The Weird Fishing Trip (Short Story)

At exactly 5:13 Saturday morning, I felt a tug on my arm.

“Mmmmghren Mph,” I said.

“JoJo, wake up,” Dad said.

My dad turned on the light, which was brighter than the sun. I got up.

We packed the car full of coats, boots, snow pants, sweaters, gloves, hats, and, of course, cookies.

When I got out of the car two hours later, I got smacked in the face with the coldest wind I had ever felt in my life.

The lake was down a long hill, surrounded by pine trees that stretched all the way up to the sky. It was an amazing place. But I was too busy trying to feel my toes to really notice.

Mr. Pinkerton was already out on the lake with all the other kids and their parents, carving holes in the ice to drop our fishing lines through.

“Hi, guys,” he called. “Down here!”

My best friend in the fishing group, Charlie Lopez, was already sitting in a chair over an ice hole, fishing.

“Catch anything?” I called.

“Just about to,” he said. All fishermen are hopeful people.

Dad made his way straight for the little tent that Mr. Pinkton had set up for people who wanted to get warm and have hot chocolate.

“I’ll be in here,” my dad said. I looked at him.

“Just for a second,” he added.

“Your hole is ready!” Mr. Pinkton called to me. I checked it out. It was a beauty, perfectly round. The water rippled below six inches of solid ice.

I tried to put a worm on my hook, but my hands were frozen stiff. Mr. Pink ton ended up doing it for me.

“Where’s your dad?” he asked.

“Drinking hot chocolate.”

Mr. Pink ton laughed. “Smart man,” he said, but I was embarrassed. Why wasn’t my dad out here with all the other parents? Couldn’t he fish like all the other parents out her?

But then I heard a familiar voice say, “Let’s get this party started!”

I turned around and there was my dad, slipping all over the ice, his hat falling off his head, trying to hold two cups of cocoa with his huge mittens.

He looked down into the deep hole. “Somewhere in that dark, mysterious lake, there’s a frozen fish stick with my name on it,” he said.

For hours, we fished. Which really means we waited.

But that is what awesome about fishing. You are not really waiting. You are doing other stuff, like talking.

And my dad and I had tons to talk about. We talked about baseball, movies, music, food, school, girls, animals, and a bunch of other stuff. We told some jokes. We got more hot chocolate.

But we did not catch anything.

When the sun started to go down, we ran out of things to talk about. “I think my nose just fell off,” my dad said, and even though he was trying to be funny, I knew that he was miserable.

Suddenly, I was mad at myself. I decided that this fishing trip had been a lousy idea. I felt bad that I had dragged my dad all the way to this frozen lake just to sit there and not catch anything.

I felt dumb for liking fishing.

Then, about 10 minutes before we were supposed to pack up, there was a tug on our line.

“Dad! I got a bite!” I exclaimed.

My dad jumped to his feet, then immediately slipped on the ice and fell on his butt, spilling hot chocolate all over himself.

I started pulling. Whatever was on my line pulled back hard. It felt strong and huge!

“Reel it in gently,” Dad advised, even though he had no idea what he was talking about.

Mr. Pink ton came running over. “Joes got something!” he yelled to the rest of the group. “Go easy on that thing,” he said to me.

Finally, after one last tug, I was able to pull my line out of the hole. Everyone gathered around to see what I caught.

I reeled it in, full of excitement. At first, it was hard to tell what kind of fish it was. Then it became clearer. It was not a fish at all.

It was not even a live animal of any kind.

It was something large, fuzzy, and very waterlogged.

“It’s a stuffed elephant!” Charlie yelled.

“What’s a stuffed elephant doing in the lake?” Eddy Chan wondered.

“Let’s cook it on the grill!” screamed Danny Burke. “It’ll be delicious!”

Everyone laughed as I untangled the big, pink, furry mess from my line and my rod. My ears were burning with embarrassment.

“It’s not funny,” I said, fighting back tears.

I was about to throw the elephant back down the hole, but my dad stopped me. He brushed all the dirt and grime and ice off the elephant.

“We’re taking him home,” my dad said.

In the car, we talked about the freezing cold, and us finally getting a bite, and dad falling on his butt and spilling the hot chocolate, and me catching the stuffed elephant.

We laughed the whole way.

“That was a blast,” my dad said as we pulled into the driveway.

“It was?”

“It was,” he said. “Thanks for taking me.”

Two months later, in the spring, it was time for my fishing club’s first regular trip of the season. I was packing up my gear when my dad knocked on my door.

“Is it OK if I come fishing with you?”

I looked at him. “Are you sure?”

“Sure, I’m sure,” he said.

And he came fishing with me. He also came the time after that. And the time after that.

Altogether, we caught one fish, a little striper that we threw back. But it did not matter. We talked and laughed and ate and had a great time. That is what fishing is, and it turned out my dad loved it almost as much as I did.

I guess you could say he was hooked.

By Vamsi Krishna Galla