The largest shark is the 45 ft whale shark. The 8.7 to 9.8 in. midwater shark and pygmy ribbontail catshark are among the smallest species.

“Open wide for me?” She tapped the back of my front bottom incisor with the scraper, testing to see what I already knew: not one wiggle, not even the slightest sign of looseness, straight and rigid as a chef’s knife. The dentist had a heavy Persian accent punctuated with monotone oohs and aahs as she conducted her investigation. She delivered the news to Mom by calling her into the room and having her crouch over the other side of the chair, two looming faces staring down at me in disapproval. “You see, the abnormality here.” She pointed to the quarter inch between new tooth and old. Mom nodded eagerly.

“Yes. It’s looked like that since she showed us.”

“It means the old tooth does not know to die. They are both living. One is supposed to push up and unseat the other.”

“That’s… Is it common? My son’s teeth fell out naturally.”

“We can wait and see, through winter, if the old tooth begins to wiggle. If not, we will have to extract.”

It had been growing for a few weeks, a small hard lump bursting out of my gums, before I’d brought it up innocently one night as we sat around the dinner table, while I pried a hunk of tomato from the crevice with my fingernail. “How many teeth are you supposed to have?” Dad had rattled out the answer matter-of-factly, cutting Bobby off before he could come up with some answer that was sure to be a lie.

“Depends! 20 baby teeth, then up to 32 as an adult–if you keep your wisdom teeth.”

“Ok, but how many in each row?” They had all looked at one another, baffled, before I unhinged my jaw and pointed to the alien erupting under my tongue.

Sharks have multiple rows of teeth in their upper and lower jaws, with additional rows behind the front. The teeth may be serrated or smooth. Most Sharks have between 10 and 15 rows! As the front teeth wear down and fall out, the teeth from behind gradually move forward as replacements.

Megan and I stood on the resin jungle gym in her backyard making potions in a bucket with a half-snapped paint stirrer stolen from Dad’s firepit. It was getting cold enough for us to wear hoodies: pink and glittery for her, Bobby’s hand me down camo for me, each set of sleeves shoved up above elbows to save the fabric. She tried to drop in a handful of mud and I slapped her away. “This is a love potion. No mud. Go get more pokeberries.” Our fingers, already bloodstained, the object’s name spelled out with pebbles by our bare, dirty feet.

“Mud makes it thicker. But, whatever. You’re the witch.” The spell was momentarily broken, worried over offending a friend with my bossiness. I aimed for peace.

“We’re both witches! Both of us.” She shrugged.

“If you say so. You’re the one with the witchy teeth.” And she drew her face up in a scrunch while tenting her fingers into mock claws. There were three of them now, scallop-edged stalagmites, not one falling into line.

The whale shark has the most teeth of any shark species, with 3,000 in its mouth.

These teeth are small, less than six millimeters long, and are mostly vestigial, meaning they no longer serve a purpose. Such small teeth from so large an animal!

In November, Megan lost both her front ones at once after going down the slide and face planting into the woodchipped ground cover. Scott Parker had helped her to her feet, looking concerned and brushing dirt out of her cornsilk blonde hair. He’d smiled when he saw the result; his own mouth was already notched with open space in two places.

Megan had been wiggling the left tooth in class for days–standing in line for the water fountain after gym, while it was my turn to add the columns on the chalkboard–staring at me while she did it, because she knew I couldn’t do the same. It rained all the rest of that week. Indoor recess meant puzzle games and cardboard bricks. I marched past Megan and lunged at a book from the shelf, intent on ignoring her. The Wonderful World Of Sharks.

Because shark teeth aren't attached to gums on a root like humans, they lose around a tooth every week, but can also grow a new tooth in as little as 24 hours. A shark can continue to hunt and eat without fear of breaking or dulling its teeth. There will always be new ones waiting to take their place.

All I could smell was mint. Dad looped the dental floss around the old incisor thrice, tying delicate knots to ensure he’d accounted for slack. Fear clutched in the pit of my stomach.

“I’m tellingoo, ishnot woose. Ish gonna hut.”

“I think I felt it wiggle a little when I tried this morning. It’s an old trick!”

“Cannt ah jush keeb awluv vem?”

