Chris turned the page of the paper. Buck bit into his piece of toast. The Saturday morning sun was just filtering in through the window.

“J.D.’s coming,” Chris murmured as he sipped his coffee. The youngster was yelling for his father at the top of his lungs. This was nothing out of the ordinary. Neither adult moved. Had Vin been yelling… now that would have been a different matter.

Moments later, the child burst into the kitchen. His excited face, which was smudged with dirt from his early morning expedition, was split with a wide smile.

“Pa! Pa! Look! Look what I caught!” He held up a large hook with four, two inch ‘fish’ on it. “We went fishin’. You said there was no fish, but look!”

Buck choked on his coffee, his eyes doubling in size.

Vin wandered into the room and tentatively flicked his gaze from Buck to Chris. The six year-old bit down on his bottom lip and rolled it inward.

Chris looked over the top of his paper, and the edges of his mouth rose. “That’s quite a catch, J.D.”

“Vin helped me. You said there was no fish, but look!” The child proudly handed the hook to Buck who examined it like it was something from another planet.

Chris chuckled.

Buck blinked.

J.D.’s chest puffed out. “Vin didn’t catch nothin’, but I did. Four! We can have one each! I’ll bet no other kid has ever caught four like that!”

“I reckon you’re right, son,” Buck agreed as he placed the bounty on the table. He glanced at Vin, but the child was deliberating avoiding eye contact.

Before Buck could comment further, the jingle from J.D.’s favourite television show wafted in from the family room.

“Yes! Come on, Pa. It’s startin’.” J.D. grabbed his father’s hand and dragged him toward the door, his hard earned catch now forgotten. As Buck disappeared, he glanced back over his shoulder and mouthed to Vin, “thank you.”

A smile melted onto Vin’s features and he turned to check if he had his father’s approval.

Chris put the newspaper down and handed the youngster a glass of milk. “How did you manage it?”

“You know, J.D. He never stays with the rod. He keeps rushin’ off to look at other things.”

“So you took them with you, and just fastened them on the hook, and then threw it in for him to pull up?”

Vin nodded as he drank his milk.

Chris rose and picked up the soggy morsels. “I take it he wants them cooked for dinner?”

“Yep.”

Chris’ nose wrinkled at the unpleasant aroma and tossed J.D.’s catch into the trash. “I think that can be arranged. He won’t know the difference if we replace them with ones that haven’t been at the bottom of the pond. Are there any left?”

Vin nodded. His face shadowed slightly. “You didn’t mind me taking them, Pa? He wanted to catch fish real bad and I couldn’t think of anything else.”

“No, I don’t mind, Cowboy.” Chris patted his son’s head with pride. Vin had a heart the size of the whole outdoors.

**

Seventeen years later, at J.D.’s twenty-first birthday party, Chris recounted the story of the morning when, as a four-year old, J.D. had returned from a fishing expedition and proudly presented Buck with a hook holding four very soggy, still partially frozen, fish sticks.

(Known in Australia and the UK as Fish Fingers.)

 

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© March 2007 Brigitta B. : This relates only to the creative property in this story. The distinctive way the story unfolds, the specific dialogue and unique situations are mine. I acknowledge that some of the characters and settings belong to DC comics and I thank them sincerely for turning a blind eye so I can borrow them. (g) No infrigement of copyright was intended and no profit has been made from this story... so, please don't sue me. It wouldn't be worth your while.