Going Places by Fran Hurcomb Page B

seemed to happen in slow motion. Sarah headed to the right, swerved suddenly to the left and then at the last second pivoted back to the right and fired a shot, right into the top corner of the net.She threw her arms into the air, and we mobbed her. The crowd went wild. The Peewee goalie slammed his stick against the goalpost. The score was 3–2 with forty-three seconds to go.
    Sarah skated wildly to the bench and threw herself at Curtis.
    â€œUncle, Uncle, I did like you said. I did like you said.”
    Curtis gave her a big hug. “You sure did, Sarah. It was perfect.”
    My line was on now. The Peewees dumped the puck into our end and pulled their goalie. They were going with six skaters. Desperation time. They were moving the puck quickly, trying to set up for a good shot. Alice fended off two weak shots, and then Opal snagged a rebound and started moving. I headed down the ice as fast as I could skate, looking back quickly and calling her name. She saw me and fired the puck to center ice.
    The two defenders were moving fast too, and they came at me one on each side as I snagged the pass. I think we kind of had a three-way collision at the blue line. Anyway, we all went down in a pile. Funny thing was, I guess I pushed the puck as I fell. It just kept going, slowly, toward the net. Everyone was screaming “The puck, the puck!” The crowd was on its feet, roaring. The defensemen scrambled up and took off after it, but they were too late. The puck sort of drib-bled into the net and the buzzer went. It was over.
    Our whole team roared onto the ice and jumped on me. I thought I was going to suffocate. Then we all went and jumped on Alice till she screamed to let her up. In the stands, our families were just about as happy, but I don’t think anyone got piled on. We shook hands, and Joe, the other coach, congratulated us on a hard-fought game. We were pretty proud. We had had our little miracle.

Chapter Eighteen
    Everyone went to the café after the game for a celebration, and Curtis ordered “hot chocolate for the house.” He’d seemed much happier lately. We liked to think it was because of us, but actually, I think it was because of Tara. They were spending a lot of time together, even away from the arena.
    â€œLadies. I have an announcement. Listen up.” Curtis stood on a chair at the counter so he could see everyone. “We’ve found a girls’ tournament to go to, if you’re interested.” If we were interested! Who was he kidding? We burst into applause. A road trip! It’s what we had dreamed of, right from the start.
    â€œGrande Prairie is hosting a girl’s tourney in February, and they have a mixed-age category thatwould fit us perfectly. Interested?” We cheered and carried on for a few minutes. Grande Prairie. Not exactly Edmonton, but what the heck. It had a movie theater, a swimming pool, a shopping mall and restaurants. It would be great.
    â€œOkay. Well, I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ We’ll have to do a bit of fund-raising. A few of the mothers have agreed to organize a bus, but you’ll have to come up with some money for hotel rooms and meals.”
    After that, we really got serious. We practiced every day after school and played two games a week against the Peewees. The scores were getting closer all the time, even when we had the same number of players. We were even starting to talk about challenging the Bantams, but that could wait until after Grande Prairie.
    When Curtis was away, Tara ran things and did a really good job. She had certainly learned a lot about hockey in a few months. We held two bingo nights in the community hall and raised almost two thousand dollars. We also had a bake sale at the church and werebusy selling raffle tickets wherever we could. First prize was two hundred dollars worth of free gas from Dave’s Gas Bar. Dave had become our number-one fan. Cory had to work for him after school