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rocked.

    Baja Bill slid down the ladder from the flying bridge.
    Ledward flipped off the clicker on the screaming reel. The reel went silent as line spun out into the water. It was so exciting it was spooky.
    The marlin leaped again!
    It twisted and shook its head, trying to shake the hook loose. It fell back into the ocean, turned, and rushed toward the boat, thrashing through the water, half in, half out.
    “He’s coming at us!” Ledward shouted.
    Ledward started reeling in the slack line as fast as he could as the marlin charged.
    Baja Bill flew up the ladder to the flying bridge and lunged toward the controls.
    I froze. Stopped breathing.
    The marlin went under, then leaped again, completely out of the water and so close I could look it in the eye.
    The engines roared to life. The boat jumpedahead as the bow rose up out of the water.
    The marlin charged under the boat, taking the line with it.
    Ledward hung on to the reel with one hand and the fighting chair with the other.
    The boat swerved as Bill tried to get out in front of the fish again.
    Just then Ledward fell back.
    The line went limp.
    “Dang!” Baja Bill yelled from the bridge. “Dang, dang, dang!”
    That big fish was gone.
    “What happened?” I asked, gulping air.

    Ledward wiped sweat from his neck. “Prop cut the line.”
    Baja Bill brought the boat down to a crawl.
    No one spoke.
    I gaped at the ocean where the giant fish had been, the surface now a small smooth whirlpool. Looking over the gunnel into the depths, I saw spears of sunlight shooting down toward the bottom of the deep, deep sea. The color was a blue I’d never seen before.
    It scared me.
    The boat rocked, idling.
    The swirling mass of birds moved on, now a quarter mile away.
    “Too bad,” Ledward said. “He was a nice one. What you think he weighed, Bill?”
    “Two-fifty. About.”
    Ledward nodded and looked at me. “How you doing?”
    “Uh … okay … I think.”
    Baja Bill grunted. “Hang on to your hat, kid, because I’m not done here. No, sir, I am surely not done with this.”

B aja Bill went to work.
    He was so excited that now even
his
hands were shaking. He squatted down and dug through a box in the hold. He found what he was looking for and sat back on his heels.
    He held it up. “This will get her.”
    It was another lure. This one was black asnight. Points of light, like stars, sparkled in its huge head. It had rubber hanging on it like a hula skirt, with a giant steel hook poking through.
    I stepped closer, gaping at the monster lure. It was creepy.
    “Secret weapon,” he said. “My trusty old Black Mariah.”
    Baja Bill grinned. “Here, see this? Only one hook. If you use two, they could pin its jaws shut. If the fish gets off the line, you don’t want to take the chance of killing it.”
    The steel hook looked strong enough to pull Ledward’s jeep.
    Ledward put his hand on my shoulder. “This is where Baja Bill turns into Captain Ahab.”
    “Who’s Captain Ahab?”
    “Guy on a mission. He’s from a great book called
Moby-Dick
.”
    “Cool.” For sure I was going to read it. Maybe Mr. Tanaka had it in the school library.
    Baja Bill tied a new double line to a new swivel and secured it to the big black lure.“The swivel keeps the line from getting all wound up,” he said. “That old fish can jump and turn all he wants, no problem.”
    This time the leader wasn’t wire but extra-thick fishing line.
    “Kick her into gear, would ya, Led?”
    Ledward went up to the bridge and moved the throttle forward.
    As the boat came up to speed, Baja Bill dropped the Mariah overboard and released the drag on the reel. When the lure was far behind the boat, he stopped the running line and tugged a few inches more off the reel until the lure was exactly where he wanted it.
    “The way that fish was jumping around, my guess is he was showing off for some female, and with marlin, it’s the female that gets big, not the male. We’re going after his