Soli Deo gloria
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Up. Here's a little fic of Carl and Russell bonding some. :)
"Have you seen my Fishing in the Wilderness patch, Mr. Fredricksen?" Russell asked eagerly. He bounced up and down as he, Mr. Fredricksen, and Dug walked down toward the dock of Wilderness Exploration Park.
Russell, bounding with his tiny feet, was too fast for Mr. Fredricksen, whose tennis-ball-ended cane could only be jerked up and down so fast. Mr. Fredricksen didn't answer him for a minute. He worked on catching his old ragged breath, and then frowned at Dug. "Dug, calm down!"
Dug was running and leaping around the two friends and stepping on their feet, impeding their march forward. "Oh, but I am so very excited, Master! I like being near the wa-ter and catching all of the de-licious fish. They are stupid, like squirrels. Squirrel!" and Dug stopped bounding, frozen, like a statue, to stare searchingly into the distance.
Carl nearly tripped over Dug. He scowled as he wagged his old cane at Dug. "Dug, move!"
"Oh, sorry, Ma-ster!" Dug hurried, his furry bronze legs carrying him to the dock.
"My dad took me one time," Russell continued, as if Dug's naive antics hadn't happened. "He and I sat on the edge of the dock, and didn't talk, for hours! It was kinda boring."
"Catch anything?" Carl wondered.
Russell shook his head. He trudged onward, the two fishing rods he'd towed along with him waving back and forth, making Carl nervous that he'd get bludgeoned in the head by an accidentally aimed unbaited hook. "Nah. He had been saying he used to catch rainbow trout, and catfish, and bluegills. We never caught any of that stuff." He sounded a little defeated, a little worried that he and Carl wouldn't catch anything today.
"I'm sure we'll catch a whole string full today," Carl said optimistically. He knew there was no point in raising the poor kid's hopes, but it broke his heart a little to see Russell looking down.
Russell said, "Yeah, maybe." He looked up with a little skip to his step and said, "I'll think I'll catch a ten-pounder today, Mr. Fredricksen!"
"That's the spirit, Russell," Carl said with a rare smile.
They came to the dock just in time to see Dug catch sight of some bathing duck and say, "BIRD, BIRD, BIRD, I SHALL CATCH THE BIRD!" and jump into the water.
"Dug, what are you doing?" Russell called after him.
"Dug, get back here! Leave the thing alone!" Carl said, waving around his cane to catch his dog's attention.
Dug heard them, but he was intent on the unsuspecting, undeterred bird. He doggy-paddled for a few seconds before suddenly he realized that this exercise was not only soaking wet, but very tiring. He wanted to please his master by bring Master the bird, but he was also tired. So he listened to Master and swam back to shore. "It is very wet and cold in this lake. I do not like being so wet and cold," Dug said.
"Yeah, stay out of there," Carl said.
"That's a good boy," Russell said encouragingly as Dug walked up alongside Master.
Carl remembered the obvious that dogs did after swimming and quickly held his hands out. "Wait, Dug, don't, don't!" he commanded. But Dug never really listened to his master. He shook his mangy fur free of the water, which then coated the dock. And Russell. And Carl.
Carl sighed. "Dug . . ." he groaned.
"I smell like dog now," Russell said.
"Yeah, and there's not much we can do about it now," Carl said irritably. He put down the folding chair he'd brought along down on the dock with extra force, put aside his cane, and then took off his thick jacket, which got the brunt of the doggy spray.
"I am sorry. I did not mean to cause great harm to Master. I am a very bad dog," Dug said, curling into himself. He looked at his frustrated master and the wet child with those big brown doe eyes and felt ashamed to himself.
"It's okay, Dug," Russell said cheerfully, "I like dogs."
"Me too, to a certain extent. Not enough to want to smell like one," Carl said. He sat in his folding chair and Russell gave Dug an innocent shrug.
"What we got to work with, Russell?" Carl wondered, turning to the boy.
Grunting, the fat little boy heaved a large toolbox onto the folding chair's armrest. He opened it to reveal not hammers, screws, and nails but several different bobs, hooks varying in color and size, and different selections of bait.
