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Austin Macauley Publishers - Zan Bellar

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51 pages

English

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Being an ingenious twelve-year-old, Hugo reasoned that filling his family dam with fish was his best idea yet. His thinking was that fishing from the dam would be a relaxing way to spend time with his hard-working father. He collected his first few fish from an experimental fish-farm. However, as these fish multiplied at an incredible rate and grew abnormally large, the dam soon became overcrowded. To reduce the number of fish in the dam he began to sell some. At first the people in town welcomed this new business - that was great for Hugo - until weird effects changed everything.

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	29 novembre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528960427
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Fishy Business
Zan Bellar
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-11-29
Fishy Business About the Author Copyright Information © Chapter One Sneaky Intent Chapter Two It’s Not That Easy Chapter Three A Couple More to Make Sure Chapter Four How Fast They Grow Chapter Five This Can’t Happen Chapter Six Trouble Knocks Chapter Seven The Fat Arm of the Law Chapter Eight Angry Crowds Chapter Nine Recognition Begins Chapter Ten Signed, Sealed Chapter Eleven And Delivered Chapter Twelve Payback Time
About the Author
Zan Bellar was born in Brisbane, Australia. She is married with three sons and currently resides on the Queensland Gold Coast. She has been writing children’s stories for many years and has a natural understanding of the characteristics of young children which she translates into her stories.
Apart from her writing and family commitments, she likes to read, paint and travel to overseas destinations.
Copyright Information ©
Zan Bellar (2019)
The right of Zan Bellar to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528913324 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528960427 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Chapter One Sneaky Intent
Hugo stomped into the kitchen and growled, “Maxine took my calculator again. She’s so selfish, thinks everything is hers. Dad, you have to tell her that my room is out of bounds to her.”
Hugo’s father glared at him and said, “There’s no need to be nasty. Now you have a sister you just have to learn to share.”
“She’s not my sister,” said Hugo with scorn. “Just because you married her mum doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
“Don’t be so mean, son. She is your stepsister whether you like it or not, so you just have to get used to it. Your trouble is that you’ve been an only child for too long.”
“Well that’s the way it should have stayed,” groaned Hugo as he turned and stomped back to his room.
He threw himself on his bed and had to fight the tears that threatened to leak out of his eyes. He was boiling with fury. His dad always took Maxine’s side. Lately he spent too much time with her. He hardly ever saw his dad alone any more. It just wasn’t fair.
His thoughts raced as he tried to come up with a plan to get his father back on track. It took a while, but finally he had what he thought was a great plan.
By the next weekend, Hugo did have a plan.
“There must be thousands of fish in those tanks. There’s no way anyone could count them,” said Hugo to his best mate Rex. “Gee, I’m so clever. This plan is the greatest I’ve ever come up with.”
“Yeah,” said Rex. “But what good’s a few fish when you won’t eat ’em?”
Hugo’s disbelief was instant as he glared across at his friend. “You know, Rex, I reckon your head is full of sawdust. How can you be so dense?”
Rex looked hurt. “I’m not dense. No way.”
“Really? You could’ve fooled me. It was only two seconds ago that I told you why I needed these fish, so if you’re not dense, then you just don’t listen,” growled Hugo. “I’ll tell you one more time, so listen carefully. I need the fish to stock our lake.”
“Yeah!” said Rex with a shrug. “Well it’s no wonder I didn’t pay attention. The second you mentioned the lake, it reminded me of that big old tree with the bit of tangled rope hanging from it. Remember how we used to swing out on that rope, then drop into the water? That was fun.”
“Yeah, well this will be fun, too. So quit babbling and open your earflaps. We are on an important mission.” Hugo sighed and repeated in parrot fashion what he’d already told his mate.
“Dad and I don’t go fishing any longer. We don’t do anything together since he married Maxine’s mum. He says he has no time to waste. Well, this got me thinking that if we had fish in our lake; we wouldn’t have to even leave the farm. We could just stroll down to our own waterhole, sit on our own little pier, and fish.”
Desperation filled Hugo’s voice when he added, “I need to get Dad’s attention. I want him to spend more time with me. I know how much he enjoys fishing, so I reckoned this would be a super way to free up his time to spend with me.”
“How come your dad is so busy?” asked Rex. “My dad has too much time to spare – or so Mum tells me.”
