Chasing Sunlight (Birch Hollow #1)

Prologue Summer 1995

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I’d foregone the knee and elbow pads after Jace and his crew of neighborhood followers mocked them as babyish–the ultimate insult at that age.

I should’ve known they’d mock me for wiping out, too, after coming down Old Lady Helen’s steep driveway on my board.

Sometimes it was tough being the only girl on the block.

“Baby Brookie has a boo-boo,” Jace from two doors down taunted as soon as my knees hit the pavement of my next-door neighbor’s driveway and blood began to trickle down.

Ugh. Jace. The bane of my existence. My true nemesis (a word I’d just learned from seeing it on the cover of one of my older brother’s nerd books).

At five months older than me, Jace had always felt superior.

Plus, and more importantly in his world, Jace had a status I could never achieve—he was a boy.

Jace hated girls. Hated them. When we played the Game of Life, he’d put the wife and girl children in the very back of the car.

Nice, right? A misogynist in the making.

But even his own mom laughed it off, just “boys being boys.” At school and at home, Jace could get away with everything.

He got a report card with all failing grades and countless demerits?

Jace’s parents bought him a puppy and put in an in-ground pool.

Jace got what he wanted, when he wanted, where he wanted.

That kind of power over the adults in his life gave Jace a confident superiority, which he used to rule over the neighborhood gang of kids.

Our neighborhood was a cul-de-sac all the way at the back of a newly developed subdivision called The Grove.

Each street was named for a different tree native to New England, and our cul-de-sac was called Aspen Court.

The houses had mostly siding in various shades of gray, with white trim along the windows and front porches.

The yards were expansive and filled with mature trees, backing up to a creek and a wooded area.

Basically, it was paradise for a group of Goonies-obsessed adolescents looking for adventures and only limited by their streetlamp curfews.

With the exception of the elderly Helen, most of the neighboring houses were owned by young professionals and their families.

Rarely any cars came through that weren’t owned by people who lived there, so our parents collectively found it safe and had an “as long as you stay on our street” rule.

We roamed free, as a pack—Jace and his little brother Jared, my older brother Owen, Bryan from the end of the block, and Sammy across the way from him.

And me—the only girl, and thus forced to insulate myself at all times with tough-tomboy armor.

Together we played football and street hockey, had home-run derbies, and partook in our newest hobby: skate tricks. Jace constantly tried to use my only-girl status as a means to exclude me, saying girls didn’t play football on TV and I should stand on the sidelines and be a cheerleader instead.

Fresh from my skateboard wipe-out, I could hear Jace’s taunts across the cul-de-sac, but I gritted my teeth and shut them out.

No way would I give him the satisfaction of letting tears fall, an act which would only further prove the fittingness of his insults.

He loved to call me a “baby,” despite our insignificant age gap.

A shadow fell across my face, and I looked up to see an unfamiliar silhouette, a boy around my age—maybe a little younger?—with shaggy dark blonde hair, a box of Band-Aids, and a shy grin.

“I saw you fall,” he said carefully. “Can I help?”

Not trusting my voice not to crack and show further weakness, I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded.

The boy knelt beside me, pulling two Band-Aids from the box.

“I’m Cade,” he said quietly as he removed the outer plastic, ever-so-gently placing a Band-Aid over each bloody scrape. When his eyes met mine, I was struck by the uniqueness of their coloring—ice blue, but with a prominent spot of light brown on one eye. I’d never seen anything like them.

“Brooke,” I said in reply. “Which house is yours?”

He turned and pointed to the house behind us, the house right next to mine, separated by a long side yard.

My house was the bottom of the “U” in the cul-de-sac, with three houses flanking each side.

I knew my next-door neighbors had moved out, but the family that left had a baby and a toddler, so the kids weren’t part of our neighborhood group.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the family that had just moved in.

Cade reached down his hand and helped me up.

“Cool board,” he commented, hair falling into his face.

After a moment, my brother Owen approached. “You okay, B?”

Owen was eleven, the oldest of our group, but being naturally introverted and hopelessly geeky, he never quite fit in and always defaulted to Jace’s group leadership.

He looked out for me as his little sister, in a “because I have to” kind of way, but Owen walked a fine line between not upsetting Jace’s rule of order and being a good enough big brother to prevent me from tattling to Mom.

“I’m good.” I stood proud, shoulders back. By this point all the boys had gathered around us. “Everyone, this is Cade. He just moved in next door.”

The group mumbled a chorus of hellos, but the first words out of Jace’s mouth were, “How old are you?”

“Seven, but I turn eight next week,” Cade announced proudly. I’d been right in thinking he was just a bit younger than me. “You’re all invited to my party.”

Jace rolled his eyes. “Psh, I’m almost nine . . . you’re just a baby. I bet you’ll have a Barney birthday.”

Jared, who was five, put his hands on his hips and stuck out his bottom lip at his older brother’s criticism. Having himself had a Barney-themed birthday just a few months prior, Jared’s stance was a silent protestation.

Cade shrugged it off. “I start third grade in August. I’m going to Birch Hollow Elementary.”

Jace’s eyes widened. That meant Cade would be in our grade in school.

“I’ll come to your party,” I blurted.

Cade’s grin broke out across his face and a dimple popped up on one side. I’d never seen a dimple before, and suddenly, I wanted to do anything possible to see it again.

Cade’s birthday party was a blast. Owen and I both trekked next door, a colorfully-wrapped gift in hand.

I’d always felt sorry for my school friends that had summer birthdays, thinking it would be hard to get friends to attend.

Cade didn’t seem to have that problem, though, and we spent the day in the Adlers’ backyard, surrounded by Cade’s cousins.

Bryan and Sammy showed up, too, with Bryan’s grandparents.

Cade’s dad manned the barbecue, grilling burgers and hot dogs. Kids ran around the backyard in swimsuits throwing water balloons, shrieking with mirth.

After hot dogs and chips, Cade’s mom, Mrs. Adler, had us all line up in front of a long white folding table. Atop it she had plain white t-shirts in various sizes. She taught us how to tie-dye, and we got to take our creations home with us.

When we finished our crafts, Cade’s dad brought out the slip-and-slide. Once we were thoroughly soaked and worn out, we had popsicles in the yard. It was the perfect end to the perfect summer birthday.

The Adlers had the coolest yard—it seemed to stretch for miles in the back, with trees all around and an actual babbling creek running through it. My house backed up to the creek too, but a fence and a thick wooded area prevented direct access. Cade’s yard was a dream.

When the sun began to set, most of the families had trickled home, and we assumed we’d have to trudge back next door.

Instead, Cade asked Owen and me, “Do you want to see The Fort?” His eyes gleamed with sugar-fueled excitement.

Owen shrugged his indifference, so I said, “Sure. Let’s go.”

We entered the cozy and simple home, with its typical 90s decor of wood grain cabinets and inexplicably popular rooster decor in the kitchen.

I glanced around, expecting to see a blanket draped over some chairs or the earth-toned couch, the kind of “fort” Owen and I often built in our own living room.

To my surprise, Cade led us downstairs to a basement hangout, complete with a couch and miniature TV/VCR combo. Once settled down there, we had a movie marathon of Ghostbusters and Ace Ventura, and his mom ordered pizza and brought down popcorn and Pepsi.

As Owen and I walked back to our house that night, I felt a sense of peace and happiness—the start of something beautiful.