The Girl With Eight Teeth [FICTOID]

Nobody knew her name, not even the teachers or the staff.  She simply showed up one day, long unkempt hair, a plain long sleeve purple dress that reached to the floor, bare toes sticking out underneath.

She carried a little drawstring bag on a loop around her right wrist.

Everyone assumed someone else knew who she was and why she was there; in today’s hyper-litigious society no one wanted to trigger a complaint or lawsuit by inquiring too closely.

As a result, they pretty much left her alone.

She never turned in homework or class assignments; when told to work on group projects she simply remained in her seat, eyes on the blackboard, saying nothing.

Every now and then some curious student would try to talk to her.  First she wouldn’t respond, but if the student persisted she would turn her head to look at them with a blank expression.

If they still persisted, she would slowly smile and that would un nerve the student enough to retreat and never try talking to her again.

Stony, captain of the football team and de facto big man on campus, owned the most powerful muscle car in the student body.

Despite admonitions not to, he often cut donuts in the parking lot at the end of the school day.

He was doing that one afternoon when he miscalculated and spun out of control.  His car bounced over the sidewalk around the parking lot, vaulting into the air to crash into an oak tree growing outside the principal’s office.

By freak chance, a low lying limb shattered the windshield, punctured the airbag, and smashed into Stony’s face.

The other students looked in aghast horror as Stony stumbled from the car, blood and bone dripping on the ground, only to stagger forward a few steps then collapse lifelessly on the school steps.

Only the mysterious girl stepped forward.  Holding up her drawstring bag, she shook it so they could hear whatever she kept inside it rattle.  She bent down and picked up a bloody object from the ground, smiling triumphantly as shew dropped it in her drawstring bag.

“Now I have nine teeth,” she said.

No one saw her after that day.

© Buzz Dixon