Tiger Threat Read online

  Tiger Threat

  Sigmund Brouwer

  orca sports

  Copyright © Sigmund Brouwer 2006

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Brouwer, Sigmund, 1959- Tiger threat / Sigmund Brouwer.

  (Orca sports)

  Electronic Monograph

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 9781551436418(pdf) -- ISBN 9781554697526 (epub)

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS8553.R68467T53 2006 jC813’.54 C2006-903494-X

  Summary: The Russian mafia is after Ray’s roommate.

  First published in the United States, 2006

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2006929014

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design: Doug McCaffry

  Cover photography: Fotosearch

  In Canada:

  Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 5626, Station B

  Victoria, BC Canada

  V8R 6S4

  In the United States:

  Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 468

  Custer, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  09 08 07 06 • 4 3 2 1

  To Jordy Quinn

  chapter one

  Ever seen a little kid stick his finger in his nose and dig around for a bit? Just thinking about it makes you squirm. But have you ever noticed that you can’t look away, even when the kid pulls something out and stares at it like he’s going to eat it. Worse, when he decides he’s actually going to eat it and starts putting his finger toward his open mouth, everything inside you silently screams to look away. You can’t though. You have to watch until it’s over,just like you can’t look away from two cars about to hit at an intersection.

  And ever had one of those dreams where you have to run to get away from something? A grizzly bear, maybe. A train coming down the tracks. Worse, a math teacher chasing you to give extra homework. It’s the dream where you try to lift your feet, but powerful mud is sucking at them. No matter how hard you try to run, it feels like you are in a bubble where time has stopped. The danger outside your dream bubble heads toward you in terrible slow motion that lets you see every terrifying detail.

  That’s what it was like for me on a warm day in Medicine Hat, a couple of days after Christmas. I was standing beside my Jeep TJ, unable to turn my eyes from something about to happen in the backyard that was like two cars about to collide. Like being in a terrible dream, it seemed like I was in a bubble, too far away to stop what was about to happen to the Russian hockey player, but so close it seemed to unfold in slow motion.

  I knew as I was watching who would get in trouble for it.

  Me. Ray Hockaday. Center for the Medicine Hat Tigers in the Western Hockey League, trying to make the NHL.

  The Russian also played for the Tigers. It was my job to protect him. But all I did was stand there with one of his teeth in my jacket pocket.

  Worse, what unfolded in front of me was only the beginning of the trouble that followed.

  The tooth was in a Ziploc bag in my jean-jacket pocket because three hours earlier I’d taken La-Dee-Dah to the dentist.

  La-Dee-Dah was tall, skinny. Dark-haired. His face was all angles. Black eyes. Didn’t speak any English. Not only one of the best sixteen-year-old left wingers in the WHL, but

  one of the best, period. Which is saying a lot, because he was competing against players as old as twenty. That, of course, was the reason he was in Canada, not Siberia or whatever part of Russia he grew up in.

  His name, of course, wasn’t really La-Dee-Dah, but Vladislav. Vladislav Malininich.

  I had first met him two weeks earlier at my billet’s house in Medicine Hat, a really big place on the South Saskatchewan River. Our coach had brought him over and told me that I was supposed to help Vladislav with just about everything, because this was the first time Vladislav had been out of Russia.

  I had shaken his hand and had tried saying his first name.

  Nyet, the kid had said in a voice that was surprisingly deep and slow for someone so skinny. Me name vlah-dee-SLAHV.

  Later I would learn that nyet is “no” in Russian. I would also learn that he hated it when people mispronounced his name. He was constantly correcting them by saying it the way he wanted it said, emphasizing the end of his name: vlah-dee-SLAHV. That’s when the guys started calling him La-Dee-DAH.

  He got mad for a while, but after a couple of games, he realized we called him that because we liked him. That he was fitting in because we’d given him a special nickname that only guys on the team would use. And once he started laughing when we called him La-Dee-DAH, we also started calling him by his Russian nickname. Vlad.

  See how it works with guys? Insults. They don’t see another guy in the dressing room and tell him that it looks like he’s losing weight or that he’s got great hair or that the brown sweater is a good color for him because it brings out the brown in his eyes. That’s how girls talk. No, when guys insult each other, it means we care. Girls need to figure that out.

  I had taken Vlad to the dentist because he can’t drive, has a terrible sense of direction, always gets bus routes mixed up and, when he’s lost, can’t speak English to ask for help.

  And also because he has horrible teeth. Where Vlad grew up, dentists were the guys with pliers. Teeth didn’t get fixed. Teeth got yanked.

  The dentist was our team dentist. Dr. Dempster. Nice guy. Middle-aged. Marathon runner.

  I had been sitting in the waiting room reading a Sports Illustrated when I heard loud screaming. Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!

  Since that was about the only Russian word I knew, and I could guess who was saying it, it seemed like a good idea to find out what was happening. Especially when Dr. Dempster’s assistant came running out for help.

  I followed her back to the chair, where Vlad was pointing at the needle in Dr. Dempster’s hand and still shouting nyet.

  “Do you want me to translate?” I asked Dr. Dempster.

