Man Trip Read Online Free PDF Page B

girlfriend, boy.”
    “That one wasn’t big?”

    “There’s bigger ones.”
    I glanced up at Ledward. He gave me a grin and a thumbs-up.
    “Can you see the lure I just put out?” Baja Bill asked.
    “I think so. By the third wave in the wake?”
    Baja Bill clapped my back. “Good eyes. You’re catching on.”
    The new lure plunged, smoked, and wiggled. If any lure was going to grab a marlin’s attention, it would be that one.
    “We’re coming to find you, Big Mama,” Baja Bill said to the sea.
    The engines thrummed as we circled back toward the birds. Ocean water hissed out from under the hull.
    Baja Bill looked up at Ledward. “Let’s trade places. If we get another hit, we need you down here. I’m feeling lucky. I’m thinking big.”
    Ledward set the wheel on autopilot and climbed down as Baja Bill went up.
    Ledward stood watching the lures with hisknees braced up against the stern gunnel. I sat in the chair, ready to jump out if anything happened.
    Deep-sea fishing was something else! It grabbed you and took you away. When it was boring and nothing was happening, you sat there thinking about what
could
happen. And then when something did happen, your mind was on the fish and nothing else in the whole entire universe. Nothing.
    I was hooked. Just like a fish.
    I couldn’t wait to tell my friends about it. Mom and Darci, too.
    I watched the Black Mariah work behind the boat. Baja Bill set four other lines out, too, all of them plunging and leaving smoky trails of bubbles in the wake.
    We ran through the birds again. Flying fish thumped onto the deck.
    I thought I saw something in the water and stretched to look harder. There was a huge dark shadow in the wake. “Ledward!”I said, stumbling out of the fighting chair. “Look!”

    Just as he turned, the ocean erupted!
    A bill and a huge head came out of the water—and a fierce eye.
    The marlin rose … and rose and rose. The neon-blue bars on its side glistened, and when it fell back into the sea, the ocean around it thundered, turned white, and
whoomp
ed out in every direction.
    “Jeese!” I gasped.
    Seconds later, a reel screamed.
    This marlin was bigger by far than the one we’d lost, and it was tearing away toward the horizon, taking Baja Bill’s Black Mariah with it!

L edward fought the rod out of its chrome holder. The marlin was too big, too fast. He could barely stagger the rod over to the fighting chair.
    I tried to get out of his way, fell, and hit my elbow on the bench seat.
    Baja Bill slammed the throttle down,slowing the boat. The stern rose in the oncoming wake. The reel kept screaming as the marlin ran away with more and more line. Sweat rolled down Ledward’s grimacing red face.
    Baja Bill jumped off the ladder onto the deck. He grabbed my arm and helped me up. “You okay?”
    I nodded.
    He pointed off the back of the boat. “Watch. Keep your eyes right there. She’s going to come up.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I know.”
    Ledward bent forward, gripping the rod, now alive with line still racing off the reel. More and more and more.
    Far behind the boat the marlin leaped fully out of the water, its tail slashing the air. It was so big I could hardly believe my eyes.
    “Big
Mama
!” Baja Bill shouted.
    The wild run soon slowed, and Ledward managed to fall back into the chair and start the fight.
    Baja Bill wrapped a harness around Ledward’s lower back and clipped it to hooks on the reel. “You’re going to need this with that one. She could break your back, you don’t watch out.”
    Ledward grimaced. “In fifteen places.”
    The harness was only clipped to the reel. If the fish was strong enough, could it pull Ledward into the ocean?
    He hauled back on the rod, teeth clenched. Veins bulged in his neck. He reeled line in when he fell forward. Gaining an inch here, an inch there. Bit by bit. Pull and reel. Over and over, until he was so sweaty it looked as if he’d just climbed out of the ocean.
    Baja Bill scooped a