Overtime (6 page)

The Terrence Falls kids looked over.

Pudge stuck a foot into his skate and reached into his bag for the other one. “Apparently, Holmes refused to accept it. He said the decisions were final because if he allowed one student to switch, everyone would want to switch and it would be … I think he said … an administrative nightmare.”

“The school assignments are a nightmare,” Scott said with a scowl. “Me at Chelsea? I’ve spent most of my life
hating that place, and now I’m supposed to wear the school colours?”

“You do look good in blue and gold,” Nick said.

“That’s the worst part,” Scott said. “I’m going to be miserable, and at the same time look absolutely fabulous.”

“I heard a rumour that some kids were going to protest by dressing in black,” Zachary said.

“I saw a few posters around school,” Matt said. “I wondered what that was all about.”

“It’s a day of mourning,” Pudge said.

“I’m definitely in,” Scott said. He nudged Nick. “And it doesn’t hurt that I look even better in black.”

“Damn you and your fabulousness,” Nick said.

That lightened the mood and the boys began to joke around a bit more.

“Have you made any new friends at Kennedy?” Scott asked Charlie.

“I’m still working on it,” Charlie said. “It might help if I knew where it is, though.”

“You’ll love it there if you like buses. It’s about an hour away,” Pudge said.

“Finally, you and Jake can spend some quality time together,” Nick said.

“So what’s going on at Terrence Falls?” Spencer broke in. “I’ve heard they’re closing the school.”

Charlie filled him in.

“Anyone going to Central?” Spencer asked.

Matt raised his hand.

“Awesome, dude,” he said. “Our Champions Cup team just got a whole lot better. Our coach is gonna freak when he hears you’re coming.”

“I never thought of that,” Scott said, slapping his thigh. “Chelsea’s Champions Cup junior team won last year. In fact, they’ve won the last six years. If I play for them —”

“They’ll definitely lose,” Nick jumped in.

“And I will get my revenge!” Scott yelled.

He and Nick shook hands.

“Actually, the only good thing about the school closing early is maybe we can still make a Champions Cup team after all,” Pudge said. He looked around the room, and his face turned red. Slowly, most eyes in the room turned to Charlie.

Charlie was about to put on a skate. He dropped it back in his bag. “Kennedy doesn’t have a team, does it?” he said.

The guys started laughing.

“Who would want to play in the most awesome high school hockey tournament of the year?” Scott sputtered, doubled up with laughter.

“He can work ahead in English,” Nick said, and the roars rebounded off the walls.

Charlie could only shake his head. He reached for his skate. “It’s not certain that TFH is closing early,” he said.

No one heard him. They were all joking around and talking too loudly. Then Pudge tapped him on the arm.

“What time did Matt’s friend arrange for delivery tomorrow morning?” Pudge said quietly.

“Six-thirty, dude,” Charlie said. “But we need to get there earlier so Dalton can let us in.”

“Is he going to help?” Pudge said hesitantly.

“I didn’t exactly tell him what we’re doing, only that we got a bunch of stuff for movie night. You know
Dalton, he was happy to meet us. I felt bad about lying, and making him get up so early, but …”

Pudge grunted and began to tape his shin pads. Charlie could tell Pudge was worried, and so was he. Everything depended on Dalton.

“I think Charlie and Jake should join the book club at Kennedy West first, and then start up their own glee club,” Scott was saying when Hilton walked in holding a clipboard, followed by Jeffrey, the assistant coach.

“Let’s settle down a bit and get ready for the game,” Hilton said. “Finish dressing and then we can go over the lines. I want to make a few changes.”

Charlie stuffed his foot into his skate. They were getting really tight. He ignored it and began tugging on the laces. Snug skates were the least of his worries.

* * *

Scott circled the Rebels’ net and Charlie curled high in the slot. Uncharacteristically, Charlie wasn’t thinking of his next move; he was picturing himself on the roof tomorrow morning. They had ordered the plastic yesterday. Matt had sneaked upstairs to scope things out and take measurements. What if it didn’t come on time, though? The whole thing was risky, and the later they started and the longer the work took, the higher the chances of getting caught. Just then Scott passed the puck to him. It was a bit behind, and instead of reaching with his stick, Charlie figured he could drag his left skate and deflect it.

