Something Fishy

Chapel Trail is a small town in the middle of Nowhere Iowa. There’s a college on the edge of town, and some old military trail used to run right by here. We’re surrounded by farms, so in the summer it’s corn as far as the eye can see. When they start harvesting in the fall, you can smell it even up on Main street.

There are four guys that I pal around with.

Chuck lives a couple houses down from me and I’ve known him basically forever. He’s pretty much a goof. His dad owns the grocery store.

Roger lives on the other side of town. He throws a mean fastball and can be a smart aleck sometimes. His dad works for the town doing all sorts of jobs.

Dominick lives a few blocks from me. His dad is a professor at the college and Dominick is really good in school. He is smart but not as smart as he thinks he is.

Paul lives over near Dominick. His dad is a professor too but Paul’s not as sold on himself as Dominick. He’s kind of quiet.

We’re all in the same class except Dominick. He’s a grade ahead of the rest of us.

Most days, we’d gather outside the front doors when school is out. Lots of times we’d all stop at the grocery store on the way home. Chuck’s dad would give us some bruised fruit or day-old bakery and we’d decide what we were going to do the rest of the afternoon.

One day as we were walking down the alley towards the back entrance of the store, we heard Chuck’s dad chewing out an employee behind the store. We all froze instantly in our tracks.

“It happened again this morning, Doug. Now, if this keeps up, I’ll have to…”

Chuck’s dad must have seen us because he stopped mid-sentence and went slamming back into the store. Doug stormed off in the other direction down the alley.

Instead of going into the store, we all walked back to my house.  My mom gave us some oatmeal cookies which we took to the back yard.

We devoured the cookies and sat pondering the scene at the store.

Roger broke the silence, “Wonder what that was about?”

“Yeah, me too” said Chuck. “Dad likes Doug the best of all his managers. I’m sure I’ll hear all about it when Dad gets home.”

The next morning when Chuck and I met up to walk to school, he started in right away.

“Dad was still steamed last night at dinner.”

“At Doug?” I asked.

“Yeah. He just moved Doug to the day manager job. Doug opens the store and gets all the deliveries before anybody else gets there. Well, ever since Doug went to days, the fish orders have gone missing.”

“Fish orders? What do you mean?” I asked.

“You know, fish for the store to sell” he replied.

I looked at him with a question mark on my face.

“Okay, Coast & Lake is this company from the Quad Cities that sells fish to all kinds of stores and restaurants. They bring a truck up through here with Dad’s fish order for the store.

Except, the last few orders have never shown up” Chuck explained.

“Well, maybe the truck hasn’t come or something…” I suggested.

“Oh, Dad called them and they say the fish was delivered. So, Dad thinks Doug is swiping the fish” said Chuck.

“Yuck! Who’d want to steal fish?” I asked, shaking my head.

“And why would Doug steal anything?” Chuck asked. “He’s worked for Dad since high school and has always been true blue. That’s why Dad is so upset. He doesn’t want to think it’s Doug, but who else could it be?” 

“What does Doug say?” I asked.

“Of course he denies it” answered Chuck. “Yesterday Dad was that close to letting him go. He’s not sure what to do.”

We hardly said two more words the whole rest of the way to school.

When we all gathered after school, Chuck told the others what he’d told me, concluding with “So be careful around my dad today.”

We all nodded.

When we got to the store, there was no sign of Doug and Chuck’s dad was in the back of the store, moving around some boxes. We went into the back of the store and were all standing around when Paul cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Chadwick, Chuck was telling us about your fish problem.”

Chuck’s dad shot an angry look at Chuck, who looked down at the ground.

“Sir, I’ve been thinking, and well, I, uh, “ stammered Paul. “I think we can help.”

We all looked at each other and then all eyes were on Paul.

“Help me? How do you think you can help me? You’re kids!” replied Chuck’s dad.

“That’s the thing, we can help you because we are kids,” said Paul.

Chuck’s dad stopped moving boxes and, looking skeptically at Paul asked

“What do you mean? ‘Because you’re kids?”

“We’re kids and kids can hide” Paul answered as if stating the obvious.

The expression on Chuck’s Dad’s face changed from skeptical to bewildered.

“We can hide in the alley before the fish truck comes and see if Doug takes the fish” explained Paul.

“It’ll be a stake-out!” declared Roger.

“Like Dragnet!” added Dominick.

Chuck tried to frown at Dominick, but you could tell he wanted to laugh.

“Oh, I don’t know boys…” said Chuck’s dad.

“What would it hurt?” asked Paul.

“Well, I, uh, hmmm” mumbled Chuck’s dad.

“Aw, come on Dad, let us help” pleaded Chuck.

“When is the next truck?” asked Paul.

“Not for a couple of days” answered Chuck’s dad.

“Great! Then we’ll have time to scope things out” said Paul with a nod.

With that, the five of us went out and began walking up and down the alley, finding places to hide.

Two mornings later, while it was still dark, we gathered down the block from the grocery store.

“Did everybody bring a flashlight?” asked Paul quietly.

We all nodded.

“Wish we had walkie-talkies” whispered Roger.

The rest of us just rolled our eyes at him.

We fanned out to our places in the alley and waited.

And waited.  And waited.

My nose and ears were getting cold. I was starting to wish I’d worn a heavier coat.

Finally, the fish truck pulled in to the alley and up to the store entrance.

With the engine still running, a man got out of the passenger side and rushed around to the back of the truck. He opened the back of the truck and pulled out a big cardboard box.

“Whoosh” went the box from the back of the truck. The man heaved it up and set it next to the store’s door with a thud. He got back in the truck which pulled away in about a minute.

“Here we go…” said my mind.

The alley suddenly seemed very dark and very quiet. I was getting pretty cold and hoped my teeth wouldn’t start to chatter.

Then it happened. There was a figure moving in the alley. I couldn’t tell where it had come from… Somebody was moving towards the box of fish. I heard breathing and then the scraping of the cardboard on the pavement announced that the box was being moved.

As if on some silent cue, all five of our flashlights flicked on at once, pointed at the box of fish.

I was almost afraid to look. I didn’t want to see Doug. I looked. I blinked my eyes.

There, with the box of fish, was a huge raccoon!