“You know what we haven’t done yet?”
I looked up from my comic book and cringed at Bash leaning over me, bouncing on his toes in expectation of an answer. I groaned. “Flown giant kites off the grain silos? Rigged the corn picker to launch chickens in Superman capes? Arm-wrestled Mary Jane for free shoulder punches?”
The Basher popped up and paced between our beds. “Awesome ideas, Beamer. All except that last one. My arm stung for two weeks the last time I lost a game of free hits to Mary Jane.”
I let the comic book flop to my chest. “So what torture do you have in mind for me?”
“Not torture. Nearly the whole summer has passed and I haven’t taught you how to fish.”
“How tragic.”
Bash put on the brakes and leaned over me again. “You’ll like it. It’s your kinda thing. You sit and watch the day go by. You can even take your comic books with you.”
I propped myself up on my elbow. “Really?”
“Yep. It’s practically boring, just what you’ve been begging for.”
Ever since he nearly drowned me in the duck pond, Bash pestered me night and day with his idea of kindness. I almost wished he’d go back to tormenting me with his stupid stunts.
“You’re not just trying to torment me with another stupid stunt, are you?”
Bash shook his head so hard I thought I heard the rocks rattling. “Nope. We hardly ever catch any sharks anymore. A killer octopus once in a while, but hardly any sharks. Not full-grown ones, anyway.”
I sat up. “Hold it. I thought you said those were bluegill nipping at my toes during swimming lessons.”
“Kidding. The duck pond’s not big enough for sharks. I already asked Pops. C’mon, Beamer, grab your comic books and let’s get the rods. And worms.”
Bash flew out the bedroom door. I sighed. I crawled out of bed and collected the stash of comic books I’d smuggled to the farm in my suitcase. Why hurry? We still were grounded for messing up Aunt Tillie’s dumb ol’ quilt a week ago. It was now the end of July and we’d spent most of it in prison.
At least Amy was fine. And we wouldn’t be allowed to go fishing.
I clunked down the stairs just in time to hear Aunt Tillie lecturing Bash. “Just try not to drown your cousin this time.” Nuts. I couldn’t even count on staying grounded when I needed it most. We were going fishing.
I followed Bash to the tool shed. He climbed the workbench to wrestle fishing poles from nail hooks on the wall. He pulled a shovel out of a barrel full of rakes, brooms, and axes in the corner, and pushed it into my hands.
I looked at the shovel. “What’s that for?”
“Bait.”
“How come I get the shovel?”
From the sideboard behind the barrel, Bash picked up an empty soup can. “’Cause I have to carry the worm wagon.”
“That’s a tin can,” I said. But Bash already had shot out of the tool shed. I trudged after him, dragging the shovel behind me. At the edge of the garden, Fisherman Bash held up his hand like the leader of an expedition halting the troops. “Dig here.”
“It’s your shovel. You dig,”
Bush held up the tin can. “Can’t. I’m holding the worm wagon. If I don’t hold the worm wagon, how are we going to capture the worms?”
I rolled my eyes, poked my glasses up my nose, then rammed the shovel into the ground. Not much happened. I stomped on the top rim and it bit down a bit. I turned over some ground. No worms. I kept plodding.
A worm. Before Bash made a snatch at it, the worm sucked itself further into the earth. I wheeled on him. “Why didn’t you grab it?”
“You’re the digger and catcher. I’m holding the worm wagon.”
“This snow shovel you gave me doesn’t dig well at all.”
“Oops.” Bash pushed the tin can in my other hand and dashed to the tool shed. Once he ran back with the pointy-ended shovel, I turned over dirt loaded with whole colonies of slimy, gooey worms. I’m surprised they hadn’t tangled themselves into one big worm ball, they were so thick. I grabbed a glob and plopped them into the soup can.
“Add some dirt,” Bash said as I wiped wormy gunk onto my baggy jeans. I topped the can with dirt, then wiped my hands again.
Bash trotted toward the pond. “I’ll get the rods ready while you put away the shovels.”
“Why do I have to put away the shovels?”
Bash called over his shoulder, “’Cause Ma will ground us again if you leave them there.”
“That’s not what I meant.” But Fisherman Bash had already rounded the barn.
