In an effort to make Jebediah Bilodeau more appealing to prospective publishers, I took Chapter ten from the book, modified it into a short story, and submitted it to a local story competition. Publishers like contest winners.
|
Snigglin' Catfish
It’s Saturday morning, early in March, and the sun arrives again – finally. Our first beautiful, warm day of 2006 is here. I feel like laughing! That nice, warm sun is poking its fingers in through our grubby kitchen windows right into my eyes…Jeb’s too! I can see him squinting. We’ve had a pretty dismal winter so far – raining almost every day. And what do two boys get to do in the rain? Not much. This fine morning we’re just sitting at our table; eyes, half closed; ears, listening to our stomachs working away on our breakfast; brains, trying to decide what we’re going to do today. Today is a ‘kissing’ day, as we call it in Georgia. We’re both just sitting here, smiling happily and kissing goodbye to winter’s doldrums. |
“Who’s Jeb?” you ask. Jeb’s my cousin…comes from New Orleans, or N’Orlins, as he regularly reminds me. His full name is ‘Jebediah Bilodeau’. That’s right! Jebediah Bilodeau! He has to be Cajun with a name like that. I mean, who can call him ‘Jebediah’ every day? To me he’s ‘Jeb’, or ‘Cousin Jeb’. And he calls me ‘Kid’ – not ‘Caleb’, but that’s okay.
Jeb’s folks were killed when Katrina struck last August, so he’s now living with Pappy and me, here on Jackson Farm.
Being a city boy and a year-and-a-bit older than me, he thinks he knows everything. He’s always showing me things he used to do back on the Bayou. But we still laugh a lot and get along well together. We’ve become good friends. He needles me about my South Georgia twang, but I get him back. I call him ‘toffee-nose’ ‘cause he speaks "all proper" – never says, “Y’all!” His Ma and Pa sent him to boarding school, hoping for him to become a doctor or a lawyer. We’ll see. I think he has other ideas – keeps talking about joining a zydeco band.
Here, on Jackson Farm, we do chickens – and eggs, o’course. Jeb and I get to feed and water the chickens, and clean out the coop - every day. I have to say he’s having a little trouble getting used to cleaning up all the chicken poop while I do the feeding and watering. But, as I told him, “You gotta start with the ‘entry-level’ job.”
For Jeb, life here on the farm is a lot different than on the Bayou. Our world moves a lot slower than it does in the city, and he sometimes gets a little bored. He’s always looking around; poking into things. “I just want something to do!” he wails.
Since his arrival, he and I have been spending many hours wandering around the nearby countryside, exploring. Just doing ‘boy’ things. One of our favourite adventures has been to sneak in to the nearby and mysterious, Okefenokee. That swamp is ‘off limits’ of course, Pappy’s rules. We occasionally sneak in anyway, but that’s another story.
So, here we are, with the first sunny, warm and perfect Saturday morning of the spring. Chores done before breakfast so the day’s ours to do some more exploring, or go swimming, or whatever. That sun, shining directly on me, gives me a brilliant idea.
“Hey, Jeb! How’d you like some catfish fer dinner t’night?”
“Sounds okay,” replies Jeb, half-heartedly. He pauses to yawn, then continues. “I know how to make a prawn and catfish gumbo – Ma showed me.”
Another pause as he slowly comes alive. “We have some frozen prawns in the freezer, Texas Long Grain in the cupboard and lots of tomatoes. All we need is catfish. You want to take a walk up to the co-op? They usually have some.”
I just sit there, watching and listening, as Jeb’s excitement grows. He starts off with a kind of ‘who cares’ attitude, then slowly grabs hold of the idea, gets all excited, and starts to run with it – city-boy enthusiasm, maybe.
“Hold on, Jeb. Slow down a little. That ain’t quite what I got in mind. Thought we might catch our own catfish.”
Jeb’s eyes get even wider and start to sparkle. “What? You want to go fishing?”
“Well, not exac’ly. Around here, us kids don’t fish fer catfish, we sniggle. I want to take you snigglin’. You showed me how to go huntin’ gophers with just them huntin’ stones, so now it’s my turn to show you how we go catfish snigglin’ in Georgia.”
Jeb replied; his eyes now wide open. “Sniggling? That’s a new one on me. We don’t do that on the Bayou, whatever sniggling is.”
