Shelia Mant Short Story

I am reading the short story “Shelia Mant” by W.D Wetherell. In the short story a boy falls in love with his neighbor who was an older girl named Shelia. The boy spent his days either perfecting his fishing skills, or trying to impress her. He would swim laps from her house, and then back to his. The boy would watch her lay out in the sun. He knew her every mood just by the way she would lie. One day he finally got the nerve to ask her out to go to a concert, she said yes. The day of the date the boy got the canoe ready; he polished it, positioned the pillows, and out of habit grabbed his fishing pole. To calm his nerves, he put the line in the water just in that moment he heard Sheila. While on their way to the concert he heard a fish jump …show more content…
Suddenly he saw the bend in the rod, it was fish a big one. He wanted to catch the fish, although Shelia stated she didn’t understand why people liked fishing, for her it was not fun. He tried to hide the sound of the fish, so she wouldn’t hear it. The boy wanted the fish, but he didn’t want her to judge him for liking fishing. While making their way down the river Shelia began talking about a party that she had been to recently, but he wasn’t listening. The boy was more focused on keeping the fish on the line. He made sure to stay away from rocks, and weeds. When they got close to where the band was performing he decided to cut the string. The biggest fish he had ever laid his eyes on swam away. At the concert he did not remember much, although he did remember dancing with Shelia a couple of times. At the end of the night Shelia told him that she was going home with another boy in his upscale car. The boy slowly lost his interest in Shelia, but the memory of the bass lingered the whole summer. In this journal, I will be predicting whether the boy will choose Shelia or the …show more content…
There are many reasons why the boy might choose the bass, and there are also many reasons why he might choose Shelia. First reason he might choose the bass is he did not listen to her stories while the fish was on his line. If you really like someone you would listen to his or her stories; and socially interact with them. The boy was more focused on tightening the drag as well as keeping the fish on. “…it was a few minutes before I was able to catch up with her train of thought” (Wetherell 3). Additionally to not listening to her the boy knows so much about fishing. When he heard a splash of a something in the water; he not only knew it was a fish, but also what kind of fish as