Teeth Hunting Research Paper

Hungry Teeth Hunting

Last week, for Teeth’s twelfth birthday, Gerbil Bill gave him a bolt cutter and taught him how to break locks with it. Teeth broke everything he could fit in the bolt cutter until Gerbil Bill made a golden rule: leave it in the cart until you go out to scavenge.
Teeth hates that word, “scavenge.” It reminds him of vultures and he considers himself more of a hawk, a war hawk with a helmet and armor. War hawks don’t scavenge. They hunt. Sleeping in gets tricky without a mattress. Works better, though—getting up before day. There’s a perfect dimness between light and dark; where the moon and sun share the early morning that provides the right amount of both vision and cover for a hunt. He rises from the damp cardboard, stretches, and prepares for his operation.
Teeth asks Cigarette Ed if he can borrow a shoulder sack. His name is Cigarette Ed because he trades most
of his scrap food for cigarettes. The reason, he told Teeth, is because “smokes make my appetite go nighty night.”
Cigarette Ed holds his hand out, half asleep. Teeth slips a cigarette in his fingers. Cigarette Ed rolls over, grabs the sack he uses as a pillow, and hands it to Teeth.
The walk to the storage lockers takes about an hour. It would have been quicker but Teeth perused a few alleyways for breakfast. He came up empty. Maybe one of the storage lockers will be filled with canned food. When Tooth had TV, Dad watched these shows about people preparing for the apocalypse. They’d buy storage lockers and stuff them with food and ammunition. It was mind-blowing, although Dad called them “unrealistic lunatics with too much free time and imagination.” Dad has a bad habit of being boring and practical. Still, Teeth misses Dad, even if he is a little lame. When he comes back from the Better Place, Teeth will teach Dad the art of being awesome.
Although food evaded him, Teeth found an old coupon for fancy silver silverware in one of the alleys. If he collected fifty coupons and mailed them to an address, it said on the back, he could get a free fork. With a free fork, he could stop eating beans with his fingers.
The chain link fence guarding the storage lockers snap under his bolt cutter. Teeth pretends he’s breaking into a prison to rescue a princess, or something like that. He can’t really remember the plot of Super Mario Bros., but he’s wearing a red hat so he gives it a shot. Storylines are always necessary for a decent hunt. A hunt without a story is stupid, no better than scavenging. Teeth somersaults through the hole he made in the fence but his sack gets caught on the cut chain links and tugs him back.
He smiles and laughs, breaks free and sprints down the small hill where the fence stands. Bolt cutter held above his head like an Indian with a bow and arrow in the movies Dad watched where fat white cowboys killed them, Teeth runs to the back of the complex, to the last storage locker.
There’s not even a lock. Why have a bolt cutter if you can’t bolt cut locks? It’s ridiculous. It’s like playing catch with his sister. It’s like not throwing a tennis ball in passenger windows when people left the gas station with those big 42oz one dollar Super Slushies, seeing if he could hit the frozen drinks with the ball and make the strangers spill it all over inside the car. It’s ridiculous!
Maybe he shouldn’t have thought those thoughts but it happened and he forgets about his hunt as he stares at the big metal garage door on the storage locker. It’s what happens when he remembers like that, when memories surprise him. Gerbil Bill says it’s called “falling into the
void.”
The calls of robins break his weird trance. State bird. His sister has a killer robin impression. Maybe the only cool thing about her. She’s a five-star general loser, but she makes the best chocolate chip pancakes ever, so she’s a good older sister. Her being a loser is why she, Mom, and Dad are in the Better Place. They were driving to one of her horse riding tournaments (Teeth always said she should do jousting instead) and went to the Better Place instead of returning home. When they come back, Teeth will teach both Dad and his sister how to be awesome, so long as she makes him a huge, warm stack of chocolate chip pancakes.
Teeth looks up and snaps his head where he thinks the calls are coming from. His open mouth smiles while he searches, even though the robins are all out of sight.
That’s why his name is Teeth. Smiles, all open mouthed, his teeth exposed. Everyone he lives around is impressed he still has so many, so they call him Teeth. It’s a pretty sweet name. Not as cool as Captain Kamikaze; the deaf Chinese guy who lives in an old parking garage and has a katana. Better than Leg-hair Larry, though, who wears shorts all winter because his leg hair is so thick and gross he doesn’t even need pants to stay warm.
Birdsongs relax Teeth and he leans against the door of the storage locker. Ever notice how hard it is to keep hands clean? All the trash and junk and what not get all sorts of everything on them. Nothing a good spit-wash can’t fix.
He wipes his sticky hands on his coat until they dry, then grabs the postcard from his coat pocket. It’s of the Haunted Mansion in Disney World. Mom and Dad went there for vacation when Teeth was nine. They knew how much he loved haunted houses—haunted castles especially—and sent him the postcard. On the back, it says “We did not go inside.”
