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You are reading from:
THE SCREECH OWLS' NORTHERN ADVENTURE
(BOOK 3)
by Roy MacGregor
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"I'M GONNA HURL!"
Five rows away, Travis Lindsay could hear Nish moaning into a pillow.
He could hear him over the tinny pound of the Walkman hanging loosely
off Data's bent ears as he dozed in the next seat. He could hear him
over the clatter of the serving cart and the shouting coming from
Derek and Dmitri as they played a game of hearts in the row behind.
He could even hear Nish over the unbelievable roar of the engines.
How could anyone sleep at a time like this? Travis wondered, glancing
at Data. This was the first time Travis had flown, and it hadn't been
at all what he had imagined. This was no ten-minute helicopter lift at
the fall fair; nor was it like the big, smooth passenger jet his father
took once a month to business meetings in Montreal.
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This was three solid hours of howling engines, air pockets,
and broken cloud. They were headed, it seemed, for the North Pole.
They had all driven to Val d'Or, Quebec, the day before,and from
there it was 1,500 kilometers further north by air to their
final destination: Waskaganish, a native village on the shore
of James Bay.
They were on a Dash 8, an aircraft that Data - who knew everything
about computers and National Hockey League statistics, but nothing
whatsoever about life - claimed could take off and land in the
palm of your hand. This was an exaggeration, of course, but
Travis had felt it wasn't far off when the cramped fifty-seat
plane taxied out onto the runway, revved the engines hard once,
and seemed to shoot straight off the ground into the low clouds.
Travis had barely taken a second breath by the time the plane
rose through the clouds and into the sunshine hidden beyond.
It was if the cabin of the plane were being painted with
melted gold. Blinded by the sudden light, Data lowered the
window-shade, but Travis had reached across and raised it again.
He wanted to see everything.
The pilot had come on the intercom and warned them that the
flight might be bumpy and that he'd be leaving the seatbelt
sign on. The flight attendant would have to wait before
bringing out the breakfast cart.
The coaches and several parents, Travis's included, were
sitting toward the back of the plane. Data's and Wilson's
and Fahd's parents were all there. Perhaps they wanted to
make sure nothing went wrong this time the way it had in Toronto.
The three boys hadn't missed a game or practice since Muck let
them come back at the end of a month-long suspension over the
unfortunate shoplifting incident at the Hockey Hall of Fame.
They'd apologized to the team and they'd missed a key tournament,
and eventually Muck figured they'd learned their lesson.
Travis knew they had. He'd talked to Data on the telephone
almost every night during his suspension, and he knew that
several times Data had been in tears.
Jesse Highboy was sitting directly across from Travis. Beside him
were his father and mother and his Aunt Theresa, the Chief of
Waskaganish. No one called her Theresa or even Mrs. Ottereyes -
they all called her "Chief." She had come down to Val d'Or to
welcome the Screech Owls, and now she was bringing them all to
Northern Quebec for the First Nations Pee Wee Hockey Tournament,
which would feature, for the first time, a non-native peewee
hockey team: the Screech Owls.
Jesse's father had set it up. He had met with the team and parents
and talked to them about the chance of a lifetime. The hockey
would be a part of the trip, he had stressed, but the real
reward would come in getting to experience the North and the
native culture. All they had to do was get there. The people
of Waskaganish were so pleased with the idea that they'd
offered to put everyone up, players and parents, free of
charge. No wonder so many hands had gone up when Mr. Highboy
asked for a show of interest.
The Owls had held bottle drives and organized car washes, and
the parents had worked so many bingos that Mr. Lindsay celebrated
the end of them by burying his smoke-filled "bingo clothes" in a
deep hole behind the garage. The team had read up on the North and
were excited about what they had learned: the northern lights, caribou,
traplines, the midnight sun.
"It's spring, not summer!" Willie Granger, the team trivia expert,
had pointed out to those Owls, like Nish, who figured they'd never
have to go to bed and could stay up all night long. "Day and
night are just about equal this time of year - same as where
we live." But no one expected anything else to be the same. No one.
