Return to Spender

Chapter One

It was William's first time throwing an octopus on the ice. Mom insisted it was a tradition every Red Wings fan must experience. And she should know, being one of their biggest cheerleaders. He cradled the extra layer of padding strapped around his middle and followed his grandfather down the concrete steps of section 123 to row six at the Joe Louis Arena. They were so close to the ice and the Red Wings bench that William could see the expressions on the hockey players' faces during their pregame warm-ups. It was his first time going to the arena.

Mom would love these seats, especially since they were on the aisle. Correct that. She would have loved them if Grandpa hadn't sold his season tickets to someone else. William could only hope that Grandpa had a good reason for not offering them to Mom. The fact that William would never enjoy watching a game with her while sitting in these red seats felt like a hockey puck to the gut. He dropped into his cushioned, vinyl chair marked with the number 15, wishing that two of his favorite people could stand being in the same room. Two of his other most favorite people, his neighbor Kate and his friend Mike bickered enough to drive William mad, but at least at the end of the day, they were all best friends. The same couldn’t be said for Mom and Grandpa.

“So, what do you think?” Grandpa asked as the players left the ice to prepare for the start of the game. He wore his favorite Red Wings cap. It matched the one William wore and was designated only for game days.

“About what?”

“About everything.”

William glanced around the half-filled arena, wishing he had the courage to tell Grandpa that Mom should be there with them. But this was their birthday celebration — William's eleventh and Grandpa's seventy-ninth. They shared the same birthday, February 29th. This year, they celebrated a week early – it not being a leap year and all.

Grandpa always said their leapling roots were magically steeped in Irish folklore.

Magical or not, their birthdays were supposed to be happy and full of fun, even early ones without Mom. So happy and fun it would be.

"These seats are beyond sublime. And the glass doesn't look insurmountable." After school, he and Mom practiced with the rubber octopodes. Even if it was only for fifteen minutes, William knew he could fling his over the barrier.

“Sublime?” Grandpa's bushy white eyebrows shot above the black rim of his glasses. His grey eyes, etched around the edges with lines, widened behind the thick lenses. “Insurmountable?”

“Yeah. Sublime means excellent or impressive, and insurmountable means something you can't get over.”

“I know what they mean.” Grandpa shook his head, cracking one of his rare smiles. Mom claimed Grandpa's smiles lived in a prison, one he'd built a long time ago. Perhaps Grandpa didn't smile as often as he ought to, but William could occasionally pry one from him. Grandpa always seemed happier around William. “I didn't know you did.”
“They were two of my vocab words last week.” William glanced around, looking past the ushers for security guards. “When can I remove Al One and Al Two from around my waist? I'm sweating like I'm pulling a Zamboni up a steep hill.”

Grandpa laughed.

Mom had helped him secure the two Ziploc-bagged, Vaseline-coated octopodes around his waist just before they left the house. Hopefully, the Vaseline would make these Red Wing mascots slide across the ice instead of sticking to it. William had decided against boiling real octopus, so instead, he'd bought two-foot-long stretchy rubber toys. A Red Wings sweatshirt, jersey, and winter jacket covered his expanded middle, hiding the squishy, black-eyed purple sea creatures. The clothes didn't stop tiny hockey players inside William's gut from charging down the ice.

“Al One and Al Two?” Grandpa slumped back against his seat and rubbed his left arm like it was cold.

“Yeah, they're named after them.” William pointed up to the ceiling where two large, lavender octopodes hung. He didn't mention Mom naming their octopodes for fear of erasing Grandpa's smile. “When can I get these suckers off me?”

Grandpa's second belly laugh morphed into a laughing cough loud enough to turn a few heads their way.

“You're in a good mood today, Grandpa.”

“Well, it's a particularly special day.”

Grandpa's strangely great mood puzzled William. Grandpa had been a sourpuss when Mom dropped William off at his grandparent’s condo. William decided all the energy shooting around the ice and up into the expanding crowd during pregame warm-ups must've been the reason.

