Fishing In Fire, page 5
“You OK?” Annette asked.
Yumi rolled her eyes. Of course Higgins was fine. He’d acted like a baby when touching a bit of hot metal. It wasn’t like his hand had been shoved in a fire.
Hunter grabbed Yumi’s fishing line, yanking up to take pressure off the rod. “You got a big one here, Cousin.”
OK. Maybe fishing was a little fun. Yumi smiled. “I thought the pole was going to break. How far can these things bend?”
“No, you were good,” Annette said. “They can bend far. I know they look like they’re going to snap, but they’re designed to bend. Looks like you got a sweet trout there.”
“Wow, that’s awesome!” Swann reached over and squeezed Yumi’s shoulder.
In middle school, and especially during the war, Yumi had learned the hard way to play it cool and not let people see how interested she was in something. Too often, any display of interest was merely an invitation for people to make fun of whatever it was she liked. Swann was different. Sometimes she seemed like a kid who was excited about everything, like someone excited for Christmas and reindeer and Santa Claus. Yeah, it was a little annoying, but there was also something encouraging and refreshing about her attitude.
Annette pulled her dad’s old spring-loaded fish scale from her backpack and hung Yumi’s catch beneath it. “Just like I thought. Almost a pound and a half. Not bad.”
“What do we do now?” Swann said. “Are we going to eat him?”
“I’ve never had sushi. I’m not sure how they make it,” Kelton said. “But I bet it’s not made of trout.”
“Well, we can cook it, right?” Swann asked. “We just make a fire and—”
“Whoa!” Annette said.
“Yeah,” Kelton said. “No, that’s not going to work.”
“Heck, no,” Hunter said.
Yumi stared at her in disbelief. “Don’t they have wildfires all the time in California?”
“Yeah,” Swann said, a little defensively. “So?”
“Swann.” Annette sounded more understanding. “We’re deep into the burn ban. The fine for lighting even a little cook fire would be huge.”
“Nobody’s out here,” Swann said. “Who would catch us?”
Kelton looked reluctant to disagree with her. “But as dry as everything is, if that fire got out of control, the whole county would flame up. The astronauts could literally see the smoke from space.” He must have noticed Swann’s look of disbelief. “I’m serious. I saw it on a video online.”
“What’s the big deal? We light the fire right next to the river, inches from the water, sitting on a rock.” Swann tried again. “We’d be right there to splash water on it if there were any problems.”
She was really serious. Yumi reminded herself that it wasn’t Swann’s fault that she grew up rich in a big city. “It seems like that would make sense. But if one tiny hot piece of ash floats away out of the fire and comes down on some of those dry pine needles, it can start a major fire faster than you think.”
Annette held up the scale and Yumi’s trout. “Swann? Photo?”
“Oh yeah.” Swann pulled out her phone and snapped a quick picture of the fish. “No service out this far to send it to that brat. We’ll have to bomb her with the full batch when we’re back in a coverage area.” She put her phone away. “Are you serious about the fire stuff, though?”
“It is very serious,” Hunter said. “Especially in the dry summer forests around McCall.”
“That John Deere Gator?” Annette took the fish off the hook and reached it down over the edge of the bridge as low as she could before dropping it. With a splash it was gone, speeding off beneath the surface of the cool water. “By law, to run that machine out here, the exhaust has to have a special Forest Service–approved spark arrester.”
“Same on my family’s four-wheelers,” Hunter said. “Super-tiny sparks can shoot out of a normal exhaust system. If it sparks over dry grass or pine needles, it can start a fire. A rider might be miles away before he realizes he started the fire, and by that time it could be way out of control.”
“Even just the normal heat from under a car that parks in tall dry grass can start a fire,” Kelton added.
“How, though?” Swann asked. “The spark thing I guess I understand, but just a normal car or truck?”
“I saw a whole vid—”
“Video about it online,” Swann said. “Yeah, I know.” She held up her hands in surrender. “OK. OK. No fires. I’ll write that down. And I thought being out in these mountains in the winter could be dangerous. All of that snow seems like baby stuff compared to your fire fears.”
