She came to Joe's house after having three of her teeth filled, half of her face hanging limp from the anesthetic. The inexpression around her mouth made her look like a turtle, I thought, and whispered to Joe, who laughed. She had always brushed her teeth regularly, but they were unnaturally soft, just as she inherited them from her human parents. Dylan has very good teeth and he handed me a boat oar. I placed the oar inside the turtle's snapping vice and twisted the handle until the turtle was on its back.
Wrestlers call the maneuver a neck bridge.
All three of us were impressed. Joe and I had a wrestling coach who chewed tobacco, which, according to the Surgeon General, promotes tooth decay. When I used to look up at our coach from the mat when he spoke, I sometimes saw molars full of silver fillings under his dangling brown mustache. Work hard, don't hope. I was uncertain of whom and what brought on this flare, and why, now, I still remember it so vividly.