The Twelve Dares of Christmas by Lisa Maloney

Author:Lisa Maloney [Maloney, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Maloney Made Publishing
Published: 2023-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

8.3

A few minutes later, we were at a picnic table with our haul in a coveted spot just under one of the heaters. We had decided to split a pretzel with warm cheese dipping sauce, and we each had our own little baggie of ice and a cup of hot cider. I pulled a few pain relievers from a pocket in my backpack for us both. “So,” I said, breaking the silence, “do you participate in any other extreme sports?”

“I’ve played a few games of wiffle ball in my time.”

“No Olympic dreams?”

“Unfortunately, with sports, they want you to follow sets of rules rather than just whacking the ball as hard as you can towards your brother’s head.”

“Oh, no!”

“In my defense, he had ruined a truly breathtaking block tower that I’d made earlier in the day.”

“Ah, so just last week then?”

“More like thirty years ago. I’ve been blacklisted from all professional wiffle ball opportunities since.”

“Their loss.”

“More recently, Jason, a few friends, and I joined a hockey league so that we could get space on a rink to play once a week. It wasn’t supposed to be too competitive, but there are games set up through the league season, and some of the other teams are pretty intense about it. I prefer the practice nights where it’s just me and my friends playing casually.”

“Is it at an indoor rink, or is there an outdoor rink somewhere nearby?”

“Indoor. There actually are a few outdoor rinks, and people play out on the lake, but when we were kids, Jason had a close call and almost fell through the ice. We were out on a lake in our neighborhood. I was eleven years old at the time, and Jason slammed his stick down on the ice after missing a shot on our makeshift goal zone. It was more of an ‘aw shucks’ smack than having any actual anger or strength behind it, and I’m still surprised that it created the small crack that formed.

Once it did, though, the break started spreading, and Jason skated as fast as he could back to the shore, yelling the whole time for me to get back as well. I was a lot closer, so I was back on land, just watching the fear on my brother’s face. The crack spread out pretty wide, breaking even further and creating a large hole with chunks of nearby ice breaking off where he had been skating when it started. The cracks spidered out and broke off even more in the opposite direction, closer to the deeper water.”

“Did Jason fall through?” I couldn’t help the tinge of panic in my voice, especially given the stricken look on Adam’s face as he relived the memory.

“No, he was fine. He’s always been a fast skater, thankfully, but watching my brother try to outrun ice cracking behind him, even if it stopped well before it ever reached the shore and he was probably quickly out of any real danger of falling through, was terrifying. I just had to watch as ice cracked behind him as he screamed at me to stay back.

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