“Nana did this for my teeth and it worked every time. Stay there.” He slipped the backend overtop the door handle and snugged the lariat tight. “On three. One…” On the fourth try, the floss snapped.

Most shark species are apex predators feeding on fish, seals, penguins or even other sharks. Some of the largest species, however, such as the whale shark and the basking shark, feed only on plankton. Sharks do not eat plant matter.

“May I be excused?” Dad shook his head.

“Kiddo, you gotta eat something. No TV until you finish your potatoes.”

“I did. Hamburger. No potatoes”

“You used to love them! What changed?” Crispy-skinned, a vehicle for butter, the weak part of me still did.

“I don’t eat vegetables.”

“A little young, for Atkins, aren’t you?” Bobby snorted.

Sharks are generally solitary animals that hunt and live alone, but some species exhibit social behaviors. For example, grey reef sharks form social communities and bonds that can last for years.

“They have to pack your mouth with gauze, and the gauze soaks up all the blood, because there’s so much blood that if you swallow it, you die.” The other girls gathered around as Megan held court, eyes wide, drinking in the horror she depicted. “And they give you painkillers but it’s with a huge needle that hurts more than the actual stuff the dentist does.” We were in the fourth pairing of seats on the bus, second graders too young to claim the back seats with the fifth graders, but too knowingly cool to take the open benches closest to the driver. She was getting to me, but I didn’t want to let on. Show no fear.

As we got off at the top of our driveway, I brought in Bobby for a second opinion. “Do dentists stab you with needles?” He closed the mailbox and flicked through the collection of envelopes, searching for the report card he planned to hide from our parents.

“Oh yeah. Massive ones. And if you try to drink water after, it comes out of the holes in your gums. Like a sprinkler.”

Shark teeth are also very sensitive to touch, and contain pressure sensitive nerves. A curious shark will often use their teeth to explore in the way you would do with your hands. Biting isn’t always a sign of aggression.

Mom caught me with her compact mirror wedged in my mouth before bed, tendons straining as I tried to get a good look at the pink ridges of my pallet. One of the top ones–I had named him Biggie, the largest of all in his half– had started wiggling on its own. She was thrilled. “That’s great news! Maybe the problem is only on the bottom.” I begged to differ. You can’t be half a shark. Where were my rows, my daggers, my tools of defense? That morning, I’d found Scott and Megan under the tube slide, pressing their faces together in the most adult of ways. Her lips, her perfect mouth, not mine.

On Thursday, Dad picked me up from under the portico in front of school after seventh period. I was promised McDonalds for dinner after, as a reward. “Hamburgers, okay? Or chicken nuggets? No vegetables in either of those.” The dentist secured the blue spit bib with silver alligator clips on a delicate ball chain looped around the back of my neck. All her tools were laid out on the tray to my right: gauze, pliers, Megan’s giant needle. She turned on the tube to suck out my spit and shimmied it into the corner of my tightly closed mouth. I looked down at my hands plastered tightly to my sides: the fingers, now meshing together, the skin melted into a pair of triangular slabs. The dentist didn’t seem to notice.

“Okay. Open? More. More. Good. Bite, please.” A chance: I was being given permission for exploration. At last, I tasted blood. But this time, it wasn’t mine.

Some sharks may bite to defend themselves when they feel threatened. These attacks are characterized by a forceful first strike, often lifting both prey and shark clear out of the water. The prey is then released and the shark moves away, leaving their kill to bleed to death.

I could hear Dad’s noises of confusion as I bolted out the door, the dentist screaming behind me, and ran through the parking lot, into the thicket of trees that shielded it from the retaining pond on the other side. Through the underbrush, down to the water’s edge, I could feel every tooth growing, sharpening, thanking me for saving them and what made us different. Megan had her boys, I had my fangs. I ripped off my shirt, already splitting down the back where the middle nub of my spine was swelling dorsally. There was the sound of someone crashing through the woods behind me, large, an adult, then Dad calling out my name. My feet limp and conjoined, changing, I dropped to the ground and furrowed snout-first through the moistened clay, nuzzling into the pond– algae-bloom green, the scent of rotten eggs, but deep enough just a few feet in, the weightlessness of buoyancy taking over my body. Not salty, but it would do. I was where I belonged: away from them all, my body as nature made me.