Page 7

"I'm not going to pass out."

"You're shaking."

I look down. My hand is shaking, a little, holding my water bottle. I put it on my knee so it stops.

"That's excitement," I say.

"Sure it is."

Webb leans over from Hale's side of the room. "First game, I threw up in the tunnel. Right in front of the Zamboni guy. He still brings it up."

"Seriously?"

"Every time I see him. Twelve years. He goes, 'Hey, Pukey.'" Webb shrugs. "Better than a nickname about your face."

"What was Hale's first game like?"

Webb glances at Hale, who's sitting with his eyes closed and his head against the wall, pretending none of us exist.

"He scored twice and didn't smile once," Webb says. "Guys thought he was a cyborg for a whole year."

"I can hear you," Hale says, eyes still shut.

"I know. That's why I'm saying it loud."

Brandt walks past on his way to the bathroom and stops by my stall. For one second I think he's going to say something nice.

"Dump the puck," he says, and keeps walking.

Sorel rolls his eyes so hard I can hear it.

It happens with six minutes left in the second.

Kowal takes a lazy hooking call, and I get sent out on the second power-play unit, which is a thing Moretti told me this morning would not happen tonight. I think he forgot. Or he's doing it on purpose to see if I drown. Either way, I'm on the half-wall and Hale's at the point, and Webb is behind the net shouting something in a language made entirely of hockey noises.

The puck comes around to Hale. Their penalty killers collapse on him, because everyone in this league knows Owen Hale is going to shoot from there. He's been shooting from there for seventeen years.

He doesn't shoot.

He looks at me, one quick flick of his eyes, and slides it across the top of the zone, flat and hard and perfect, right onto my tape.

Their goalie is still set for the shot that didn't come. He's leaning the wrong way. There's a hole over his shoulder the size of my mother's car.

I don't even think. I just put it there.

The horn goes off so loud it rattles my ribs. The goal light spins red over the glass and the whole building comes apart, and I'm already sliding, both knees on the ice, stick in the air, skidding all the way across the zone. I've been practicing this slide in my head since I was nine. It's even better than I pictured. I come up at the end boards and slam into the glass right under 112, and there she is, Maman in the second row in the jersey with my name on it, crying and screaming and pointing at me with both hands.

I tap my heart twice and point back.

Then the guys pile on. Webb gets there first and nearly knocks me over, yelling "Kid! KID!" right into my visor. Sorel and Adeyemi pound on my helmet. Brandt gets there last, taps my shoulder once with his glove, and skates off before the hug's even finished.

Hale doesn't pile on. He coasts in behind them, bumps his glove against mine, and says, "Good."

That's it. Good.

"It was your pass," I say.

"It was your shot."