“What about the twins, Al One and Al Two?” William asked.

“Our toy octopodes will have to wait until the game starts to be rescued. Sometime during the first period, we'll go to the bathroom and free them from their wrappings. But we still need to keep the Als hidden until we're ready to throw them. Security frowns on people throwing things on the ice – even if it's a longstanding tradition. We don't want to get tossed out of the game." William must've looked anxious or upset or something because Grandpa added, "Don't worry, William, getting them inside the arena was the hard part."

William swallowed down an Al-sized lump in his throat. He had no idea they could get kicked out of the game if they got caught. To make sure they didn't, William kept his jacket on. Then, fifteen minutes into the first period, Grandpa signaled for them to get up. Once in the bathroom, William took off his coat, and Grandpa removed the plastic wrap from around William's waist and slipped the bagged Als under his armpits. One on each side. Then hugging himself tightly to keep the bags from falling out of their hiding spots, William followed Grandpa back to their seats, only to find two people sitting in them.

“Surprise,” his parents yelled over a crowd of nearly twenty thousand fans.

“Pops, Mom, what are you guys doing here?” William hollered.

The red goal light over the Red Wings’ net swirled, and the crowd's synchronized groan filled the chilly arena, announcing the Sharks had scored.

Mom, wearing her Gordie Howe Red Wings Jersey, leaped to her feet and hugged William, squishing both Als. She leaned in closer. Her short, strawberry-scented blonde hair brushed against his cheek as she said, "I didn't want to miss you tossing Al on the ice, so Pops called in a favor with one of his fellow officers and got two tickets to the game."

Pops was Bob, the only dad William remembered. Mom married Bob when William was four, just two years after his father died. Mom met Bob at some grief session for people who'd lost a loved one to a drunk driver. He'd lost his wife and two daughters. That's why he left Florida and moved to Mason, Michigan. Pops wanted to be closer to the only family he had left. His sister and the mother of one of William's best friends, Kate Whitmore, lived across the street.

A horn blew, thus ending the first period. People left their seats and scrambled up the steps, going around the trio.

“Hello, Dad,” Mom said, letting go of William.

"We can't stand in the aisle all night," Grandpa said, all signs of his jovial mood erased. Mom had that effect on Grandpa. It had been that way for as long as William could remember. He'd overheard things about an aunt he'd never met, things he wanted to ask about but never felt brave enough. It was easier to say nothing than to chance getting Mom or Grandpa mad at him.

Grandpa's legs buckled, but he grabbed hold of the armrest next to him to stop his fall.

“Are you okay, Dad?” Mom asked, taking hold of his elbow.

He pushed her hand away. “I will be when I can sit down.”

"Fine, we'll go." Mom turned her back to Grandpa. When her gaze found William, a small smile bloomed across her face. She whispered in William's ear, "Throw Al extra hard for me, okay?"

William nodded. He didn't hug her back for fear the Ziploc bagged Als would dislodge and land on his tennis shoes.

Pops, dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans, looked more like a tall lumberjack than a Red Wings fan. The bald spot on the top of his head shone under the stadium lights. The jagged scar on his chin from a skateboarding accident when he was eleven made him look tough. Pops took Mom's hand, then lifted the binoculars off his checkered shirt and pointed across the ice. "We'll be watching you from over there in section 207. The last row up top, so we could stand all game without being told to sit down."

William squinted to the top of the other side of the arena, but the Jumbotron was in the way. “Can you see us?”

Grandpa sat down.

“Since we're looking down and you're close to the ice, yes, we can see you, Son.” Pops said, then staring down Grandpa, added, “We'll be back at the end of the second period. That will give the Wings time to score and you the opportunity to toss Al.”

Mom kissed William on the cheek, then nodded to Grandpa, who yawned in response. Mom squared her shoulders, and as she pulled Pops up the steps through the crowd, leaving William behind to recover whatever he could of Grandpa's good mood.

