Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 98264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
“Oh, you can’t catch any worms today.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because Mr. Leonard said our limit is around five hundred a week and he doesn’t want us out here on the weekends again.” He lifted his bucket in my direction. “We’ve already got a hundred for today.”
Now, normally, I would have shot to my feet, balled my fists, and screamed in his face that it wasn’t fair because I’d been hunting all morning and this included a near-death experience with a beetle. But he’d said one key word that kept my temper in check. “What do you mean we already have a hundred?”
That wide, toothy grin reappeared on his face. “You ready to listen yet?”
I clamped my mouth shut, but so help me sweet baby Jesus, if he tried to tell me God was now paying him for staying awake in church with earthworms, there was a solid chance I was going to do more than just yell at him today. But he did, in fact, have my attention, so I gestured that my lips were sealed with a zip across my mouth, and then I threw away the key.
“Anyway, after I found the money on the way back from church, I almost skipped out of coming here. But then I got an idea. And not fifteen minutes later, I walked out of Lewis Tractor Repair, Bait, and Booze with a hundred worms and met you. The end.”
It should be noted that Camden Cole was officially the worst storyteller in the history of storytelling because, while it took him a solid five minutes for him to tell me all that, his version of nonsense events only left me with more questions than answers.
“You bought a hundred worms from Old Man Lewis?”
He nodded. “Oh, and a Coke. But I drank that before I met you. I’d have brought you one if I knew you were here. Next time though.” He pointed a finger at me and clucked the side of his mouth.
I blinked at him too many times to count. This kid was not working with a full box of rocks. “Um…why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess to be nice. Why? You want a Sprite instead?”
Even annoyed, I was in no position to turn down a free soda. “No, Coke is great. But why would you buy worms just to sell them back to Mr. Leonard?”
He had the audacity to look at me like I was the idiot. “Uh, because the bait shop sells ’em for ten cents apiece and Mr. Leonard is paying twenty.”
My head snapped back so fast it was a wonder it didn’t fly off my neck.
He swirled his finger in front of my shocked face and smirked. “Oh yeah. You’re following me now.”
And I was. Because good Lord, that was brilliant. Turned out, I was the one who wasn’t working with a full box of rocks. Freaking Camden Cole was a genius, and I didn’t know why but it seriously annoyed me.
I stood up and glared down at him with my hands planted on my hips. “You can’t buy worms from the bait shop. Mr. Leonard will lose his mind if he finds out he’s fishing with cursed Lewis bait.”
“How’s he going to find out? You said you weren’t a tattletale.”
“I’m not! But…” I trailed off, knowing that what he was doing was wrong but not quite able to formulate a response through my absolute jealousy that I hadn’t thought of it first.
“But nothing,” he said, rising to his full height. He glanced over his shoulder up at Mr. Leonard’s house, and then lowered his voice. “Look, he’s not going to find out. Nobody knows me in Clovert, so I told the guy at the bait shop my name was Cam and I just moved to town. I made up a whole story about fishing with my brothers and told them we needed a lot of worms. It wasn’t a total lie.” He paused and looked up at the sky, deep in contemplation. “Okay, not true. It was mostly a lie. A little white one. I don’t have any siblings. But I did some asking around at church and Mr. Leonard has a lot of brothers and five sons, who each have at least one more son, who each have, like, four kids who all like to fish, which equals…” He lifted his hand to start counting off on his fingers only to give up when he reached ten. “A lot of people, okay? And none of them are allowed to use the bait shop anymore. So over coffee this morning—”
“You had coffee with Mr. Leonard?” I asked rudely, which I was learning was the only tone I had when it came to Camden Cole.
He scoffed. “No. He had coffee and I helped myself to the hard candies from his wife’s crystal bowl.” He paused. “By the way, I still have a few of those left in my backpack if you want one. But warning, only the nasty butterscotch are left.”