Teeth(36)

Somehow, that one additional fish is enough to tide Dylan over.





fifteen


DYLAN KEEPS HOLDING ON, AND TEETH KEEPS DELIVERING, AND by the next week the fish market is stocked again. This fishboy, I swear.

Everything is all right. My parents are still tentative with Dyl, but they stop watching me like I’m going to jump off the cliffs at any minute. Dylan crashes around in the house again. I feel like I can start going out again.

But things are weird with Diana now, since the fish famine. We don’t even talk much anymore. I think that other half of the fish is lying between us. The elephant in the room.

Sometimes we just sit in the library and read together. It’s Tuesday afternoon and I’m bored even with all the books. This hasn’t ever happened before. I want to be outside.

Diana turns the pages at three times the rate I do, and lets me sit in the armchair by the window. It faces the water but not the dock. No Teeth from here today.

“The fishermen are hurting him,” I tell Diana. “Worse than they used to.”

“Interesting.”

I want to tell her that she looks like him, but I don’t know how to without it sounding like an insult. Who wants to be compared to a fish? I mean, besides Teeth.

As soon as I feel like I’ve stayed here long enough, I’ll head to the dock.

But first I need a break.

“Going to the bathroom,” I tell her.

Diana nods and doesn’t look up. “Be quiet, remember. Use the one close to my room. My mother has the other one tied up.”

I walk down the hallway, the carpet heavy and plush beneath my feet. I’ve never felt more out of place in my life. I guess this is how Teeth feels.

I can hear Ms. Delaney’s cries get louder and louder as I head down the hall. Every Tuesday. Why is she crying? Teeth and Diana both make her sound kind of heartless. She threw her son in the ocean. I’m beginning to hate humans.

There are two doors across the hall from Diana’s room. I know one is the bathroom.

Clearly, this was the wrong one.

I’m in a room twice the size of Diana’s with bright blue walls and a pale yellow ceiling, a red comforter crumpled over an unmade bed shaped like a race car. The fan is running on the ceiling, like whoever left this room is about to come right back. All the lights are on, even the tiny one on the nightstand painted with stars and moons and the words GOOD NIGHT.

The carpet is even thicker here, where it hasn’t been stepped on and worn down. The world’s smallest wheelchair is folded up by the foot of the bed, and there’s a little bloodred chair in front of the bookshelf.

The whole time it was right here.

The bookshelf. I go to it and there, right on the top shelf, are Mrs. Delaney’s diaries. But I don’t look. I don’t need them anymore.

Instead, I reach for the copy of Runaway Bunny. The spine is crumpled like an old piece of paper. Diana’s looked barely read.

I open the inside cover, hoping, hoping, and there it is. Blocky left-handed blue crayon letters spell out DANIEL.

Or I could have just looked up, because on the wall, there’s a framed embroidery, the same kind my mom made for me when I was born. It has a little train stitched across the bottom and the words DANIEL PETER DELANEY, TUESDAY, JANUARY 2ND underneath.

Oh my God.

“What are you doing in here?”

Oh, f*ck. But I turn around, and it’s just Diana. Thank God.

Except she doesn’t look ready to laugh this off. “What are you doing?” she says again.

“I came in here by accident—”

“Yeah, bullshit you did. Get out.”

I take a step back. I don’t want to go. “I’m sorry—”

“No. Get out. Get out of my house.”

I can’t shake the feeling that there’s nothing left for me in this house, anyway.

And like she’s reading my mind, Diana says as I’m going, in a voice as small as Teeth’s when he’s sad, “I thought you were here for me.”



I’m still panting when I flop down on the dock. Fishboy comes right out from under it, grinning. “Hey!”

“Hey.”

“Let’s go swimming. I found this cave. Brand-new.”

“I’m sure it’s been here for a while. Dude, I am in so much shit with your sister.”

“New for me, which means new. Come on. Let’s go swimming!”

I laugh. I kind of want to, but I’m already freezing just in my jacket. I think being with Teeth keeps me warmer than I logically should be—half-magic, after all—but I don’t know if even that’s enough to take the bite out of today.

“This cave better be really good. Very, very good.”

“It’s awesome. It’s little, though. And dark.”

“It is a cave.” And it’s already dark out here. I should be getting home. But I don’t want to, at all. I need to unwind after all the drama with Diana, and I kind of can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than here.

“Come oooon,” he says.

“Do you know how cold it is?”

“Obviously. I’m in the water, aren’t I? I’m always cold.” He flops on his back and paddles around with his tail.

“Don’t give me that shit. Your scales keep you warm.”