“I get that someone probably thought it would be funny to put fish in the pool, but I'm not laughing.” Katie McIntyre stood at the edge of the Callahan County Country Club's beautifully landscaped Olympic size swimming pool and stared down at the long, thick-bodied olive green fish that were currently prowling from one side of the shallow end to the other.
“What the hell are those things?” Trish leaned over Katie's shoulder and peered down at the water with a look of utter horror on her pretty face. “They're huge and they have teeth.”
“Alligator gar.” Katie began walking around the slender edge that separated the pool from the surrounding deck. She counted the fish she saw on her fingertips. “Nine of them, to be exact.”
“What is an alligator gar?” Trish was so focused on the toothy monstrosities that she looked like she was close to dropping the basket of flirty pink bachelorette party decorations into the water.
“Big ugly carnivorous fish,” Katie spelled out as she finished her lap around the edge of the pool.
“They don't look very friendly.” Trish hadn't taken her eyes off the water. “Can they live in chlorine?”
“Probably not for long, but they seem to be doing an alright job of it at the moment.” Katie shook her head in disgust as she glared at the fish. “We can't have a pool party with these things in the pool. They bite.”
“Oh hell,” Trish muttered. “I was hoping they were just ugly. How do you think they got in the pool?”
“Someone caught them in the river and thought it would be funny to put them in the country club's pool, I guess.”
“That is a truly horrible idea for a prank. It's not funny at all.” Trish narrowed her gray eyes at the gar. “What are we going to do?”
“I don't suppose you have a fishing pole in your truck?”
“I don't think I own a fishing pole,” Trish said distractedly. One of the fish was very aggressively ramming into the glass domed light inside the pool. “Did you call the maintenance man? I mean, this isn't our pool. We just have it booked for the party. Surely they can handle this?”
Katie sighed. “I did call them. The maintenance guy left work at two today because his son fell down the stairs at school and broke his arm. He can't come back in to deal with the gar because he's still at the emergency room.”
“Oh sweet Jesus. I feel horrible for the kid, but what the heck are we going to do about Gracie's bachelorette party?” Trish ran her fingers through her tastefully styled black hair, nearly ruining the elaborate bun she'd put her hair in for the party. “We have two hours until fifteen people show up expecting to spend the night relaxing at a very classy pool party. We should be putting up banners and decorating the tables right now, not trying to figure out how to get fish out of the pool.”
“I'd say we could try to scoop them out with the pool cleaning net, but I think they'll be too heavy. Not to mention that they can probably bite through the netting.” Katie pursed her lips as she surveyed the fish. “The good news is that they're not huge, for gar.”
“They're not huge?” Trish did a double take. “They look huge.”
“I'm putting them in perspective. I think the record for largest gar ever caught around here was like two hundred pounds. These aren't in that league. Probably because whoever caught them and snuck them in here didn't have a cooler large enough to hold the really big ones.”
“Well, let's just thank God for small blessings,” Trish muttered. “In all seriousness, what are we going to do? Should we cancel the bachelorette party?”
“I think its too late to cancel,” Katie said. “I'm going to call Addy and see if he can do anything about the gar. In the meantime, why don't you go talk to the manager and see if he can switch our pool reservation to the party room at the back of the main building?”
“You think they'll be able to do that?”
“I don't think we should give them much of a choice,” Katie said. “The way I see it, we either have to move the party to a different venue, or we run up to the Walmart in Canterville, buy a bunch of fishing poles and have a swimming pool fishing tournament instead of a bachelorette party.”
“Whoever catches the most gar gets the door prizes?” Trish smiled wryly.
“Now you're getting into the spirit,” Katie said. “We'll need to pick up some green cake icing while we're out so that I can add little frosted gar to the cake.”
Trish set the basket of decorations down on one of the pool side tables. “I suppose we can turn this thing into a fish fry. Are they edible?”
“Yes, but they're not particularly tasty.” Katie cast a sideways glance down at the gar. “I think I might have a fishing pole in the trunk of my car. Maybe I can get a head start on removing them.”
“I'll go talk to the manager,” Trish said. “If nothing else, I can guarantee you that we won't be paying to use this facility tonight.”
Katie laughed. “If we have to catch these damned things, then they might as well pay us.”
Trish sighed as she started for the gate that separated the pool from the parking lot and the golf course. “To think, I went all the way to Beauton and bought a new swimsuit for this. What a waste of gas and money.”
Katie glanced down at her own seen-better-days swimsuit and shrugged. “There's always the hot tub.”
Trish blinked at her. “Did you check the hot tub?”
“No.” Katie began reluctantly walking towards the back corner of the pool deck. Peering down into the water, Katie scowled. “Scratch the hot tub off our plans, too.”
“Another gar?”
“Catfish,” Katie said. “The hot tub is full of catfish.”
“Oh hell,” Trish cursed as she headed out to go find the manager.