Winter Hawk Star (7 page)

I marched into Sam's office. It was exactly a week since Joey had had his seizure.

“I'd like you to tell me what is going on,” I said to her.

Without getting up from her desk, she looked at her watch. “Well, for the next two hours, you and Riley will be playing street hockey with the boys.” She smiled. “I can't tell you how much it has meant to them. Thanks.”

“You know that's not what I meant,” I said. “I've been here often enough to know the Tuesday afternoon schedule.”

She pushed her chair back and stood. The tone of my voice was telling her plenty.

“All right,” she said. She spoke slowly, half curious, half concerned. “What do you mean?”

It was strange. Being angry had taken all of my shyness out of me. I was able to speak directly to her without staring at the floor.

“What do I mean? For starters, Joey's not the first kid to have a seizure here.”

“How do you know—?”

“And he isn't the second kid to have a seizure here either. Isn't he the fourth kid in four months to get sent to the hospital?”

“But—”

“Joey and his mother came to our game on Sunday afternoon. It was my first chance to speak to him since the hospital. He told me about three of his friends. Maybe you remember them. Nathan? Drew? Jamie? All of them had seizures. Right?”

“Yes, but—”

“And all of them have been told not to return to Youth Works. Any reason?”

She took a deep breath and blinked a couple of times. “Insurance,” she said. “It's difficult for organizations like ours to get insurance against being sued. We can't afford the risk of keeping kids who have proven they are likely to have seizures.”

“Interesting,” I replied. “Very interesting. Almost as interesting as finding out all four of them have ADD. Do you think that's a coincidence?”

“ADD?” Samantha blinked a few more times. “I don't understand.”

“Attention deficit disorder. You know, a medical condition that some kids have. It makes them hyperactive, and they can't pay attention to anything for long. I find it strange that someone in your position pretends not to know what it is.”

She blinked again. “I'm not pretending.”

But she was pretending. I'd already made some phone calls. I'd already visited the mothers of Nathan and Drew and Jamie.
Because of that, I knew Samantha was lying.

Her constant blinking seemed odd. I wondered what it meant.

“And you don't know why Ben was kidnapped?” I asked.

“He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said. “It's not like someone was looking for him specifically.”

This time, I expected her to blink. Which she did.

“If you want to lie to people,” I said, “you should learn to be a better actress. You give yourself away by blinking. You can't look me in the eyes when you lie.”

“You are rude. Please leave.”

“I might be rude. But I do know Ben is in danger. In fact I know you're supposed to keep your mouth shut about something or he'll get seriously hurt.”

Her mouth dropped. “You can't know that,” she managed to say in a whisper.

“I overheard Earl Chadley threatening you. I know plenty more too. After Joey told me
about Nathan and Drew and Jamie, I called each of their mothers. Not only did I find out that all of the boys have been diagnosed with ADD, but I also found out everyone in our group suffers from it. Almost like you went out and collected kids who have ADD.”

That, of course, explained why they were so crazy and wild during our visits here. If it hadn't been for the street hockey to tire them out, Riley and I would have gone equally crazy trying to work with them.

“I found out something else,” I said. “Joey, Jamie, Nathan and Drew had been making great progress. Every one of their mothers was sad to see them out of the program because the boys were so much quieter at home after spending time at Youth Works.”

I took a breath. “What I don't know is the big secret you're hiding. And I want to know it. Now.”

“Drop it, Tyler,” she said. Her face was white now. She wasn't blinking. “Drop the questions. Drop your volunteer time here. Drop everything and pretend you never
called those mothers. Then go back to hockey and forget you ever heard of Youth Works.”

“Why?” I said. “Give me one good reason why.”

“Because you look much nicer in a hockey uniform than you would in a coffin.”

“Mr. Cranky Pants,” Riley said to me as we walked away from the Youth Works building toward my Jeep. “What's the matter? Did Sam turn you down for the dance?”