Uncle Jake sat beside me, thumping his bushy tail on the garden. I scratched his ears. “How do I get into these things, Uncle Jake? I’m the older cousin. I’m the smarter cousin. I’m the one who’s supposed to be in charge and keep us out of trouble. So how does the little squirrel brain keep outfoxing me?”
Uncle Jake slurped my face with his big, wet doggy tongue, jumped up and scampered toward the pond. Within seconds, Uncle Jake, bushy tail and all, disappeared behind the barn.
“Traitor!”
I dragged the shovels to the tool shed and considered sneaking back to the bedroom. But Bash also had the comic books in a backpack that included sandwiches and bananas. We used the backpack because I’d ripped all the pockets out of my jeans carrying nails, rocks, and other jagged oddities in Bash’s other schemes. No wonder I’d lost so much weight—I was Bash’s pack mule. Now I couldn’t carry anything, not even good dirt clods to throw.
I kicked a rock out of the driveway, then stomped off to the pond. When I clomped onto the pond pier, Bash handed me one of the fishing poles.
“They are not fishing poles,” he lectured. “They are rods with spinner reels.”
Oh, great. Bash’s helpful teacher mode.
Bash picked up the other pole. “If you cast right, you can reach the other side of the pond. What you do is hold your rod in front of you like this. Now turn that crank on the spinner—the other way—until the bobber hangs a bit below the tip. You’re ready.”
The red and white ball dangled from the fish line. Below it swung a hunk of lead Bash called the sinker. A hook curled at the end of the line.
Bash pointed at the spinney thing. “See that button on the reel? Press that and hold it in.”
“Nothing happened.”
“It’s not supposed to yet. Not till you release it. It’s like a video game.”
Video games usually don’t include really sharp hooks and insane cousins.
“Now raise up your arm so the rod’s straight up, bend your wrist back so the rod’s way behind you . . . and swing. Flick your wrist and let go of the release button. Wheeeee!”
Bash’s line zipped across the pond in a fluttery arc, splashing down nearly on the other side, almost to the creek. The red and white ball disappeared for a moment, then bobbed up. Bash began reeling the line back in with steady turns of the spinner crank. “See? Easy. Say, where’s your line?”
“Stuck to the cuff of my jeans, I think. The hook snagged my pants on the back swing.”
Bash’s eyes widened. “That coulda hurt. I’ve hooked my ear before and Pops’s twice. C’mon, we gotta practice.”
“Can I borrow your ball cap? I wanna pull it over my ears before your next throw.”
“Cast,” Fisherman Bash corrected.
Bash’s casts continued to sail across the pond. My pole—rod, whatever—slapped the water on the next cast. A couple tries later, I almost had the motion but the line stayed stubbornly on the reel.
Bash slapped his hand over his mouth but could not clamp off the chortles. When he finished laughing, he pointed at my pole. “Beamer, hold that button, swing, flick, let go of the button and watch the line fly.”
I yanked my rod away. “I’m not a moron.”
“The evidence, ladies and gentlemen of the jury . . .”
“Go eat a worm!”
Another laughing fit swamped Bash.
I pressed the release button. I held up my arm. I bent back my wrist. I swept. I flicked. I released. Hook, line, sinker and bobber dropped straight down in front of me, ker-plop, into the cattails around the pier.
“Okay.” Bash coughed into his sleeve. “I think we’re ready to bait the hooks and begin fishing.”
“So why are we trying to throw our lines to the other side of the pond in the first place?”
Bash dug into the dirt in the soup can. “’Cause that’s where the fish are.”
“Then why don’t we just walk over and use the fishing pier on that side?”
Bash pulled out a worm that stretched like a rubber band and sighed. “You don’t know anything about fishing, Beamer. The fish are always where you’re not. If we went over there, they’d come over here.”
“How do they know?”
“They know. So we always have to cast to the other side. It’s in the Farmin’ and Fishin’ Book.”
I rolled my eyes.
We sat on the edge of the fishing pier, the can of worms between us. We each scrunched a worm onto our hook—I only jabbed myself twice—and zipped our lines out into the pond. Mine went a good four or five feet this time. Since Bash’s went a great deal further, I reeled my line in slowly, red and white bobber drifting along without doing any bobbing.
