Page 10 of Not A Chance

I was shocked still, with my keys frozen in my hand.

Indigo Layne. In Toronto.

Here. Now.

THEO, AGE 15

“Mom, I’m ready to go to practice!” I called up the stairs, hoping to be heard through the music filtering through the door of my mom’s office.

“Okay, Theo! Get your bag in the trunk, and I’ll be down in a couple minutes.”

By a couple minutes, I knew she meant about ten. I decided to wander out into the backyard to see what my siblings were doing. I hoped the twins weren’t planning anything that was going to piss Dad off when he got home. At eleven, they were tall and strong enough to get into more trouble than ever before but had yet to understand not every moment of the day was the right moment for a prank.

They had a habit of constructing elaborate “traps” and “defenses” around the front and backyard that usually ended up with an adult swearing with some sort of minor injury.

Opening the sliding kitchen door, I peered out around our deck to make sure there were no swinging obstacles about to knock me out before we left. I’d already had a couple of concussions since starting rep hockey six years ago, and I didn’t need my father to have any ammunition to dislike hockey. The only thing he’d ever mentioned to me about hockey was that he worried about head injuries. I’d taken that to mean that he’d wished I’d played football instead.

Though, as the head football coach at San Jose State, I didn’t know how he could justify his sport over mine. Football had the highest rate of concussions of all sports—thank you, Google—but maybe he thought football injuries were more worthy in some way.

My survey of the area deemed it safe to exit the house; no sign of projectiles from the twin masterminds. I walked out to the edge of the deck and heard giggling coming from the tree house.

My baby sister, Emery, and her best friend, Indie, were either up there cooking up elaborate revenge on the twins for some prank, gossiping, or planning world domination. It was anyone’s guess.

I was glad they had each other. The only thing that had made me nervous about starting high school was leaving my baby sister behind.Emery was all sunshine and rainbows, a sweetheart through and through. Her feelings were easily hurt, and she forgave too easily, something my brothers took too much for granted.

I never worried about the twins. They had each other, and they were the tallest and strongest kids in their grade, thanks to genetics and their years in peewee football. If anything, I thought more about the well-being of those around them.

“Just grabbing my laptop, Theo. Be right there,” my mom called out the window. We were a step closer to leaving now that she was actually packing up.

Leaning against the porch railing, I played Snake on my phone while I waited.

“Come on, Indie! You can do it!” My sister’s voice drifted across the yard.

The tree house I’d helped my dad build sat in the huge tree that dominated the yard. Emery, being tiny and agile, had been climbing down the branches and trunk for a couple of years now, despite knowing the house rules stated she needed to use the rope ladder.

The tree house was built into the biggest two limbs of the tree, which were about twelve to fourteen feet off the ground. If one of us fell out of the tree house, the fall could easily break a bone or our heads.

Emery was already three-quarters of the way down the tree, having gripped onto some of the newer shoots that grew out of the base of the tree.

“Hey, Em! You know you’re not supposed to…”

I didn’t get to finish what I was saying before I was racing across the yard because Indie had decided to take Emery up on her dare of climbing down the branches.

Indie had about six inches on Emery, despite being just as scrawny in stature. Still, I knew from experience that growth spurts made you clumsy.

“Indie! Wait! Just let me…” I called out too late.

Her little brow was furrowed in concentration, her bottom lip caughtbeneath her teeth. My voice yelling her name must have shocked her because she looked up at me instead of where she was putting her foot next.

I could see the next seconds unfolding at rapid speed. She was going to step on a branch that couldn’t hold her and fall. Visions of blood and tears clouded my mind.

I had to get to her.

Somehow, the haze of fear cleared from my eyes, and I managed to get underneath her just as the branch she was balancing on one foot on snapped.

Her shrill scream echoed through the yard as she fell. It was less than a ten-foot fall from where she’d slipped, but it felt like a hundred before she hit my arms with a thud that jolted my whole body.

Still panicking from the fall, Indie flailed her arms and legs as if she were in a fighting ring. She clocked me above the eye with the side of her fist or her elbow. Either way, she’d rung my bell good.

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