“Maybe we’re just not in the right spot,” Arthur says, voice gruff from disuse. He purposefully avoids your eye as you give him a knowing look.

As long as you’ve been out on the lake, the bucket of fish near your feet has maybe two or three fish total. Maybe this spot (along with the fifteen other spots you’d been in) was bad luck, or maybe it was the brand new expensive fishing bait, or maybe the practically untouched lake itself was just bad. It’s just impossible to tell.

You briefly think of jumping into the lake to catch a few fish manually, but Arthur places his hand on your head as a silent warning. Your habit of running off somewhere when he wasn’t looking had been a reoccurring topic since you could crawl. As your father, Arthur supposes you’ll grow out of it, just as he had.

Besides, it’s not like Arthur has caught more fish than you since you’ve been out here. Before leaving camp, you could’ve sworn you had overheard him boasting to Hosea about the amount of fish you were going to catch for dinner and how much money you would make selling them. You’re also sure you overheard something about his impeccable fishing genes being passed down to you.

As his diligent prodigy, you hadn’t brought that up when he released your last inedibly small catch back into the water, its dull scales shining in the sunlight as it darts off.