Free The Boston Breakout by Roy Macgregor Page A

3.

    Travis could not have been happier. He’d been chosen player of the game for the Owls, while the big center had, naturally, been named player of the game for the Penguins. Thanks to the public address announcement, Travis now knew his name: Alex Schultz. They had both been given tiny medals, and as they skated back to their teammates, who were lined up on opposite blue lines, Schultz used his long reach to tap Travis on the shin pads.
    Travis was smiling as he skated back, and the Owls all came out to tap his gloves or rap their sticks off his pads and pants.
    All except Nish, who hung back.
    Travis continued down the line of Owls until he reached Nish, who reluctantly fisted Travis’s glove. Travis could almost see steam coming out of Nish’s ears.
    “It was
my
pass,” Nish hissed. “
My
Hail Mary that won the game!”
    Travis accepted the tap of the glove from his friend, but said nothing.
    What could he possibly say?

16
    T ravis barely heard the tap on the door. He thought he was dreaming. Then it came again, a light tap, scarcely there, but a tap all the same.
    He sat up in his bed. It was dark. Nish was breathing hard in the bed opposite, out like a light. The others were all still asleep.
    The tap again.
    He went to the door and pulled it open quietly, thinking there was likely no one there.
    But there was. It was Sarah. And behind her was Sam.
    Sam was in tears.

    The three Screech Owls sat on the steps in the stairwell at the end of the corridor. It was unlikely anyone would come upon them there. Sam had stopped crying, but she was shaking. Strange, thought Travis: it was much warmer in the stairwell than it was in the air-conditioned rooms and corridors. Sarah had her arm around Sam and was rubbing her shoulder in an effort to comfort her.
    Sam slowly got herself together, then began talking.
    “Frances put me on her mobile contact list,” she said. “The one she said was for her ‘inner circle’ only – the people she trusted. Ever since she had that trouble with the police over the fur, she’s been convinced they were tracking her calls and e-mails.So this was a special thing she was using that meant messages stayed private. They went direct and not through any server.”
    “I know about that,” Travis said. “It’s called pinning – my dad sometimes uses it when he’s about to close a business deal.”
    “Anyway,” said Sam. “She set up my phone so I could get those messages once I got home. I was going to start up a group there. But when I went to bed tonight, I started getting all these strange texts from her phone. I’m not sure they were meant for me, and I’m not sure what they mean.”
    Sam held out her phone so Travis could scroll through the text messages.
    Travis read them out loud, then read them all again to himself. He had no idea what they meant.
    “Free the Penguins!”
    “Meet 9 a.m. sharp, you know where.”
    “Arrangements complete – it’s a go, people!”
    “Alarm set.”
    “St. Francis and St. Michael will guide us!”
    “Census Day = Judgment Day.”
    “The last one scares me,” said Sam. “Census Day equals Judgment Day.”
    “What’s it mean?” asked Travis.
    Sam took a deep breath. It was almost as if she didn’t want to say what she thought. But she knew she had to. Her voice broke as she tried to explain.
    “Well,” she said. “Remember when we visited the aquarium, and Fahd asked how many creatures they had?”
    “Yeah, sure,” said Travis. “The guide said six hundred.”
    “Well, they said they didn’t know for sure, but each year, they do a census, a count – and this week, they said, was when they’d be doing it.”
    “But what about Judgment Day?” Sarah asked. “And what’s all that talk about saints?”
    Sam swallowed. “Remember what Data told us about that St. Francis of Assisi? How he devoted his life to saving animals?”
    “A bit,” said Travis. “But who’s St. Michael?”
    “I googled that,” said Sam.