"I packed this up according to the Wilderness Explorer's Handbook's guide," Russell said earnestly, pointing out the tiny little things that made it perfect. "See, here's a tiny pair of scissors for severing fishing string, EXTRA fishing string, and LOOK!" he shouted, making Carl cringe and touch his hearing aid to adjust it. "I figured that since all we humans don't like the same foods, the fishes don't all like the same foods. So, here is peanut butter sandwich, fried chicken, noodle, worm (it took me forever to find some; some are split in half), and tuna!" Russell looked eagerly at Carl for a reaction.
Carl waited a beat before saying, "Tuna."
"Yeah," Russell said excitedly.
Carl sighed a little before relaying gently: "Tuna's a kind of fish, Russell."
A pause happened while this dawned on Russell. He went "Oohhhh" and then said, "Okay, we still got the other bait foods."
"Sounds like a plan," Carl said soothingly. He leaned over and said, "Well, which one should we use?"
Russell's baby face screwed up in concentration. Then he said, "I say a worm."
"Sounds good. Using a worm when you fish is the traditional thing to do," Carl said. He cast a careful eye over Russell as his fat fingers grasped a worm and attempted to squash it onto the sharp blade of the hook. Carl felt a little worried; he didn't feel like explaining to Russell's mother a bleeding hole in her son's finger.
He didn't need to worry. Russell looked up excitedly and said, "The worm's on!" Then without waiting a second for Carl to help him cast, he threw the string toward the water. And the rod along with it. The worm flew away from the hook and landed farther away. The rod and string immediately disappeared out of sight in the dark water.
Carl and Russell stared stupidly after the far-flung fishing rod, and Russell said, "Well, maybe I should've held on tighter, and not released it."
Carl sighed and said loudly, leaning almost out of his chair, "Dug!"
Dug stood up immediately, alert and focused. "Yes, Master?!"
"Fetch!" Carl commanded, pointing to the spot where the fishing rod was last seen.
"FETCH!" and Dug threw himself into the water and came up with the fishing rod. His drenched tail whipped back and forth across the water as he practically skipped to his master. Marred by the cumbersome water medium, his 'skipping' was simply 'dog-paddling.'
Carl clapped his hands proudly as Dug came up along the bank. "Atta boy, Dug. Atta boy. Ah! Ah! Ah!" he said, waving a warning finger to Dug before he could wring himself out.
"Oh, I see, Master," Dug said. He trotted a few yards away and said, his voice muffled from the fishing rod in his mouth, "Is right here far enough, Master?"
"Keep going, Dug!" Carl said, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify his words. Russell, curious, tilted his head. He stood next to Carl, with his fat hands a little curled at his sides. A look of interest and childish naivety occupied his round face.
Dug immediately obeyed his master; the tip of the fishing rod trod into the ground as Dug dragged it farther and farther away from the dock. He turned excitedly around, light on his paws, and said, "How about now, Master?"
Carl squinted at his dog and shook his head as he looked at Russell. "I can't understand what the hey he's saying," he said, his fat sausage fingers working automatically at adjusting his hearing aid.
"Dug! YELL LOUDER!" Russell screamed at Dug. At the worst moment, as Carl was making headway with his hearing aid, allowing him to clearly hear every single word spoken around him. He roared and jumped a few feet in the air at the volume of Russell.
"Wow. That was a big jump, Mr. Fredricksen," Russell said, amazed.
Carl groaned as he got everyone down to an indoor voice. He gave Russell a look as he cupped his hands 'round his mouth once more. "You'd better hope I never do that again," he said quietly to Russell.
"Why not?" Russell said as Carl opened his mouth to call.
Carl stopped and said, sputtering, "Because I don't want to have to endure that again, that's why."
"Okay. I suppose that's a perfectly valid reason," Russell said mildly, shrugging.
Carl's mouth opened wide, like a guppy, and then closed, and he looked at Russell once more with a perplexed face as the boy watched Dug, who was hopping like a hyperactive child on the grassy bank. Carl rolled his eyes and then called to Dug. "THAT'S NOT FAR ENOUGH."
"Oh, Master wants me to go farther. This I shall do for Master," Dug said determinedly to himself. He hopped, skipped, and leapt farther away, his legs flinging out from under him, his tail wagging with excitement, until he became a shrinking speck, disappearing out of sight.
