Panic in Pittsburgh Read Online Free PDF

hadn’t beenhurt far worse. It could have been a broken neck, and still it would have been an accident – no one’s fault.
    The Owls had continued in the tournament, winning a close game against a team from Philadelphia and then coasting to victory over the Little Devils, a peewee team from New Jersey that modeled their team colors and crest on the NHL ’s Devils. The Little Devils weren’t nearly the match Philadelphia’s Peewee Phantoms had been. In fact, if it hadn’t been for one lucky bounce, the Phantoms might have beaten the Owls.
    After the win over the Little Devils, Sarah and Sam had come out of the Owls’ dressing room to find the River Rats player who had hit Travis waiting outside with his coach. The coach give the big kid a nudge on the back, sending him toward the girls.
    The player looked like he was about to cry. He was twisting his hands together as if washing them. He seemed unable to look them in the eye. He stopped, fumbling for words.
    “You’re his center, right?” the big kid said to Sarah.
    “Travis’s? Yeah.”
    “How is he?”
    “He’ll be okay. He’s just not allowed to play for a while.”
    “Can you give him this for me, please?” the kid asked, nervously handing over a folded note.
    Sarah took it. She smiled at the big, fumbling kid. “Sure. Be glad to.”
    She knew she shouldn’t have, but later, when she found herself alone in the lobby of their hotel, she couldn’t resist taking the note from her pocket and reading it quickly.
    Dear Travis,
    I am very, very sorry for what happened to you. I am the kid who hit you into the boards. I didn’t mean for it to happen and I feel terrible about it. If it means anything to you, I was almost knocked out myself – you are not only a very good player but a solid one as well. I hope you can forgive me.
    Your friend, 
    Billy Chester
    Almost in tears, Sarah tucked the note back into her pocket. When she saw Mr. Dillinger, she handed it over and asked him to give it to Travis when he next checked on the injured player. She hoped Travis was able to read. She knew he’d like hearing that he was not only a good player but a tough one.
    There was light snow on the roads as the buses wound their way through the hilly countryside near Shanksville. The players were being brought to a field in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.
    But it was definitely not nowhere. It was where United Airlines Flight 93 had crashed on September 11, 2001.

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    If Sarah hadn’t known better, she’d have thought Muck had set this up. The Screech Owls’ coach was always going on about history and the importance of remembering.
    But this had nothing to do with Muck. The organizers of the Peewee Winter Classic had come up with this one all on their own. There were plenty of things to see in Pittsburgh – the children’s museum, the science center, the Andy Warhol Museum – but they chose the field nearShanksville where Flight 93 had crashed on 9/11.
    The buses pulled into a freshly plowed parking lot, and slowly and quietly the various teams climbed down from their rides and gathered in small groups along the side. Sarah saw that the Pittsburgh River Rats had been on the bus directly behind theirs, and she made sure to catch Billy Chester’s eye and give him a smile and a thumbs-up. He seemed relieved and smiled shyly back and waved.
    A cold wind was blowing across the field. It picked up tiny wisps of snow like ghostly lassos and sent them whirling. But no one felt cold. And if they shivered, it wasn’t because of the wind.
    Sarah thought she was going to lose her breath as she walked along the memorial wall, a long line of ghostly white marble slabs with nothing on them but name after name after name. It had nothing to do with exertion; it was seeing all the names of those who had died and realizing they were real people who could never have imagined the horror awaiting them when their early morning flight took off from Newark, New Jersey.
    A guide