Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz Page A

themselves against Teeth’s slimy chest, they’re fish. Teeth isn’t interesting because he’s half fish, but because he’s half human. Or because he’s just mine or whatever.
    But . . . “But they’re magic fish,” I tell Mom. “Maybe they’re more like . . . like mammals or something than we think. You know. Sentient. Maybe they’re like dolphins.”
    “Oh, honey, don’t say that.”
    “Just because we don’t want to think it . . . ”
    It’s so stupid. I would feed my brother dolphins if it would save him. I’d feed him babies if it would save him. Just . . . Dylan, okay?
    It hits me for the first time that that might not be an okay thing to feel.
    “We have no reason to believe that’s true,” she says.
    “They’re different from minnows and anchovies and stuff.”
    Mom says, “And minnows and anchovies don’t save your brother’s life.”
    I pick out apples. “I know.” I’ve had this conversation before. Clearly I suck at arguing either side.
    She squeezes a nectarine and lets it go. “He still has a long way to go, Rudy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so excited about all the progress he’s made. But this isn’t something to mess around with.”
    “So what’s the endgame? It’s not like there are schools here.” There is no real life here.
    “We’ll go home someday,” she says, but even she doesn’t sound like she believes it anymore. How can she talk about going home in the same breath she admits the fish are tying us indefinitely here?
    “Nobody ever goes home,” I mumble.
    She stops and hugs me. “Oh, sweetheart. Your brother loves you so much.”
    I have a headache.
    She says, “Maybe someday there will be a good set of lungs for him at home, and we will look back on this as the thing that got him through the wait.”
    “I hope so.” That does sound pretty perfect.
    “Oh, look,” Mom says. She lets me go. “Fresh fish.”
    The fishermen are hauling huge wicker baskets up to the stand, and now everyone in the marketplace is rushing over, haggling for a better price. But they’ll pay anything. They’re all in the same position as Dylan: saved from dying and petrified of being sick again. Without the fish, who knows if they’d go back to how they were: arthritic, diabetic, catatonic.
    Of course no one ever leaves this island. No one’s willing to risk it. Why would we ever be? We’d be too afraid that the lung transplant would fall through the way it did last year, and we wouldn’t be able to get back here in time, and . . .
    Ugh. I don’t want to think about that shit. That fucking scrapbook, that fucking library, the fucking fishboy.
    The fucking fact that staying here is starting to sound not so horrible.
    God, I really was desperate for a friend.
    But no, I think about leaving. I think about college. This is what I’m supposed to do. I taste that promise for as long as I can, rolling it around my tongue and letting it settle into my cheek. Until I leave them. Until I get on a plane or a boat and get so far away that no one can even see me. I am free. I am free.
    I can get through a few years.
    I won’t get glued to this place.
    I don’t have to be.
    I’ll keep searching for exits all the time. Even when I don’t want to.
    I’m a horrible brother.
    I’m still chewing on everything when Fiona comes over. “The ghost likes you,” she whispers. She’s leaning on my shoulder. She smells like she’s from the ocean.
    “You’re crazy, Fiona.”
    “The ghost is with you,” she rasps. “He isn’t leaving anytime soon.”
    “He’s not a ghost.”
    She smiles with her lips closed. “Who’s he ?”
    “The . . . ” I shake my head. “See you next week, Fiona.”
    One of the fishermen, the one missing an eye, looks over at me when my mom and I approach the booth. His hat is pulled low on his forehead. He grins at me with his gold teeth.
    Why the hell shouldn’t they be bastards, seriously? They rule us.
    My mom hands over a fistful of bills and points