Lacrosse Firestorm (6 page)

“Wha-what’s up?” he asked in a small voice.

“I told them about last night,” Scottie said. “About what you did. They wanted to see where it happened.”

“But I didn’t do it!” Garry protested. “See?” He held up the third match. “It burned out on top of the boulder when I dropped
it! I didn’t start the fire!”

The firefighter and the coaches exchanged looks. “You were lighting matches out here last night?” the firefighter said at
last.

Garry gulped and slowly lowered his hand. “I-I — yes. But you knew that already, didn’t you?” He turned to Scottie. “Isn’t
that what you told them? That I started the fire?”

“Huh?” Scottie shook his head. “Why would I think you started the fire?”

“Because you found the matches in my sweatshirt pocket!”

Scottie raised and lowered his shoulders. “I didn’t find any matches, Garry. We’re out here so I can show them where you rescued
me from the river!”

The firefighter stepped forward then. “Perhaps you boys better walk us through what went on here last night. Maybe we’ll be
able to piece together this puzzle once and for all.”

G
arry was still confused but he did as the firefighter asked. “I found a box of matches under a bucket,” he said. “I lit three
of them.”

He shot a quick glance at the coaches and the fireman. “I know I shouldn’t have, but I did it up on the rock where they wouldn’t
burn anything.”

The chief let out a sigh of annoyance. “Son, what you did could have caused a whole peck of trouble — for you and for the
forest. Now tell me the truth, did you light more than three?”

Garry shook his head vehemently. “No, sir!
I only lit those three, two on the strike plate and the third on the rock’s surface when the strike plate wore down. I swear!
Then I heard Scottie call my name and started running toward the river.”

“Show me the path you took,” the chief instructed.

“This way,” Garry said, hurrying down the trail as he had the night before. “See that root? I tripped over it. Look, you can
even see where I hit the dirt.”

He pointed to a gouge in the mud and to the skid mark on his sweatshirt. A sudden thought crossed his mind.
Maybe the matchbox fell out of my pocket when I fell. But if it did, then how did Michael get it?

A question from the fire chief interrupted his thoughts. “What happened next, after you fell?”

“I went through this thicket” — Garry
pushed his way through the brush as he had before — “and saw Scottie there, in the river.”

The fire chief followed him through the thicket. He looked at the river for a long moment. Then he glanced back toward the
boulder. He seemed to be considering something. When he spoke at last, it wasn’t to Garry, it was to Scottie.

“Why did you call to Garry?” he asked.

“I was trying to get his attention,” Scottie replied.

“How did you know he was out here?”

To Garry’s surprise, Scottie pointed to a place on the far riverbank. “I saw him over there. That’s why I was trying to cross
the river — to get over to him.”

Garry started to protest that he’d never set foot on that side, but the fire chief raised a hand to keep him quiet.

“Are you certain?” the chief asked quietly. “Because Garry just told us he was on the boulder when he heard you call.”

Scottie blinked in confusion. “I-I thought I saw him. He had on a Rockets sweatshirt.” He turned thoughtful. “But come to
think of it, I never saw his face because he had his hood up.”

Garry gave a sharp cry. “But my sweatshirt doesn’t have a hood! I cut it off! See?” He held up his sweatshirt for the chief
to inspect.

Scottie grabbed Garry’s arm then. “Wait a sec! Remember how I asked how you got to me so quickly?”

“Yeah, so?” Then Garry’s eyes widened as he realized what Scottie was driving at. “You thought I had crossed the river and
reappeared here, which would have been impossible in that short amount of time! But
it wasn’t me, it was someone in a hooded sweatshirt!”

“Hold on,” Coach Hasbrouck interjected. “Are you saying there was another Rocket out here?”

Scottie nodded vigorously. “There must have been.”

“Could you identify him?”

The Thunder goalkeeper thought for a moment and then shook his head. “I only saw him for a second. Then I slipped on the rock
and fell in the water.”

But Garry had been thinking hard. Now he cleared his throat. “Um, Coach, I think I might know who it was.”

They all looked at him.

“If I did drop those matches when I tripped, then the other person who was out here could have found them. He could even have
started the fire.”