“Don’t say that.” Hunter chuckled, rubbing the leg he’d broken when taking shelter from the blizzard in an abandoned mine. “Don’t you ever say that.”
They fished some more.
Hunter coughed to cover his laugh and Yumi struggled to contain herself when Kelton cast his line from his tiny kiddie fishing pole. The rod was a gold color, its handle and reel a bright red. A faded picture of Iron Man brightened one side.
His spinner plopped down in the river below and he frowned as he glanced at Yumi and Hunter. “What? You laughing at my fishing pole?”
Everybody but Swann laughed. “Kind of,” Annette admitted.
Swann frowned. “Not everybody can buy an expensive—”
“It’s OK, Swann.” Kelton smiled at her and held up a hand. To the others he added, “What? Iron Man isn’t cool anymore? After everything he did for us, sacrificing his life to save us from Thanos? You all should be ashamed of yourselves. For real.” He had cranked his line all the way in. He cast again. “I. Am. Iron Man. And I’m going to catch the biggest fish.”
Almost as if the fish had heard him, Kelton’s line jerked taut with a bite. He reeled it in. Yumi frowned. She didn’t know as much about fishing as Annette, but even she could tell this was too easy. Kelton kept reeling in, and a moment later a tiny four-inch-long fish dangled at the end of his line. Everyone, even Kelton, laughed.
“Way to go, Iron Man,” Yumi said. She was happy to see Kelton laughing with them. It wasn’t so long ago that the guy took every criticism, even friendly jokey ones, so personally. Something had happened to Kelton, Swann, and Higgins last winter on Storm Mountain. Something important.
“Anybody thirsty?” Swann asked. “Doesn’t matter. There’s five of us, and I have five cans of Coke, and they aren’t getting any colder.”
Annette perked up. “Right. I have five cans of root beer. And a bag of chips!”
Kelton pulled his plastic pouch of beef jerky from his pack. “I don’t know if I should let you all have any of this after you insulted my fishing pole, but . . . I guess.”
Swann grabbed her sodas from her backpack and then produced the candy bars. “Snickers?”
“Oh, awesome, Swann,” Annette said. “Thanks!”
Yumi watched the other two girls. When had they become so friendly? The group divided up the treats. Yumi was grateful for the chips and candy bar, but she would have brought something if she had known this was going to be a picnic.
Not much happened with the fish for a while after that. It was the kind of boring fishing Yumi remembered.
“That’s the way it goes sometimes,” Annette said. “You can fish a spot one day and big fish will be biting the whole time. Next day. Same spot. Same bait. But nothing.”
“Nothing is right.” Yumi sighed.
“So, anyway,” Swann said, after a bit of silence. Why did some people think every quiet moment needed to be filled with talk? Swann continued, “School starting next week.”
“Oh, why you gotta say that?” Hunter whined.
“Because,” Swann said, “I want to know if you guys are going out for football. It’s the first year you can play on the school team, right?”
“That’s true,” Kelton said. “Jack Dunning and Tannin Gravin are super-excited about it. A lot of guys were talking about it at the end of the last school year.”
“Yeah,” said Hunter. “It seemed like that’s all anyone talked about. Football, football, football.”
“Are you really not going out for football?” Yumi asked. This wasn’t the first time the two of them had talked about this. Hunter had made it clear he wasn’t very interested in it. But McCall was a real small town. It wasn’t like one of those giant big-city schools she’d seen in movies, the ones where people had to try out in a competition to make the team. In McCall, and, she was pretty sure, all the schools McCall played against, if someone was interested in a sport, he just joined the team. Especially in football, the coach would use anyone he could get, as a backup at the very least. For the boys even more than for the girls, the decision to not go out for a sport was noticed. Grandpa and Uncle David kind of expected Hunter to be on the football team in the fall.
“I don’t know,” Hunter said. “I still haven’t decided.”