Carl squinted through his square black glasses and Russell said, "Mr. Fredricksen, I don't need glasses, and even I can't see him."
"Eh," Carl grunted.
"Mr. Fredricksen, I think that's far enough," Russell said quietly.
"Yeah, yeah," Carl said to himself. He looked between him and his buddy and sighed; an old man and a fat eight-year-old weren't going to catch up to that dog anytime soon. He looked at the dock and waved his defeated hand to the remaining fishing rod. "We only got one fishing rod left." He knelt to bait it and Russell pointed out the obvious. "What about Dug?"
"The dog will find his way back. He won't be able to hear us if we call him, though. You'd need some football stadium speakers to whisper in his ears," Carl said, smashing a bit of PB sandwich on the fishing rod's sharp hook.
"What if he gets lost?" Russell asked worriedly. He brightened as he said, "I have an idea, Mr. Fredricksen: you should get a pair of walkie talkies and duct tape one to Dug's collar, and then keep the other one for yourself. Then you guys can talk to each other whenever you want to. "
"Yeah, one problem," Carl said as he stood up, holding the fishing rod straight. "Usually he never leaves me. He's always causing me to trip over him; going to the bathroom without him is nearly impossible."
"Yeah, I guess so," Russell said, shrugging. He pointed to the fishing rod and said, "Who gets the fishing rod?"
Carl sighed and said, holding it out, "You do."
"Thanks!" Russell said appreciatively. He held out his hands to receive the coveted rod when it was snatched from his fingers.
"But I get to cast it out," Carl said firmly, leaving no room for negotiation.
"Go ahead," Russell said, waving a hand to the water. He hid behind the fishing basket as Carl, with much grunting, ended up with a perfectly swooping cast string. He smiled to himself as the hook disappeared without a hitch into the calm waters. He turned and said, "C'mere, Russell."
Russell eagerly took the fishing rod, Carl saying, "Now, just keep it tight but loose out there. Don't give 'em too much string, but don't keep it rigid. When you feel that pull, oh, we'll pull out a beaut." Carl rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he climbed into his seat. He sighed contentedly, closed eyes and arms settled on the armrests, until he heard a heavy breathing next to his ear. He turned 90 degrees and opened his eyes to the big, brown doe eyes of his faithful dog. "AUGH!" Carl said, scrambling away in surprise. The first few initial seconds of total panic passed and he, breathing hard enough to scare a doctor, said, "Dug! You're back!"
"Yes, Master, I am. I missed you," Dug said in simple reply. His tail wagged, happy, behind him.
Carl mopped his face with his hand; this was a reason he never got out much: getting out meant exhaustion, surprises, and slobbery returned fishing rods. At least, he hoped there was a slobbery returned fishing rod to account for here. He looked at Dug's feet and picked it up, relieved. "Here ya go, boy," he said, digging out a handful of peanut butter sandwich bits and throwing them in the air for his loyal dog to swallow up in a single gulp.
After refreshing the hook with buttered carbs, Carl swung the line out, sat back in his seat, and relaxed. The soft, dirty smell of the banks carried through the air. The water sparkled like diamonds with the sun dancing on its surface. Some birds chased each other and were run off from the bait box by Dug, who was determined to protect his master's goods (and hopefully get a reward out of it).
It was serene, terribly idyllic. So enjoyable for Carl that of course it couldn't last. The voice of Russell rang curious: "So, what now?"
Carl remained unaffected by the ununderstanding words of the boy. He smiled calmly and looked on at the calming (yet adventurous, for him) scene before him, seemingly untouched.
"Mr. Fredricksen?" Russell said, leaning toward him. "What do we do now?"
"We wait," Carl said quietly.
"For what?" Russell said, a little confused.
"For the fish to bite. We can't rush it. That's the thing about fishing," Carl said, sounding philosophical, old, and sage-like. "You can't do much about speeding it up. All you can do is sit back, relax, and wait. In silence," he tacked on at the end, in case Russell started off on a fragment of conversation that would led the fish away from them rather than lure them closer.
"Huh. So there's nothing we can do to make the fish, I dunno, hurry up?" Russell wondered.