“Go on,” Coach Hasbrouck encouraged.

Garry bit his lip. “Michael has the matches, sir. He showed me the box just a little while ago. And he owns a Rockets sweatshirt
like mine. Only his has a hood on it still.”

The coach blew out a long breath. “Garry, what you are saying is very serious. And I know that you and Michael don’t get along.”

“Coach,” Garry said urgently, “I’m not making it up just to get Michael in trouble. Honest! Ask Michael about those matches
if you don’t believe me!”

“Unfortunately, son, it would be your word against his,” the Thunder coach pointed out. “As grateful to you as I am for rescuing
Scottie here, I’m not sure who I’d believe — the boy who’s just confessed to lighting matches in the woods, or the boy who
reported the fire. There’s no proof that
this Michael was out here or that he even has the matches!”

“But the figure in the hooded sweatshirt —” Garry began.

“ — could have been anyone,” Coach Hasbrouck finished.

T
he group left the woods soon after, having come to no final conclusions about the matter. Garry returned to his cabin and
lay down on his bunk feeling completely dejected.

Well, at least one good thing came out of this
, he thought sourly.
Now that I’ve confessed, I won’t have to help Michael get that top scorer award
.

Then he sat up, thinking. A slow smile crossed his lips.

If I don’t feed him the ball the next game, he’ll rat me out!
“And to do that,” he whispered
triumphantly, “he’ll have to show the coach the matches!”

Convinced that his plan would work, he jumped down from his bunk and set off to talk to his teammates — not to urge them to
feed Michael the ball, as Michael had ordered him to do, but to ask them to do just the opposite!

The Rockets were scheduled to play the Bears right after lunch. Garry managed to explain the situation to Jeff and Todd and
a few other teammates by then. He asked them to keep quiet to Michael’s loyal supporters, however — particularly Evan. They
all agreed to help out.

Garry came to the field determined to play the best game of his life. But he put on a morose face so that Michael wouldn’t
suspect anything. He spotted Scottie in the bleachers and hurried over to tell him what was happening too.

“Good luck, man, I’ll be rooting for you!” Scottie said.

Garry did his warm-up exercises with the rest of the team and then, when the referee blew a blast on his whistle, ran to his
place in the wing area for the start of the game. Michael sauntered past him, shot him with a finger gun, and continued on
to the center X.

“In your dreams, Donofrio,” Garry muttered.

The referee placed the ball between the Bears center attacker and Michael. He trotted back out of the way and blew another
whistle blast. The game was on!

Michael usually had a quick stick on the face-off but this Bear was quicker. He raked the ball away before Michael could even
flip his stick. Then, when Michael tried to poke it away, the Bear sent it rocketing through the grass to his teammate.

Garry charged out of the wing area, leveled his stick at the Bears ball carrier, and jabbed it at the shaft of his opponent’s
stick. But the Bear twisted away and slashed his stick downward in an attempted pass back to his center. Unfortunately for
him, he released the ball too late. Instead of flying through the air it struck the grass with a loud
thud
and bounced up and away, free to anyone who could get a stick on it.

That “anyone” wound up being Jeff. He caught it in his pocket on midbounce, darted around the Bears frustrated attacker, and
fired a pass to Conor.

“Here!” Michael screamed. “Pass it here!”

Conor squared off as if to send it in Michael’s direction. Michael took off, holding up his stick to make an over-the-shoulder
catch. But the pass never came, for after squaring off, Conor pivoted on one foot and lobbed the ball back to Jeff.

Michael, meanwhile, continued to run, holding his stick aloft like a standard-bearer holding a flag. When the ball didn’t
come, he looked back and nearly collided with a Bears defender.

“Watch it, buddy, will ya?” the Bear growled just as Jeff flipped the ball over to Garry.

“Give it here, Wallis — or else!” Michael yelled.

Garry ignored him. He looked to Conor. Conor wasn’t open. Samuel was covered too, and Jeff was too far behind to send the
ball there. That left Garry with three choices: keep the ball and hope he could get a shot off on goal; pass to Evan, who
was coming up behind him; or pass to Michael, who was still yelling at him.