“Do you remember last fall when we was swimmin’, up at Boy’s Pond? We saw a small stream that runs into Boy’s Pond from the north. It’s called ‘Willa’ Crick’ ‘cause the banks are lined with Willa’ trees. All them trees, with their droopin’ branches, keep the stream quite shaded and cool. Catfish like the shade and the water’s shallow, so it’s perfect fer snigglin’.
“All we need is our jack-knives and about six foot of kitchen twine. Is your knife good ‘n sharp?”
“Yep! I’m ready! Let’s go!” says Jeb, so anxious he’s already half-way out the door. He’s going to be hard to hold back and keep calm today. On our walk up to Willow Creek, he’s chattering the whole way.
Willow Creek is a great place, very beautiful, serene and quiet – cool and grassy under the Willows. It’s a favourite place for towns-folk to come for a picnic. The bed of the creek is rocky; the water very clear and only about a foot deep. And you can see lots of catfish.
I say to Jeb, “Okay! So don’t look fer any of the super-giant catfish you might have heard about or seen on TV. Ain’t nothin’ here weighin’ in at five hundred pounds. But some of ‘em are a good size fer dinner – two or three pounds.
“Before we get our sniggle sticks ready, it’s time to learn a little about catfish. Let’s wade over to that big rock in the middle. Shoes off. We do this in our bare feet.”
Sitting on that big rock, we watch the catfish swim by, some tiny ones, some quite big. Then I point out one particular fish to Cousin Jeb. “Hey, Jeb! Check out that one. Looks like he’s sleepin’ but you can see his fins twitchin’ a little and his tail occasionally wigglin’. That’s nat’ral fer catfish. He’s facin’ upstream against the current so he ain’t movin’. He’s just restin’. And he’s in a shady spot, so it’s hard to see him.
“Here’s another thing. Stand on the crick bed with yer legs a little apart, facin’ upstream so the sun’s on yer back, then just wait. Don't move. See the fish swimmin’ all around ya, some goin’ upstream, some goin’ down. Forget the ones swimmin’ downstream. They’re too hard to catch. But watch! See that! The little one swimmin’ ‘tween yer legs. Ain’t that dumb? They think they’re so fast they can get away easy, but we got a surprise fer ‘em.
“C'mon! Let’s go get our sniggle sticks ready.
“The first thing we do is cut us a nice, straight Willa’ pole, six to eight feet long and ‘bout an inch thick. Gotta be that long or you’ll lose it in the crick. Strip the branches off with yer knife, like I’m doin’ with mine. Then, with yer knife, split one end of the pole up the middle – ‘bout a foot – maybe a little more.”
Jeb’s just sitting there, staring at me, nodding and grinning.
“Next we need a small piece of wood. Jam it up the slit to force the ends open about six to eight inches. Use some of yer twine to tie that piece in place. We want to be sure the pole ain’t goin’ to split anymore but still stays open on the end.”
Jeb says, “Hey, Kid. I’m getting this. We sharpen the two ends, making a two pronged spear. Then we spear us some catfish. But I don’t understand why we have two spear ends.”
“There ya go, jumpin’ to conclusions. We ain’t fishin’ and we ain’t spearin’. We’re snigglin’. No. We don’t sharpen the ends. But we do shave about an inch off the bottom on the inside of each prong. Slant the cut like I done here.”
Jeb is very skilled with his hands and we both soon have the sniggling poles nearly ready.
“For the last step, we each need two pieces of Willa’ about three inches long. Carve a real sharp point on one end of each and flatten the other end, slant-ways, like you done with the prongs. One piece goes on the end of one prong, pointin’ back, like a barb on a fish hook. Tie it on, real tight. Then do the second one. Here. I'll show ya my special tricky little sniggler’s tie that'll make sure the barb don’t slide off when the action starts."
Jeb’s smart. He scratches his head for a second, then says, “I see what we have. Our long sniggling pole is split at the end making a two pronged spear. But we don’t spear. With the two barbs on the end we’re going to sneak up on one of those sleeping catfish, then jamb the sniggler over the fish, pushing him down and holding him. Then we yank him up, snag the barbs into him, and we have him.”
I reply, “Tricky, ain’t it? If yer careful, even when he tries to swim away, his gills’ll be caught by the barbs.”
