Chicken Soup for the Soul Celebrates Sisters Read Online Free PDF Page B

and then bombarded the water with gravel, hoping to stone the thieving thing as it tried again. After a minute we stopped throwing rocks and, panting and sweaty, scanned the banks to see if the slimy critter had washed up anywhere. While we were thus engaged, the pole jerked in my hand. I lifted the pin out of the water. Empty! We walked home bickering about whose fault all this was and that night could barely bring ourselves to touch our meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
    Like all serious pioneers, we didn’t let our setbacks dampen our spirits. The next day we were ready to get at it again. We were determined to catch a fish because our mother had told us that this would be our last piece of bologna—we were apparently feeding all our dad’s luncheon meat to the frog. We prudently quartered the bologna, and after checking out the shoreline and lobbing a few rocks for good measure, we dropped the pin into the water and waited.
    Ten minutes into it, we regretfully decided that the fish must not be hungry and that we should save our dwindling supply of bait for another day. I drew up the line and, to our amazement, the hook was clean as a whistle. This meant war! We knew we were going to have to catch the frog or we’d get nary a minnow out of that pond. So we dangled our second piece of meat just under the surface where we could snatch it up the second that greedy frog got his mouth around our bait. We stared at that pin so intently, we saw the exact moment the frog floated up like some ugly Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade balloon and ripped the meat right off the hook. As he sank back down, he seemed to waggle the bologna at us.
    A few weeks after this, we were driving into town with our mom. As we passed our old stomping grounds, we looked over nostalgically and, lo and behold, sitting nice as you please on the side of the road was Mr. Big Stupid Frog himself. On our turf! We screamed at our mom to stop the car, which she did, skidding on the gravel. We eased out of the car, thinking that if we could take the old croaker prisoner, we’d finally be the queens of the pond. We circled the frog gingerly, step-by-step, effectively cutting him off from a watery escape. Still he sat there. Inching up, we nervously squatted over him. The two of us posed in frozen uncertainty for a minute, then my adoring little sister looked up at me expectantly. I looked at the creepy monster. Terror must have rooted him to the spot because he hadn’t moved a muscle. Holding my breath, I was stretching one finger forward to give the frog a good poke when the totally unexpected happened. He attacked, lunging straight for my face and leaving us with no other option than to scream and run away.
    We dove into the backseat, slammed the door shut and sat glumly, contemplating our failure during the ride into town. Once there, we went straight to the library and checked out a book on how to become space cadets. Living off the land was for the birds anyway, and dangerous to boot. No wonder all the pioneers were dead.
    Tanith Nicole Tyler











CONTRIBUTORS
    Faith Adiele teaches nonfiction at the University of Pittsburgh and travel writing at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Her books include a memoir, Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun in Thailand (Norton, 2004), and a mystery thriller, The Student Body ( www.thestudentbody.com ). Contact her at: www.pitt.edu/~adiele .
    Krista Allison is the daughter of the late Davey Allison, who competed in the NASCAR Winston Cup series. Davey lost his life tragically in 1993, when Krista was just three years old. Krista lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her family. She is a cheerleader at her school and loves to sew.
    Renée Brouillette is an attorney who lives in Roseville, California. She writes to celebrate family and history. Her nonfiction has appeared in Dog Fancy, Doll Reader and The Antique Trader. She is working on her first novel.
    Vivian Eisenecher