Freshwater Fish

He looked up freshwater fish that evening. He told himself it was just something to do. He was bored. The television was bad on Tuesdays. These were all reasonable explanations and none of them were the real one.

Not because he needed to, or because he was particularly interested. He told himself it was just something to do. He sat on his bed with his phone and read about perch and roach and tench and bream until his mum knocked on the door and asked if he had done his homework.

He had not done his homework.

He did his homework. It took longer than usual because he kept thinking about other things and reading the same sentence four times. He finished it eventually and then read a bit more about freshwater fish.

He read about the difference between still water fishing and river fishing and why water temperature mattered and how to read a river by looking at the surface, which pools and eddies indicated fish below. He did not need to know any of this. He read it anyway.

The next day at lunch he went back to the library. He brought a book he had actually selected on purpose, a novel he had been meaning to read, and he sat down two seats from Suki who was already there with her crackers and a different book from yesterday's.

"Roach," he said, sitting down.

She looked up. "What?"

"Freshwater fish," he said. "Roach. Also perch, tench, bream, pike, and if you count it, brown trout, though I read that there is some debate about whether brown trout should be classified separately from sea trout or as the same species."

Suki stared at him. "You actually looked them up."

"I told you I was interested," he said, opening his book.

She was quiet for a moment. He did not look up.

"Brown trout and sea trout are the same species," she said. "Salmo trutta. They are just different forms depending on whether they migrate to the sea."

He did look up then. "How do you know that?"

"My dad fishes," she said. "We used to go every summer before we moved." She said it lightly but something underneath it was not entirely light.

"Before you moved from Bristol?"

"Yes." She looked at her book. "It is different here. The rivers are different."

"There is a canal," Jamie said. "About twenty minutes from school. My uncle fishes there sometimes."

Suki looked at him. "Is it good?"

"I genuinely have no idea," Jamie said. "I have never been fishing. But I could find out."

Something shifted in her face. Not the small quick smile from yesterday but something warmer and slower, like a room where someone has turned on the light after a long time of it being dark.

"You researched freshwater fish and now you are offering to find out about a canal," she said.

"I am being friendly," Jamie said.

"You are being very friendly," she said.

Jamie looked at his book. His ears felt warm. "There is nothing wrong with being friendly," he said.

"No," she said. "There is not." And she went back to her own book, but the light in her face did not entirely go away.