Jeb laughs, “This’ll be like bobbing for apples.”
I chuckle, “We’ll see.”
Just then, we see somebody coming up the bank carrying a fishing pole. He looks over at us, does a double take, and starts to laugh. Is he laughing at us?
He says, “There ya are, shoes off, no socks, jeans rolled up to the knees, sportin’ a couple o’ snigglin’ sticks. Reckon yer fetchin’ to catch yerselves a ‘mess o’ catfish’. You two might be Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.” We all laugh. That’s exactly how I’m feeling.
Over at the creek, we gingerly make our way out to the big rock again. Jeb has his eye on the quiet water, well shaded, where we originally saw that sleeper a short while ago. He goes over and looks. No fish! It seems that, while we’re ready for sniggling, the catfish aren’t ready to be sniggled. I tell him there’s another lesson or two to know about before he gets the hang of it, but he’s just too keen. The ‘school of hard knocks’ is going to be Jeb's best teacher.
He stands there in the dark patch of the creek, legs spread out, waving his hand at me, hushing me to silence. I just sit on the rock and watch. Jeb isn’t moving, but he’s so excited he’s twitching, just a little. About two feet over to his left he spies a sleeper. In the blink of an eye, before I can say anything, Jeb aims, and fires off his sniggle stick at the supposed victim.
Three things happen. The fish swims lazily away, confident in his certain safety to live another day. Jeb lets go of his sniggle stick and it slowly begins to float downstream. Fortunately I’m ready, go over and pick it up. And finally, he slips on the stones in the creek bed and goes crashing down into the water. That blows it for fishing this spot for a while so I help him up and over to the bank to dry off a little in the sun. Jeb’s a bit stunned but I can hardly stop my laughing. I don’t really try. The sight of Cousin Jeb, dripping with water from head to foot is just too much. Anger? Frustration? He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. After a minute, he joins me and we laugh ourselves silly for about ten minutes.
When we calm down, I say to him, “Are you ready to try again? This time you need to listen to Master Caleb. Think of what you told me when we went huntin’ fer gophers. Relax! And listen!”
With a bit of a pout, he replies, “Okay, Kid. I’m listening.”
“Ya ever heard ‘bout parallax? Remember it from science class? Works like this. When yer standin’ in the stream, look down and see the fish. It looks like it’s about two feet in front of you, but it ain’t. It’s only about eighteen inches out. If ya hold your sniggle stick two feet out, right above where ya see the catfish, and stab down there, you’ll end up in front of him. You’ll miss him, and he’ll get away.
“Try this test. Slowly push your stick into the water and watch what happens as it goes deeper. The deeper it goes the farther out it appears. That’s parallax.
“Lesson two: stay calm! Don’t let go of your sniggle stick. If you don’t get the fish you’re lookin’ at, just wait. There’ll be another along, soon. Practise yoga, or somethin’. Sit on that rock again and watch me.”
I stand where the stream is particularly slow moving, face upstream and just wait. A couple of good sized fish come by close to me but they’re moving too fast, swimming downstream. Eventually, Jeb whispers that he sees one approaching behind me, slowly wiggling its way upstream. I feel the muzzle, nudging my left ankle, but I don’t move. It doesn’t pay any attention to my foot but slowly slithers on around, outside my leg. I carefully lower my stick to where I think its back is, until the prongs just enter the water. It’s about a foot deep so I lower the stick a bit more, watch the reflection from the water, then slowly pull the stick back about four inches, for the parallax.
When I’m ready, I quickly jab the stick down to the bed of the creek, right over the back of his head. He finally gets aroused and tries to squirm away. Too late! He gets his gills caught in the barbs, so I yank up. I have him. Up he comes, a big one. I throw fish and sniggle stick over to the nearest bank, for it to flap around on the grass.
“Got ‘im!” I crow. “That’s how ya sniggle catfish!”
Well, Jeb keeps trying that afternoon, but as hard as he tries, he doesn’t manage to sniggle even one fish. Now, Jeb’s my friend, but I’m a bit pleased that I catch my fish and he doesn’t. Jeb’s good at everything he does, and I'm happy to do something he can’t.
So I say, “Mebbe it’s ‘cause yer a city-boy. Mebbe ya just don’t have the patience inside ya to stand totally still, not movin’ a muscle, like us country boys can. Ya got a lot of nervous energy and I bet the catfish can sense it.” I can see his look of disappointment, but I know he’ll be back before too long to try again.
