Reality Check in Detroit (5 page)

Travis nodded. He knew it wasn’t because he was captain that he would be going first. He was slowest of the three, and Sarah and Dmitri would know how much distance they’d have to make up if Travis was behind after the first loop. He didn’t mind. Sarah was right.

Travis lined up with a kid the other Motors were all calling Wi-Fi, slamming their sticks to cheer him on. Was that his real nickname, Travis wondered, or one the producers had given him?

The cameras were all ready. They even had one attached to a wire above the ice that could be controlled by remote and stay with the skaters. The Joe was far brighter than Travis had seen it before. Then he realized the television lights were on – just like this was a real
NHL
game.

“We want you to change helmets,” Inez told the six skaters. She had a helmet for each of them beside her, and an assistant was adjusting them. “Each one has a camera inside it so we can see what you’re seeing.”

“Great,” said Sarah.

“You’ll be filming my butt,” sneered Smitty. “ ’Cause that’s all you’re gonna be seeing.”

“Really?” said Sarah. “How charming.”

Once they had the helmets on, Travis and Wi-Fi lined up and one of the assistants placed two pucks down on the ice.

Data had his thumbs ready on his smartphone, ready to tweet his play-by-play.

The producers had a horn connected to a huge stopwatch at the start and finish line, and Inez joined in on the countdown to start:
“Five … four … three … two … one … go!
”

The horn blew and Travis dug in hard. Wi-Fi did, too. Almost instantly they came to the pylons and had to weave through them. Travis got through first and headed for the net, which he circled fast to come back up the ice. He hoped the microphones would pick up the sizzle of his skates – it had been perfect. But there was another sizzle to be heard: Wi-Fi was catching up.

More pylons in the neutral zone as they hit the halfway mark. Again, Travis was the better stickhandler, and he came through first, leaving only the final turn around the other net and a rush to the finish line, where he would hand off to Sarah.

“Travis digging in. So far Screech Owls still on top,” typed Data.

At the blue line, Travis stumbled slightly and could just sense Wi-Fi blowing past him. The Motors had won the first part of the race.

The fans were cheering wildly. Cameramen were stationed at various spots in the stands, catching close-ups of the cheering.

Smitty took off with the puck Wi-Fi passed him, and Sarah was quick to grab the puck from Travis and take off in pursuit.

By the second set of pylons, Sarah had caught up to Smitty. As she roared passed him, she couldn’t resist: “Where’s your butt?” she shouted.

But Smitty was determined. He blew through the pylons, knocking one down, and by the second net, he was shoulder to shoulder with Sarah. Both handed off to the final skater at almost exactly the same time.

Dmitri exploded off the line, but Cody was no slouch and kept pace with him. When they came to the pylons, Cody moved through them like a slalom skier and into the lead. But that just powered Dmitri all the more. He crouched low and dug in so hard, Travis saw ice chips fly when he circled the second net. When he reached the blue line, Dmitri streaked through the air like a missile and crossed the line just as Cody lost control of the puck.

The Screech Owls were on top! Some of the fans began to boo.

Data’s thumbs tapped furiously to record the Screech Owls’ first victory against the Motors.

The three Owls line mates watched as “1–0” went up on the huge Joe Louis Arena scoreboard.

The producers had also arranged for instant replays to be shown on the scoreboard. Travis watched himself skating hard on the big screen, then saw the footage flip to another camera, a bobbing view through several pylons. “My helmet cam,” he said. “Cool.”

Next up was skating agility: Lars against – no surprise – Cody. The two competitors had to work their way through a complicated maze of pylons – no stick, no puck. The first through wasn’t necessarily the winner. They would get points for speed and finesse, and would lose points for touching the pylons.

Lars was easily the Owls’ top skater, but he was no match for Cody, who several times used his special move to carve as tight as possible to a pylon without touching it. The crowd went crazy each time he did it. Travis had to acknowledge, Cody was pretty good on skates, if not much of a puck carrier, and with his blond good looks, the cameras were loving him. No wonder they wanted to call him Hollywood.

The score was even. Screech Owls 1, Detroit Motors 1.

