Free Sports Camp by Rich Wallace Page A

him Little is because he’s smaller than Big Joe. But not by much.”
    “How old is Big Joe supposed to be anyway?” Eldon asked. “Like a hundred?”
    Tony shrugged. “Nobody knows. Snapping turtles live a long, long time. And they never stop growing.”
    Riley heard more thunder and glanced at the sky. But then he felt a hard tug on his fishing pole. The line was stretched tight and the tip of the rod was bending toward the water.
    “You got one!” Tony yelled. “Looks big.”
    “Reel him in!” Eldon shouted.
    Riley started reeling, and the line zigzagged through the water. Eldon and Tony brought their lines in and Tony picked up the net.
    The fish was at the surface now, thrashing the water about ten feet from the boat and pulling hard. It dove under, but they’d had a good look at it.
    “That’s a nice bass,” Tony said. “Give him a little line to play with.”
    “Why?” Riley asked, reeling even harder.
    Suddenly the line went limp.
    “That’s why,” Tony said. “That was a big, strong fish. You needed to let him tire himself out a bit before bringing him in.”
    Riley brought in the empty line.
    “So much for my favorite plug,” Tony said with a sigh.
    “I’ll pay you for it.”
    “Nah.”
    Lightning flashed, and a shrill whistle sounded from the dock. A counselor was waving an orange flag and continuing to blow the whistle. Another counselor with a megaphone was calling, “All boats in!”
    “Let’s hustle!” Tony said. “Me and Eldon. Let’s go.”
    So Riley moved to the back again and Eldon and Tony began rowing. Small waves were smacking against the boat, and the thunder sounded much closer. The rain was steady now but light.
    Something to the right—maybe twenty yards from the boat—caught Riley’s eye. A grayish head, about the size of a football, was sticking up from the lake. “That’s him!” Riley shouted.
    “Wow!” said Eldon as he and Tony stopped rowing.
    They could see a hint of grayish green shell beneath the water. And then the creature was gone, slipping below the surface and out of sight.
    “Big Joe,” Tony said, his mouth open and his eyes wide.
    “Definitely,” Riley said. “I’m pretty sure I saw him under the water during the swim race. But there’s no question that was him just now.”
    The whistle blew again, and the counselor with the megaphone demanded that all boats return. Tony and Eldon picked up the oars and started rowing harder.
    Riley kept staring at that spot on the lake as it receded in the distance. He’d only half believed those stories before. He’d
wanted
to think that a giant snapper could live in a lake like this, undisturbed for more than a century, offering an occasional glimpse of himself to worried campers. Like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot. Now Riley’d seen it for himself.
    “Too bad we didn’t have a camera,” Tony said.
    “That’s what everybody says,” Eldon replied. “Nobody’s ever caught that thing on film. That why it’s legendary.”
    They were quiet now as they moved smoothly across the lake. The rain increased and soaked their shirts, but none of them cared.
    Riley looked up a few times when lightning flashed, but he wasn’t scared. The thrill of seeing that turtle had him elated.
    They were nearly to the dock when the counselor blew his whistle again. “Move, boys!” he yelled harshly. It was the same counselor who’d cost them the water-polo game with his last-second penalty call.
    Tony steered the boat to the dock. “We
are
moving,” he grumbled. Coming to a stop, he set his tackle box and the fishing rods on the dock.
    “Out of the boat!” the counselor said. “We’ve been calling you in for twenty minutes. You have to
listen
when you’re out that far.”
    “We heard you,” Tony said. “We were all the way on the other side.”
    “I could ban you from the water for the rest of the week!”
    “We got back here as fast as we could.”
    Riley couldn’t contain his excitement. “We saw