Home we go that day with just the one catfish. It’s almost three pounds and big enough, so that night we enjoy Jeb’s prawn and catfish gumbo. It tastes good. Pappy says so, too.
The next day, Sunday, I sleep in. I hear some sounds in the kitchen, sounds of Jeb and Pappy fixing breakfast, so I roll over and go back for another little snooze. I finally get up and make my way to the kitchen. There, on the table, two sleepy grey eyes are staring up at me from the head of a catfish. And there’s Jeb, grinning from ear to ear, sniggling stick in his hands.
Jeb’s folks were killed when Katrina struck last August, so he’s now living with Pappy and me, here on Jackson Farm.
Being a city boy and a year-and-a-bit older than me, he thinks he knows everything. He’s always showing me things he used to do back on the Bayou. But we still laugh a lot and get along well together. We’ve become good friends. He needles me about my South Georgia twang, but I get him back. I call him ‘toffee-nose’ ‘cause he speaks "all proper" – never says, “Y’all!” His Ma and Pa sent him to boarding school, hoping for him to become a doctor or a lawyer. We’ll see. I think he has other ideas – keeps talking about joining a zydeco band.
Here, on Jackson Farm, we do chickens – and eggs, o’course. Jeb and I get to feed and water the chickens, and clean out the coop - every day. I have to say he’s having a little trouble getting used to cleaning up all the chicken poop while I do the feeding and watering. But, as I told him, “You gotta start with the ‘entry-level’ job.”
For Jeb, life here on the farm is a lot different than on the Bayou. Our world moves a lot slower than it does in the city, and he sometimes gets a little bored. He’s always looking around; poking into things. “I just want something to do!” he wails.
Since his arrival, he and I have been spending many hours wandering around the nearby countryside, exploring. Just doing ‘boy’ things. One of our favourite adventures has been to sneak in to the nearby and mysterious, Okefenokee. That swamp is ‘off limits’ of course, Pappy’s rules. We occasionally sneak in anyway, but that’s another story.
So, here we are, with the first sunny, warm and perfect Saturday morning of the spring. Chores done before breakfast so the day’s ours to do some more exploring, or go swimming, or whatever. That sun, shining directly on me, gives me a brilliant idea.
“Hey, Jeb! How’d you like some catfish fer dinner t’night?”
“Sounds okay,” replies Jeb, half-heartedly. He pauses to yawn, then continues. “I know how to make a prawn and catfish gumbo – Ma showed me.”
Another pause as he slowly comes alive. “We have some frozen prawns in the freezer, Texas Long Grain in the cupboard and lots of tomatoes. All we need is catfish. You want to take a walk up to the co-op? They usually have some.”
I just sit there, watching and listening, as Jeb’s excitement grows. He starts off with a kind of ‘who cares’ attitude, then slowly grabs hold of the idea, gets all excited, and starts to run with it – city-boy enthusiasm, maybe.
“Hold on, Jeb. Slow down a little. That ain’t quite what I got in mind. Thought we might catch our own catfish.”
Jeb’s eyes get even wider and start to sparkle. “What? You want to go fishing?”
“Well, not exac’ly. Around here, us kids don’t fish fer catfish, we sniggle. I want to take you snigglin’. You showed me how to go huntin’ gophers with just them huntin’ stones, so now it’s my turn to show you how we go catfish snigglin’ in Georgia.”
Jeb replied; his eyes now wide open. “Sniggling? That’s a new one on me. We don’t do that on the Bayou, whatever sniggling is.”
“Do you remember last fall when we was swimmin’, up at Boy’s Pond? We saw a small stream that runs into Boy’s Pond from the north. It’s called ‘Willa’ Crick’ ‘cause the banks are lined with Willa’ trees. All them trees, with their droopin’ branches, keep the stream quite shaded and cool. Catfish like the shade and the water’s shallow, so it’s perfect fer snigglin’.
“All we need is our jack-knives and about six foot of kitchen twine. Is your knife good ‘n sharp?”
“Yep! I’m ready! Let’s go!” says Jeb, so anxious he’s already half-way out the door. He’s going to be hard to hold back and keep calm today. On our walk up to Willow Creek, he’s chattering the whole way.