The competition moved on fairly quickly after this. The producers were running a slick show. Travis figured they were on a tight budget and wanted to move through the events fast to keep costs down. Or for the sake of the fans, they just wanted to cut out as much of the waiting and setting up as they could – the boring stuff.

Andy won the hardest shot, but Travis wasn’t convinced the kid he was up against was the Motors’ top shooter. Surely Smitty had a harder shot. When Travis had heard him ring a shot off the crossbar earlier, it had been louder than the bell at Lord Stanley Public School.

Data was thinking something similar. “Why aren’t the Motors putting in their ringers?” he posted on Twitter. “Why aren’t they playing to their skills?”

In the target shoot, Sam hit all four targets in ten shots, but Jesse had a bad time of it and hit none. The two Motors players hit three each. The Owls were declared the winner, though Travis wasn’t exactly sure about the math. If the two Owls had hit four targets in twenty shots and the Motors hit six, how come the Owls had won? He figured it was because only Sam was able to take out all the Styrofoam targets. Still, it seemed a bit cockeyed.

Screech Owls 3, Detroit Motors 1.

“We’re happy to be on top,” typed Data. “But why are we? How? Is there something going on with the scoreboard?”

This time, another tweeter answered back: “Why is a very good question … Getting warm.”

Data clicked on the profile of the person who had posted the message – “VintageEngine” – but that was the only tweet he’d ever written. And there was no profile and no picture of whoever VintageEngine might be. The profile said he was male, but that was it.

The search and rescue event was the funniest. Fahd and one of the Motors players were blindfolded and, with their team calling out directions, had to skate to two stacking chairs placed at the far end of the ice. Fahd was to go first.

“Left!” the Owls shouted at Fahd as he began skating, stiff as a board, hands held out in front of him.

“Straight ahead!” they shouted.

“Right!” Sam and Sarah screamed together when Fahd drifted too close to the boards for comfort.

“Left!” Nish screamed.

“
Nooo
!” the girls shouted. “
Stay right
!”

Sam turned on Nish, her face blazing with anger. “You think it would be
funny
to smash him into the boards?”

“I was just joking,” Nish said sheepishly.

“You’ve a sick sense of humor,” she shot back at him.

“Thank you,” Nish said, smiling.

Fahd listened well. The Owls won the victory when the Motors player had trouble telling her left from her right.

Screech Owls 4, Detroit Motors 1.

The goalie race was really no race at all. The four of them started out, in full equipment, and Jenny lost her footing on the first turn and went down. Sliding like an out-of-control car on an icy street, she took out poor Jeremy, who hadn’t seen her coming. The two Owls couldn’t recover in time to make much of a race out of it.

Screech Owls 4, Detroit Motors 2.

The crowd was on its feet and cheering for the final event of the opening round, the tractor pull. It was going to be Wayne “Money” Nishikawa against a big kid named Todd Carter. But no sooner had they announced the competition than Carter skated over to the announcer and said that he’d pulled a muscle in his leg. The producers quickly huddled and declared that Carter would have to be replaced by Cody Kelly.

Travis couldn’t help but wonder just how serious the “injury” was. The producers seemed quite happy with the idea that Cody would be getting more face time in the competition. No matter, it was going to be “Money” versus “Hollywood” in the final event of the competition.

The on-ice organizers put Cody and Nish in harnesses and then attached each of them to a platform on what looked like short skis. Workers were standing by with skids of concrete blocks. They piled three on each platform. Roger, one of the cameramen, moved in to get some shots of Cody and Nish scowling at each other.

“We want to see your competitive sides, now, boys,” Brian Evans, Inez’s co-producer, shouted from the sidelines. His face was impossible to read, hidden behind sunglasses, a beard, and a baseball cap pulled down tight. Now he took off his hat and shook it for dramatic effect. “Ramp it up. Let’s see some fight in you. Let’s see some magic!”

Nish growled at Cody with his entire body. But the sound that came out of him was like an angry llama, and it made all of the Screech Owls laugh. Nish must think he’s rivaling Cody for the limelight, Travis thought. If the producer wants to see a fight, he’s going to get it.

Data couldn’t help himself. He stopped typing and just posted photos. Angry-llama Nish looked ridiculous.

