Teeth(29)

He says, “I can’t gnaw through that rope. If I could, the fish could too, and the fishermen aren’t that stupid. The rope is too strong. My teeth just bend against it.”

“Ow.”

“Yeah.”

“So how are we doing this?”

“Well, see, I can, however, slit through the individual whatevers of each rope if I turn my head the right way. The fishermen are that stupid.”

“The fibers?”

“Fiber’s that thing you eat, Rudy. I’m talking biting through.”

I shake my head. “You’ve done this before?”

“Once.” He licks his lips. “A year ago.”

“It worked?”


“They caught me before I could make much of a hole in the net.” His eyes get a funny glaze. Remembering. One of his hands travels to the back of his tail, right over where his tailbone is, or would be, I don’t know.

I swallow. “This is a bad idea.”

“Anyway, that time I didn’t have a lookout. Now I have a lookout.” He plants his hand on my shoulder and looks at me seriously. “This is a very, very easy job, Rudy. You hold on to the dock and you keep out of sight, but you do some kind of whatever if you see a fisherman coming.”

“Okay, some kind of what?”

“God, I have to tell you everything.” He whistles. “Like that.”

“Got it. That one was hard to figure out from context, sorry.”

“What the f*ck is context?”

I laugh. “Never mind.”

“You’re so annoying.”

“Are we doing this?”

At home it was always me coming up with the crazy plans and forcing my friends to follow. Maybe that’s why I’m into this—following along, I mean. It gives me the chance to pretend I’m someone else.

My hand is on his arm again. I really am easy.

“So we’re going to do this on my count,” he says.

“Okay.”

“Except, see, I like to concentrate when I’m counting, and right now I’m busy keeping watch. So.”

I look at him. “So we’re doing this on my count?”

“Yeah.”

“When I say three?”

“Three. All right.”

“It’s going to come after two.”

“I know numbers, Rudy.” But after a beat he says, “Two. Okay. So that’s when I’ll get ready.”

Or maybe it’s conversations like these that are the reason I’ll do crazy shit with the fishboy. Because I haven’t felt like this in a really long time. It’s hard to explain. Like I said, I’m easy.

“One. Two.”

He gets all twitchy, flexing his fingers and getting ready to push off the rocks. I’m trying not to laugh.

“Three!”

He grabs my hand and we jet forward. He’s swimming so fast that bubbles rush to the surface with each stroke of his tail. We swim into the marina, and he gets me settled on the dock, then he grabs the net and starts slicing away with those sword teeth. I turn the other way and lower myself between the bottom of the dock and the surface of the water. I feel like an alligator. This is how I find Teeth all the time, floating on his back underneath the dock where no one can see him. Now I need to pray that no one can see me, either.

No sign of the fishermen. Just when I’m about to ask Teeth how it’s going, I hear the swish-plop behind me of a fish hitting the water.

“He’s swimming!” Teeth whispers. “He’s alive!”

It’s hard to think about the implications of freeing maybe-violent fish when I hear how happy Teeth is. So I just say, “No fishermen so far.”

“Good. Careful. They’re sneaky.” I hear a few more rips of his teeth, and I can’t help but turn around when he cheers and starts laughing. As soon as I turn my head, the the fish start pouring out like a rainfall. I catch glimpses of Teeth through the downpour of scales. He’s grinning like a maniac and dancing among the fish. “Safe! Safe safe safe babies!”

“Okay,” I say. “Now we get the f*ck out of here.”

“Right. Out of here!” And then he takes off. He leaves me.

Shit.

I can’t believe this. He’s leaving me with the fishermen.

Christ. He set me up. Fuck.

He is a fish after all.

He left them a new boy and now he’s swimming away and f*ck, why the f*ck did I trust him? Am I f*cking crazy? Who the f*ck trusts a fish?

I could be with Diana right now.

Shit. This is just the kind of crap you fall into when you live on an island for too long. I wanted a friend so badly that I latched on to the first guy who smiled at me.

I am way, way too easy.

Never again. Never f*cking ever again. If I get out of here, I’m never getting screwed over again. I’ll stick with girls who stay inside, if that’s what it takes. I don’t need this shit. I need drunk girls in trash bags and friends who step on my brother’s breathing machine. I don’t need these f*cking feelings.

I can’t believe he did this.

Okay. This is going to be fine. The water’s deep, but if I can just push off the dock, if I don’t get disoriented, if the fishermen don’t catch me, shit, shit—But then he’s back.