Teeth chuckles reading this. His parents were such babies. Teeth would have gone inside, by himself, at night, even if it was, say, Friday the 13th. Nothing scares Teeth. Okay, only sometimes when it’s storming and cold and he can’t crawl in between his parents because the accident took them away for a while and their big comfy bed is gone. That’s scary, but Teeth can handle it. Teeth is tough, and if he’s not tough enough, he pretends he’s Captain Kamikaze because people with swords are super tough. Hunts have to get finished. With the postcard tucked safely in his pocket again, Teeth pulls open the garage door. It creaks and groans like a T-Rex and Teeth mimics the door. If Teeth is confident in one thing, it’s his Godzilla impression, so he only needs a slight tweak in his delivery to give a killer T-Rex impression.
Early morning soft pink sunlight shows how empty the locker is. Teeth’s stomach yells at him for choosing a locker without breakfast but his mind comforts him and invites him to explore.
At the back of the locker, the only thing apparent in the whole place, is a crib. Babies are stupid; they drool and smell bad and poop everywhere (even the dinner table) so Teeth walks around the walls instead. He looks for anything else to postpone investigating the crib. He knows he has to eventually. Mario would do it. He’s a plumber and plays in sewers so he isn’t scared of smelly poop, and neither is Teeth.
On the floor by the wall is a dumb baby sock. It’s dumb because, since it’s a sock for a stupid baby, it can’t fit on Teeth and everyone says winter is going to be colder than normal this year, so he could use another sock. He stands over the sock and ponders why it’s there, randomly against the wall, like somebody had a tantrum and just threw it at the wall then didn’t pick it up.
Well, that’s messy and immature. Teeth picks up the sock. It’s white and has little green and yellow flowers on it. He holds it in front of him and shakes it to clear out any hibernating scorpions. A picture falls out of the sock. It’s actually two pictures, small ones, one on top of the other, like the photo strips in the booths at the mall. These ones are black and white. It’s a creepy looking old house with a huge chimney. It’s small, without any windows, apparently. The picture on top is from far away and there are tons of woods and trees behind the house. It’s snowing like crazy. Snow comes like that Up North but nowhere else, so it must be a house Up North. The second picture is a close up on the chimney.
Why’s a chimney so important? All it does is burn things.
On the back of the photo strip is a note, like Teeth’s postcard. Different message, though. It says “She’s here. I’m sorry. I can’t be a good dad.”
Huh. Doesn’t make any sense. Confusing riddles are for Saturdays when teeth plays Detective Teeth, where he solves mysteries around his site. All of the adults hire him and, if he solves whatever the mystery is, the pay him with candy or toy cars. Once, Cigarette Ed asked him to find his lighter. Teeth did, under Cigarette Ed’s magazine collection by his bed area, and Cigarette Ed gave him a king size Hershey bar.
Teeth isn’t sure of the day. It doesn’t feel like a Saturday so he can’t solve the riddle now. Gerbil Bill will know. Until then, Teeth puts the picture in the sock and squeezes it in his pocket.
Emptiness and the crib are all that’s left to check out. Spitting is a good way to look mad and frustrated, so Teeth spits on the ground and stomps to the crib, hawking snot filled spit bombs until his mouth dries up. One of them has a full blown booger in it and Teeth wishes there was a way to frame it; the guys back at the site would get a kick out of it.
There’s never been a stupider, uglier…stupider crib ever in history. No blankets. Where’s the mattress? Not even a pillow. Babies are the worst. There’s a dumb post it note posted onto the wooden bed, where the baby’s head would go, if there were a baby in the crib, which there isn’t.
Morning light doesn’t reach far enough into the locker. Teeth steps outside to read the note. Fresh, crisp air slides through his nostrils. He takes a few deep breathes of it before he reads the note, which says “Should end it because I will never tell the truth again.”
End what? Lying? Obviously the mystery author should end lying. Unless it’s for a good reason. Anything is good if it’s for a good reason. Even bad things. There’s no mystery there, no riddle to solve, so Teeth decides to put it back in the stupid crib.
Before he manages to put it back, he realizes the note is wet. How could it have gotten wet if it was inside a building? Rain couldn’t get to touch it, and it’s not likely somebody would have walked into the building with a drink and spilled it on the note. Plus, the places with water damage are in little circles. Just a few small drops hit the paper. It doesn’t add up.
Maybe, though, somebody stood over the crib, held the note, and for some reason started crying? That’s it! But why would they be crying about a note and an empty crib?
Teeth shakes his head and crams the note in his pocket with the postcard, the sock, and the pictures. Solving mysteries when it isn’t Saturday is a bad idea, cause then there’s nothing to do on Saturday, which is always the best day to have fun.
Breakfast time is long overdue. Teeth slams the garage door shut then runs to the hole he made in the fence. He totally nails the somersault this time and squeezes right through without getting caught. He decides he will sprint back to the site and ask Gerbil Bill when Saturday is. Teeth hopes it’s soon.