Willow Creek is a great place, very beautiful, serene and quiet – cool and grassy under the Willows. It’s a favourite place for towns-folk to come for a picnic. The bed of the creek is rocky; the water very clear and only about a foot deep. And you can see lots of catfish.
I say to Jeb, “Okay! So don’t look fer any of the super-giant catfish you might have heard about or seen on TV. Ain’t nothin’ here weighin’ in at five hundred pounds. But some of ‘em are a good size fer dinner – two or three pounds.
“Before we get our sniggle sticks ready, it’s time to learn a little about catfish. Let’s wade over to that big rock in the middle. Shoes off. We do this in our bare feet.”
Sitting on that big rock, we watch the catfish swim by, some tiny ones, some quite big. Then I point out one particular fish to Cousin Jeb. “Hey, Jeb! Check out that one. Looks like he’s sleepin’ but you can see his fins twitchin’ a little and his tail occasionally wigglin’. That’s nat’ral fer catfish. He’s facin’ upstream against the current so he ain’t movin’. He’s just restin’. And he’s in a shady spot, so it’s hard to see him.
“Here’s another thing. Stand on the crick bed with yer legs a little apart, facin’ upstream so the sun’s on yer back, then just wait. Don't move. See the fish swimmin’ all around ya, some goin’ upstream, some goin’ down. Forget the ones swimmin’ downstream. They’re too hard to catch. But watch! See that! The little one swimmin’ ‘tween yer legs. Ain’t that dumb? They think they’re so fast they can get away easy, but we got a surprise fer ‘em.
“C'mon! Let’s go get our sniggle sticks ready.
“The first thing we do is cut us a nice, straight Willa’ pole, six to eight feet long and ‘bout an inch thick. Gotta be that long or you’ll lose it in the crick. Strip the branches off with yer knife, like I’m doin’ with mine. Then, with yer knife, split one end of the pole up the middle – ‘bout a foot – maybe a little more.”
Jeb’s just sitting there, staring at me, nodding and grinning.
“Next we need a small piece of wood. Jam it up the slit to force the ends open about six to eight inches. Use some of yer twine to tie that piece in place. We want to be sure the pole ain’t goin’ to split anymore but still stays open on the end.”
Jeb says, “Hey, Kid. I’m getting this. We sharpen the two ends, making a two pronged spear. Then we spear us some catfish. But I don’t understand why we have two spear ends.”
“There ya go, jumpin’ to conclusions. We ain’t fishin’ and we ain’t spearin’. We’re snigglin’. No. We don’t sharpen the ends. But we do shave about an inch off the bottom on the inside of each prong. Slant the cut like I done here.”
Jeb is very skilled with his hands and we both soon have the sniggling poles nearly ready.
“For the last step, we each need two pieces of Willa’ about three inches long. Carve a real sharp point on one end of each and flatten the other end, slant-ways, like you done with the prongs. One piece goes on the end of one prong, pointin’ back, like a barb on a fish hook. Tie it on, real tight. Then do the second one. Here. I'll show ya my special tricky little sniggler’s tie that'll make sure the barb don’t slide off when the action starts."
Jeb’s smart. He scratches his head for a second, then says, “I see what we have. Our long sniggling pole is split at the end making a two pronged spear. But we don’t spear. With the two barbs on the end we’re going to sneak up on one of those sleeping catfish, then jamb the sniggler over the fish, pushing him down and holding him. Then we yank him up, snag the barbs into him, and we have him.”
I reply, “Tricky, ain’t it? If yer careful, even when he tries to swim away, his gills’ll be caught by the barbs.”
Jeb laughs, “This’ll be like bobbing for apples.”
I chuckle, “We’ll see.”
Just then, we see somebody coming up the bank carrying a fishing pole. He looks over at us, does a double take, and starts to laugh. Is he laughing at us?
He says, “There ya are, shoes off, no socks, jeans rolled up to the knees, sportin’ a couple o’ snigglin’ sticks. Reckon yer fetchin’ to catch yerselves a ‘mess o’ catfish’. You two might be Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.” We all laugh. That’s exactly how I’m feeling.
