Chapter 1, Big Catch

A Chapter by Naomi Bloom

The first chapter in "Wilde Horses Couldn't Stop Me!"

It was a slow fishing day. Lavuk had been sitting in his boat, fishing pole in the water for seven hours, eating without leaving his pole behind, pissing and shitting in a bucket and he’d only caught two small fish the whole day. His co-workers were having the same rotten luck. Soon they would have to go farther and farther away from the city to catch any fish.

Lavuk extended his line further, and waited. Impatient, he wiggled his pole around, wondering if that might help his chances. He waited. Suddenly he got a bite. His first bite in hours. Immediately the boat began to tip, and it was a large fishing vessel! Lavuk held on as tightly as he could. Lavuk had been fishing for fifteen years and this catch felt heavier than anything he’d ever caught before. This fish would more than make up for the shortage of fish lately! His fishing mates abandoned their poles and crowded around him, cheering. His line was so heavy that two men helped him reel it in, but the other men ended up having to help, too. The captain began driving the ship back to port.

“It is as heavy as a ketak!”

“Heh, it would make a ketak feel like a feather!”

They fell silent and pulled as hard as they could. They gradually pulled the catch closer until it reached the surface. By that time they had reached the docks. The enormous fish they had hoped for was actually some kind of foreign metal vehicle.

“So it was a ketak all along!” Lavuk sighed.

Another fisherman looked at the vehicle, “Not quite. Well, maybe there are some fish inside it.”

They opened up the hatch and immediately the bodies of three surface dwellers came leaking out, soaked with seawater. Two of them looked male and one looked female.

“Sorry, Lavuk. Maybe these explorers have fish inside them…”

“Shut up!” Lavuk snapped. The surface people looked so strange to him, stranger than fish compared to Atlanteans, but he had to help them, “Great crystal! Are they dead?”

“We should take them to the infirmary right away!”

“And tell Kida!”

“And Milo!”

So the fishermen carefully carried the three foreigners to the infirmary.

It was all so overwhelming, yet so amazing. Beatrice had never worked at a museum before. This was her first job outside of a restaurant or a store. The first job that would relate to her degree. But she wasn’t curator, just a ticket saleswoman. Still pretty damn good for a junior at Indiana University.

But she dreamed of being a curator or an archeologist, making discoveries that would be displayed in the museum. She loved her new job, but at the same time she was terrified of making too many mistakes and getting fired. This job was too important to her. So far she had made a few mistakes, but her boss didn’t seem to mind. He seemed like a nice man. It was a simple position. And her first day was a slow one. A Monday. A crisply chilly spring Monday. A good kind of day to start. When she wasn’t selling tickets, which was often, she organized and filed paperwork. It was almost time to go home. Her first day was almost over. Beatrice shivered, wishing she had brought a sweater to work.

“Chilly in here, isn’t it?” a voice said.

Lost in the rhythm of her work, the girl looked up to see a young man with dirty blond hair and round, circular glasses standing in front of her booth. He was fairly tall, slightly pale and very skinny. He wore a white dress shirt, a forest-green cardigan, slacks and a tacky red bow tie. His brown eyes glimmered as he smiled at her. He was beautiful.

“Sorry, what?”

“Oh, um,” he looked a little nervous, talking to her, “I was just wondering if you were cold. You were… shivering.”

“Oh, yeah,” she felt put on the spot, talking to a stranger, not to mention embarrassed that she wasn’t paying attention when he was talking to her, “I forgot my sweater, but that’s the least of my mistakes. It’s my first day, after all.”

“Oh really? You looked new,” then he suddenly panicked, “Where are my manners? I’m Milo. Milo Thatch.”

“Beatrice Wilde. Pleased to meet you.” They shook hands. Her hand was shaking.

“Likewise. I work in the boiler room, so I’ll make sure the lobby is nice and warm from now on. I’m your man!”

“Why, thank you!” she blushed.

“Well, uh,” Milo looked around nervously, “People like you are probably freezing to death. I’d better fix that boiler. See you later!”

“Goodbye!”

She wished he could have stayed longer, even if it meant her heart fluttering out of control. This man made her so nervous. For some reason he was utterly charming. Beatrice hoped she would see him often. She had to find out more about him.

next chapter

© 2012 Naomi Bloom

Author's Note

Disney really bothers me sometimes. That, and consumers. Atlantis is by far my favourite Disney movie and yet it seems to be the least popular Disney movie. Kida isn’t even included in the official Disney princesses, when she most definitely is a princess and she is also the most interesting-looking Disney heroine. To me, this movie is genius (great jokes, characters, animation, voice performances, etc). It also happens to be the only Disney movie with a nerd for a hero. I guess that’s why it failed at the box office. A nerd for a hero. People just weren’t into that. Stick to the status quo. I guess Atlantis was beyond it’s time. As you can tell, I’m bitter that they couldn’t make a better sequel and that they couldn’t make a third Atlantis movie or an animated series. One good movie and a crappy sequel just won’t satisfy me. I think that’s probably how I got into fan fiction. While we’re talking about this movie’s unpopularity, I haven’t yet read any fanfics where Milo was romantically linked with anyone other than Kida. I love Kida, and I think opposites attract, but we need some variety. So I created Beatrice Wilde… No relation to Oscar Wilde, since, being a complete queen, he was not capable of producing offspring… Enjoy (the story)!!