on the aqualung, the rush bushes began rustling suspiciously. Stas’ crown came into view in the middle of the bushes. Eugene’s friend appeared at the most interesting point, as they say.
“Oh! And I’ve been thinking where you are! I saw you taking the aqualung and walking to the forest, as if you were going to dive. I decided to please myself with such an entertaining spectacle.”
“No way!” Eugene grinned. “Don’t you dare touching my bright idea with your dirty hands!”
Right before Stas’ appearance, Eugene was completing to invent his great maneuver on how to convince the men fishing nearby that not simple fish could be found in this place, but gigantic ones similar to sharks. He was enjoying himself with such idea of a true fishing commotion. Stas’ appearance didn’t make a part of Eugene’s strategic plan, for he had always believed: if two people came to know something, than even a pig could find it out. Yet, at the same time he was eager to impart his huge idea of a laughable enterprise with someone. And who else could size up such submarine performance, but Stas who'd always been an unintentional witness of Eugene’s lifelong adventures? In his turn, Stas was bored of their unsuccessful fishing. Thus, when Eugene expounded his idea to him, his friend not simply supported it, but expressed his eagerness to participate in Eugene’s underwater adventure, having added the initial plan with some new refined details. Stas brought his aqualung to the departure point, i.e. to the rush bushes, put on the equipment and submerged simultaneously with Eugene, believing they both remained unnoticed by their half-asleep fishing companions.
The couple swam under Vano’s inflatable boat at the depth. At that moment, Victor was sitting at the stern with a fishing-rod in his hands. Fish was not biting at all, and it seemed like it even didn’t approach the fat worm which Victor had dug out in his grandmother’s kitchen garden the day before. Victor strenuously fought sleepiness, trying to focus his eyesight on a steadily wavering float. However, his pupils were further turning towards his bridge, and his eyes were closing all by themselves, temptingly replacing the monotonous river view with a sweet, untroubled dream. Only thanks to his incredible will effort, his vigilant conscience and the awareness of his fisherman’s duty, Victor periodically managed to unfasten his lead-like eyelids.
Vano was sitting at the other side of the boat with a spinning rod. His fishing was much more vigorous. He continuously dropped out his minnow into the water, now here, now there, not losing hope to catch at least something. It seemed like this man was not even familiar with “tiredness”, “sleepiness”, “dejections” notions. While Vano was recurrently winding the fishing-line round the spinning bobbin, his glance roved over the water surface not far from the boat. Then he looked askance at dormant Victor, archly smiled and providently moved aside from the boar edge. He quickly reeled the fishing-line on and began to replace the minnow with enthusiasm, as if nothing had happened.
At that very moment, “the saboteurs” were already straight at the planned whereabouts. Eugene carefully swam up to the worm inertly twitching on Victor’s rod and strongly pulled the fishing-line. Slumberous Victor nearly flopped into the water from surprise, having clutched at the rod instinctively. An excessive dose of adrenalin burst into his blood, like a sudden hurricane, and agitated sundry dust-forming “trash” in his human brain “garret”, namely some archaic hunting instincts. Victor’s eyes turned round in a flash, and he excitedly called out to Vano, having completely forgotten that “fish preferred silence”:
“I got it! I caught it, I caught it!”
The fishing-line tightly stretched, having bent the rod into a steep arc, and started to spin. Not believing his fishing luck, Victor persistently endeavored to pull it.
“Wow! What a fish! It’s probably a huge pike!” he kept saying boastfully, concentrating his delighted gaze on the muddy water depth.
Vano imitated sheer elation for his companion on his face and began helping him fussily with advices how to drag out the huge fish. Fishing passion was flaring up “on board”.
“Look, look how strongly it’s conducting!” the “happy fisherman” was bragging about, dizzy with his unprecedented luck. Victor even half-rose in agitation. “Give me the net, I’ll lead it closer now!”
At that moment, the fishing-line sharply stretched towards the middle of the river, and a mighty blow at the boat bilge immediately followed. Because of such an unexpected tremor, Victor, being busy with his “huge pike” chase, failed to keep the balance and fell overboard. The instinct of self-preservation in the face of such river monsters prevailed over the fishing instinct. Having dropped the rod, Victor started getting back into the boat at an unbelievable speed and, being panic-stricken, nearly overturned it together with Vano. If it were not Father John’s timely assistance, nobody knew how everything would eventually end.
“Wow! Wow!” Victor repeated like saying a prayer, with his teeth chattering either of cool water or of fear. “Have you seen this? It’s given such a blow! It’s probably this big, not less…”
Along with these words, his fishing “disease” further expanded.
“Yeah, looks like an old cat-fish,” Vano nodded, diligently expressing an awakened interest of an amateur fisherman.
“A cat-fish?! Wow! Yet, have you really seen it?! There is a whole shoal of them here! It’s dragged such a rod away, skunk!”
“Well, this cat-fish weighs something around sixty kilos,” the fishing-mate stirred up the passion and started plying the oars. “My spinning rod definitely won’t help us to cope with them.”
“Yeah,” Victor agreed, secretly being happy that their boat was rapidly moving away from the place of his recent “joy” which had ended with a total horror for him. “We need a stronger fishing-line, and bigger hooks…”
Evidently, the experienced fear caused Victor’s continuous verbal outpouring. On the move, he began to contrive fabulous methods of catching those huge fish.
Still, the most interesting the situation appeared for the rest of the company who were waiting for the two unlucky fishermen on the bank. Having dropped their rods, the other guys perplexedly witnessed Victor’s unbelievable overboard acrobatics and the next happy “rescue of the drowned man” scene which was immediately followed with the high-speed rowing towards the bank. Having felt himself on the ground, Victor finally grew bolder. He started excitedly telling the others about his nearly lucky catch as well as about his heroic fight with the river monsters in the water where he had almost seized the huge fish by the tail… As everyone knows, the biggest fish caught is always the one which certainly gets away from the hook at a crucial moment of a fight.
The flaming fishing and hunting passion spread among the others, being stirred up by Vano a great deal. Everybody started strenuously getting ready for the trophies capture. Some brought huge hooks, some got capron lines… Someone warned that it was better not to go into the water, for he had heard a tragic story about some enormous cat-fish which had swallowed a whole god, and that there were also cannibal cat-fish. Then, a whole serial of various “reliable” cases followed. After all the thriller stories, the guys began to construct “a super-tackle”, a single one for everybody by the way.
Vano morally supported their fishing initiative as he should, but didn’t take any active part in the “project” implementation. He kindly put his boat at disposal of the enthusiasts, and joined Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich who were peacefully sitting far from the entire fuss, on their favorite snag.
“What is this panic all about?” Sensei interested.
“Well,” Father John waved his hand, “your Susanin has played an amphibian. He and his friend have put on aqualungs and are pulling our leg.”
“A-а-аh… This guy is capable of anything like this… As a matter of fact, fishing is a very useful thing… especially for developing one’s imagination.”
They laughed looking at the guys on the bank. By that time, Eugene and Stas had already approached the group as if nothing had happened. They actively joined the general fuss, pouring oil on the flames with passionate speeches and intensive gesticulation.
The “wonder-fish”