The decision was taken out of his hands when a Bears defender ran forward and stuck
himself to Garry like glue. Since Garry refused to pass to Michael, he sent the ball back to Evan.

“It’ll reach Michael anyhow,” he muttered.

But to his surprise, Evan didn’t automatically toss the ball to Michael. Rather, he twisted away from a Bears midfielder and
fired the ball to Jeff, who was so surprised he nearly missed the catch.

But he managed to control it and get it to Conor. Conor’s stick whistled through the air as he slashed it sideways and rocketed
the ball past the goalkeeper into the net. Goal!

“Yee-haa!” Conor leaped and twirled in midair, drawing laughs from the sidelines and his teammates. Only the Bears were silent.

They didn’t stay quiet for long, however, for once again the Bears center attacker took
possession on the face-off. This time, he carried the ball halfway down the field before the Rockets midfielders could catch
up to him. Jeff and Samuel double-teamed him but the Bear outfoxed them both, twisting away to feed the ball over to the attacker
on his right.

Brandon was caught napping. The Bear barreled past him and confronted Christopher. The two mirrored one another for a moment
before the Bear faked a throw that sent Christopher moving in the wrong direction. From there, it was just one swift, accurate
throw and the Bears had tied it up 1–1.

As Garry headed back to the wing area for the face-off, he fully expected Michael to threaten him once again. He wasn’t disappointed.

“I’m warning you, Wallis,” the center attacker hissed. “Get me the ball or —”

“Lay off, Donofrio, will you?”

Garry’s jaw dropped in amazement. The retort hadn’t come from Jeff, or Conor, or even Carl.

It had come from Evan!

E
van’s moment of defiance toward Michael was astonishing — and more amazingly, it wasn’t his last that game!

Over and over, Michael all but ordered his most loyal lapdog to feed him the ball. And over and over, Evan sent the ball elsewhere.
Michael, so used to simply taking the ball and running with it, spent much of his time dancing about in frustration with an
empty pocket.

The Rockets, meanwhile, were busy working different plays the coach had taught them during countless practices. Before long,
it
became obvious to them — and to many of those watching the game — that Michael didn’t have a clue how those plays were supposed
to go.

“Michael, you’re supposed to run
behind
the net, not in
front
of it,” Evan bellowed after one botched play turned into a fast break — and a successful goal — for the Bears.

“If I didn’t know any better,” Garry whispered to his brother as they hurried off the field for the halftime break, “I’d say
Evan has a grudge against Michael!”

“It does seem like there is trouble in paradise!” Todd whispered back.

The trouble got worse — for Michael, anyway. When the second half began, the once-unstoppable attacker was left sitting on
the bench while Todd took the face-off!

Todd might not have been a dynamo like Michael, but he was a complete team player.
So was Pedro, who came off the bench to take Conor’s place. Together, the two subs moved the ball down the field so smoothly
it looked like they were doing a simple passing drill. And when Todd slashed his stick downward and sent the ball into the
lower right corner of the net to put the Rockets ahead by one, no one cheered louder than Garry.

And to think Michael wanted him off the team!
he thought as he smiled proudly at Todd.

But that one-point advantage didn’t last long. The Bears controlled the ball after the next face-off and roared down the field
in an all-out blitz on the goal. Carl and Eric stood their ground but Andrew, subbing for Brandon, hesitated in the face of
the onslaught. When he did finally move to cover his man, it was too late. The Bear, a huge but fleet-footed boy, blew by
him with the ball safely cradled in his stick pocket.

Christopher came out of the goal to cut him off, but when he did, another Bear sidled in, received a pass, and angled the
ball past the Rockets goalie. Tied game again.

The score stayed even throughout the third quarter, and into the fourth. Garry was beginning to wonder if either team would
ever break through when Samuel got the ball and yelled, “Middie sweep!”

The Rockets had tried the play a few times earlier in the game without success. But that was when Michael had still been on
the field. This time, Todd was in the center attacker spot. Garry wondered for a split second if his brother, usually a midfielder,
would know how to run the play from that position.