendy to get out of the car.

My sister shook her head and didn’t move. “This can’t be happening,” she mumbled. “They’re going to kill me.”

“Who?” I asked, imagining the other guy’s car was loaded with gangsters or bloodthirsty zombies.

“Mum and Dad,” she whispered.

“Well, duh. How many times have they told you not to use your stupid cell phone while you’re driving?”

She dropped her hand from her mouth and turned to face me. “Don’t you dare tell them.”

“They’re gonna know,” I told her. “Unless you can do some serious body work in the next hour or so.”

“It might not be that bad,” Bosko said, jumping out of the car to take a look.

When Wendy saw him cringe, I thought she might cry.

“They won’t make you pay for it,” I told her.

“Shut up, Nugget.”

“They won’t,” I insisted. “Dad’s an insurance guy, for crying out loud.”

She held up a hand. “Just stop talking.”

I looked out the front window and saw either smoke or steam blowing out from under the hood.

My sister’s eyes were huge. “Is it going to blow up?”

I stared at her. “This isn’t an action movie, Wendy.”

But it started to seem like one when I saw the flashing lights of two police cars heading our way.

“The police?” she whispered.

“Mum and Dad are going to kill you,” I finished for her.

One of the policemen came to Wendy’s window and when he signalled for her to roll it down, she shook her head and looked away.

“I don’t think that will work,” I told her.

“Maybe we can just drive to a garage and I can pay for it out of my savings. Maybe Mum and Dad don’t have to know.”

“What are you, five?” I asked. “That’s the kind of plan Kenny would come up with.”

“You’re not helping, Nugget. Can you please just be quiet?”

The policeman rapped his knuckles against the glass and I swore Wendy jumped about a foot. And that was with her seatbelt on.

“Just get out of the car and deal with it,” I told her.

She closed her eyes for a second, then unlocked the door and climbed out to talk to the police. I followed her, wondering if they’d take her to the station.

That would be pretty awesome. I’d only been there once, for a field trip in grade two.

Bosko and I sat on the curb while Wendy and the other driver told the police what had happened. No one asked us anything, even though we’d been closer to the action than anyone. We were perfect eyewitnesses, but nobody cared.

When it turned out that Mum’s van was too messed up to drive, and would have to be towed away, Wendy came and sat with us. That’s when she really did start crying.

Bosko saw an opportunity and tried to put his arm around her.

She punched him in the neck.

Hard.

I watched her biting her lip as she dialed our home number and told Mum where she was. I couldn’t think of another time when Wendy had been in big trouble. Sure, my parents had talked to her about her attitude every now and then, but she’d never done anything seriously wrong.

And this was seriously wrong.

And seriously stupid.

It was going to be interesting.

“Wanna get started on the Math?” I asked Bosko.

“I guess we could,” he said, glancing at Wendy to make sure she wasn’t suddenly going to change her mind and leap into his arms.

She wasn’t. I grabbed my textbook out of the van and we got to work while Wendy stared off into the distance, still biting her lip.

When my parents showed up and saw their almost-new van smashed up, they looked madder than I’d ever seen them.

“What happened?” Mum asked.

Wendy fiddled with the zipper on her hoodie. “I was, uh …”

“Texting,” the guy she hit told them.

“What?” Mum gasped, staring at my sister. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Wendy shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Mum laughed, but in kind of a crazy way. “You’re
sorry
?”

“Yeah,” she said quietly.

“You’re paying the deductible,” Mum said. “I don’t care how you do it or how long it takes.”

“And this looks like the end of driving for a while,” Dad added.

“Not to mention leaving the house,” Mum said.

“What?” Wendy gasped. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely,” Dad told her. “Grounded.”

It was kind of cool to watch my parents tag team somebody else for a change.

“School and volleyball,” Mum said. “That’s it.”

“But Shane —”

“You’re not seeing Shane,” Mum said.

“What?” Wendy almost choked on the word.

Bosko started to grin like he’d won the freakin’ Stanley Cup.

While we were all making a scene, a big, black SUV pulled up next to us. When the driver jumped out, he had a neck like a tree stump and I immediately knew who he was.

It had to be Mr. Bosko.

“What’s going on here?” he asked. “You okay, son?”

Eddie nodded. “Sure.”

Mr. Bosko spun around to face Dad. “You should count your lucky stars that he’s okay. This kid is a
prodigy
. Do you know what that means?” he asked, then looked from Wendy (gnawing on a fingernail) to me (mouth hanging open like a flounder) and back again before shaking his head and muttering, “Of course you don’t.”

“Look, I’m —”

“The hockey coach,” he said, with a sneer. “I know exactly who you are.”

“Gord McDonald,” Dad said, offering his hand for a shake.

“Give me a break,” Mr. Bosko said, turning away. “Eddie, get in the car.”

“But —”

“
Now
,” he said, following his son to the SUV.

I had a sneaking suspicion I wouldn’t be seeing Bosko next practice.

And that meant the McDonald family had managed to lose three players for the Cougars.

It was quite the record.

Chapter Fifteen

When I came home on Tuesday, I was sick of everything. I’d had a bad day at school, I was sure we’d be down three players at the next game and I was just plain sick of everything.

As soon as I walked in the door, I threw my backpack into the mudroom. Hard.

“Whoa!” Mum said, when I got to the kitchen. “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“It was a pretty loud nothing,” she said, raising an eyebrow at me.

“It was my backpack, okay?”

“No,” she said, frowning. “Not okay at all, Nugget. This isn’t the place to throw things.”

“There’s nothing breakable in it,” I told her, starting toward the fridge.

“That’s not the point,” she said, leaning against the door so I couldn’t open it.

I gave the handle a huge tug, but she was heavier than
she looked. “What?” I snapped.

“First, pick up your bag, then we’ll talk about
what
.”

I gritted my teeth and went back into the mudroom, got the bag and hung it on a hook.

“No homework today?” Mum asked.

“Yes, I have homework,” I muttered. I always had homework. That was one more thing I was sick of.

“Then the bag is probably going upstairs with you, don’t you think?”

I stared at her. “Whatever.”

“Nugget, what’s going on?” she asked, carrying a cup of coffee over to the table and sitting down.

“Nothing.”

“I find that impossible to believe. Is it Math?”

“No.” Yes, but that was only a small part of it.

“English?”

“No.”

“Social Studies?”

“
No
. Look, it’s not school at all, okay?”

It was Mum’s turn to stare. “Then what is it?”

“Hockey,” I mumbled.

“You’re going to have to speak up.”

“It’s hockey, okay?” I snapped.

“Let’s watch the tone, young man.”

I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m just upset.”

“About hockey,” Mum said, looking surprised.

I nodded. “Pretty much.”

“What’s going on? Is it one of the other guys? Bosko?”

“No.”

“Kenny?”

“No.”

“Colin?”

“No, Mum. Can you stop trying to guess?”

“Well, yes. If you tell me.”

I took a deep breath. “It’s Dad.”

“Dad?” she paused for a second. “Is he being too hard on you? Because if he is, it’s only because he wants you to play well and —”

“He’s not being too hard on me.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s everything,” I said, slumping into a chair. “It started with practice, when he wanted to do all the weird drills and running and everything.”

“He is the coach for now, honey. He can’t let you guys slack off.”

“I know. It’s just that since he moved everyone into different positions —”

“To strengthen the team, on a part-time basis,” she interrupted. “He explained that to both of us.”

“Well, the guys don’t like it. The parents don’t like it. I don’t even like it.”

“When you say ‘it,’ do you mean the changes, or Dad as a coach?”