The Tooth

Tiffany Amber turned her head to the sky. And stopped. The sky was whiter than the walls that thought they were ski slopes. The sky was whiter than the blank page in front of her that thought it was God and she was to be thrown into hell. The sky was white enough to get called a polished tooth. A polished whale tooth that some whaler couldn’t steal by just leaving the whale alive, and had to murder in order to get it. A polished sperm whale tooth about to be scratched up with the portrait of some ugly lady who looked even worse on a whale tooth.

Nathaniel William did that once. He walked the family beach yet again. Walked it like an archaeologist who didn’t realize he left his tools in his van. And Tiffany Amber stared at him. Stared at him like he was a termite crawling through the wall right above her head dumping chewed-up wood on her face. What did he even expect to find? A Native American burial ground? Rip van Winkle sleeping against a weeping willow tree? The remains of Adam and Eve lying in a dried up river bed? The only interesting Tiffany Amber ever found on the beach was a beached bottlenose dolphin. And she called the local wildlife team. What was Nathaniel William going to find? A beached blue whale that was still alive?

But when Nathaniel William turned back around the cliff, he was running. Not walking. Running. Running like a hardcore sprinter who needed only one more second over his opponent to get the gold.

Tiffany! Tiffany! he screeched, panting harder than a real Olympian and crashing to the ground. You’ll never believe this!

What did you find this time, Nate? Atlantean crystals? Tiffany Amber drones back, cynical as a doctor whose patient’s cancer was too advanced to even bother treating.

Sperm whale bones! he squeezes out in one breath, and just to spit her in the face he throws a tooth at her feet. And then he just lays there. Looking back up at her. Big fat glutton smile on his face, like he was the tyrant who was always right Tiffany Amber was always wrong.

She didn’t care that Nathaniel William found the remains and got to keep the tooth. She was still calling the wildlife people, and she was still making sure they got off the property. And she was still going to watch Nate scratch lines into that tooth. Never mind that the law banned it before she or even her brother Benjamin Jackson was born. And then, the final spit. Nathaniel William carved Mother onto the tooth. And she actually looked pretty. Prettier than an empress.

And now that same tooth before it was etched on stared down Tiffany Amber from the sky in the window.