Chapter 6 - The Night the Pond Tried to EscapeThunder woke Maggie shortly after midnight.
Rain hammered the shed roof.
Water dripped onto the floor.
Then she heard Mrs. Bell shouting outside.
“Maggie!”
She pulled on boots and ran.
Water was moving across the low field toward the pond.
The design had accounted for runoff.
The storm did not care about the design.
The pond had risen almost to the overflow.
Worse, leaves, grass, and branches had collected against the protective screen.
If it clogged completely, water could cross the bank.
And if water crossed the bank, hundreds of carp could leave with it.
Maggie grabbed a lantern.
Mrs. Bell followed.
“Don’t get into that water.”
“I have to clear the screen.”
“There’s lightning!”
Maggie stayed on the bank and worked from the side.
She pulled handfuls of wet debris away.
Water surged through the opening.
The level dropped slightly.
Minutes later, debris collected again.
She cleared it.
Again.
Again.
At one in the morning, Lewis Grant arrived with shovels.
Mrs. Bell had called him.
They dug an emergency relief channel farther down the slope.
Mud swallowed Maggie’s boots.
Rain ran beneath her coat.
For nearly two hours the three of them fought water.
At last, shortly before three, the pond level stabilized.
The bank held.
No catastrophic overflow.
Maggie sat in the mud and laughed.
Lewis stared.
“You all right?”
“No.”
“That why you’re laughing?”
“Probably.”
At dawn, the storm moved east.
The pond looked terrible.
Brown.
Cloudy.
Full of suspended sediment.
Maggie scattered a small amount of feed.
Almost nothing rose.
Her first serious commercial order was twelve days away.
The volunteer fire department had contracted with her for a fixed weight of carp for a fundraiser.
It was more than a sale.
It was her first chance to prove the pond could reliably supply a buyer.
Now the fish were stressed and barely feeding.
Three days passed.
The water remained cloudy.
Maggie tested constantly.
Oxygen acceptable.
Ammonia acceptable.
Temperature acceptable.
The fish simply seemed unsettled.
The fourth morning brought improvement.
The fifth, they fed aggressively again.
Maggie sampled several.
Weights were close.
Very close.
She recalculated the projected harvest.
Possible.
Not guaranteed.
Mrs. Bell watched.
“You’ve stared at that page for twenty minutes.”
“I need more weight.”
“You can’t negotiate with fish.”
“Apparently not.”
The delivery day arrived.
Maggie had purchased a secondhand platform scale and calibrated it with known weights.
She harvested carefully.
Every batch went onto the scale.
Every pound was recorded.
The fire department buyer stood nearby holding a clipboard.
At first the numbers looked good.
Then the later net pulls became smaller.
Maggie checked her notebook.
They might be short.
Another batch.
Still short.
Another.
Thirty pounds left to reach contract.
Then twenty-two.
Fifteen.
Seven.
Maggie looked toward the remaining section of netted water.
There were not many fish left inside the enclosure.
The buyer noticed her face.
“Problem?”
“No.”
It was a lie.
They pulled the final section.
A handful of carp thrashed in the net.
Maggie carried them to the scale.
One batch.
Then another.
She added the numbers.
Stopped.
Added them again.
Mrs. Bell leaned closer.
“Well?”
Maggie looked at the final total.
For twelve days she had been afraid the storm had destroyed her first real contract.
May you like
Instead she had delivered the order.
And exceeded it by exactly eleven pounds.
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