Never Hug a Mugger on Quadra Island Read Online Free PDF Page B

day to get to his new school, Timberline High, attached to North Island College. His island was a good place to come back to, afternoons or early evenings, depending on whether there was hockey practice. Usually he rode his bike that his parents had bought after he’d grown seven inches last year. If Derek was driving to college he’d throw the bike on the truck for the trip home—sometimes Derek stayed in town with his girlfriend. Shane used to ride with Derek until he went to Vancouver to train for Juniors with the great Carl Certane, a silver and a gold at the 1988 Calgary Olympics, a bronze and a gold in Albertville in 1992. When Shane left home, the Coopers, each in their way, cheered him on while finding themselves saddened (Jason), devastated (Linda), jealous (Derek), or abandoned and relieved (Tim).
    Now Tim watched Quadra Island recede, the powerful wake of the ferry cutting across the churning water of the passage at an acute angle. Tim loved living on Quadra. Walk in the woods with his family or by himself, plan with his father the future of the woodlot, read in their living room by the fire in the winter, on the deck in the summer. He’d made some good friends at Timberline, liked half the guys on the hockey team, still got along with most of the kids he’d grown up with. But a lot of the time he enjoyed hanging out at home by himself.
    Except for the last three weeks. Without Derek it felt a lot less like home. Shane had come back four days after the attack on Derek. But not for his brother. It wasn’t a holiday for Shane; the technicians had re-iced the smaller rink at the Campbell River arena and he had been using it every day. Having won gold last winter at Juniors meant he got carte blanche from the rink. Quadra and Campbell River each claimed him as its own.
    In the past weeks he’d been a black presence, brooding or in a constant twitch—Jason, Linda and Tim at first hoping it was on account of Derek. Wrong. It had become clear that Shane was obsessed with Shane—his status, his need to get back to training and practice. Moving up to Seniors meant he had to work even harder, as he’d explained. Not that Shane didn’t care about Derek’s condition, but they knew Derek’s coma was only a secondary cause of Shane’s agitation.
    Tim loved watching Shane skate. He remembered Shane’s first double axel when he was eleven, and his first triple in the short program at the Juniors two years back—Tim felt as if the jump/spin had lasted a full minute because it seemed he’d held his breath that long. Shane in a simulated tuxedo had been a miracle of moving perfection. And he would be again. If he didn’t fall when there was no reason to. But that’d never happen again. It couldn’t.
    The ferry slowed as it approached the Campbell River dock. Tim ambled back to the car and found Jason reading his paper. “Anything exciting?”
    â€œAnother land settlement up north,” said Jason.
    â€œZeke’s going to be pleased.”
    â€œOr really ticked off at how slow it’s going here.” Ezekiel Pete and Jason Cooper had played and fought together all the way through elementary school, had fallen out of contact with each other when Jason’s parents divorced and his father had taken him to Vancouver, way better schooling there than he’d get in Campbell River, his father had insisted; and besides, Jason’s mother, Sue, was taking up with Richard, like her a member of the Cape Mudge Band. Zeke and Jason re-met summers when he came back to Quadra from the University of Victoria; they formed a friendship stronger than the one they’d left behind. Jason rediscovered his love of the land his mother had left him when she died of cancer, Jason only fifteen. Halfway through UVic he’d changed his major from engineering to environmental studies, and after his degree had gone to BCIT for a certificate in