Somewhere I Belong (17 page)

I followed behind as they closed in on my older brother and wondered how my skinny, thirteen-year-old self could possibly take on any one of those three hulking hoodlums. Pat Jr. ran up to me and grabbed my arm.

“Come on, P.J.; they'll pound you.”

Michael Daley and Curtis and Connor Murphy wandered to the opposite side of the schoolyard, with some of the other older boys, and mingled in a tight group.

Patrick Daley took three long strides and caught up with Larry.
“Wouldn't it be grand if we could have a few more like this.” Then he stepped back and prepared to take a flying leap at him.

A door slammed and Old Dunphy emerged from the schoolhouse.
He put his tattered leather briefcase on the stoop and buttoned up
his coat. Then he glanced across the yard. “Here now! What's going on over there?”

Patrick backed away. “You're lucky this time, Kavanaugh,” he hissed.

“Chickenshit,” Johnnie Condon scoffed.

Matthias Creed kicked snow at my brother, then swaggered down the road behind the two other boys.

On the way home, I asked Larry the question that had sat on my mind since Patrick's attempted attack. “You could have pounded him, Larry; why didn't you?”

“Don't you worry, P.J.—he'll get his.”

Larry had a way of brushing off a slight when he was really holding it in. He added each offence to an invisible pot, like carrots to a stew. Then he let the whole mess simmer until it boiled over. When Pat Jr.
changed the topic to the hockey tournament that was starting that
afternoon, I silently predicted when the boiling over would be.

Ma met us at the back door. Her apron was loosely tied over her thick,
blue cardigan. Her bare forearms were folded across her chest and
coated in flour. The look on her face said somebody was in for it.

“Jaynie Giddings told me about that Daley boy, Larry.” Pat Jr.'s mother
spent half the day listening in on the party line, and the other half keeping everybody informed. Now Ma was steamed. “If anything
happens to you, I'm calling that mother of theirs—I'll go straight over Mr. Dunphy's head. Patrick has no business throwing his weight around. That goes for those other two hooligans too.”

“Leave it, Ma—I can handle Patrick Daley,” Larry said. “Besides, nothing happened.” He edged by her, dropped his satchel onto the mudroom floor, and wandered into the kitchen, where the smell of
fresh baking countered Ma's mood.

“Don't you go picking a fight, Larry.” Ma followed close behind him. “Those boys will scrape through to the end of ninth grade, they'll have their Leaving School certificate in their grubby little mitts, and they'll be off. You're better than that. You keep clear of them.”

Alfred was sitting over a plate of molasses cookies, on a cushioned chair, at the end of the table. Larry tousled his hair and popped a cookie into his mouth. “Relax, Ma—we're just going to play a bit of hockey.”

“Where to?” Alfred piped in, with a toothless lisp. “Back to Gid
dingtheth' pond?”

“Never mind, Alfred, you can't come,” Larry said.

“Can too,” Alfred said. “Ma thed, dinya, Ma?”

“No, Alfred, I didn't,” Ma replied, still looking at Larry. “And I suppose the Daleys are coming. Surely that's not a good idea.”

Larry bit into a second cookie. “It's a tournament, Ma. We need the players.”

Pat Jr. had arranged five games for the two days of the Easter weekend
we were allowed to play. The first game was to be the start of the
Second Annual Giddings Easter Hockey Tournament. The pond was
the Giddingses' pond, the host team was the Giddingses' team, the team captain was Pat Giddings Jr., the referee was Percy Giddings. And their older brother, William, was linesman, provided he was sober. The only non-Giddings on the Giddingses' team were Larry, Helen,
Thomas, and I. The opposing team consisted of Patrick, Michael, and Nora Daley, Johnnie Condon, Matthias Creed, and Curtis and Connor Murphy. Except for Larry, we were runts next to the Daleys. Even with Percy and William on the ice, it promised to be rough. Our only advantage was that everyone on our team had their own stock skates and most of us were decent skaters.

