Papa often took us punting along the shores of Lake Flathead. Spreading his tall tales and teaching my brother Jackson about fishing. “I found a dozen arrowheads under that hollow log just there. With an old scalp and two beaver pelts.”
“Really, Papa?” asked Emilia. Gullible as a newborn puppy, my youngest sister always had an unwavering faith in Papa.
Jackson was more skeptical. “Scalps? It’s not the Civil War.”
His “Honest Injun” poker face was how I could always tell when Papa was fibbing a little. At their ages I don’t think my siblings had caught on yet.
“Strike me down if it ain’t so,” Papa glibly lied. “We saw a big ol’ gator out there once, too.”
“There aren’t any gators in Montana.” Jackson was quite certain.
“Probably ain’t. But what’s that shadow under the water, just there?”
Jackson nearly fell out of the boat when the scaled back of the Spinosaurus broke the surface in the deepest part of the lake.
Papa laughed. “Guess it were mebbe a wee bigger’n a gator.”
175 words. Inspired by this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers prompt:
ParkInkSpot 