Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Bower
It was already Wednesday—halfway through her week here.
This part of the summer always went by too fast. Dean was fun to fish and get into trouble with, but this week with Mia was different.
I didn’t have to match Dean’s wisecracks or make sure I was keeping up with the shenanigans I was known for.
By this time of the summer, my grandparents had gotten used to bracing themselves the moment I walked through the door—ready to hear about whatever trouble I’d gotten into that day.
There was no pressure with Mia to act a certain way or say certain things. Everything with her was easy, comfortable, and I liked it that way.
Today was the crayfish-catching contest—a popular weekly event with the guests.
The crayfish were plentiful around Agate Harbors.
They always stuck around even though they were caught and thrown into a bucket every week by guests.
Maybe it was because their brains were tiny.
They resembled miniature lobsters, although they were dark brown instead of the typical lobster red.
The four-inch-long crayfish that lived around the resort almost looked black as they skittered along the sandy bottom of the lake.
Everyone came with their own methods of catching them.
Some had fishing lines, some had nets, and some brave guests used their hands.
There was skill in catching crayfish. First, you had to find them.
They often hid under rocks or logs. Second, you had to be patient.
They were skittish creatures that scurried away from any disturbance to the water.
If someone thought they could just dip their hand into the water and grab them from the bottom, they were in for a rude awakening.
Some of the bigger crayfish had big pincers that hurt when they snapped your skin.
Mia always did well in the contest. She was smart enough to know where to find them and patient enough to catch them.
Mia smiled when she saw me standing in the grass outside the front door of her family’s cabin. She wore the same shirt and shorts as yesterday. But who cared? Everyone here was on vacation—no one wanted to bother with laundry.
“Where are you going, Mia?” Her mother’s voice followed her out of the cabin. “Oh. Hi, Bower.”
She’d never really liked me, and I knew it. My grandmother told me to be polite to the guests, but there was something about the way Mia’s mom talked to her that always bugged me.
I couldn’t stop myself from giving her a two-fingered salute, hoping it would make Mia laugh.
Instead, my friend stared at me with wide eyes as we all stood there silently.
I cleared my throat, then finally said, “Hi, Mrs. Miller.”
Mia’s mom just pursed her lips before looking back at her daughter.
“I’m going to the crayfish-catching contest with Bower,” Mia said. “It’s down at the marina.”
“You’ll touch a slimy crayfish, but you won’t wear sunscreen?” Mia’s mother clucked her tongue. “You’re looking a little pink.”
She opened her mouth to explain to her mother, but I interrupted. “She has an entire system,” I explained. “She never touches them. Good thing too—some of them have big pincers.”
Mrs. Miller narrowed her eyes in my direction.
Mia tried to hold back a smile, biting her lower lip with her teeth.
“Fine, go on, then.” Her mom started to retreat into the cabin. “If you see Ruby, let her know she needs to come back to the cabin for a bit. At least long enough to change her clothes.”
“Sure, Mom!” Mia said quickly, then took off to the marina.
I snorted. The chances of us running into Ruby while we were busy with the resort activities were extremely low. She was probably out on someone’s boat frying herself in the sun.
But before I could say anything like that to Mia, I turned to find her already several cabins away. I jogged to catch up.
We held the contest on the dock in the small marina of the resort, where the water level was shallow.
In some places, only a paddleboat or canoe could float without scraping the hull.
It was perfect for crayfish catching. Every participant got a five-gallon bucket, and we had an hour to catch as many as we could.
The marina was full of five families and a few single participants standing around, waiting for the contest to start. It seemed busy, but I didn’t know how many guests usually participated, since this was the only week I took part in it.
Grandpa counted down and whistled, signaling the start of the contest.
As usual, Mia borrowed one of my fishing rods and baited the hook with a kernel of corn.
She’d brought a baggie of it from her cabin, probably from last night’s dinner with her family.
When she found her target, she dipped the line into the water slowly, so as not to startle the crayfish.
With the corn positioned right in front of where the crayfish were hiding, she waited until it got curious and ventured out to investigate the kernel.
Only after it grabbed the corn with its pincers did Mia lift the line and shake it over the bucket until the dangling crayfish let go.
She was clever. Mia always went off on her own, away from the competition to quieter areas along the dock.
While some kids were trying to grab them with their hands, either getting pinched or having them skitter away, Mia was catching one after another, each landing with a thud on the bottom of her bucket.
I liked to watch her. The smile that would make her eyes crinkle every time a crayfish pinched onto the line.
I almost enjoyed watching her more than catching the crayfish myself, and I always made sure not to catch as many as she did.
Maybe it was unfair, but I also tried to figure out who else was catching a lot of crayfish and find some way to sabotage them—without Mia knowing, of course. Sometimes I would “accidentally” kick a rock into the water near where guests were hunting, causing the crayfish to scatter.
Last year, when I had my lighter, I burned a guest’s fishing line when he was counting his crayfish so he had to re-thread the whole rod. He’d cursed out my grandpa, claiming interference, but it was worth it to see Mia’s face when she’d realized she’d won. I’d do a lot to see that face.
Time was winding down in the contest. My grandpa gave the five-minute warning.
The number of crayfish in my bucket was small.
I’d been too busy keeping tabs on Mia and the other guests to catch many of my own.
I could tell from the way the sun illuminated the inside of Mia’s bucket that she had a large pile of crayfish—she’d win again this year.
Everyone else was either too impatient or too forceful.
It was always like that. Even outside of the crayfish contest. People were impatient, not wanting to take the time to understand or learn.
Or they were forceful—but not in a good way.
They’d use brute strength or harsh words to get what they wanted.
The two things were intertwined, people’s impatience leading them to use cruel words or their bodies to scare others to get what they wanted.
Mia seemed to be at the brunt of both qualities with her parents.
They didn’t understand her because they were too impatient to take the time to listen, then they used cruel words to speak to her because they didn’t take the time to understand her and became frustrated.
I thought back to the cabin earlier, when her mom had commented on her looking pink because she wasn’t wearing sunscreen.
There was a reason Mia couldn’t rub the lotion into her skin.
They didn’t take the time to listen and find out why.
It was a vicious cycle that she was dealing with.
“Time!” Grandpa called, and everyone stopped their hunting.
One by one, everyone lined up with their buckets of crayfish. Grandpa would count each crayfish aloud before throwing them back into the lake, then he’d write the participant’s name and number of crayfish caught on his clipboard. It was all very official.
When it was Mia’s turn, Grandpa winked at her before he started counting. Just looking at her bucket, he knew she had the win in the bag.
“Fifty-two!” he called out as he counted the last crayfish and tossed it into the lake. It made a splash as it hit the water and slowly floated down to the sandy bottom, skittering away to find a new hiding spot.
It wasn’t even close. Mia had won by fifteen crayfish.
My grandpa presented her with an Agate Harbors tie-dye T-shirt that she pulled on over her clothes.
It was huge, probably an adult extra-large.
It hung past her knees, but she didn’t care that it fit more like a dress than a shirt.
Her smile stretched across her entire face.
It would be there for the rest of the day, and that made me smile too.