Hugo frowned. “I hardly see my dad these days. Since Maxine and her mum moved in to our place, he spends all his spare time with them. And he also has to do extra jobs sprucing up the house after slogging all day around the farm. Dad even wastes time explaining to Maxine how different living on a farm is when she compares it to city life. She’s so dumb. Anyway, that got me thinking, and this fishing plan is sure to get him back on track so he can spend a bit of time with me.”
“Oh,” said Rex. “So, you think filling your lake with fish will change things to suit you, huh? Have you thought that it might not work? He might even go crook at you for filling his lake, especially with fish from that farm.”
“This plan has to work – it just has to.” Hugo wondered why his friend couldn’t understand such a basic plan. “Now pipe down while I work out how to get things started.”
While Hugo explained what he had in mind, he and Rex crouched behind a bush halfway up a hill. Their position overlooked an experimental fish farm. This special farm was in the river, close enough to the bank for easy access. It was quite new and held four circular concrete tanks with specially bred fish.
There wasn’t a single person around to notice two twelve-year-old boys peering through the bushes. As they squatted, they planned on how they could collect a couple of fish from one of the containers. Hugo reckoned that the walkway that linked the four tanks would help make their task easy.
“How will we lift ’em out?” Rex asked the creator of this mighty plan. “From here, the water level inside the tanks looks too far down.”
Hugo grinned. “No sweat. My dad’s landing net is strong enough to haul any fish out of water. All we need’s a long handle for extra length, and Bob’s your aunty.”
“What about that wire fence?” Rex didn’t sound too keen. “It goes nearly all the way round the tanks.”
Nothing would put Hugo off his great idea. “You can climb, I’ve seen you. That’s no problem. Quit stalling and get serious.”
Rex sighed, but kept any further comments to himself.
After final checks, the two boys scrambled back to Hugo’s place to collect the necessary gear. At the back of his dad’s farmhouse were two sheds. A large one held equipment like tractors and trail bikes. The smaller one was crammed full of all sorts of discarded bits and pieces.
Hugo rummaged around the disorganised contents of the storage shed. “It was in here the last time I saw it,” he whinged. Always keen to shift blame to his newly acquired stepsister, he added. “Maxine must’ve taken it. I’ve seen her poking around in our stuff. She’s a real meddler.” Even though she was three years older than he was, Hugo reckoned she acted more like a ten-year-old.
“What would she want with ya dad’s old fishing net?”
“How would I know,” Hugo growled. “I do know that Maxine is nosy though. You’re lucky you don’t have sisters to make your life miserable.”
Rex showed no sympathy for his mate. “I reckon you’re lucky you have a sister. Girls can cook and do housework. Remember all those crummy chores you growled about doing before Maxine arrived?”
Hugo ignored Rex. He was not the least bit interested in any talk about his stepsister, especially not if it was in her favour. This project needed his concentration to make it succeed. He wanted it so bad that he wasn’t about to let anyone or anything stand in his way – especially not Maxine.
Busy with his own thoughts, Hugo almost leapt into the air with fright when his father suddenly appeared at the doorway.
“What’re you two up to?”
Hugo looked up and gave an automatic answer, “Nothing, Dad.”
That was the exact moment, Rex bent down to tug at something buried under a pile of rubble. When he finally pulled out a landing net, he had a big grin on his face. “Here it is. It was under a whole heap of rusty metal.”
“Yeah,” said Hugo. “Well, I knew it would be in here someplace.”
“Oh. Expecting to catch something in the river, boys?” Mr Stubbs grinned. “You and I used to enjoy fishing, didn’t we, Hugo. That was a time we caught bigger fish than you’d ever catch around here.” He sighed. “It’s been a while since we did that, hasn’t it, son.”
“Yeah, too long,” growled Hugo. “Hey, why don’t you come with us now, Dad?” Hugo couldn’t stop the words blurting out of his mouth. He tensed and held his breath while he wondered what he would do if his father said, okay. There was no way he could collect fish from the fish farm if his father came with them.
Rex glared and rolled his eyes at the same time, which made him look weird.
Mr Stubbs turned his back and made for the open door. “Sorry, son, I can’t,” he said. “I’m on my way out. There’s an auction of livestock at Milestone. I only hope there won’t be too many bidders. That always bumps up the prices.”
Hugo let out a puff of air. “Okay, maybe some other time.”
“Yeah,” Mr Stubbs answered almost sadly, “some other time. Well, good fishing, boys.” He suddenly added, “Why don’t you ask Maxine, I’m sure she’d like to go with you.”
Hugo couldn’t believe his ears. “Girls don’t like the same things as boys,” he mumbled. He couldn’t think of any other remark at that