  “I think I’m able to figure it out,” Dr. Dempster said. “I’ll give him ivy instead. He’s lucky we’re one of the few places in town set up to do that.”

  “Ivy?” I asked. “Like those creeping vines?”

  “I. V.” He smiled. “Intravenous drip. It will knock him out and he won’t feel a thing.

  Think Vlad can understand that?”

  “You’ll still have to put a needle in his arm, right?” I said.

  “Right,” Dr. Dempster said. “Any way you can convince him to let me do that? He needs a lot of work on those teeth.”

  I turned to Vlad. I pretended my forefinger was a needle and pushed it into my arm. Then I put my hands together, lifted them to my head, leaned my ear against my hands and closed my eyes as if I was sleeping. He understood but shook his head.

  “Hey, La-Dee-Dah,” I said. I then used two words that I had been teaching Vlad in English in the short time that I’d known him. “Trust me.”

  Finally, Vlad nodded slowly.

  “Glad that’s settled,” Dr. Dempster said.

  “There’s just one thing, Ray. Vlad might be a little loopy when he gets out of it.”
<
br />   “Loopy?”

  “Loopy. It takes longer for some people to recover than others. So really watch him closely for a few hours after he gets out of the chair.”

  Watch him closely.

  That’s the part I didn’t remember until it was too late.

  chapter two

  I had been billeting with the Moore family for two years. It was great. He was a banker and she was a kindergarten teacher. Their kids had grown up and left the house. So now they helped the Medicine Hat Tigers by giving players a place to stay during the season.

  Not only were they nice, but they lived in a nice location. At night, with the window open, I heard the water of the South Saskatchewan River. Because they had large trees and therewas a nature preserve close by, I could also hear owls at night and sometimes coyotes.

  Often I’d wake up in the morning and look out my window to see deer or rabbits on the lawn in the shadows of the trees. Once in a while I’d even see a fox. It was like living in the country, except in the city. The only thing that ever disturbed the peace and quiet was the dog that belonged to the Moores.

  This was Pookie, a nasty Chihuahua. You know what Chihuahuas are like. Tiny but always trying to make up for it by yapping. Pookie liked to bite too, with sharp little teeth that drew blood on my ankles. But somewhere in his peanut-sized brain he knew that someone big like me would be ashamed to actually fight back, so all I ever did after he nipped me was sigh and look for a bandage.

  On that warm winter day, I pulled up to my parking spot behind the fence at the Moores’ backyard. It was nearly twilight, and the breeze was gentle.

  I was glad to finally reach the Moores’ house. Since leaving the dentist, Vlad had been yodeling some crazy Russian tune. Seriously. He had even yodeled in the store where we stopped to buy milk and bread. He was yodeling as I shut the Jeep’s motor off.

  “Come on, La-dee-dah,” I said. “Enough with the singing.”

  He gave me a loopy grin and yodeled more.

  “Nyet,” I said. “Don’t you know what that means? Nyet.”

  More yodeling.

  “Yeah,” I said. I patted my jean-jacket pocket. It held a plastic Ziploc bag with one of Vlad’s teeth, given to me by Dr. Dempster. “See if I give you your tooth. No money under your pillow for you tomorrow morning from the tooth fairy.”

  More yodeling.

  It didn’t seem like the time to try to explain the concept of the tooth fairy to him.

  Vlad staggered through the gate into the backyard while I went to the back of the Jeep for the grocery bags. It was obvious the guy was still feeling good.

  “Kitty! Kitty!” I heard him say in a happy voice. During the Christmas break, he’d been watching cartoons to learn English. “Kitty! Kitty!”

  I looked up with a degree of hopefulness. A cat? In the Moores’ yard? Pookie would be bolting out through the doggie door at any second to yap at me and Vlad. If I were lucky, the cat would be big enough to teach Pookie the lesson in manners that I wished I could.

  I didn’t see Pookie though.

  Nor did I see a cat.

  Instead I saw a skunk on the sidewalk at the Moores’ back steps. It must have wandered in from the trees along the river.

  “Kitty! Kitty!” Vlad said in the kind of voice that women use when they see babies. Vlad held his arms out to the skunk, weaving a little from side to side. “Kitty! Kitty!”

  Only then did I remember Dr. Dempster’s advice. Vlad might be a little loopy...It takes longer for some people to recover than others. So really watch him closely for a few hours...

  “Nyet!” I shouted at Vlad. “Nyet!”

  He must have thought I was still talking about his yodeling, because he took a few more steps toward the skunk.

  The skunk stamped its feet. This, I remembered from the Nature channel, was a warning.

  “Nyet!” I shouted again. “Nyet!”

  I should have dropped the milk and the bread and jumped over the fence and tackled Vlad before he could reach the skunk. But I was frozen there, like in a bad dream. Unable to look away. Unable to move.

  “Nyet!” I tried, even louder.

  All this did was alert Pookie to the fact that we had arrived home and he could jump through the little doggie door and begin to terrorize our ankles.

