CHAPTER 6
Daniel clutched the picture. He ran upstairs. His parents and grandma were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and talking.
“Grandma! Do you know anything about this picture?” Daniel yelled.
Grandma peered at the picture. “Oh yes. Your grandpa’s had that picture on his workbench for years,” she said. “That was quite a fish.”
Daniel wanted to hear more. “Do you know when this was taken?” he asked. “And where? And who took it?”
“Hold on,” Grandma said. “Take a look at the back of the photo. Your grandpa always wrote on the back of them.”
Daniel quickly flipped the picture over. In his grandpa’s handwriting, it said: “Big Larry Landed! 6/12/96.”
He looked at the photo again, staring closely at his grandpa’s face. There, on Grandpa’s right cheek, was the familiar scar. But that didn’t make sense.
Grandpa had always said he got that scar fighting with Big Larry. If that was true, it should have been bleeding in this picture. It shouldn’t have already become a scar.
Now Daniel felt even more confused. “Grandma, you know the scar on Grandpa’s cheek?” he asked.
“You mean the one he got in the war, honey?” she replied. “What about it?”
“The war?” Daniel mumbled. “Oh. Never mind.”
“You know, I never understood why he didn’t keep the fish in that picture,” Daniel’s grandma continued. “That was the biggest fish he ever caught. By the looks of it, I’d say it was one of the biggest in the state. It would have looked good on the wall. Your grandpa threw it back.”
Daniel’s dad smiled. “Probably would have tasted good, too,” he said.
“I know why,” Daniel muttered.
The grownups all stared at him.
Daniel took a breath. Then he explained, “Grandpa loved to fish. He probably had a great time catching that fish. And he probably wanted to do it again. That’s why he let it go.”
Daniel’s grandma said, “Knowing your grandpa, he probably put that fish back so that someone else could have the same fun he had that day.”
She smiled. Then she added, “Maybe someone like you.”