Fishing and Dog Food

Fishing and Dog Food

Two boys fishing with their own poles is a phenomenon any father would be proud of. Dipping that hook-and-worm in the water, they would wait like sitting hens for a bite and reel in their catch with utmost enthusiasm. The fathers would look over what they’d caught, and they’d get the greatest praise as if they’d stopped world hunger. There couldn’t have been a better way to spend a pleasant summer day near the stream.

So there were the two boys, sitting on a few flat rocks on the edges of a bank, hanging over the stream by a few inches. The creek wasn’t too small, about twenty feet wide and who knows how long. Bluish green water told a story of a rocky bed beneath the surface, housing trout among other various fish and creatures.

The boys, about seven or eight years old, were fairly familiar with this particular creek. Afternoons of swimming and fishing were spent here, hours of playing in the bank’s mud and trying to skip pebbles on the water. In the heat of a Montana summer, all these activities were a pleasant welcome; and for two rowdy kids stuck in the middle of nowhere, it was a good way to wear yourself out for the long, dog-days of July and August.

“Noah, lookit that little turtle shell on that rock over yonder,” the younger of the two piped up, holding his fishing pole in one hand and his cap in the other, which he used to point to the object of his attention. “He done got scared of us’n hightailed outta his shell.”

The older one laughed, scratching a bit of the blonde hair on his head that his own hat didn’t hide. He set his pole down between a small gap in between the rocks, making sure it wouldn’t fall off into the water. Satisfied, he turned to his companion and replied, “Have ya never seen a turtle, Rodney?! He ain’t gone nowhere. He’s right there in that shell! Them kinds’a critters can’t leave his shell.”

“Well… I think yer bluffin’.”

“Well, I ain‘t.”

“Well, y’wanna bet on it?”

“’Okay. I’m gonna show ya right now n’ prove ya wrong.”

With that last remark, the blonde-haired-brown-eyed face of Noah’s lit up with a smirk, and he reached down to fold up the cuffs of his jeans to his knees before sticking his feet in the cool water, and of course reeling in the line on his pole. “Pull up yer bait, Rodney. I ain’t getting’ a hook stick in me like last time.”

Rodney did so with a small laugh. Oh, yes, that had been a funny time. It had been about a year ago, and he’d dropped a hook in the water on accident when trying to fasten it up on some string. Instead of notifying anyone, he kept silent, figuring the water would just carry it away. When Noah went in to wade in the water, well… He’d found out.

So there was the blondie, out there in the water, his toes squishing through muck and grime and the occasional small pebble. There was no telling what sorts of things lived under there. Fish were a definite, he could feel them swimming past his legs. What about a river monster? The seas had those, didn’t they?

“Don’t be stupid, Noah, rivers’re too small fer monsters…,” he tried to assure himself, but his relief of touching the other side of the river was apparent as he came to it. That turtle was still hiding in its shell, squished up inside like it was the safest place on earth from the child coming toward him. Carefully, the boy leaned over, figuring what side the turtle’s head was, and turned the turtle’s head in Rodney’s direction without touching near its face.

“Why don’t ya bring it on over here?!” Rodney called from across the stream, still unconvinced. Or perhaps he was but wasn’t showing it. Either way, he had a look of I’m-still-right on that head of his.

“B-but… It might be a snappin’ turtle and I’ll rile it up if I pick ‘im up…”

“See! I knew you was lyin’!”

Noah threw an irritated expression at his cousin and leaned over to pick up the turtle when a voice called his name from across the creek. It seemed pretty distant, and a woman’s voice no doubt, one he was very familiar with. A tone he woke up to every morning, went to sleep to every night, and imagined when he was about to do something wrong.

“Yer momma’s callin’,” his cousin stated plainly, seemingly pleased with the fact that a sound in the distance had provided a good distraction to down any evidence of that turtle being inside its shell.

“Rodney!”

“Yer momma’s callin’, too.”

The older boy crossed the stream, grabbing his fishing pole, and began walking back with Rodney, who had already took his own. It was a bit irritating for the two; the sun was still out and it seemed to show no sign of falling back to earth. Why waste a perfectly good afternoon running back to the house? Hopefully they wouldn’t be there too long, but for some strange reason, their mothers’ voices sounded… angry.

“Whadda ya think they’re mad about?”

“I dunno… Didja spill somethin’ earlier?”

“Nah.”

The pair treaded on in confused silence, shrugging their shoulders as they tried to come up with any reasons they could’ve been in trouble. They’d forgotten to make their beds, that was one. Then they kicked over a bucket of feed for the dogs that had been sitting in the barn, but that was an accident. Well, sort of. The kernels of dog food looked kind of cool, and they’d wanted to try it out. Hell, it had all sorts of cool shapes to it, too! What food that looked that awesome could taste bad? Going with this intelligent logic, the two took a fistful of the kernels in their mouth… and proceeded to spit them all back onto the dirt, kicking over the bucket in their fit of disgust. But that wasn’t going to be a reason to punish them, would it? They were just dogs…

“Aw man,” Noah suddenly whispered as his mother came into sight, with his aunt standing right beside her. The reason of their parents shouting suddenly came to him.

“What’s wrong?” his cousin asked with a gulp, gritting his teeth. From the looks of the two women at the end of the field, they were in one hell of a mess.

“Did… did we tell ‘em we were leavin’ the house earlier?”

“N-no.”

“S-s-so… D’ya think… that’s why there’s them cop cars in yer driveway? I-I think they got one-a them bloodhounds over yonder… I think… I think… Aw hell… we’re screwed.”

Rodney loudly said a four letter word. It started with “s,” and his mother’s eyes seemed to bug out of her head as she stomped over, grabbed the little boy by the collar, and started muttering about how she was going to “wear out his britches.” To Noah’s dismay, his mother followed suit.

Needless to say, they never went anywhere without permission ever again. Or ate dog food.