Over at the creek, we gingerly make our way out to the big rock again. Jeb has his eye on the quiet water, well shaded, where we originally saw that sleeper a short while ago. He goes over and looks. No fish! It seems that, while we’re ready for sniggling, the catfish aren’t ready to be sniggled. I tell him there’s another lesson or two to know about before he gets the hang of it, but he’s just too keen. The ‘school of hard knocks’ is going to be Jeb's best teacher.
He stands there in the dark patch of the creek, legs spread out, waving his hand at me, hushing me to silence. I just sit on the rock and watch. Jeb isn’t moving, but he’s so excited he’s twitching, just a little. About two feet over to his left he spies a sleeper. In the blink of an eye, before I can say anything, Jeb aims, and fires off his sniggle stick at the supposed victim.
Three things happen. The fish swims lazily away, confident in his certain safety to live another day. Jeb lets go of his sniggle stick and it slowly begins to float downstream. Fortunately I’m ready, go over and pick it up. And finally, he slips on the stones in the creek bed and goes crashing down into the water. That blows it for fishing this spot for a while so I help him up and over to the bank to dry off a little in the sun. Jeb’s a bit stunned but I can hardly stop my laughing. I don’t really try. The sight of Cousin Jeb, dripping with water from head to foot is just too much. Anger? Frustration? He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. After a minute, he joins me and we laugh ourselves silly for about ten minutes.
When we calm down, I say to him, “Are you ready to try again? This time you need to listen to Master Caleb. Think of what you told me when we went huntin’ fer gophers. Relax! And listen!”
With a bit of a pout, he replies, “Okay, Kid. I’m listening.”
“Ya ever heard ‘bout parallax? Remember it from science class? Works like this. When yer standin’ in the stream, look down and see the fish. It looks like it’s about two feet in front of you, but it ain’t. It’s only about eighteen inches out. If ya hold your sniggle stick two feet out, right above where ya see the catfish, and stab down there, you’ll end up in front of him. You’ll miss him, and he’ll get away.
“Try this test. Slowly push your stick into the water and watch what happens as it goes deeper. The deeper it goes the farther out it appears. That’s parallax.
“Lesson two: stay calm! Don’t let go of your sniggle stick. If you don’t get the fish you’re lookin’ at, just wait. There’ll be another along, soon. Practise yoga, or somethin’. Sit on that rock again and watch me.”
I stand where the stream is particularly slow moving, face upstream and just wait. A couple of good sized fish come by close to me but they’re moving too fast, swimming downstream. Eventually, Jeb whispers that he sees one approaching behind me, slowly wiggling its way upstream. I feel the muzzle, nudging my left ankle, but I don’t move. It doesn’t pay any attention to my foot but slowly slithers on around, outside my leg. I carefully lower my stick to where I think its back is, until the prongs just enter the water. It’s about a foot deep so I lower the stick a bit more, watch the reflection from the water, then slowly pull the stick back about four inches, for the parallax.
When I’m ready, I quickly jab the stick down to the bed of the creek, right over the back of his head. He finally gets aroused and tries to squirm away. Too late! He gets his gills caught in the barbs, so I yank up. I have him. Up he comes, a big one. I throw fish and sniggle stick over to the nearest bank, for it to flap around on the grass.
“Got ‘im!” I crow. “That’s how ya sniggle catfish!”
Well, Jeb keeps trying that afternoon, but as hard as he tries, he doesn’t manage to sniggle even one fish. Now, Jeb’s my friend, but I’m a bit pleased that I catch my fish and he doesn’t. Jeb’s good at everything he does, and I'm happy to do something he can’t.
So I say, “Mebbe it’s ‘cause yer a city-boy. Mebbe ya just don’t have the patience inside ya to stand totally still, not movin’ a muscle, like us country boys can. Ya got a lot of nervous energy and I bet the catfish can sense it.” I can see his look of disappointment, but I know he’ll be back before too long to try again.
Home we go that day with just the one catfish. It’s almost three pounds and big enough, so that night we enjoy Jeb’s prawn and catfish gumbo. It tastes good. Pappy says so, too.
The next day, Sunday, I sleep in. I hear some sounds in the kitchen, sounds of Jeb and Pappy fixing breakfast, so I roll over and go back for another little snooze. I finally get up and make my way to the kitchen. There, on the table, two sleepy grey eyes are staring up at me from the head of a catfish. And there’s Jeb, grinning from ear to ear, sniggling stick in his hands.