“Me neither,” Kelton said. He sounded relieved and shot a smile at Hunter. Maybe he was happy he was no longer alone about doubting football. “My mom says I can, but I can tell she’s worried. She’s been reading these articles about the dangers of concussions from football.”
“Oh yeah,” said Swann. “My mom was saying she can’t believe football is still allowed. Most of the sons of her friends would never be allowed.”
Hunter frowned. “It’s not that dangerous. Some people act like you’ll explode if you play football. It’s not that bad. Zillions of people play it and are just fine.”
Yumi smiled. There was Higgins, who hated football more than he would say, defending it because outsiders had criticized it. She understood completely.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Swann said. “I think it’s cool. I don’t understand the game that much, but it looks fierce. And it’s so different from my old—”
Yumi watched her. Swann had stopped herself from talking about her old school. She was learning.
Swann continued, “I’m thinking about trying volleyball.”
Yumi smiled. “Me too.” It would be great to have a friend on the team. If Swann was a friend. She could tell by the way Annette remained focused on her fishing that she had no interest in volleyball. “That’s kind of McKenzie’s main thing. Volleyball and basketball. But who cares, right? We’ll have fun. We’ll do fine.”
Swann high-fived her.
“I might give football a try,” Kelton said. “I don’t know much about it, but there’s bound to be some YouTube videos about how to play the game. It could be fun.”
Swann leaned way over, nearly lying down in Kelton’s lap. “You and your videos.” She smiled up at him. “You master the whole world with those things.” They looked at each other for a long moment.
Yumi coughed loudly, fearing they were going to kiss. “We’re fishing here.”
Hunter reeled his line all the way in. “Yeah, but so far, not much luck. Maybe I need to try something different? Would just a worm work better?”
“I doubt it,” Annette said. “Just keep trolling. Trout are all about movement. But you could try it. Sometimes something like that works for seemingly no reason.”
“Maybe I should switch to worms,” Swann said. “This spinner isn’t working.”
Annette removed the spinner from Hunter’s line, pulled a worm from her can, and reached over toward Hunter, their fingers brushing as she went to put the worm on the hook. “Hunter, stay still.” She put her hand on his, long enough to hook the worm, and then a little longer.
Annette finally let go of Hunter, and he just stared at his hands, smiling like an idiot. She pointed downstream to a big round gray boulder in the shade of a stand of pines. “You might try fishing off the top of that rock. I’ve had some luck there in the past. I’m not giving up here, though. I’ll stay on the bridge for a while at least.”
“Yeah, I’ll stay too,” Hunter said quickly. He met Kelton’s gaze and gave a little nod.
Oh no. Yumi groaned. Did Hunter think he was being sneaky? Like nobody else saw that? Had the two boys talked and planned this whole fishing trip out as some kind of date? Kelton and Swann were clearly together. Yumi was ninety percent sure Hunter and Annette liked each other. Was the boys’ idea to use this trip to make everything official for both couples? Which, good for them. She wanted both couples to be happy. It would be nice if Hunter and Annette would get over their shyness and just admit to liking each other already, but that was a different issue. The problem, if her cousin and best friend had arranged with Kelton to make this whole thing a date-type of situation, was that it would be a date for two couples. Couples! Leaving Yumi, as usual, the oddball. The third wheel. Or fifth wheel in this situation. Fifth wheels had to do with hauling large trailers, and once again, it would be she, Yumi, suffering the burden on this trip.
“Maybe I’ll try fishing from the top of that rock,” Kelton said.
“Want company?” Swann asked. The two of them gathered their gear and stood to leave.
Yumi sighed. “You know what? I’m going with them. Have some better luck maybe.”
Was that disappointment on Kelton and Swann’s faces? She couldn’t be sure. On Kelton’s maybe, but Swann, the daughter of an actor and actress, was a master at hiding or faking her true feelings.
Yumi followed Swann and Kelton off the bridge and along the bank of the river. They walked side by side, and closer than they had before. Yumi knew she couldn’t win this. Her choice was to fish alone like a weirdo, or to be in the way of one of the two couples.
