Teeth (13 page)

“Oh. Sure.”

“Your friends. I want to hear about your friends.”

I paddle myself in circles. “They’re not even really my friends anymore. They were . . . before we moved here. Forever ago.”

“Like a hundred days ago.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m good with days. Sunrises.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen him sleep. “A minute ago you couldn’t count to three.”

“Could too. Was making you feel smart. I’m a great friend.”

“It feels like we’ve been here forever.” I hold my breath and sink under the water for a minute. “And I haven’t heard from them since I left.”

“You miss them?”

“I guess. They were fun, you know?” The sun is setting now. I should be colder than I am. I close my eyes. “It’s not like I really needed them or anything. They just made stuff more fun.”

“I gotta be honest, you sound like a shitty friend right now.”

“Hey.” I start to sit up again, but it unbalances me and I start to sink, this time involuntarily. The water is a lot deeper than I thought. I start kicking hard to roll myself over, and then I feel Fishboy’s arms scoop me up and toss me onto the sandbank.

“Don’t do that,” he says.

I breathe hard. “Thanks.”

“Why didn’t they move with you?”

I catch my breath. “What?”

“Your friends.”

“It . . . doesn’t work like that. They couldn’t leave home just because I did.”

“Why not? If you moved without me, I’d be pissed.”

I look at him and wonder how the fuck exactly he thinks
he could follow me anywhere farther than the dock. My stomach hurts a little. I don’t know how to tell him that friends at home weren’t anything like this, because then I’m scared he’ll ask what this is. And . . . God.

I shake my head a little and say, “They have stuff at home that’s more important than I am. They have families and school and, like, reasons to stay.”

“They have fish.”

“Yeah, there’s fish . . . ”

“No, I mean . . . stuff to take care of.”

“Well, yeah. Metaphorical fish.”

He doesn’t even pause to try to understand that word. “Fish who need them. And your fish came here, so you came here too.”

“Yeah.”

He kicks his fin. “I wish we could get away from our fish.”

I feel like I just breathed in some water, but I don’t think I did. I think it’s just how my throat feels right now. “You do?”

“Yeah. Everything would be a lot easier if you could just dump fish the way humans dump their families.”

“No, wait. I’m talking about . . . you realize me and my friends don’t
actually
have fish, right? I should probably have told you what metaphorical means. My family is my fish.”

“I hate being responsible. I mean, I like the idea of being
responsible. Like that fox, the one in that story? And he’s in love with that other fox, and the bear sings a song . . . ”

“What?”

“You know what I mean. Um . . . there’s a tiger. He’s bad. He’s a king.”

“Oh, shit.” My brother loves this movie. “Robin Hood?”

“Robin Hood. Yes.”

My throat hurts again, God fucking damn it.

He says, “I like the idea of being fish Robin Hood.”

“You just made a metaphor. God, you’re something.”

“But I wish I could just . . . go. You know. Leave.”

“So why don’t you?”

His voice is quiet. “They need me. The fish and . . . ” He gestures toward the marina. “And yeah. I don’t even know what to be if they don’t need me. I wish I could have different fish. Exchange them for new, exciting fish. With different fishermen.”

After a while he breathes out. “Okay, so once upon a time, there was this boy who didn’t have any legs. Like, no legs, okay? And he had some weird skin, and his Mom hid him away and kept him and whatevered him and she carried him everywhere and read him a lot of stories and cried and prayed. And his mom fed him fish again and again, but he never got better no matter what she did and she didn’t know why. And the boy never even went outside, not once. This half a boy with no legs, you know?”

I nod.

“No one even knew that he existed because his mom barely left either. People came by with food and stuff, but the boy had to hide in his room whenever anyone came. His mom would put him in his room and close the door. His room had lots of books and toys and he could kind of drag himself around with his arms . . . and then Mom would come and she’d say,
I love you, I’ll do whatever you need, I’ll keep you safe
.”

I sit on the sandbar and watch him. He isn’t looking at me.

He says, “But besides the skin and the no feet and staying inside, he was a pretty normal kid, and he breathed air like Mom, and he loved her and she loved him. Or you know, the love thing, whatever it is. They said
I love you
all the time. And he didn’t care about being half, because he was happy.”

I feel the same way I did in Diana’s room. Exactly the same. When I knew she was going to tell me something horrible.

Teeth looks at me and says, “And she taught him lots of
words
.”

I swallow. “Okay.”

“So I know words.”

“Yeah.”

He curls his tail underneath himself. “And every night she’d tuck me in and she’d say,
grow feet grow legs grow legs
,
because she wanted me to be big and tall and real and walking.”

I want to say,
You’re real
, but it would sound so stupid. He knows that. He’s known that a lot longer than I’ve known that.

God, they call him a ghost.

“And then one day, surprise, boy is four years old, Mom’s about to have a new baby, talking to the boy all the time about his new sister and how he’s going to be so happy, and she’s going to be big and strong with legs. She’s going to be a real kid instead of half a kid. And Mom has the baby and she loves her, she loves the baby. The whole baby.”

“Oh . . . ”

“And that’s when the half boy starts growing fins. Well. One fin.” He looks at himself. “A tail and a fin. A really big fin. The tail’s kind of titchy. I like my fin.”

“Yeah.”

“And then he gets webs between his fingers and scales all over his chest, and his teeth grow long and skinny and more and more of them, and he gets cold and slimy and . . . ”

“Yeah. It’s okay.”
You can stop. Please stop.

“And this woman, she could handle half a baby, she could hug that and put it to bed and cry about it, but she can’t handle half a baby and half a fish, because she hated fish, and she just wanted to eat fish all the time and kill all the fish, and after the boy . . . after the fishboy got his tail she
didn’t even look at him ever again and she says she doesn’t know what to do and she throws him into the ocean and loves her new baby and eats more fish than any person ever should.” He digs into the sandbar.