"Animals, I've learned, Russell, have a tendency to not swim quickly to their death," Carl said. He closed his eyes with a blissful smile framing his jaw. He kept a firm hold on the fishing rod, but otherwise not any other work was needed to fish. It was a simple sport.
However, the quietness and lack of excitement of this particular sport didn't cause the same idea of contentment in Russell. He looked worriedly from the dozing Carl to Dug, who'd snuggled into a cute little sleeping position and slept, with little snores and intakes of breaths fluffing up his fur, and then deflating it once again. Russell, seeing no sign of either of them showing the slightest of life, sighed and turned back in his seat. He propped up his head on a fat fist and sighed, disappointed. How long had they been sitting like this? Goodness knew.
He leaned forward, a sudden idea springing him forward. Russell, being a friend to all the animals of the Wilderness, was interested in the different species of fish, turtles, frogs, birds, and what have you around the pond.
Russell gasped in excitement when he saw a few tadpoles darting around from his shadow. Little black squirts with barely any mass to call their own. He breathed out, amazed, "Wow. Hi, baby frogs. I'm Russell, and I'm a Junior Wilderness Explorer. Don't be afraid of me; I am a friend of all the animals in the wilderness. You're awfully tiny, aren't you?" He laughed when they wiggled, almost as if in response to his inquiry. "Do you know any fishy friends who might come swimming around here? I'm fishing with Mr. Fredricksen, and I'd really like to catch a fish." It was a sharp contrast, Russell's 'love of all animals in the wilderness'; to talk with such vivacious tenderness to some of them and then viciously bait, hook, trap, and suffocate others.
"Russell," Carl muttered from his seat, his free hand twitching, "stop talking to the fish."
"I wish I were talking to fish," Russell said, sighing as he sat back on the edge of the dock. His feet dangled and kicked back and forth in the empty air. His hands grew sweaty together 'round the fishing rod. He sighed and said, not liking no conversation, "Do you fish here often, Mr. Fredricksen?"
"No," Carl said.
Russell waited an expectant minute, but the old man didn't mince words. Or care to elaborate. So the boy ventured. "Did you ever fish here before?"
"Yeah, a couple of times," Carl muttered. He opened his eyes slightly to the warming sun and said faintly, "Ellie and I . . . well, we used to have adventures up on this mountain, by that hill"—he didn't mention which hill of the many hills behind him, but he knew the one distinctly, with its big green-leaved tree and slopes perfect for a lying down and staring at the baby blue sky with white fluffy clouds, a paradise destination for a picnic. He and Ellie—well, they knew it well—"on this dock. Did—did you know"—Carl chuckled to himself as he remembered his fiery, bright Ellie—"that once Ellie caught a fish longer than her?"
"Wowwwww. How big?" Russell said, enamored.
"Oh, long, real long," Carl said. He edged off his resting chair, leaving the fishing rod alone next to his armrest. Sure, he could keep an eye on it. He looked really like a grandfather ready to relay a passed-down, legendary story riddled with surprises, mysteries, and sometimes more myths than truths. "Ellie was a pretty little spit-fire, only 'bout five-foot-two. We came to this dock at the break of dawn, and she hauled out this six-footer, all by herself!"
Russell's eyes were all aglow with admiration and amazement.
Carl chuckled at the wonder on the boy's face. "She gutted and sliced the entire thing up all by herself. We ate fried fish for a week." He sighed contentedly, feeling okay for once looking back on those happy memories of him and Ellie.
Russell said, after a moment, with quiet admiration, "I wish I coulda met Ellie. She sounds real nice, and adventurous, and funny, and fearless."
Carl, surprised, didn't say much. Too emotion choked his voice, and like he wanted to show that to the kid. He mustered out a murmured, "She was all that and more."
Tears misted over the old man's eyes, and he was so caught up in the past that he barely noticed what was happening in the present, such as his fishing rod thumping and jumping against the holed wooden boards of the dock, a skip away from being tugged into the lake.
"Um, Mr. Fredricksen?" Russell asked worriedly. No answer, but he continued nervously, pointing at the animated inanimate object. "Your fishing rod is alive."
"Eh, what?" Carl grunted, coming back to life.
Russell, on his feet, pointed frantically to the fishing rod. "Mr. Fredrickseeeeennnn!" he said.