Two hours had passed since my conversation with Samantha. Riley and I were both dripping sweat after a long run with the kids. I carried my gym bag in one hand, my Jeep keys in the other.

“I didn't ask her,” I said.

“You spent enough time in her office when we got here,” he said. “How could you not have asked her?”

Riley carried his own gym bag over his shoulders.

“You want to hear something crazy?” I asked.

We were almost at the Jeep.

“Sure.”

I waited until we were both inside. Riley threw his gym bag on the floor at his feet. I put the key in the ignition. We both pulled our seat belts on.

I didn't start driving though. Instead I told Riley about the weird things I had discovered with my phone calls. An entire group of kids with ADD. Four kids with seizures in four months. The mothers unhappy that the kids weren't allowed to come back to Youth Works.

“Well, no kidding,” Riley said with his usual smart-aleck grin. “Sometimes ADD kids use medication. So if your kid came home happy and tired and quiet, wouldn't you want him to stay in the program?”

Program.

That word kept going through my mind as Riley dug through the gym bag for his water bottle. He found it and offered it to me.

“Kool-Aid?” he asked. “I took some more from their snack tray while they weren't looking.”

“Sure,” I said. I gulped down some KoolAid and handed it back to him.

Program. Drugs.

I remembered the kidnapping van. It had been stolen from a pharmaceutical company. I remembered how it bugged me that the van had clean sides but a dirty back end.

Program. Drugs. Pharmaceutical company. What could it mean?

Riley almost had the water bottle to his mouth when I grabbed it from his hands.

“Hey! I'm willing to share! You don't have to be a jerk about it.”

“Riley,” I said, “you're allergic to a lot of things, right?”

“So?”

“I'm not. Which means I can handle a lot of things that you can't.”

“So? What's your point? I'm thirsty. I'm not allergic to Kool-Aid, and I'm the one who got it for us. I deserve a drink as much as you do.”

“No problem,” I said. “Just answer me a couple of questions. When was the last time you had some of their Kool-Aid?”

He thought about it for a second. “Not the last time here. Joey had a seizure, and I didn't re-fill the bottle. So it must have been the time before.”

“Exactly.”

He nodded.

“Here's my other question,” I continued. “When was the practice where you went blind for an hour?”

It took him much less time to answer this question. “Last time I had their Kool-Aid.”

I remembered how my legs felt like wooden sticks. I hadn't gone blind like him, but I hadn't been my normal self either.

His eyes dropped to the water bottle in my hands. He repeated himself. “Kool-Aid! Are you trying to tell me...?”

I offered him the water bottle. “Still want to share?”

He shook his head no.

“The Kool-Aid,” I said. “And I wonder if that also answers a lot of other things.”

When I settled into the corner chair of Coach Estleman's office on Wednesday afternoon, he didn't waste any time getting to the point.

“Tyler,” he said, “on Sunday afternoon, with ten minutes left in the game, you had a chance to score the goal to put away the Blazers. Remember?”

I nodded yes. I did remember. It would have almost been better if I hadn't even had the chance in the first place.

“And you couldn't have made it easier on
the goalie if you had picked up the puck and handed it to him. Remember?”

I nodded yes again. I was highly aware of my gym bag at my feet. Whatever might happen during the next ten minutes of discussion, I had a question of my own.

“I know why,” he said. “I know exactly why you didn't bury the puck. You had already scored a goal. You thought one was enough.”

“Well...,” I said. He was probably close to the truth, but I didn't want to admit it.

“Tyler,” he added, “you cause me as much grief as any player I have ever coached.”

I thought back over the three years I had been on the Winter Hawks with him as my coach. I hadn't once missed curfew. I hadn't once yelled at him. In fact I hadn't even been late for a single practice.

I mentioned all of this as I defended myself.

“I almost wish you would give me that kind of grief,” Coach said. “At least I'd
know what to do about it. I could bench you. Or I could fine you. But what's it going to take to get you to play good hockey?”

