Chapter 9 - The Kid With the Twenty-Dollar Reel
The story should have belonged to Eli.
Instead, for one weekend, it belonged to Caleb Brooks.
The twelve-year-old who had approached Eli at the dock lived with his mother in a trailer six miles from Lake Harrison. His father, Wade, worked construction when jobs were available and drank when they were not. Wade loved fishing, but he loved being right more.
After Caleb appeared in one of Ryan’s videos, boys at school began calling him “Stick Kid.”
At first, he liked it.
Then his father saw the comments.
“You made us look poor,” Wade said at dinner.
Caleb stared at his plate. “We are poor.”
Wade slapped the table hard enough to jump the silverware.
“Don’t talk smart.”
“I just meant—”
“I bought you that rod.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You went begging that bum for lessons like I never taught you anything.”
Caleb’s mother, Jenna, said quietly, “Wade.”
He pointed at her. “Stay out of it.”
The next Saturday, Wade entered a father-son charity derby and forced Caleb to fish with him.
“Today,” Wade said at the ramp, “you’re going to learn how real fishermen do it.”
Eli, Ryan, and Marnie were helping organize a free youth clinic nearby.
Caleb saw them but did not wave.
Eli noticed.
The derby allowed small boats and bank teams. Wade borrowed an aluminum jon boat with an old outboard. He carried six rods but little patience.
For the first hour, they caught nothing.
Wade threw a buzzbait, then a spinnerbait, then a crankbait. He changed locations repeatedly.
Caleb watched bluegill flick beneath a dock.
“Dad, maybe we should fish slower.”
“Don’t tell me how to fish.”
“Mr. Carter says—”
Wade grabbed Caleb by the shoulder.
“I told you not to say his name.”
Caleb went quiet.
At noon, wind died and bright sun flattened the lake. Tough conditions.
Caleb quietly tied on a tiny green-pumpkin Ned rig with the knot Eli had shown him.
He cast beside a shaded dock piling.
Let it fall.
Lifted it an inch.
Waited.
The line moved sideways.
Caleb reeled down and set the hook.
A two-pound bass came aboard.
Wade stared.
“Lucky.”
Ten minutes later Caleb caught another.
Then a third.
Wade’s embarrassment hardened into anger.
“What are you doing?”
“Fishing.”
“With that stupid little thing?”
“They’re not chasing.”
Wade snatched the rod from him.
“I’ll show you how it’s done.”
He cast too hard, backlashed the cheap reel, and cursed.
Caleb tried to help.
Wade shoved him backward onto the bench.
From shore, Ryan saw it.
“Hey!”
Eli was already moving.
Wade untangled line furiously.
“You made me look like an idiot.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Caleb shouted.
Wade raised one hand.
Eli’s voice carried across the water.
“Put it down.”
Wade turned.
Eli stood knee-deep at the end of the launch ramp.
“What?” Wade yelled.
“The hand.”
“Mind your business.”
“The boy made it my business when he asked me to teach him.”
Wade started the outboard and motored toward shore.
“You think because the internet loves you, you can tell me how to raise my son?”
“No.” Eli stepped onto the dock. “I think because I’ve buried mine, I know what regret sounds like before it happens.”
That silenced even Wade for a second.
Then shame turned him vicious.
He stepped onto the dock and shoved Eli hard in the chest.
Eli’s cracked ribs exploded with pain.
He staggered.
Ryan rushed forward.
Eli raised a hand. “No.”
Wade shoved him again.
“You think you’re tough?”
“No.”
“You think you’re better than me?”
“No.”
Wade swung.
Eli slipped enough that the punch glanced off his temple, then trapped Wade’s wrist and turned his body. He did not strike back. He simply redirected the momentum and sent Wade stumbling into a stack of life jackets.
“Stop,” Eli said.
Wade charged again.
This time Ryan stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Several phones were recording.
Wade looked around and realized it.
His face crumpled.
Not with remorse.
With humiliation.
“You all think I’m some monster.”
Jenna had arrived from the parking lot. She walked past everyone, boarded the boat, and pulled Caleb into her arms.
“You scared him,” she said.
Wade stared at her.
“You too?”
“Yes.”
The word broke something.
Wade walked away.
Caleb was shaking.
Eli sat beside him on the dock.
“You did good with the Ned rig.”
Caleb wiped his face. “Dad says it’s a beginner bait.”
“Fish don’t know that either.”
Caleb laughed weakly.
Eli picked up the taped rod.
“This reel’s rough.”
“It was twenty dollars.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“If you learn thumb control on a bad reel, a good one will feel easy.”
He showed Caleb how to adjust spool tension and braking, how to stop the spool with his thumb before the lure landed, and how to pick out a backlash without yanking the line tighter.
Ryan filmed only after Caleb nodded permission.
The video went viral for a different reason.
Not because Eli caught a giant fish.
Because he did not.
The most shared clip showed him sitting beside Caleb, holding a cheap reel and saying, “Expensive gear can widen what you can do. It cannot replace patience, observation, or kindness. If fishing makes you cruel to the person beside you, you missed the point.”
Three days later, a national outdoor retailer offered Eli a sponsorship.
He declined.
Instead, he asked them to donate two hundred youth fishing kits to public libraries and community centers.
They agreed.
Caleb received the first one.
He kept fishing with his twenty-dollar reel.
When Ryan asked why, Caleb grinned.
“Mr. Carter says don’t change what works just because somebody offers you something shiny.”
Eli overheard him.
“That boy is dangerous,” he muttered.
Ryan smiled. “Because he listens?”
“No. Because he remembers.”
Then Eli’s phone rang.
It was Harold Finch.
His voice was barely audible.
“They found me.”
A crash sounded in the background.
The line went dead.
Before Caleb left, Eli made him release every fish he had caught that day himself. He showed him how to support a bass horizontally with wet hands, how to avoid squeezing the jaw unnaturally, and how to hold the fish in the water until it kicked away under its own power.
“Catching is only half the job,” Eli said. “If you want another kid to meet this fish someday, the release matters too.”
May you like
Caleb watched the last bass disappear. “That part might be better than winning.”
Eli smiled. “Keep thinking that and you’ll be hard to ruin.”