  I heard joyful yapping from inside the house. I could picture Pookie’s little legs scrambling as he slid across the kitchen floor toward the back door.

  Vlad had reached the skunk.

  “Kitty! Kitty!” he crooned.

  Vlad reached forward to scoop the skunk into his arms. He tipped a little and fell to his knees. At the same time, the skunk turned around and lifted its tail.

  “Nyet!” I hollered.

  Too late.

  Vlad grabbed the skunk just as it let loose a full spray in Vlad’s face, and just as Pookie made it through the doggie door at full speed and at full yap.

  Vlad dropped the skunk. It landed on all fours and spun around to face the new danger, Pookie.

  For a second, Pookie probably thought it was a cat too. But only for a second.

  The skunk turned. It must have had plenty in reserve because, almost instantly, Pookie’s yapping became high-pitched howls of terror. Pookie jumped back up the steps and back through the doggie door into the house. Seconds later I heard yelling from the kitchen that managed to drown out Pookie’s howling.

  Vlad was now rolling on the ground, clutching his face.

  As the yelling got louder in the Moore house, the back door opened, throwing light into the yard.

  Mr. Moore was still yelling about the awful smell in the house as he pitched Pookie down the steps. Pookie landed on Vlad. Vlad began to throw up. Pookie pawed at his little nose and a second later began to throw up on Vlad.

  The skunk walked away with triumphant dignity, right down the sidewalk toward me. I jumped back to my Jeep and stood on the hood to give him plenty of room.

  And through all of this, the horrible smell of skunk drifted through the air, making me gag where I waited on the hood of the Jeep for the skunk to leave.

  chapter three

  The first surprise when the season resumed four days later was that the Tigers had a new coach. Jim Dobbs, the coach who had started the season, had been offered a position in the NHL during the Christmas break. The Tigers had hired Blaine Thomas, who had been an assistant coach for one of the other WHL teams. The press conference to announce this was scheduled for the afternoon after our practice.

  The second surprise happened twenty minutes into practice, when Blaine Thomas pulled me aside and told me I had five games to prove myself as a hockey player or I would be benched for the rest of the season.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “Did you say benched?” I asked.

  In the background I heard whistles as the other coaches worked some drills. There were the sounds of pucks slapping against sticks, of skates spraying ice. Some hollering. The guys on the rest of the team were continuing with practice, totally unaware that I’d just been blindsided.

  “For the rest of the season,” Coach Thomas said. “Unless I can trade you to another team.”

  He and I were standing near the bench. I was taller than him by at least five inches. He wore team sweats and a Tigers ball cap. He was barrel-chested, but not fat. Short red hair, lots of freckles. About my dad’s age, maybe mid-forties.

  “Benched,” I repeated. I couldn’t think of a thing I had done wrong. Especially since only twenty minutes had passed since he’d stepped onto the ice and introduced himself as head coach.

  “Are you deaf too?”

  I cocked my head. Sweat dripped from the inside of my helmet down my neck. “Too?”

  “Well, I know for sure that you’re afraid to go into the boards. By the way you repeat everything I say as a question, I’ve got to wonder if you’re deaf too.”

  “I’m not deaf,” I said.

  “But you are afraid to go into the boards.�
��

  I looked away. Couldn’t answer.

  “I’m right here,” Coach Thomas said. “Not somewhere in the stands.”

  I looked back at him.

  “Afraid of me too?” he asked.

  “You know how many goals and assists I have this season, right?”

  “Of course I do,” he said. “You’re a tremendously skilled player.”

  “And you know my plus-minus is solid.”

  “Yup.”

  “But you’re going to bench me,” I said, “because you think I’m afraid to go into the boards.”

  “So look me in the eyes and tell me that you’re not afraid.”

  My mouth was suddenly dry.

  “This is your second year in the league,” he said. “I think I’ve seen you play against my old team about twenty times. I can’t remember one time you went into the boards first for a puck. The only penalties I ever saw you take were for tripping or hooking. Never elbowing, fighting. You don’t mind using the stick against other players, but you’re afraid to get in close.”

  I swallowed. It didn’t help the dryness.

  “Think the first set of drills today was an accident?” he asked.

  I knew the drills he meant. Dump and chase.

  “I wanted to see what you’d do. And I got my answer. Nothing. You’re one of the fast guys on the ice, but the way you waited to go into the corner for the puck made sure even an overweight goalie would get there first.”

  “It’s practice,” I said. “I didn’t want to...” I stopped, knowing how lame it sounded.

  “You didn’t want to get hurt.”

  I nodded.

  “What’s your dad going to say if you get cut and he learns why?” Coach Thomas asked.

  Fear coiled in my stomach like a snake. My dad had played in the NHL twenty years earlier. He’d been known as an enforcer. One of the toughest guys in the league. He was just as tough at home.

  “You need to understand something here, Ray,” Coach Thomas said. “It’s taken me fifteen years of a hundred percent effort to get to a head-coaching position in the WHL. I’m not going to lose it because players on this team won’t put in a hundred percent themselves. The Tigers need to be tougher, and you can either lead the way. Or get out of the way. What’s your decision?”