His face showed concern. I think that made it worse. He wasn't mad. He wasn't disappointed. He was, if anything, sad to be needing to talk to me.

“You see,” he went on, “you're big enough, you're talented enough. You can shoot.” He winced, no doubt remembering how I had hit him below the belt buckle during one practice. “Yup, you can shoot. But only in practice, not games. Same with your skating and stickhandling.”

He paused and stared at me. “So what stops you from playing good hockey in game situations? You're not afraid to go into the corners and dig the puck out. When people push you around, you don't back away. We've kept you on the team this long because we keep hoping some day you'll break through and play the way you can. I half think you're just happy to be wearing the team jacket. But you don't want to face any pressure.”

I let out a deep breath. “You're going to cut me from the team, aren't you?”

He slammed his fist on his desk. He half stood. He yelled down on me, “Listen to your tone of voice! You don't even care!”

“That's not true,” I said. “But—”

“Don't tell me you care! Look at you! Sitting there like we were discussing the weather. You're accepting whatever happens! Like if I cut you from the team after two years, it's no big deal!”

He pounded his fist again. “Where's your fire, Watson? What's it going to take to get you to do more than wear the team jacket?”

He repeated himself, spitting the words at me, “Where is your inner fire?”

Coach Estleman sat back down and found his breath. He stared at me until I looked away. When he spoke again, he had himself under control.

“Do you think it was an accident that I paired you with Riley Judd? Sure I wanted you to help make him a team player. I didn't lie about that. But I was also hoping some of his fire would rub off on you. I was hoping
you'd get mad enough and jealous enough of someone like him to actually play the way I know you can.”

He snorted. “Hmmph. It's more like you managed to tie him to the same piano you drag around on the ice during hockey games.”

Coach Estleman got up and started pacing around the office. He spoke more to himself than to me. “I've got Riley Judd, a million-dollar player who's starting to play like a ten-dollar player. And I've got you, a ten-dollar player who doesn't know he can play like a million-dollar player. Maybe my mother was right; I should have gone into pro wrestling.”

He continued to shake his head and grumble beneath his breath as he paced.

“I don't want to get cut,” I said to his back.

He whirled and glared at me.

“What's that?”

“I don't want to get cut.”

He moved directly in front of me, crossed his arms and stared down at me.

“I can't quite hear you, Watson.”

“I don't want to get cut.” I kept my voice even.

“Louder. You sound like a ballerina.”

“I don't want to get cut.”

“Shout it!”

I stood and stared right back into his eyes. “I am not going to play your dumb army-sergeant game. I will not shout like this is some kind of pep rally. But I will tell you this again: I want to play.”

He grinned. “Finally, I see some fire in your eyes. You've got two more weeks, Watson. Show that fire on the ice, and you'll stay on the team.”

I did not grin in return. My teeth remained gritted.

“We have a light skate in forty-five minutes,” he said. “You'd better get moving. And tonight, play hard.”

I did not move.

He arched his eyebrows in surprise. “Yes, Tyler? Anything else?”

“Coach,” I said, “it's about the piano you blamed me for tying to Riley Judd.”

“This ought to be interesting,” Coach Estleman said.

“You know how sometimes players are tested for drugs?”

His face grew dark. “Drugs? Is Riley Judd into drugs?”

“Nothing like that,” I said quickly. “I'm just hoping you know which doctor to call for drug testing.”

“What exactly do you want to test?” he asked. He was frowning.

“This,” I said. I leaned forward and pulled a water bottle out of my gym bag. “It looks and tastes like Kool-Aid, but I think it's a little stronger than the regular stuff.”

A cut requiring five stitches definitely hurts. But it didn't hurt near as much as the smirk on Coach Estleman's face.

“Yup, five stitches, Coach,” Scotty, our trainer said again, “maybe six. That flying puck cut him good.”