“Half the fingerling cost.”
“I pay the rest from my summer-job money.”
“Feed?”
“Me.”
“Aerator?”
“Not yet.”
Grant frowned.
“Denise said you might need one.”
“She said monitor first.”
“If I need one, I’ll buy it.”
“With what?”
Eli hesitated.
“My truck fund.”
That changed the room.
Eli had saved nearly two thousand dollars over three summers working for a fencing contractor.
Everyone knew he wanted an older pickup before senior year.
Grant leaned back.
“You're willing to spend your truck money on fish?”
“If the numbers say I need to.”
Roy stopped smiling.
Grant folded the papers.
“Okay.”
Eli blinked.
“Okay?”
“You get the corner.”
“Your budget is six hundred from me.”
“You go over that, you're asking before spending.”
“You damage the drainage for the rest of the field, you repair it.”
“You make a mess Mr. Keller has to fix with his excavator, you pay him.”
“And school does not get ignored.”
Eli tried not to grin.
“Deal.”
Grant pointed his fork.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“If it fails, you don't hide the numbers.”
That surprised Eli.
“Why would I?”
“Because people love telling success stories after deleting the parts that cost money.”
Grant slid the budget back.
“If you're going to learn from it, keep the whole record.”
Eli nodded.
“I will.”
Roy raised his glass.
“To Fish Boy.”
Everyone laughed.
Eli did too.
Ground broke April 12.
Mr. Keller’s mini excavator was older than Eli, loud enough to rattle fillings, and leaked hydraulic oil from somewhere nobody could identify.
Eli earned its use by spending two evenings helping replace track rollers.
Saturday morning, he climbed into the cab.
Grant stood outside.
“You know how to run that?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know how to run it well?”
Eli looked through the windshield.
“No.”
“Good.”
“Go slow.”
Digging a pond looked easy in diagrams.
In real clay, every bucket changed the shape of the next one.
Too steep here.
Too shallow there.
Water seeping into the lowest point before he was ready.
Spoil piles building.
Grant helped with grade stakes.
Denise came Sunday afternoon and made Eli redo part of one bank because the slope was too aggressive.
Roy stopped by.
“You planning to host Olympic diving?”
Eli kept digging.
By Sunday evening, the basin finally resembled a pond instead of a construction accident.
Ninety-five feet at its longest point.
About eighty feet across at the widest.
Curving shoreline.
Broad shallow shelf on one side.
Deep refuge toward the center.
Compacted clay.
Overflow pipe with screened protection.
A grassed emergency spillway.
Eli stood on the bank.
Mud covered his boots to the ankles.
Grant stood beside him.
“Looks bigger than I expected.”
“Me too.”
“You happy?”
“No.”
Grant looked at him.
Eli pointed.
“That bank is still too high.”
Grant smiled.
“Now you're farming.”
They spent another day fixing it.
Spring runoff filled almost a third of the basin.
Then Eli added water slowly from the old stock well, never pumping faster than the well could recover.
It took nearly two weeks.
The first evening the pond reached his marked operating level, Eli sat on the bank until dark.
No fish.
No profit.
Just water.
Roy drove past in the farm truck.
Slowed.
Did not stop.
Eli smiled.
That felt like progress.
The hatchery owner, Mr. Hanley, nearly talked Eli out of four thousand fingerlings.
“How many gallons?”
Hanley asked.
Eli gave him the estimated volume.
“Aeration?”
“Not permanent yet.”
“Then don't crowd it.”
Eli had originally calculated more than five thousand.
Denise had already crossed that out.