“Fishing was pretty fun with my dad,” Swann said. “It’s been part of his effort to spend more time with me, and it’s been wonderful. But we fish from our boat, and we’re both just kind of there. He drives the boat around the lake and lets me drive sometimes, which is great. But that’s it, you know?”
“What do you mean, that’s it?” Kelton said. “You’re talking about an incredible brand-new deluxe twenty-foot fishing boat. That’s not enough?”
Swann laughed as if everything Kelton said was funny.
“The boat’s great. But in a way, it’s kind of confining.” Swann held her fishing pole up high, slowly spinning around once, as though making a grand gesture to the whole world. “But out here! We explore the world and fish at the same time. Look at this place. I could live out here. Seriously. I wish that cabin over the hill was mine so we could just live here for a week. Live here all summer.”
“Makes sense,” Yumi said. “It’s different fishing from the bridge, or standing on the shore, or from up on the rock.”
“Exactly.” Swann smiled at her. “You get me.”
Yumi doubted that very much, but what Swann had said about the fun of being out exploring the wilderness was understandable enough.
It was a trick for the three of them, with all their gear, to climb atop the boulder, and once they were at the top, there wasn’t a lot of room. That was probably fine for Swann and Kelton, but now, in addition to crowding into their conversation, Yumi was physically crowding them as well.
Yumi whipped her pole hard to cast, her lure splashing into the water far on the other side of the stream.
“Wow!” Kelton said. “Nice one, Yumi. You look like one of the pros from the fishing videos.”
Yumi laughed. “If I catch anything.”
In the next instant, she felt the hard tug of a bite. “Whoa.” She hadn’t even sat down yet, so the tug of the fish on the line had pulled her off balance a little. Swann grabbed hold of her to steady her. “Thanks,” Yumi said, reeling in the fish. This wasn’t any tiny thing like Kelton had hooked earlier. She’d have to work this one a little. She let out some line to take pressure off her rod, then reeled the fish in a little. A little more.
“Awesome, Yumi,” Kelton said. “You’re our best hope of winning the bet.”
Her pole bent, but Yumi took her time bringing the fish in. A beautiful trout splashed out of the water. She brought it up until she could grab hold and lift it up for Annette and Hunter to see.
“Way to go, Yumi!” Annette called to her from the bridge. “I told you that’s a good spot. Want me to bring the scale? Or you can just measure it. I have an app that will compute the weight.”
“I don’t have a tape measure,” Yumi admitted.
Swann rose to her feet, holding her phone up. “I’ll use the measuring app. Hold the fish still.”
The fish wasn’t interested in staying still, but Yumi did her best.
“Twenty-two inches,” Swann called out.
Annette tapped her phone. “Two-point-two-three pounds!”
“Awesome,” Hunter said. “Make sure you get a picture to send to McKenzie.”
“Here, I got it,” Swann snapped another photo. “Good one, Yumi. You’re the best.”
But she was not the best after that. First Kelton, then Annette, then Swann caught fish, all just as large as or bigger than Yumi’s.
They were supposed to be all working together fishing against McKenzie’s group, but instead they had divided into couples. Hunter and Annette. Swann and Kelton. Yumi by herself, with barely enough room to remain on top of the stupid rock. After about an hour and a half, she’d had enough.
“You know,” Yumi said to Swann and Kelton, “I’m going to try something different.”
“Oh, are you sure?” Swann said. She didn’t sound like she much cared what Yumi did.
Yumi didn’t tell her what she really had in mind. She didn’t want to cause a big thing.
“Yeah.” Yumi started to climb down. “If you could just hand me my gear.” But once she was down, she kept waiting. “Seriously, you guys, could one of you hand down my stuff?”
“Oh sorry, Yumi,” Kelton said. Kelton lowered her pole and then lay on his belly atop the rock to reach down with her CamelBak pack and thermos. “I thought I had another bite, so I was kind of focused on that.”