“When you’re ready, gentlemen,
puuulll!
” the announcer said over the public-address system.

Travis thought Nish’s head was going to burst. His face was redder than the Red Wings logo in the ice. But Nish’s platform was moving.

Cody was pulling fiercely, too, leaning almost horizontally and digging in hard. His platform moved as well.

“Two more blocks, please,” the announcer called.

The workers placed two more of the large concrete blocks on each platform.

Cody and Nish dug in even harder. Travis could hear Nish groaning and sort of whimpering. Not a sound came from Cody.

“
Monnn-ey!
” someone in the crowd began to chant sarcastically.

Others picked it up.

“Monnn-ey!

“Monnn-ey!

“Monnn-ey!”

The chant rose in volume until everyone in the arena seemed to be singing Nish’s new nickname with the most awful sense of ridicule.

“Monnn-ey!

“Monnn-ey!

“Monnn-ey!”

Cody struggled hard with his added load and could not seem to budge it. But somehow the taunting inspired Nish. Face red as an overripe tomato, he leaned, like Cody, almost level with the ground.

He grunted.

He squealed.

He whimpered.

And slowly, ever so slowly, the platform creaked – and began moving!

The Owls cheered, the crowd booed, and Nish, taking one tortured step after another, inched the enormous load from the center line to the blue line before falling flat on his red, sweating face. He was done.

Screech Owls 5, Detroit Motors 2.

The Owls raced over and piled onto Nish.

“
Hey
!” he shouted. “
Watch the hair!
”

But the Owls weren’t to be denied. They pounded their hero and helped him out of the harness, and despite the boos and catcalls from the stands, they high-fived him and cuffed the back of his big hockey pants.

“Not a very nice crowd, is it?” Sarah said to Travis when things went quieter.

“No,” Travis said, “not at all. And something’s bothering me.”

Sarah turned. “What?”

“How did they know Nish’s new nickname?”

T
he producers wanted to take the Owls somewhere special. Brian – the ball-cap-wearing guy who kept stroking his beard as if it were a cat wrapped around his neck – was particularly annoying. He kept calling every place a “scene” and saying it was a “brilliant shoot,” even though they hadn’t gone there yet.

The Owls, outfitted head to toe in their magnificent new swag, walked along Jefferson Avenue until they came to Woodward Avenue. The
Goals &
Dreams
crew filmed them from a truck creeping alongside the team as they moved. There was no other traffic, meaning the street had either been closed off at the
TV
crew’s request or else there was just so little traffic in the downtown core that it didn’t matter if a huge vehicle was crawling at a snail’s pace.

They passed a few empty storefronts and buildings with boarded-up windows. There was trash on the ground that seemed like it might have been there for some time. Papers were blowing around, catching in doorways. The area looked almost abandoned – a stark contrast to the flashiness of the events that morning.

At one point, the group passed a man with a scruffy beard, sitting at the entrance to an alley and wearing a ratty old winter hat with a pom-pom on top. Beside him, on a purple sleeping bag, was a small brown-and-beige dog that seemed content and well fed. But the man looked broken. He had a big gray blanket draped over his shoulders. An old margarine container, squished on one side, rested on the pavement in front of him beside a handwritten cardboard sign that read, “
NO WORK
.
ANYTHING HELPS
.
THANK
-
U
.” Inside the container were two nickels and a shiny dime.

As the Owls moved past him, they tried to avoid staring – they’d been told by Mr. D to keep their eyes to the front of the line. Once they were farther along, Muck dropped back, retraced his steps, and quietly placed a twenty-dollar bill in the man’s container.

“Thank you, sir,” the man said.

Muck nodded. “Take care of yourself,” he said.

Several of the Owls – Sarah, Sam, Fahd, Lars, Jesse, Travis, and, of course, Nish – had been wired for sound, with small packs hooked onto their waistbands and a wire running up the inside of their track tops and out at the neck, where a clip-on mike was discreetly attached to the collar of their new jackets.

Travis reminded himself to watch what he said. He wished he had control over whatever Nish said, too – but not even Nish seemed capable of that. What’s worse, the producers seemed to be encouraging him.