“For fuck’s sake . . . STOP IT! PLEASE, STOP!”

Lyt thrusts his arms out, making Bobo let go of him, then he casts a quick, evaluating glance at Amat before he goes over to Zacharias, grabs his stick from him, and smashes it against the wall as hard as he can, breaking it. He drops the pieces on the floor in front of Zacharias and snarls:

“You’ll have to tell Social Services to buy a better-quality one next time. Someone could get hurt.”

Lyt turns and goes into the locker room and is met by the jubilant cries of his teammates who are chanting “the bears from Beartown” and each others’ names in turn.

Amat picks up the pieces of the broken stick. Zacharias doesn’t help.

“It’s broken, you idiot . . .”

Amat loses his cool and flies up, yelling:

“What the FUCK is wrong with you, Zach? Well? What’s got into you? Why do you have to provoke everyone the whole time?”

Zacharias just glares back. Years of friendship fall from his eyes.

“Good luck today, big shot.”

Amat walks off. Zacharias stands there watching him. When Amat goes into the locker room and throws the pieces of an old stick in the trash, a new stick is waiting for him by his place. It’s the first time in his life he’s had one that isn’t secondhand.

*

Bobo sits down in the bus, two rows in front of Lyt. He hears Lyt telling the story of Zacharias’s stick, to the accompaniment of jokes about “benefit scroungers” and the “little bastard.” Zach’s mother is on disability benefits. Before that she worked on the same ward of the hospital as Bobo’s mom. When Amat gets on the bus, Bobo makes space for him.

“I tried to stop him,” Bobo mutters.

“I know.”

They both remember the tracksuits with Shantytown Hockey scrawled on them. It was Lyt’s idea. And Bobo did the writing. Lyt lives in the Heights, Bobo lives one minute away from the Hollow. Bobo feels like saying something to Amat about that, but he doesn’t have time to finish the thought. Because a moment later someone cries, “What the hell are the cops doing here?” as a police car rolls into the parking lot and blocks the bus’s exit.

*

David is late. It’s actually the first time he’s ever been late for anything. Yesterday he threw up three times, and even tried to persuade his girlfriend to have a glass of wine with him to help him calm down. And he never drinks. He has always felt like an outsider in every team he has ever played in, precisely because that seemed to be a ritual that everyone followed, drinking themselves senseless at least a couple of times a year. It was like David became less trustworthy in their eyes because he wasn’t prepared to vomit alongside a teammate on the parquet floor of a hotel bar somewhere.

His girlfriend looked so surprised. David shrugged his shoulders.

“People always say it calms the nerves.”

She started to laugh. Then she started to cry. Then she leaned her forehead against his and whispered:

“Idiot. I didn’t want to say anything. But I can’t drink wine.”

“What?”

“I didn’t want to say anything until after the final. I didn’t want . . . to distract you. But I . . . I can’t drink.”

“What are you talking about?”

She giggled between his lips.

“You’re as thick as a brick sometimes, you know. Darling, I’m pregnant.”

So today David is late, and confused, and happy. He walks straight into the tumultuous chaos in the parking lot, and almost gets run down by the police car. It’s simultaneously the happiest and the unhappiest and the most peculiar day of his life.

*

If it had been a home game maybe they would have let Kevin play. But the final is taking place several hours away, in another city, and they use words like “security” and “risk of absconding.” They’re all just doing their jobs. The police push their way through the surprised parents in the parking lot and climb onto the bus. All the boys start shouting when they ask Kevin to get out. A heavily built man in uniform grabs Kevin’s arm and lifts him up from his seat, and the whole bus explodes in fury. Bobo and Lyt try to block the policeman’s path, and they’re big enough to require four more officers just to get him off the bus. Kevin looks so small in the confusion, vulnerable, defenseless. Perhaps that’s why all the adults around react the way that they do, or perhaps there are thousands of other reasons.

*

Kevin’s dad grabs the policeman holding his son and yells at him, and when another officer pulls him off, Tails gets the police officer in a headlock. One board member slams his fist as hard as he can into the hood of the police car. Maggan Lyt takes photographs of all the police officers from a distance of less than half a yard, and promises them all personally that they’ll lose their jobs.

*

Amat and Benji are the only ones who sit quietly in their seats on the bus. Words are difficult things.

*

Peter is standing at the far side of the parking lot, where the pavement stops and the trees begin. He hates himself intensely for driving here. Because what’s he going to do? Violence is like whisky: children in homes that have too much of it grow up either full of it, or entirely without it. Peter’s dad was capable of murder, but his son can’t fight. Not even on ice. Not even now. Not even Kevin. Peter can’t harm anyone, but he stands here anyway, because he dearly wants to watch when someone else does.

*

David is the only person who notices him. Their eyes meet. Peter lowers his.

31

What makes someone a leader?

*

Maya undergoes all the obligatory examinations at the hospital. Answers all the questions. Doesn’t cry, doesn’t complain, doesn’t argue, is helpful, accommodating. Kira, on the other hand, is so beside herself that at times she can’t even be in the same room. Her phone rings nonstop. She has activated her whole legal practice now, and her daughter is lying on a cold bed in a bare room and knows that she’s started a war. Her mother needs to take command, charge the enemy, act—she won’t be able to cope otherwise. So Maya gets her own phone and sends Ana a text message, saying: “War now.” A few seconds later the reply arrives: “You and me against the world!”

*