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over the blue line and he still had the puck, though three Rats were trying to check him. He stopped suddenly, slipping the puck back justas one skater flew past, then tucked it between the skates of the defenseman ahead coming straight at him.
    Nish had only one player to beat. He faked a quick shot and instead pushed the puck to the side, looping back in a curl toward the blue line, where the one remaining defender tried a poke check and fell.
    He was in free.
    “
No Mario!
” Sarah screamed from the bench.
    No worries. Nish came in, faked the shot on net, forehand, backhand, and then back to front. The Rats’ goaltender, trying to anticipate the shot, made the first move. The wrong move, it turned out.
    Nish very gently tucked the puck into the open net and turned to skate back.
    The River Rats and the crowd roared their disapproval. The Rats’ coach was livid. “Fatso shoulda been in the box!” he screamed at the referee. Travis was glad Muck never screamed like that. Nor would Muck insult a player, no matter how upset he might be inside.
    You could almost always predict what Muck might say or do. Nish, however, was not behaving like Nish. Where was the fist pump? Where was the slide on shin pads? Where was the leap into the air and the butt-check against the glass? (“Nish’s Ovechkin,” the kids called it.) Where was the race to the Owls’ bench to punch gloves with his teammates and soak in the praise?
    This was a new Nish. Crouched over, his stick across his shin pads, Bobby Orr style, Nish merely drifted back to his defense posting at center ice as if he’d just come off the bench.
    Sarah and Travis turned to look at each other. There was nothing to say. Laughter was the only possible response.
    The Owls won 4–2. Sarah scored on a rebound left behind by Dmitri on a nice rush, and in the dying seconds, Travis scored an empty netter – he thought of them as half-goals rather than real goals – when the Rats were trying to tie it up.
    It had been a clean match, and the River Rats had proved to be good opponents.
    Nish, the hero of the moment, dressed quietly, and for once carried his offensive underwear over to the laundry bag rather than tossing it without caring where it landed.
    “What’s up with you?” Sarah asked him. “Mr. Humility on the ice and now Mr. Helper in the dressing room?”
    Nish grinned. “All part of the maturing process,” he said. “I’m no longer in school, so I’m now a grown-up, right?”
    No one bothered with an answer.

    On the way back to the city center from the Wilmington rink, Mr. Dillinger pulled the team bus in at the first McDonald’s golden-arches sign.
    The Owls all cheered his decision. All except one.
    Sam informed the team that she would not be going in with them.
    “I no longer eat meat,” she told them.
    “I’ll eat yours for you,” Nish offered.
    For once, Sam did not shoot him a reply. “I am a vegetarian now,” she said very quietly.
    “
Free the celery!
” Nish shouted.
    So much for the “maturing process,” thought Travis.

7
    T he scientific career of inventor Wayne Nishikawa was not off to a great start. Having quit school, like Ben Franklin, he was now determined to invent something – but unfortunately he had no idea what.
    But then the small plastic disc shooter he had purchased at Mr. D’s Stupid Stop gave him an idea, and Data, who was as close to a scientific genius as the Owls could claim, agreed to serve as Nish’s assistant.
    The disc launcher, Nish said, could be adapted to become an “automatic puck shooter.” At Data’s suggestion, he even laid out a “prospectus” for the invention, all dutifully written up by Data on his tablet computer:
    The “Nishikawa Stinger” automatic puck shooter will do for the sport of hockey what the automatic pitcher has done for baseball and the automatic server has done for tennis. Coaches, hockey schools, and goaltenders will be able to dial up the types of shots they wish to face –