Helen and I followed Larry across the Giddingses' yard to where
Pat Jr. and Percy ran plough shovels across the frozen pond. By the height of the snowbank and the sweat on their brows, I could tell they had been working hard. A half-dozen hockey sticks lay stacked near a pile of dark brown pucks. These were turd pucks of the Giddingses' barnyard variety. The Giddings had their own live turd-puck dispenser in their trusty old Percheron, Ginger. They fed her hay through one end, she chewed it up and ran it through to the other end, then she plopped it out in clumps around the yard. Pat Jr. set them before they froze. He waited for the steam to blow off so they didn't stick to his boot, then he stamped them into a more-or-less hockey-puck shape. The best thing about turd pucks was that they were free, and when you ran out of them, you could count on finding several dozen more lying around the yard.

The Daleys appeared around the back of the Giddingses' house,
followed by Johnnie Condon, Matthias Creed, and Curtis and Connor
Murphy. They each carried a hockey stick, but Johnnie Condon and
Matthias Creed were the only ones with skates. Nora Daley had changed from her school dress and tights into dungarees and a plaid woollen jacket that matched her brothers'. Helen took one look at her, climbed over the snowbank, smoothed her woollen coat down over her wrinkled tights and strapped on her skates. She stepped onto the frozen surface,
gripping her hockey stick, and shuffled her blades back and forth,
testing the ice. She took several turns around the pond, avoiding the cracks around the edge. She bent over her hockey stick, wobbled over the bumps, and glanced over at Nora every few strides.

Alfred scurried across the yard, carrying a stump of a hockey stick and double-bladed skates dangling by their straps. “I'm playin'!” he shouted to no one in particular.

“No way, Alfred,” I said. One minute on the ice with the Daleys and the little bugger was done for.

“Am too—Ma thed.” The way Alfred's jacket was flapping open to the raw March air said he was lying.

The moment Percy noticed the Daley team, he planted his shovel into the snow and slid across the pond. “I'm ref—I call the teams.” He pulled back his shoulders and stared straight at Patrick like he was expecting a challenge.

Patrick glared back at him. “We got ours—you're lookin' at it.”

Percy counted heads. “You got two extras; that ain't even.”

“
One
extra,” Patrick countered.

“How'd you figure on that?” Percy asked.

“Larry; P.J.; Pat Jr.; Thomas; Helen; and the runt,” Patrick replied. “Curtis can spare. We'll switch 'im off.”

Johnnie Condon and Matthias Creed moved up beside Patrick and planted their sticks in the snow.

Larry stepped beside Percy, placed his hands over the butt of his own stick, and squared his jaw. “No way Alfred's playing.”

Alfred stared straight up at him. “Am too!”

“Things'll likely get rough, Alfred,” Percy said, bending over my little brother. “Youse can sit up on that there snowbank and watch.”

“Ain't watchin', neither!” Alfred almost hollered up at Percy. “I can play ath good ath them guyth.”

Percy turned to Larry, pleading for help.

Larry squatted in front of Alfred and buttoned up his jacket. “It's a tournament, Alfred. You got to be big to play; you got to be in school.”

“Thomath'th playin',” Alfred pouted. “I'm almost ath big ath he ith.”

“Thomas is in first grade already,” Larry replied. “He's playing wing, where he won't get hurt.” He glanced back at the Daleys. “At least he better not.” Larry stood up and thought for a moment. “Okay, Alfred, you can be puck chaser. How would that be? We lose the puck over the snowbank, you fetch it for us.”

Alfred smashed his stick into the snow. “I ain't cathin' no thupid
little horthe poopth!”

“Cut it out, Alfred,” Larry said. “You can sit on the snowbank and watch or you can go home—your choice.”

Alfred glared up at Larry and pushed out his lower lip. His stick lay on the snow beside him. We stood there wondering what to do with him as the sun began to sink in the early spring sky. Percy found the answer.

“How 'bout you do the face-offs, Alfred? What'd you say?”

Alfred pulled in his pout and smiled.

“So how do we even up the teams?” Nora asked.

“Six a side,” Larry said. “We can divide up the Murphys.”

“We'll take Curtis,” Pat Jr. said.

Curtis Murphy stepped next to Patrick. “I play for the Daleys.”

“Connor?” Pat Jr. asked.

Connor shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

“We'll toss for it, then,” Percy said. “Heads we get Curtis, tails it's Connor.” He dug a coin from a pocket and tossed it in the air. “Heads it is.”

