Free Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz

person. And I don’t know why they would.
    There used to be tons of them, which was why the Delaneys started eating them in the first place, when really they had actually come here for the sea air. And, well . . . the rest I mostly know. The papers use the world “balance.” The fish make you how you are supposed to be.
    So eating them wouldn’t cure my Pinocchio of a friend into a real boy, I don’t think. I guess I’d wondered.
    There aren’t any scientific reports here. There isn’t a reason why.
    But there’s no reason to think that the effect wears off. There’s no way to know, since anyone who needs the fish, as far as I know, hasn’t stopped eating them. The only people who ever leave this island are the ones who were here for a family member, who eventually cut free, or leave when their mother, a hundred and five years old, long cured of cancer, dies peacefully in her sleep from nothing but a tired body.
    And I’ll leave and my parents will eventually die, and my brother, my little fucking brother, is going to be stuck here forever. We’ll have drilled it into his head that the most important thing is surviving and maybe he’ll never even think that if the only way for him to do it is to live here alone and hopeless and go slowly crazy and so old. Maybe he’ll never move back to the real world and wait for that lung transplant. Maybe he’ll marry Diana. Maybe he’ll die alone.
    Before I leave, I’ve really got to introduce him to Teeth for real.
    Or . . . fuck. Maybe I can’t leave.
    Just . . . just fuck , okay?
    I put the papers down on my lap.
    “You seem disappointed,” Diana says. But she’s not looking at me.
    “Just thinking.”
    “Nothing about your fishboy in there, huh?”
    “Uh-uh.”
    “Yeah, all that is in my mom’s diaries.” She turns a page in her book. “His exciting conception.”
    I’d kind of figured, but I wasn’t expecting confirmation to be that way. “Half-brother fish?”
    “See why I prefer books?”
    “Where are the diaries?”
    She chuckles a little, her eyes still locked on her book. “Not in here, I’ll tell you that.”
    She’s not going to tell me. Goddamn it. I groan and flop backward in the chair. She’s still grinning.
    “Have you read A Farewell to Arms ?” she says. “It’s good.”
    “No.”
    “I’ll lend you a copy.”
    “Thanks.” But I can’t pretend this is what I want. Half an hour ago, books were all I wanted. Now I want a fucking boat. Someone to offer to ship fish to the states. An actual cure.

    “He is getting well, though.” I’m sitting on the dock, throwing pieces of seaweed into the water.
    “That’s kind of why you’re here.” Teeth scoops his lipsover the surface of the water and gobbles up the seaweed I threw. I toss the next piece into his mouth.
    “I guess I didn’t believe it would really happen. You know I could bring you some real food, right? Candy, even.”
    “I hate human food.” He’s eyeing the seaweed in my hand. “Give me the rest of that.”
    “There’s more everywhere. Go get your own.”
    He whines, long and loud, like a scream. “That’s a really good piece. You got lucky.”
    “Or maybe I picked it out on purpose. Best seaweed in the sea.”
    “Stop fucking around. It’s not like you need it. You can’t even eat seaweed.” He stumbles around the word a little.
    “Of course I can.” I eat a bite to screw with him. It just tastes like salt. “How often do the fishermen catch you?” I say. I’ve been trying to get him to talk about them all morning. He has this bruise around his neck in the shape of a hand. And his eyes are really red today.
    “Most nights. They’re crafty.”
    “I don’t get why you don’t swim away.”
    “I just bite them. So you guys are going to stop eating the fish now, right? Now that he’s well.”
    “We don’t eat them, really. Only him.”
    “Is he going to stop?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t want him to go back to how he was. And it’s