N eemias steps gingerly into the fishing boat. It is wide and flat and it tips as his foot touches the bottom. For a moment he thinks he is going to push all of them into the water. His arms flail. He flings them forward and his weight backward and all of a sudden Boy is there beside him. Two small hands steady him two blue eyes look into his calmly. Behind him Captain gives a bellicose laugh. Neemias sits down on the wooden bench and looks up cheeks flushed.
Captain reaches over and squeezes his shoulder. “We all laugh at each other ” he says “pay no heed to it. It is just our way.”
The first day they do no fishing. They simply sail down the River Seine out of Paris through the French countryside. As they leave the city the water grows clearer and flows quicker. Captain throws back his shoulders and a change comes over his face: The lines on his forehead smoothen and he begins to whistle some seafaring tune. Boy pulls hard on the oars so they speed quickly down the belt of water. By evening they can sniff the briny smell of sea on the breeze and hear the harsh caw of gulls.
The second day as they head into the open ocean they begin to fish.
