Crash by Joseph Monninger

Author:Joseph Monninger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2013-10-19T21:00:00+00:00

Jill teased the caterpillar forward, feeling the slow tick of the gravel on the fishhook. The caterpillar, skewered on the hook, entered the perfect strike zone. She and Seldon had already caught two fish, both of them fourteen inches or better. She wanted another.

Seldon watched beside her. Buford watched beside him.

“Right there,” Seldon whispered.

“We may have fished it out for now.”

“No, there should be more.”

The strike zone consisted of a seam of fast water that gave way to a backward eddy. The water came in from a stream and curled around a large rock situated in the middle of the outflow. Trout hid around the rock, dodging out to pick off insects and whatever else the stream brought them. Most days, Seldon and Jill used caterpillars or grasshoppers they found back in the woods. The trout didn’t seem to have a preference for one over the other. Some days grasshoppers, some days caterpillars. It all depended on what they could find.

She felt a quick tug on the line, then nothing.

“Easy,” Seldon whispered.

Jill nodded. She was the best angler, she knew. Seldon was okay, but she was better. She had a feel for it.

A trout hit the line again, and this time she jerked up quickly to set the hook. The water around the rock exploded with the fish dancing on its tail. She didn’t try to play it. She simply walked backward quickly, letting the fish slide in through the shallow water and then onto the bank. Seldon bonked its head with a rock. The trout quivered twice, and Seldon hit it again. The trout lay quietly while a trickle of blood dribbled out of its mouth.

“A good one,” Seldon said, bending over it to remove the hook.

“Once this water freezes, they won’t be in here.”

“I know. But one day at a time.”

Jill wound up the slack on a piece of wood once Seldon tossed the hook to her. The fishing line stayed on the original bobbin that they had found in the plane. They had thought about dividing the line into two or even three parts, but they did not want to risk so many hooks at once. They had already lost four hooks; they had six more, and then they were in all kinds of trouble, Jill knew.

“What do you say, buddy?” Seldon asked Buford. “You want some fish heads?”

“It’s so gross,” Jill said.

“No one else wants to eat the heads.”

“It’s still gross.”

Seldon put the last fish beside the others on a long, flat stone they had dragged there for this particular purpose. He didn’t have a knife but used a sharpened rock instead. He had chipped it and sharpened it as best he could and had wrapped tape around it for a handle, but it was still grisly to watch him saw through the throat of the trout. He chopped off all three heads, then put them on a second rock that had become Buford’s dish.

“There you go, buddy,” he said.

Buford came forward and nosed them. Then, almost reluctantly, he began to lick harder.

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