Chapter Two

William waited until Mom and Pops disappeared behind a bunch of Red Wings fans before he sat down. Then he lifted his arms, so Al One and Al Two would slip out of their hiding spots and onto his legs. They didn't budge. The plastic bags were stuck to his armpits. William unzipped his winter jacket, then reached under his jersey-covered sweatshirt and slipped Al One out. He slid the bag under his seat. Then he pulled the second celebratory Al out and let it drop to the ground between his feet. William pushed it with his left foot under Grandpa's seat. Knowing that Mom and Pops were watching his every movement from across the arena with binoculars, William crossed his fingers that they would get to see both Als fly onto the ice.

"What if the Wings don't score?" William finally said, adding his voice to the constant murmuring from the crowd. He tried to ignore the hockey game going on in his gut, Mom and Pop's prying eyes, and Al One all but yelling, "Toss me on the ice already!"

“There's plenty of time on the clock, William. Have faith,” Grandpa said, looking pale from the cold.

“With the way the Wings are playing, you should have brought one of your lucky Irish four-leaf clovers with you.”

Unlike the shamrock with its three leaves, the fourth leaf on the clover endowed the finder with luck and protected them from evil. Right now, the Wings needed both to beat the Sharks, who were skating circles around them.

Grandpa brought back a boatload of four-leaf clovers from his trip to Ireland almost five years ago. He'd found a whopping twenty-one on the grounds of their distant relative's bed and breakfast castle. Yes, castle. Not like Windsor Castle, but a castle, nonetheless. Hannah Cork, who'd immigrated to Boston way back whenever, was born in Castle O'Hara, duly named after her mother's family.

"In our family, four-leaf clovers aren't lucky. They're magical. That is what makes today special, William."

“I'm too old to believe in real magic anymore, Grandpa.”

“We, you and I,” Grandpa pointed to each of them, “will never be too old to believe in real magic.”

William could see a playfulness in Grandpa's grey eyes. The return of his grandfather's good mood was infectious. “Okay, Grandpa, tell me why we will never be too old to believe in real magic.”

Grandpa's large, clammy hand, with its long, gnarled fingers, curled around William's wrist. Grandpa's other hand held a twenty-dollar bill up between them. "This is magic at its best."

William stared at the money. It was a twenty-dollar bill, a bit more crumpled than most, but it didn't look magical.

Grandpa smiled as he placed the bill in William's hand.

The instant the twenty touched William's palm, a whooshing blew past his left ear, followed by the smell of dirty socks filled with rotting food. A second whooshing sound shot past William's right ear, and the third whoosh on his left quickly followed it. The stench forced William to gag and Grandpa to jam his nose into his plaid hanky, where he gasped and coughed for air. The nastiness disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

“Holey buckets,” William said as Grandpa blotted beads of sweat off his red face. Before William could say, “What was that?” the horn blared through the arena.

Goal.

Red Wings!

William crammed the twenty in the back pocket of his jeans, then wrenched the Ziploc bag from under his seat and ripped it open. He fumbled as he pulled Al One out by his eight legs. Then, standing in front of his seat, hoping and praying security couldn't see him, William wound up as he'd practiced and launched Al One overhead. The rubbery, purple sea creature soared through the air like a kite in a stiff breeze, easily sailing over the glass and onto the ice. William thrust a triumphant fist into the air, all thought of security banished, and yelled, “Bullseye!”

He was swarmed by people patting him on the back, hugging him, and giving him congratulatory high-fives. When the celebration died down, William finally turned to Grandpa to see if he'd thrown Al Two.

“Did you see it? Grandpa? Did you see it? I wasn't sure Al One would slide, but he did. It was Pucktastic. Did you throw yours?”

His grandfather looked asleep. Al Two lay in one hand and the plastic bag in the other.

William shook his grandfather to wake him. Grandpa didn't open his eyes.

“Grandpa?” William said, shaking him again. “Grandpa?”