Carl leapt to his feet and grabbed the fishing rod. It trembled and shook in his hands, and he dug his heels into the dock as the pull of the fishing rod dragged him to the edge of it. Russell grabbed hold of Carl's waste and grunted fiercely as he pulled with all his might, in earnest to not only bring that fish to shore, but also to keep Carl from flying into the dirty water.
"C'mon! C'mon!" Carl said.
"You—can do it,—Mr. Fredricksen!" Russell grunted encouragingly. His heels caught a hold on the dock and he groaned, his eyes closed, as he dug into it.
Speaking of Dug, the dog burst into life and action when he heard the noise and saw the state of his master. "Master is in trouble; I will save him!" Dug said determinedly to himself. He ran up and gently but firmly bit the yellow fabric of Russell's Wilderness Explorer uniform, and he dragged back the two precarious humans, adding extra weight and mass to the fish's pull.
The combination of the efforts of the three of them won out over the fish, and the blue-and-grey flippin' fish flew out of the lake. Carl laughed triumphantly as he reeled in the fish, his hand busy spinning the reel. The line decreased, the pull lessened immediately, and Dug and Russell grunted and groaned as they fell onto the dock.
Carl chuckled to himself as the silvery fish flopped and then slowly stopped right in front of his face. He stepped back and squatted next to Russell, whose face had exploded with excitement, a look of awe taking over it. "Look what we caught, Russell!" the old man beamed proudly.
"Wow. It's so shiny," Russell said. He cocked his head and wondered aloud: "Is it dead yet?"
"Give it a minute or two," Carl reassured. Russell opened up the white-and-dark-blue cooler he'd brought, and watched with applauding eyes as Carl neatly withdrew the fish's mouth from the hook and laid its body on a bed of crushed ice. "That'll keep it fresh," Carl said, tucking the cooler's lid into place. He patted the lid with an endearing THUMP! and then looked around for Russell. No boy was 'round the cooler. "Russell?" he wondered. He turned around to see the boy craning and urging the line forward. His own fishing rod bent to the point of almost breaking under the weight of another fish's pull.
"Whoa! Russell!" Carl said, coming alongside the boy, ready at hand to help at any second. He was as jumpy as a young schoolboy. "What do you need me to do? Need help?"
"I—think—I got it,—Mr. Fredricksen," Russell said, breathing hard. He took minuscule steps back, beads of perspiration growing on his forehead. Dug and Carl surrounded him, ready and eager.
"Ohhh, this is gonna be a big one, Russell!" Carl said, pumping his fists by his sides, silently urging the boy on. "You can do it! You can do it!"
Russell reeled and he relaxed to give the fishing rod slack (all would be for naught if the fishing rod snapped mid-retrieval), and he pulled with all his strength. It was his sure determination that brought that GIHUGIC fish to the dock. With nothing but honest, eager clapping encouragement from Carl and the bounding leaps of Dug, Russell brought that humongous fish ashore.
Carl's eyes grew wide behind his glasses as he took in the four-footer monstrosity that Russell'd pulled in. "IT'S A SEA MONSTER!" he said, shocked.
"IT'S SO BIG!" Russell gasped, falling back onto his butt. He was covered with water and fish slime as his fingers ran over the fish's gills. He looked up with this childlike wonder in his eyes at Carl, and he said, "I did it."
"You're a Junior Wilderness Explorer if ever I saw one," Carl said proudly. He went into the fishing basket and pulled out an article Russell had packed. A black camera with the strap 'round the old man's neck, he faced the boy, who hurried to hold up the line. "Let's get a picture of that monster, Russell," Carl said excitedly.
Sweaty, messy, and smiling with such pride that he looked like he'd conquered the world, the boy held up the fish that was as long as him. Dug sat back on his hindquarters and WHACKED his tail against the dock on the other side of Russell, a wide smile spanning his entire face.
"Would Ellie be proud of me, Mr. Fredricksen?" Russell wondered as Carl fumbled with the camera's controls.
Carl looked up and smiled warmly at the boy. "Very proud, Russell," he said kindly.
No one could deny the genuine happiness of Russell's smile in that picture Carl snapped of him, his dog, and the boy's prized fish.
Thanks for reading!