Perhaps, Travis wondered, this was why Nish had been acting so oddly. In
the weeks leading up to the trip, Nish had kidded Jesse mercilessly.
"Should I bring a bow and arrow?" Nish had asked. "Will we be living in
teepees?"
Some of it had been pretty funny, Travis had to admit, but it left him
feeling a bit uneasy. Travis knew that the general rule of a hockey
dressing room was "anything goes," and certainly Jesse had handled
Nish's cracks easily, laughing and shooting back insults, but Travis
still found it intriguing that no one other than Nish took such shots.
No one expected teepees. But beyond that they didn't really know what to
expect.
Chief Ottereyes and Air Creebec, the airline that set up the charter,
had put on a special breakfast for the Owls. Once the turbulence had
settled enough, the flight attendant handed out a breakfast the likes of
which no Screech Owl, Jesse Highboy excepted, had ever seen. There were
tiny things like tea biscuits that Chief Ottereyes explained were
"bannock - just like we cook up out on the trapline." And there was
fish, but not cooked like anything Travis had ever seen at a
fish-and-chip shop. This fish was dry and broke apart easily. At first
Travis wasn't too sure, but when he tasted it he thought it was more
like candy than fish. "Smoked whitefish," Chief Ottereyes said. "Smoked
and cured with sugar."
"I got no knife and fork!" Nish had shouted from his seat.
Chief Ottereyes laughed: "You've got hands, haven't you?"
"Yeah."
"Clamp 'em over your mouth, then!" Wilson had called from the other side
of the plane.
"This is traditional Cree food!" Chief Ottereyes had leaned forward and
told Nish.
"I'll take a traditional Egg McMuffin, thank you!" Nish called back.
He wouldn't try the food. Instead, he'd dug down into the carry-on bag
he had stuffed beneath his seat and hauled out three chocolate bars and
sat stuffing his face with one hand while he used the other to hold his
nose as though he couldn't stand the smell of the smoked fish.
They had just been finishing up this unusual breakfast when the plane
rattled as if it had just hit a pothole. The "fasten your seatbelt"
light flashed and the pilot had come on the intercom to tell the
attendant to stop picking up the trays and hang on, they were about to
enter some more choppy air.
"I'M GONNA HURL!"
With the plane starting to buck, the attendant was unable to move
forward to help Nish in case he was, in fact, going to be sick. Instead,
she passed ahead a couple of Gravol air-sickness pills, a juice to wash
them down, and a barf bag in case the worst happened. Nish took the
pills and soon began moaning.
After a while, when the plane began to settle again, Nish called out,
"Can I get a blanket?"
Travis thought Nish was acting like a baby. The attendant handed over a
blanket, and the players behind Nish tossed theirs over, too. He wrapped
himself tight and pressed his face into the pillow, then closed his eyes
and continued to moan.
The pilot took the plane to a higher altitude, and the flight once again
smoothed out. Derek and Dmitri's card game started up again, the
attendant completed her collection of the breakfast trays, and Nish
moaned on.
Data stood up in the aisle. "I think he needs a few more blankets!" he
called out, grinning mischievously. "I can still hear him."
Blankets and pillows by the dozen headed in Data's direction. Even Muck,
shaking his head in mock disgust, handed his over. Data, now helped by
Wilson, stacked them on poor Nish until he could be neither seen nor
heard.
"There," Data announced. "That ought to hold him."
Nish never budged. Travis figured he must have gone to sleep. He hoped
he was able to breathe all right through the blankets, but it was nice
not to have to listen to him any longer. Travis turned toward the window
and thought about the tournament and how he would play. He felt great
these days. Hockey was a funny game: sometimes when you didn't feel well
but played anyway, you had the most wonderful game; sometimes when you
felt fantastic, you played terribly.
He tried to imagine himself playing in Waskaganish, but he couldn't. He
couldn't picture the rink. He couldn't imagine the village. He could
not, for the first time in his life, even imagine the players on the
other side. Would they be good players? Rough? Smart? Would they have
different rules up there? No, they couldn't have. He was getting tired,
too tired to think...
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