Teeth(32)

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 f*ck 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 f*ck 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.