A roar went up from the crowd. Charlie watched helplessly as the Tigers’ centre stormed in on goal. The puck had clipped the heel of Charlie’s skate and bounced behind him. Nick had to cover the left winger in front,
so it was a semi-breakaway. Martin came out to cut down the angle, but he had not anticipated such a sudden turnover and was slightly off his line. The puck carrier hesitated, took aim and snapped a wicked wrister down low to the glove side. Martin barely had time to move.

Charlie put his stick across his shin pads and coasted to his goalie. “Totally my bad,” he said, and slapped Martin’s pads.

Martin dug the puck out of his net and backhanded it towards the other end. The ref gave him a dirty look, but fortunately just turned and gave chase.

“Bad pass,” Scott said, joining them in front. “Sorry about that, Joyce. My goal.”

“Nah,” Charlie said. “I should’ve had it. I didn’t move my stick. It was laziness.”

“This game has been one continuous bad bounce,” Nick said. He slapped their shin pads with his stick. “How much bad luck can we have? I think all five of their goals came off stupid turnovers.”

Charlie had nothing to add. The game had been a disaster from the start. In his first shift, he had lost a faceoff in their end, and the Tigers had converted that into a goal in the second minute. A few bad passes, some sloppy defensive coverage, and now this, and the score was 5–1 for the Tigers. The Rebels had punished them 8–2 in an exhibition game!

He saw Matt’s line hop the boards, and Spencer and Philip come out for the defence. “We don’t deserve to play,” Charlie said. “Let’s change ’em up.”

He drifted listlessly to the bench. It was weird how tired he felt.

“Did someone steal all my energy?” he said to Pudge,
as they settled on the bench. There were only two minutes left, and he doubted they would get another shift. “It’s like I’m skating in mud.”

“We didn’t wake up until the third period,” Pudge said.

Zachary settled down beside Charlie. “I think our line got four shots on goal this game and we’re at minus three. Basically, we sucked.”

Charlie took a sip of water. Matt carried the puck across the Rebels’ blue line. Jonathon cut into the centre of the neutral zone, wide open. Matt snapped a pass, but it was too wide and it bounced off the boards to the Tigers’ defenceman, who pounded it down the ice deep into the Rebels’ end.

“Have we made a pass all game?” Hilton grumbled behind them. He walked to the end of the bench.

“I know I haven’t,” Charlie said. He slammed the water bottle back on the ledge. It bounced off the boards and fell to the floor, rolling under the bench. He rolled his eyes as he fished for the bottle. “That was perfect. I can’t even do that today.”

This time he stuffed the bottle on the ledge with two hands.

“So much for the undefeated season,” Pudge said.

Obviously Charlie and Pudge both knew the Rebels were going to lose a game eventually. But it hurt to know they lost because the effort was missing. “My head wasn’t in this game,” Charlie said. “All I could think about was the school, and the roof, and a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and —”

Another roar from the crowd interrupted him. Martin was in a butterfly, his head down, holding his
glove and blocker across his chest. A Tigers forward was leaning against the boards, his stick over his head, and his teammates were going over to congratulate him.

“Who turned the puck over this time?” he said.

“Don’t ask,” Zachary said, shaking his head.

“At least it wasn’t me,” Charlie said.

Matt’s line headed off, and Brandon’s jumped the boards. Charlie’s line shuffled down the bench to make room. The new guys had played well. It was the Terrence Falls boys that had let the Rebels down. Charlie felt doubly bad about that. There was a minute and twenty left on the clock.

“Let’s get one back, Brandon,” Charlie yelled out, but his heart wasn’t in it. He watched in silence with his teammates as the clock wound down.

“I’ve never loved the sound of a buzzer more than right now,” Charlie said to Pudge.

Charlie skated to their end to console their goaltender. He could not get off the ice soon enough. He needed to put this entire game behind him, and he promised himself this would be the last time he would let what was going on at school affect his hockey. He was captain, and his teammates deserved more.

“We let you down,” he said to Martin.

They had a tradition of head butting after every game. “It was bound to happen,” Martin said, and he bonked Charlie gently on the head with his facemask. “We didn’t have any jump today.”

