Read Rebel Glory for Free Online Page B

most promising juniors anyone has seen in quite some time. But you have to develop a life outside hockey. What will happen if for some reason you can’t play hockey? Then what?”
    I looked him straight in the eye. “For some reason, like if I got thrown in jail for beating up a girl?”
    He gulped. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down above his brown sweater.
    “I’m only saying this one more time,” I said. “No girlfriend. No fight. If you don’t believe me, I’ll pack my bags today.”
    I hit them with logic. “If the guy was telling the truth, why didn’t he tell you his name? Or his daughter’s name?”
    Mr. Henry frowned as he thought that through. Finally he let out a big breath. He reached down with one hand and rested it on his wife’s shoulder. After far too long, he said, “We believe you. I’ll do my best to find out who called here this morning.”
    In another two hours, practice would begin. That would take my mind off all this. Just me, my skates, a hockey stick and the ice rink in front of me. My escape.

chapter ten
    Practice did not become much of an escape from my worries. First of all, Coach Blair was still mad at us for losing in Medicine Hat, in spite of our recent win, and worked us hard. Frankie Smith, a fifteen-year-old rookie, threw up over the boards and onto the rubber mat of the players’ box.
    Second, my equipment didn’t feel right. I couldn’t figure out exactly why it felt wrong, but I couldn’t get comfortable as I skated.
    And third, no matter how hard I tried to think about the puck and skating, I couldn’t get my mind off what had happened at lunch.
    It hurt that the Henrys believed I was the kind of guy who would lie. It hurt that the Henrys believed I was the kind of guy who would beat up a girl. It hurt that the Henrys had tried to phone the woman who only now wanted to say she was my mother because it looked like I might someday get a big fat contract to play in the National Hockey League.
    Not only was I feeling hurt, but it also bothered me that I would actually let my feelings get hurt. Ever since Dad died, I had pushed feelings away. If you didn’t have feelings, you couldn’t get hurt. Only now it seemed I hadn’t done as good a job as I’d thought.
    And on top of all this, there was the telephone call itself. Who would call the Henrys and tell them I had beaten up his daughter? And why?
    What if that same person called Coach Blair? Or the newspapers?
    I knew I hadn’t beaten up anyone. I knew I could never beat up a girl. I knew I wasn’t dating anyone because I wanted to concentrate on hockey. Hockey, unlike girls, could never hurt your feelings.
    But no matter how much I knew I hadn’t done anything, it might not make a difference if someone started spreading the lies. I’d seen enough to know that even rumors could cause me some major trouble.
    “McElhaney!” I heard Coach Blair yelling at me. I pulled myself away from my thoughts and looked across the ice at him, dressed in gray and black sweats, the Rebel colors. “You want to skate? Or do you want to push a baby carriage? Get your legs in gear!”
    I pushed ahead. The clock showed another fifteen minutes of practice. It seemed like we had been on the ice since before hockey had been invented.
    Coach Blair ended practice without giving us any shooting or passing drills. Instead he kept us skating, blowing the whistle to make us stop, blowing it to make us start, blowing it to make us reverse directions, blowingit to make us very, very sorry for losing so many games.
    Finally the torture ended and the guys headed back toward our dressing room.
    Coach Blair waved me over to him.
    The players left the ice. It was just Coach Blair and me and the rows and rows of empty stands that climbed high into the arena around us. And the guy on the zamboni tractor, ready to clean and water the ice surface.
    “McElhaney,” Coach Blair said. His whistle hung from his neck, quiet for the first time in the last