I don’t know what to say.

She threw him in.

“And Fiona fed me until I grew up.” He shrugs. “I didn’t want her to feed me. I don’t want humans to feed me.”

She threw him away.

“You could go back, you know? Or you could come stay at my house or something.” I actually don’t know how that last one would work. I can’t picture my parents believing in Teeth any more than I could picture them dealing with a sick kid before we had to.

But they would never throw Dylan away. And it’s not like he’s the son they wanted.

And knowing this is the only thing keeping me from screaming
I hate humans
.

“Your parents would be scared of me,” he says.

“They’d deal.”

“They’d think I’m ugly.”

“Teeth.”

“I’d steal all their fish and throw them back in the ocean.”

“They’re already dead when we get them,” I say, but it’s enough for me to understand that having Teeth in the house would probably drive us all insane. It’s not like I was
seriously considering it, anyway. I knew he wouldn’t do it.

The look on his face, though, says that maybe he would. But he shakes his head quickly. “It doesn’t even make sense. How would I get up there?” He clears his throat. “Did you miss the part where I don’t have legs? It is kind of important. God, you never listen to me.” He flops backward into the water. He’s breathing kind of hard. I’m watching his ribs.

“You could crawl,” I say.

“The sun hurts my scales.” He’s yelling because his ears are full of water. I yank him so he’s sitting up again. He frowns at me.

“Yeah, you’ll see how you’re frowning when someone starts to wonder what the fuck a boy is doing yelling about his scales.”

“I’m a ghost, remember? Wooooo. I could yell about anything.
I eat your babies!
”

“I could help you get on land. Carry you or something.”

“Big strong Rudy,” he quips. “Look. I don’t want to go on land. I hate humans.”

“What about me?”

He kicks his fin.

“You know, that thing about how all fish aren’t like the one that hurt your mom? We’re not all like the fishermen either. Or like your mom.”

“That lady.”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “If I were you, I’d just get the fuck out of here. Since you don’t want to be around any of us. I don’t know why you stay. Just to stare at the Delaneys?” I wonder what his name was when he was a boy.

“I can’t stare at them. They never come outside.”

“Your sister does sometimes.”

“Whatever.”

“There’s nothing for you here.”

“The fish.”

I want to argue with this. I so, so do. I want nothing more in the whole world than to know how to argue why it’s okay for Teeth to leave his family.

But I don’t know how.

After a minute he says, “It’s not just that. I can’t just swim away.”

“Why not?”

“I’m afraid I’ll drown.” He looks up and gives the world’s smallest smile. He takes a deep breath with those lungs. “I’m afraid I’ll drown.”

I can’t sleep. He’s screaming like nothing I’ve ever heard. I wish the ocean were louder. I shouldn’t have let him free the fish. Did I think the fishermen wouldn’t find out, wouldn’t know he was behind it? I shouldn’t have helped. He wouldn’t have done it alone.

I should have stayed with him tonight.

My room shakes in the wind, but even though my dresser and my mirror are rattling, I still hear the screaming. I wish the house would finally crumble into the sea, just to make noise, just because it’s going to happen someday anyway, just to be something else to think about. I wish we would all just fall apart so I wouldn’t have to listen to the downfall happen, so slowly, so painfully. Clawing at us.

THAT TUESDAY, MARKETPLACE DAY, I STAYED UP HALF THE NIGHT
listening to him scream and I’m nodding off into my oatmeal when my mom comes home from the market with one solitary fish.

I guess I’m just stupid, but the ramifications of what Teeth and I did doesn’t hit me until just then, when she’s standing at the door, staring at this puny fish, her face smushed into a ball.

Oh my God.

Fuck.

“What happened?” Dad asks. He’s standing up, the dish towel draped over his shoulder, and coming to the door to
hold her together. “Did you get there too late? We’ll just have to ask someone for a few extra.”

No. There aren’t extra.

Fuck. I feel like I just ate something alive with my breakfast. I think Mom’s going to cry, which is one of the signs of the end of my world.

She isn’t steel. “They had such a small batch today. Everyone got one.”

And then she’s crying.

Shit.

I stand up. “I’m going to run to the marketplace,” I tell her. “I’ll barter fish off someone.”

“Rudy, I don’t know if . . . ” She doesn’t know how to finish this sentence.

“Maybe the fishermen will come in with a new load.”

She nods and shoves a bunch of money into my hand, then grabs me into a tight hug. Every second she holds on makes me feel sore and sick.

“I’ve got to go,” I say, and I pull out of the hug and sprint toward the marketplace. I think I hear Teeth calling me, but I won’t look over. No fucking way. I can’t.

I didn’t think.

I didn’t even think about Dylan.

Oh my God. I have to stop running because my stomach hurts too much. I bend over and wrap my arms around my waist while I catch my breath. I shouldn’t have stopped,
because now everything is hitting me a hundred times harder.

I sacrificed my brother to be wild for an afternoon.

I killed him so I wouldn’t be lonely.

No. This isn’t over yet. This is exactly like when I was clinging to the dock in the marina, and I thought my life was over. There is always an escape route. There’s always a way. And there’s always someone who’s going to appear and save the day.

Maybe today it’s me.

But when I get to the marketplace, all I see are twenty people wearing the same expressions as mine. All the wares are packed up, and they’re just standing with fistfuls of money, craning their necks toward the marina, waiting for fish.

Sam is shaking when he turns to me and says, “If my wife doesn’t get fish this week . . . ”

“My brother.”

“Me,” Mrs. Lewis says.

I look at all of them, look at their fists. Then I count the money in my hand. They have so much more than I do. Even if the fishermen do bring a load in this late, I am not going to be able to compete with these people.