Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz Page B

to the fish she wants, and the fisherman starts wrapping them in paper. I’m focused, this time, on the money instead of the fish’s dead eyes.
    Fuck. We’re paying them.
    The guy I pulled off Teeth is slipping the money into his pocket right now. He’s going to take it to Mr. Gardener’s stand and buy cigarettes and some crackers and whatever the hell he wants.
    I don’t know why this hadn’t occurred to me before.
    We’re eating Teeth’s brothers and we’re helping the guys who hurt him.
    Mom makes me carry the fish home. I’m praying the whole walk by the water that Teeth doesn’t see me with this bag. I don’t see him, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t mean anything. He’s maybe a better hider than we give him credit for.
    God, if he sees me, I’m so fucked. He’ll make me swim laps next lesson.
    I say, “Can’t we at least start catching the fish ourselves? Instead of buying them from the fishermen?” I know this wouldn’t appease Teeth one bit, but it would make me feel better about the whole thing.
    “They guard the bait with their lives, you know that.”
    “Power-hungry assholes.”
    “Sweetie, I wish it were simple too.”

    Mom thinks we should try to make amends with Ms. Delaney, so she asks me to bring over a bottle of wine from Dad’s puny collection. I obviously decide to go over on a Tuesday evening. I’ll let Diana give her the wine. Or maybe we can drink it.
    Maybe I can get her drunk and get her to show me the diaries. God, I’ve never ended that sentence that way.
    Diana peers through the curtains at me, then cracks the door open, grinning. “Good to see you.” She’s all dressedup again. She has her hair in a bun and glasses near the tip of her nose. I think she’s going for sexy librarian. The glasses don’t even have lenses. I’m smiling in spite of myself.
    It’s still temporary, but it’s still amazing to feel something. Even when that something is just a tongue.
    She pulls me inside, down the hallway, and backward onto her bed. I can’t believe that after all this passion, manufactured though it may be, we haven’t had sex yet. But I have to admit that the kissing is nice.
    As is being half-drunk and crashed on her floor and talking about Kafka. I’m losing some kind of man card for this and I don’t even care. Wine is nice.
    “Did you finish The Metamorphosis ?” she says.
    I roll onto my stomach. “Yeah.” She’s fixing her hair. I like watching how quickly her fingers move.
    “Well? I don’t like it.”
    “Then why’d you give it to me?”
    She grins. Her cheeks are getting all flushed. She gets more turned on when we talk about books than when we kiss. I shouldn’t be okay with that. I’m beginning to think I’m using this girl as some kind of symbol and that’s really not okay with me. I wish I were a different person. I kiss her like that will fix me.
    “I loved it,” I say. “It was the most relevant thing I’ve read in a long time.”
    “It doesn’t make any sense.”
    “He’s ostracized and they throw fruit at him and he dies. From loneliness.”
    She shakes her head. “The part where he turns into a bug.”
    “Or whatever.”
    “Or whatever. Why did that happen?”
    “You don’t know. That’s the point. Sometimes there’s just . . . a transformation. And there isn’t a real explanation.”
    She considers this, winding the end of her braid around her finger. “I don’t like that.”
    “Spoken like someone who lives her life in books.”
    She stretches like I’ve touched her. I wonder when I can ask about the diaries.
    She says, “My father came by yesterday, and my mother threatened him with a gun.”
    Just when I’ve written her off, she can make one sentence more exciting than my entire life. I say, “Your mother has a gun?” I’m not sure my mother’s even ever seen a gun in real life. I know I haven’t.
    “A silver handgun.”
    “Wow.”
    “She keeps it loaded.”
    “Um . . . damn.”
    “She is not a fan