Fire Water Read Online Free PDF

rent on time and don’t break anything and we’ll get along fine.”
    â€œYes, sir,” I said. “Thank you again.”
    I hung up the phone and spun around. “We got it!”
    Danny looked up with his cheeks packed with biscuit. “Mmph?”
    â€œThe house near your new school. It’s so great, Danny. You’ll love it. There’s a big tree and you’ll have your very own room.”
    He swallowed and smacked his lips. “But I don’t want to move schools.”
    I went to join him on the couch. “I know change is scary, but I really believe you’ll be happy there. You’ll get to see Pen every day.”
    He thought it over with a frown. “That’d be sort of cool, I guess.”
    â€œAnd the house has a big backyard.”
    His eyes lit up. “Can we get a dog?”
    I hesitated. “Maybe.” The dog discussion had been ongoing for the last year. I’d put him off this far by claiming our apartment was too small and no one was home all day to play with a dog. But now I’d just ruined that excuse. “Tell you what? Let’s get moved in first and then we can talk about getting a pet.”
    â€œAll right,” he said. “But no fish. They’re boring.”
    I ruffled his hair. “Deal.”
    Â Â 
    The next day Cap’n allowed me to leave my milk crate and join him in the pilothouse of the boat. That victory combined with the excitement of finding out we’d gotten the house made me ridiculously happy. I leaned forward with the binoculars at my eyes and a huge smile on my lips.
    â€œWhat are you grinning about, girl?”
    I lowered the binoculars and shot him an exasperated expression. “It’s a beautiful day.”
    â€œHmmph.”
    We were crawling through the waters farther from the mouth of the river. Here the factories and buildings of the city had given way to trees and farmland. The sun was warm, and a nice breeze drifted across the deck. A crane took flight from the surface of the water and flew a lazy circle overhead. This part of the river wasn’t as polluted as the areas closer to Lake Erie, so wildlife was more plentiful.
    â€œDon’t know what’s so beautiful about it,” he grumped. He shifted to his right, taking weight off his left leg. Remembering what Sergeant Reams had said about him getting shot, I wondered if the movement had something to do with the old injury. “Get ready to tie up.”
    Excited to do an actual job, I jumped up and went to the starboard side, where the lines were neatly coiled. Cap’n angled the boat toward a dock. An old tin sign hung from a pole on the end of the dock. The placard had a picture of a kid sitting at the end of a dock, fishing. Under that were the words, EARL’S BAIT AND TACKLE .
    When we came aside the dock, I jumped out to quickly tie up. “Tie her up tight,” Cap’n called. He cut off the engine, and it took a second for my ears to adjust to the unaccustomed silence. I finished the knot he’d shown me and stood back to admire my handiwork. Cap’n climbed off the boat to inspect it. “Hmph.”
    With that, he turned and limped up the dock. With a grin on my face, I stared after him. Cap’n wasn’t the kind of man to get real flowery with the accolades; the fact he hadn’t yelled or found some small thing to nitpick about was his version of high praise.
    He stopped at the end of the dock and turned. “Well? You comin’?”
    I hopped to and sped to catch up with him. Stepping off the dock, we landed in a sort of open grassy area in front of an old building with a rusted tin roof. Fishing nets decorated the metal walls, and old dog snored in the shade.
    Signs tacked to the walls advertised the store’s offerings: night crawlers, red worms, wax worms, minnows, pike shiners, and maggots.
    â€œWhy are we here?” I asked.
    â€œSeeing a man about a