“No biggie, Rebels,” Charlie said. “Next game we’re going to actually play hockey. We just learned we can’t just show up and expect to win. We gotta earn it.”

His serious words were met with solemn nods. His
teammates followed him to centre to shake hands with the victorious Tigers.

The sun had just come out, and there was still a chill in the air. Charlie and Pudge shivered as they waited for Dalton in the parking lot near the back of the school. They had arranged for the driver to drop the supplies there, so people wouldn’t notice as easily from the street; and there was a side door where they could get everything inside quickly. Charlie’s mind was racing for a way to convince Dalton to just open the side door and leave. There was a bigger problem, however. Dalton hadn’t shown up yet.

“Dalton doesn’t strike me as the late type,” Charlie said. “I bet something’s wrong. The supplies will be here soon, and we’ll be messed.”

“We still have ten minutes,” Pudge said.

That didn’t help, and ten minutes later his nerves were totally on edge.

“This is a disaster,” Charlie moaned. “We’re going to have plastic and sandbags in the parking lot for everyone to see, and no way to get in the school.”

Pudge looked concerned too. “If Dalton doesn’t come, we’re going to have to tell the driver to take the stuff back.”

“But we paid for it already,” Charlie said. “Will they give us a refund? Everyone chipped in.” He looked up to the sky. The only good thing he could think of was that it wasn’t raining.

The sound of footsteps set his heart pounding. He turned, expecting to see his friends, or worse yet, the driver.

It was Dalton, red-faced and out of breath. “I must apologize for my tardiness,” he said, gasping. “My sister has an early hockey game and we had a mini-crisis trying to find her sweater.”

“No worries,” Charlie said, feeling more worried every second. The truck would be here any minute, and his friends would be coming soon too. Dalton would know he was lying. “Why don’t you give us the key? We’ll lock up when we’re done.”

Dalton ducked his head slightly and squinted. “I kind of promised that I wouldn’t lend the keys. Principal Holmes was quite insistent on that point. Besides, I’m always up early to read the newspaper or my magazines. Did either of you get the new Economist?”

Charlie and Pudge shook their heads meekly.

“Anyway, I’m happy to help carry the supplies in. He paused and added, “And where are the supplies?”

Charlie and Pudge stared at him.

Charlie wanted to yell, “They’re coming,” but instead he said calmly, “The truck’s late. He just called to say they’ll be coming in half an hour or so … under the circumstances I’m sure Holmes wouldn’t mind if you opened the door. We won’t even go in. Right, Pudge?”

“Yeah. Right.”

Dalton looked at his watch. “I’d feel guilty making
you do all the hard work.”

Charlie was the one feeling guilty, and from the look on Pudge’s face, his friend was feeling the same way. But it was too late now.

“Why don’t we open the door and clear out some space in the gym storage room?” Charlie said, hoping to lure Dalton away.

“As you wish,” Dalton said cheerfully. “Now where did I put those keys?” He tapped his pockets and pulled out a key chain with several keys attached. “Gotcha.”

“Awesome! Dalton is the Key Man.” Scott and Nick had come from behind the school. Scott slapped Dalton on the back and Nick flashed a thumbs-up.

“Um … yes. Just helping Charlie and Pudge with movie night — it’s a fundraising initiative and …”

“I know what’s going on, Key Man,” Scott said. “Are you gonna help us? I can’t wait to get up on that roof.”

“The roof … ? Why the … What do you mean?”

Charlie felt sick. This was done. Dalton would be furious and they’d have to send the supplies back. And since he’d messed up, he should probably pay his friends back. But he didn’t have enough money. All because Dalton was so ridiculously nice!

“Dalton, I owe you an apology,” he began slowly.

“You probably owe me one too,” Scott said, but his voice trailed off when he saw Charlie was serious.

“Whatever for?” Dalton said.

“This is a bit awkward,” Charlie began. “The truth is we ordered roofing supplies to stop the leaking, so we could buy more time to fundraise. We needed a way to get in … and I didn’t want to get you involved …”

Dalton rubbed his chin, holding his elbow with his
other hand. He did not respond for a time, and then he said, “I confess I did not expect this. I can see that you wanted to protect me from getting in trouble for performing repairs on the roof without permission — I assume you do not have permission?”

Charlie and Pudge shook their heads.