Chapter 12: Like Old Times

The Commonwealth Cup decider was on Bayhill ice on the twenty-third of January.

I sat in the visitors' section in number seven.

Kat sat beside me in a green St. Brendan's hat she'd bought outside, with the tag still on.

"I'm a traitor now," she said happily. "My mother's going to light a candle."

Two rows behind us, Bayhill students had a sign. FINOLA KEOGH, BAYHILL'S BENEDICT ARNOLD.

"They spelled your name right," Kat said. "That's growth."

I'd skated on that ice at six every morning for four years.

Tonight four thousand people in red booed every time Luc touched the puck.

Before warm-ups, he'd come to the glass in his gear and put his glove flat against it.

I'd put my hand on the other side.

"After tonight," he'd said through the glass, "I'll tell you everything. Win or lose."

"Promise?"

"Rule one."

It was the fastest, meanest game I'd ever seen.

Chase scored in the first and skated past our section with his finger to his lips.

Luc tied it in the second with a slapshot from the point that the Bayhill goalie never saw.

With four minutes left, Chase slashed Luc across the wrist behind the play. The ref missed it.

Luc shook out his hand and kept skating.

He didn't look at Chase once.

St. Brendan's scored with ninety seconds left on a rebound off a Saints winger's skate.

The visitors' section exploded.

Kat screamed in my ear and threw her new hat on the ice.

The Saints poured over the boards and piled on each other at center ice.

The Bayhill crowd went quiet the way a crowd goes quiet when it's leaving.

They brought out the Commonwealth Cup. It's ugly. A big silver bowl on a wooden base, dented from a hundred years of drunk hockey players.

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