“Are there any fish in there besides those toe-nipping bluegill?”
Bash nodded, not taking his eyes off his bobber. “Sure. Some largemouth bass that are tricky to catch. Maybe a catfish or two. And whatever swims in from the creek, like killer whales and stuff. Pops says they struck a spring when they dug the pond, so most anything is possible.”
“Except sharks?”
“And electric eels. I asked for those too.”
“Good.”
We cast again. I adjusted my throw now that we were sitting down. I hooked a plank or two before Bash showed me a sidearm cast. My line wobbled about halfway out into the pond before ker-plunking into the water. Bash’s zipped nearly to the creek.
The bobbers didn’t bob.
Fisherman Bash rocked back and rubbed his chin. “The problem is that we left something out.”
“What?”
“Philosophizing.”
I stared at him. “Fill-oss-o-fa-whoing?”
Bash’s line click-click-clicked around the reel. “Philosophizing. It means figuring out the answers to all the questions no one asked.”
“That makes as much sense as a box of rocks.”
Bash swatted at a buzzing dragonfly. “Fish won’t bite unless they hear philosophizing. You start.”
“I don’t want to figure out anything. And you don’t care what I think, anyway.”
“Sure I do. You’re my cousin. And I wanna catch a whopper, so you gotta ask big questions.”
I huffed. “So what do people philosophize about?”
“Pops and his buddies yak about dumb laws Congress makes. Nutty things women do. Religion and how to live right. That sort of thing.”
Congress sounded too much like doing social studies homework in the summer. Girls were . . . I dunno. I didn’t know why I’d want to talk to Bash about girls. Church stuff—I was getting pretty fed up with that. “Ah, forget it, Bash. Just fish.”
“Can’t. You need to philosophize.”
“You start.”
Bash shook his head. “You always say you’re the smart one, and the smarties think they know everything. That’s what philosophizing is all about.”
“I am the smart one.”
“Prove it. Say something stupid.”
I wondered if I could whap Bash with my fishing pole. “Okay, dummy, how come there are so many different churches?”
Bash grinned and lined up his pole for another cast. “’Cause we wouldn’t all fit in one building.”
I knew I was the smart one. “See, you don’t know. I mean, you guys go to Laughing Brook Bible Church. Bonkers goes to Grace AME. There’s a Presbyterian church across the street from us back home, and a Lutheran church the next block over. If there’s only one God, why so many churches?”
Bash whizzed his line across the pond. “Aw, grown-ups make it hard. I just talk to God and He tells me.”
I shook my head. “I thought you were mumbling to yourself because you’d gone nuts.”
My bobber danced. It didn’t go under, but it moved. Huh. Maybe philosophizing worked. We both reeled in empty hooks. Bash stared into the water like he could see to the bottom. “It’s a bluegill. They’re sneaky. They steal worms.”
We rebaited. I only stabbed myself once this time. “Well, there are a bunch of churches and they’ve got a bunch of different rules.”
“God wrote down His rules in the Farmin’ and Fishin’ Book.”
We reeled in the lines and cast again, almost tangling lines.
Bash pointed his pole. “You fish on that side. I’ll cast on the other side where the fish are. Ha!”
I tossed off a sideways cast but dipped my pole too low. The hook snagged a glob of pond scum around the cattails behind us and I sent it sailing out to middle of the pond, where it hit with a ker-splash. Bash laughed so hard he wobbled onto his side.
I banged the handle of the pole on the pier. “Cut it out. I bet you couldn’t snag pond scum and throw it out there like that.”
“Wouldn’t want to.” But on his next three casts, I spotted him aiming for it. He missed every time. I had done it without trying.
Then I saw my bobber bob. A fish nibbling! Enough scum. Gotta keep Bash philosophizing so the fish keep biting. “How come you keep calling the Bible a farming and fishing book? That’s stupid. The Bible’s not about farming or fishing.”
“Sure it is. We gotta grow the fruit of the Spirit, like peace and love and goodness and kindness and all that stuff.”
“Fruit is apples or bananas or oranges.”
Bash slowly cranked his spinner, drawing the string across the pond for the fish to chase. “We don’t grow bananas or oranges in Ohio.”
