“Good luck Dad,” seven-year-old Connor said to his father as Jeff tied his curling shoes.
“I’ll need it,” Jeff said, looking to his wife, Elaine, for reassurance.
“It’ll be fun,” Elaine said.
When his friend Shawn had called to ask Jeff to curl in the local Farmers Bonspiel, Jeff had refused. “I haven’t stepped onto a curling rink since university,” he’d said.
Shawn convinced him it would be fun. “Nobody cares if we win,” he’d said. Jeff finally gave in. Reluctantly. “Great!” Shawn said. “I’ll skip and you’ll be the third.”
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“This is terrible,” Jeff said to Elaine afterwards. “The third has to be able to make some shots! I’m going look like an idiot!”
“It’s just for fun,” Elaine said. “You’ll be fine.”
Jeff practiced his delivery on the kitchen floor. “Curling is fun!” four-year-old Jenny shouted, sliding beside her dad.
At the rink on Saturday morning, Jeff sat down to put on his old curling shoes.
“Why don’t you take the kids upstairs to the bar?” he asked Elaine. “There’s a good view up there.”
“We can go to a bar?” Connor asked in disbelief.
“The bar’s closed,” Jeff explained. “It’s just a place to sit and watch.”
Upstairs, Elaine took a look at the row of metal and leather chairs lined up in front of the windows overlooking the ice and chose one next to Shawn’s wife, Lisa, who passed Elaine a travel mug full of coffee. “I knew the rink kitchen would be closed so I brought you this,” Lisa said.
Elaine settled in to talk and watch the game while the kids realized that, for once, they were in a place with a shuffleboard table and no bigger kids who had claimed the pieces. They were hooked.
“Jeff looks a little shaky,” Lisa said when Jeff nearly wiped out while sweeping the first rock.
“He was worried about that,” Elaine said.
“Nobody cares,” Lisa said. “It’s just for fun.”
The first end was not great for Shawn’s team. The lead threw too light. The second was heavy. Jeff fell over when he threw his first rock.
“Looks like Jeff’s buying the team a round,” Jeff’s father’s friend Gene called over from across the room.
“Guess so,” Elaine said, embarrassed for Jeff.
“Not that it matters,” Gene said. “It’s just for fun.”
“At least he didn’t hit his head,” Lisa said.
By the third end, things had picked up for Shawn and Jeff. Both the lead and the second were getting closer to the house. Jeff was keeping his balance. His throwing weight wasn’t bad, but he couldn’t quite hit the skip’s broom.
The guys were only one point down by the start of the sixth end, but Elaine knew Jeff wouldn’t be happy. He’d only made one good shot, and it was a lucky fluke.
When it was Jeff’s turn to throw in the sixth end, Shawn called for a tricky take out.
“There’s not much room to get through there,” Gene said. “I don’t think he’ll make it.”
He didn’t, of course. Jeff missed the broom and the rock sped through the house, almost knocking over the other team’s skip.
The other team’s third put up another guard and it was Jeff’s turn again.
Shawn called for the same tough shot. “Oh no,” Elaine whispered.
“Good thing it’s just for fun,” Lisa said, sounding defeated.
Jeff got down in the hack at the opposite end of the rink and stalled for a minute, cleaning the bottom of his rock.
Then Elaine heard a high-pitched noise. She looked around, thinking it wasn’t the sound her phone normally made, but it did sound like a phone.
She looked to Lisa, but Lisa either didn’t hear the noise, or knew it wasn’t her phone.
The noise was coming from Elaine’s left side, so she reached into her coat pocket for her phone. No phone. But still, the noise. She looked behind herself. On the corner of her chair, half-hidden by her coat, there was something brown. But what?
Had she brought her brown purse? No. Was it Jenny’s mitten?
Elaine half stood up to get a better look.
And then she screamed. Loudly. Words she would never normally use in public.
Elaine pushed her chair back, jumped aside and spilled the tea old Edna Baker was cradling on the arm of the next chair.
Edna looked over. “It’s a bat!” she called.
Sure enough. On the edge of the chair where Elaine had been sitting there was a fuzzy brown bat, about the size of a tennis ball. Elaine had scared it — its shrill clicking noises were getting louder.
Connor and Jenny ran over to look.
While Elaine was still swearing, Lisa had crossed the room, jumped up to stand on a chair and was shouting, “Get up! Everyone get up!” She’d be embarrassed about her behaviour later, once her husband reminded her that bats can fly.
Elaine had always thought of herself as a feminist. She firmly believed women could do anything. But right now? When she was surprised by a live bat? Elaine would later have to admit that her immediate reaction was to scan the crowd for a man.
Gene moved fast to come to the rescue, bringing two large plastic cups from behind the closed bar. In almost no time, he’d scooped up the bat and was heading for the window.
Then Rick Fuller, who had recently moved out from Regina, stopped him. “You can’t throw that bat out the window!”
“Why not?” Gene asked.
“We have to call the conservation officer!”
“What?” Gene asked. “Why?”
“It could die outside,” Rick said.
“I’d like it to die,” Elaine said.
“Bats are protected,” Rick said.
“It’s not staying in here!” Lisa yelled from her perch.
Gene passed the bat to Rick, then rummaged behind the bar until he found a cardboard box. “I’ll put the bat in here until you decide what you want to do,” he told Rick. He transferred the chirping bat into the box, then folded the lid closed. “Don’t worry,” he said to Elaine. “It can’t get out.
“How did it get inside?” Elaine asked.
“Must have snuck in a door. It was probably hiding under that chair for a while,” Gene chuckled.
Action over, the crowd settled in to watch the last end. Elaine sat down, but didn’t relax. Every few seconds she’d look over her shoulder, just in case.
Shawn’s rink lost by two points. Elaine assumed Jeff would be disappointed. While the men were coming in off the ice, Elaine pulled Connor and Jenny away from the shuffleboard table and took them downstairs to meet their father.
“Did you see that?” Jeff asked when Elaine got downstairs. “That shot in the sixth end was the best shot I’ve ever made in my life! A double-take out! And mine rolled in! Did you see it?”
But Elaine didn’t get a chance to answer and Connor and Jenny clearly hadn’t been listening. They ran straight to Jeff shouting, “Dad you won’t believe the words Mommy yelled! Right in the middle of the rink!”
“Good thing we’re all just here for fun, right?” Elaine said.
