Thirteen-year-old Karl has always wanted to fish for herring like his father. His father has recently been injured in a fall, but is ready to return to fishing. For the first time, he has asked Karl to go along to help him. In this part of the story, they are in the fishing boat. They have caught many herring.

By the time we finished, herring covered the bottom of the boat as deep as my calves. For the first time in days, my father seemed happy.

Then he looked at the western sky, and his smile faded.

They are called Northwesters. They're storms that sweep out of Canada hard and fast. No one can predict their arrival. All fishermen fear them.

“We're going back,” my father said.

He started the motor, wincing from the pain as he pulled the cord.

We were only two miles out, but the shoreline looked to me to be as far away as the moon. Over the distant hills, black clouds galloped toward us like wild horses. My father set a course directly for them.

We made it only halfway home before we met the storm.

The wind came first. It lifted the lake in whitecaps. The weight of the herring made us ride low in the water, and the waves broke over our bow. The spray was icy cold, needles against my face. I grasped the gunwales (gunwales: upper edge of a boat's side) as the boat bucked. In the stern, my father struggled to hold us on course. I'd put on my slicker, (slicker: a rain jacket) but I had no life jacket. Most commercial fishermen don't carry life jackets in their boats. Wrong or right, they figure that if your boat goes down, a life jacket is useless. Even if you don't drown, the cold of the water will quickly kill you.

By the time the rain came, we'd put more distance behind us. Although we were now only half a mile from shore, the rain fell so hard we couldn't see the land. The boat was filling with water. I began to bail.

I was scared, but I saw my father sitting erect in the stern, holding the boat steady into the wind, and I felt hopeful. He didn't look hurt at all.

I was starting to think we were going to make it. That's when the motor died. My father jerked the cord desperately, but the motor wouldn't catch. I saw that the boat was coming about, broadside to the wind. I knew what that meant. We would swamp in no time. We would go down.

My father didn't fight the motor long. He leaped to the middle of the boat, beside me.

“Grab an oar,” he hollered above the wind.

He always carried two oars for just such an emergency.

We set the oars in the locks and began to pull hard. My father grunted, from pain or effort I couldn't tell. He dug his oar into the churning lake, bringing the boat around, bow into the wind again. With all my strength, I pulled on my own oar.

The wind pushed hard against us. We seemed to be fighting the anger of the whole lake. I was tired. My arms felt heavy and on fire. I didn't know how much longer I could shove that oar through the water.

As if he heard my thinking, my father called to me, “I need you, Karl. Only a little longer.”

So I kept stroking.

Just when I thought I had no more strength, I heard it. The sound of waves breaking against the shore. We moved into the shelter of our small cove and rode the swells toward the landing.

My mother rushed through the rain to greet us. “I've been so worried,” she said. She hugged me and then my father.

“Nothing to worry about,” he assured her. He put his hand on my shoulder. “You did well, son. How do you feel?”

Tired as I was, I managed a smile. “I feel like a herring choker.”

Aim Plus Middle School Assessments

English Assessment

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