Curtis Murphy shrugged his shoulders and shuffled away from the
Daley team. Percy took one look at Curtis's stick, with its blade so
chipped it would never stop a puck, and retrieved one in near-perfect
condition from the pile. When Patrick grabbed it and handed it to
Connor, Larry passed his own brand-new stick to Curtis and took his damaged one.

“Uh-uh, Kavanaugh,” Patrick protested. “Curtis uses his own stick.”

“Fine then.” Larry reclaimed his stick. “So does Connor.”

“Cripes, Kavanaugh,” Patrick huffed.

“You Daleys forget you're playin' hockey?” Percy asked. “Where's your skates?”

Patrick turned beet red. “Dad's bringin' 'em from Nova Scotia.”

“Right, Daley,” I said. “Dad's bringing them.” Every game the Daleys played, they played in their shoes. Every time they were asked about skates, they used the same sorry excuse:
Dad's working in Nova Scotia. When he comes home, he's bringing skates.

“At least I got a dad,” Patrick scoffed.

That was dirty.
I stepped toward him and raised my stick. Percy
grabbed my arm. “Cool down, P.J. We'll have none of those shenanigans around here.”

I huffed toward the pond and strapped on my skates, thinking of all the things I wanted to do to Patrick Daley just then. Like crack open his thick skull and slice his pea brain in half. I never gave a thought to how Percy had just saved my skin.

Teams picked, skates strapped onto boots, sticks scooped off snow, we slid onto the pond and assumed our positions. Patrick Daley hulked over Pat Jr. at centre ice for the face-off. Thomas and I flanked Pat Jr. on each wing, opposite Johnnie Condon and Matthias Creed. Larry pulled his glasses from a pocket, put them on, and moved back to defence opposite Helen. Nora and Michael Daley took the same positions at the other end of the pond. The equally non-skating Murphys each tended a net carved from snow piled at either end, Curtis reluctantly playing for our side. The pond was small. There was little room for the twelve of us to manoeuvre.

Alfred scraped toward centre ice on his double blades, one hand
propelling him forward, the other gripping a frozen turd. He confi
dently slid between Patrick and Pat Jr., held up the turd puck, nodded up at the two older boys, and then dropped it. Patrick and Pat Jr. stood motionless over the dropped puck like two tightly wound springs and waited for Alfred to scrape back across the pond. Even a galoot like Patrick Daley couldn't take pride in hitting a little kid.

Sticks clashed the instant Alfred's bum hit the snowbank. Pat Jr.
caught the puck centre blade and fired it toward Thomas on his left wing. Thomas glided up the outside, knees springing over the uneven ice. For a little kid, he sure was fast. He soon caught up with Matthias Creed, an ankle skater who would have done better in his boots. When Thomas practically danced right past him, Matthias swung out a stick and missed. I didn't know if he was aiming for Thomas or the turd.

Patrick caught up with Matthias and they barrelled in on Thomas,
Patrick pushing over the ice in his shoes, Matthias's arms shooting
out for balance. This time, Patrick stretched out his stick and Thomas went flying into a snowbank.

“Hold up there, Daley,” Percy hollered. “That's a penalty.”

“I was goin' for the puck,” Patrick said.

“You're off the ice, Daley. Two minutes for trippin',” Percy said.

Patrick smashed his stick on the ice and slid onto the nearest snowbank.

Larry moved up to where Thomas was just getting up on his hands and knees. Flecks of turd lay all around him. “You okay, Thomas?”

Thomas nodded his head and eased up onto his blades.

“That's a penalty shot,” Helen said.

“No it ain't,” Patrick said.

“Patrick's right,” Percy said. “It's a penalty.”

The face-off moved to the Daley's end. This meant that, in addition to having the power play, our team had gained close proximity to the Daley net. Larry and Michael squared off and hunched over their sticks. Thomas and I stood several feet back, waiting for a potential pass. Nora
Daley, Johnnie Condon, and Matthias Creed formed a semi-circle in
front of Connor Murphy, practically blocking any passage to the net. Helen waited by a snowbank, preparing to make a quick exit.

Alfred scraped across the ice with a brand new puck—the other
one had disintegrated under Thomas. He held up the turd and then dropped it and made his exit.