“You know what I mean, rhubarb head.”
“Abraham, Jacob, Job, David—lots of guys were farmers. We farmers understand fruit talk and other stuff in the pages, like planting seeds and separating sheep from goats.”
“And boys from their brains.”
Bash watched his bobber bobble on the pond. “Jesus’s best friends, Peter, James, and John, were fishermen. And Jesus said we’re supposed to be fishers of men. And grow fruits. See? Farmin’ and fishin’. Woo-Wee!”
Something yanked Bash’s bobber under water. Bash jerked the rod, then cranked the spinner while hooting and hollering. “I got one! I got one!” The string came out of the water with a flat, five-inch fish with a bluish tinge around the gills wriggling at the end. Bash snatched the line and swung the flapping fish toward him. He slid it through his cupped hands, pushing the dorsal fin full of sharp little knife points backward, like petting a cat. “Pretty bluegill, ain’t she?”
I leaned in close. “Cool. What do they taste like?”
“Pretty good fried in a pan.” Bash popped the hook out of the bluegill’s mouth and tossed it back into the pond. I gasped at the widening rings in the water. “What’d you do that for?”
“Catch and release.”
I thunked his shoulder. “We can’t eat released fish.”
Bash didn’t look up from rebaiting his hook. “Have you ever had to clean a fish? It’s messy, yucky, and Ma will make us do it. If we wait for Pops to catch some bass on Saturday, he’ll clean ’em and we can eat ’em.”
“So what are we fishing for?”
Fisherman Bash shrugged. “It’s fun.”
“Not for the fish.”
“Cast, Beamer.”
Nuts. I reloaded from the soup can and whooshed the line as hard as I could. It unstrung more than halfway across the pond this time. Cool. But the bobber didn’t bob. I tried to think of something else that would make my weirdo cousin philosophize a fish onto my hook.
“How come I gotta go to church? It’s not like I’m as bad as Tommy ‘The Snot’ Snoggins. I bet even his own mom can’t stand him.”
“You haven’t been harvested.”
I watched my unbobbing bobber. “I’m not a soybean.”
“You sure? You kinda look like one. I think it’s your ears.”
“Your head is stuffed with hay. And you don’t have gray cells, you have purple clover cells.”
Bash hooted. “Good one. Anyway, Beamer, when Pops plants oats, he wants oats. So if a big ol’ grapevine grows up in the middle of the field, Pops is gonna rip it out.”
Did the bobber jiggle? Was a philosophical fish sniffing at the worm? I had to keep Bash preaching. “Why not take the oats and grapes?”
“Because grain uses oats, not grape juice.”
We reeled in our lines. The worms were gone. The Basher dug out another slimer and passed the soup can before scratching his head through his baseball cap. He held the worm in his scratching hand. We scrunched worms onto the hooks and side-armed casts across the pond.
Bash started reeling in. “Remember our memory verse from Sunday? The one in Matthew 6:33. It said to seek God’s kingdom first and you get all the other stuff too.”
I watched my bobber drift back to me as I cranked the clicking reel. “Wasn’t the one from the week before about the top commandment being loving the Lord with all your heart, soul, and clover brains and number two is love the person next door like he was you?”
“Ray-Ray Sunbeam Beamer, you were listening! Yep, Matthew Chapter 22. I remember it was Matthew because it wasn’t John—”
That made no sense.
“—and 22 because of the double twos for the two commandments. But I forgot the verse.”
“Not such a Bible showoff now, are you?” I whipped another cast across the pond. Ha! Almost landed that one on the opposite bank. Bash cast. His line flew in a slow, lazy arc that nearly overshot the pond before plopping into the water.
“I remember that if you’re not His friend, Jesus will say, ‘Go away. I don’t know you.’ His guard angels throw you out into the darkness. That’s in the Farmin’ and Fishin’ Book. Look it up.”
Throw me out? I hate the dark.
Oh, no. I wasn’t letting Bash pull that Sunday school junk on me. I bet that cold glob of squishy pond scum feeling would go away as soon as I escaped this stupid farm with all these crazy dorky, fish-faced . . .
“Wow!” Bash punched my arm. The crank jumped out of my fingers and the reel turned the other way on its own. A fish—a big one—held my line!