The Writer in the Family

Henry came home from school on Friday with his Writing Journal Folder. This is my new favorite folder. Henry is hilarious! There were a handful of stories that he had written and each one left me wanting more. I'm glad he wrote about this experience because I had totally forgotten about it and it is definitely worth remembering. In Henry's words, here it goes:

This story is 100% true, but allow me to fill in a few details. The branch of the tree that this fish became stuck in was about 20 feet off the ground. I did tug on that line to try and free it from the branch... and tugged... and tugged... and tugged. With each tug that fish slammed into the branch it was stuck on until finally it popped loose and took it's second flight through the air before crashing to the ground. It gets worse.

I picked up the beat up little guy and pulled out my pliers to take the hook out. It was then that I realized we were using the wrong size hooks. Now, I'm no fisherman, but I know that when a fish bites a hook it's not supposed enter through his mouth and come out of his eyeball. After a few tries I managed to extract the hook and, miraculously, his eyeball was still intact. I don't know if he could see anything out of it, but it was there.

Finally I go to throw this thing back to his home (more like his watery grave, really) and Henry stopped me. He wanted to toss him back. I handed the fish over to him and explained how to toss it in gently-- underhand, like he was pitching a softball. Clearly Henry hadn't pitched many softballs because that fish went about 15 feet straight up into the air and landed with a SMACK on the sandy ground we were standing on-- about a foot away from the water's edge.

His second attempt wasn't much better. This time the fish landed in a blob of mud-- probably a little softer than the ground, but still not exactly ideal. Instead of giving Henry another shot, I picked up a stick and flicked the fish into the water. Henry was content that the fish was on his merry way, but once the dirt settled I could see the battered thing floating just below the surface. I waited for a minute and just as I thought to myself, "Oh well," the fish swam away. I bet it lived another hour, tops, but I guess we'll never know.