Piper Reed, Campfire Girl by Kimberly Willis Holt

Author:Kimberly Willis Holt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Published: 2012-02-10T05:00:00+00:00

While I held the worm and the hook, Sam hollered, “I got one! I got a fish!”

Her float bobbed under the water a few times.

“You sure do, Sam,” Mom said. “Hold the rod tight.” Still seated, Mom scooted to Sam’s side and fixed her hands over Sam’s. Together, they yanked. Then Mom let go and Sam reeled by herself. Soon a silver fish appeared above the water.

“Now reel him in quickly,” Mom told her.

Sam turned the handle. But before she finished, she pointed her rod straight in the air and the fish swung back and forth above our heads. Sam squealed, still reeling.

The fish swung toward me and hit me in the face. I dropped my worm a few inches from Tori’s sneakers.

“Ahh!” she screamed.

“It’s just a worm,” I told her.

Mom grabbed the fish. “It’s a beauty, Sam.”

Sam rubbed her hands together. “I’m going to eat him!”

I tried to dig for another worm, but my fingertips barely touched the surface of the dirt. Now that I saw what happened to Sam’s worm, I felt like a murderer.

Mom watched me. Finally she said, “Piper, why don’t you be my guinea pig and try this new bait.” She handed me a box. I wondered what was in this one. Crickets? Grasshoppers? Maybe I wasn’t cut out for fishing.

“Aren’t you going to open the box?” Tori asked.

“Sure, I am.” I held my breath. Slowly, I lifted the lid and stared down at the worms—fake worms, red, yellow, and green worms. This was more like it.

The sunrise turned the sky pink and blue. I heard Bruna barking and I looked toward the dock. Brady and Yolanda were there with her. Yolanda waved to us. Brady held a fishing pole that must have been three times taller than he was.

“Look, Piper,” he yelled. “I’m fishing!”

“Get off the bus, Brady!”

“Look, Sam!” he shouted. “I’m fishing!”

“That’s great, Brady. Me too. I even caught a big fish.”

“Look, Mrs. Reed,” Brady hollered. “I’m fishing.”

“My, my!” Mom said. “Leave some fish for us, please.”

“Okay,” Brady said. Then he was quiet.

Tori’s tongue made a snapping noise. “What did I ever do to him?”

I cast my fishing line into the lake. “The kid has good instincts.”

Suddenly we heard Yolanda yell, “Oh no!”

We looked toward the dock, but she was pointing to the lake. One of the boats had flipped over. Chief, Abe, Michael, and Stanley were in the water, and Stanley was saying, “I’m sorry. I knew I’d be lousy at fishing.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.