Chum

There is a specific time each week that I set aside to look at myself in the mirror - Friday mornings, and no other time. Call it a weird habit, almost a superstition, even, but I try to avoid my own face every other day of the week, and it's kept me from developing acne and looking my best - not that I'm a particularly vain person, but, you know, I'm a growing girl and pimples aren't something to look forward to. Maybe it's just a placebo, but when I avoid looking at my face, the rare occasions I do become all the more shocking. I've gotten really good at putting up my hair into a ponytail without even looking. I can French braid my hair without looking either, just by feel. It's impressive! My friends think it's impressive, at least.

When I look in the mirror today, there's some imperceptible (that means really small) shift in my posture and expression that I can't help but start focusing on. For a moment, I fear that I've begun breaking out, but I pry my skin with my fingers for a moment and confirm to my satisfaction that there's no blemishes, outside of my freckles, which aren't blemishes anyway. Those are my most attractive feature. No, there's something else, besides the pointy shark teeth, that's different about my face. Maybe it's all the new teeth in my jaw shifting how it sits in my body. Actually, I'm not even sure if these teeth sit underneath my gums like normal baby teeth or if they just grow spontaneously as needed. They didn't take x-rays of my head then, after the accident, so that might be something my dentist has to check.

I clench my jaw. I bare my teeth. They interlock, pointy tips scraping into the bottom enamel, a wide-splayed base that sits comfortably in my red gums, anchoring them in place. I tried pulling weeks ago - they don't come out until they're good and ready, or until I bite something really hard. They're tilted at a slight angle, having shifted uncomfortably to accommodate each other. I know it's supposed to be shark-teeth, but I can't help thinking of piranhas every time I look at myself. Too small for them to be intimidating. They look more like needles. I unclench my jaw.

My name is Samantha Small, but my friends call me Sam. I am 5'6″ and about 120 pounds, but I don't check anymore except at doctor's appointments, because I don't want to develop an eating disorder. I don't think I'm at risk of it, but, you know, I don't want to anyway. I play soccer, but the high school I'm going to be going to in the fall doesn't have a soccer team so I might join track & field instead. Words my mom would use to describe me are "willowy", "lithe", and "svelte". Words my dad would use to describe me include "hyperactive". I am, as far as I am aware, a human being. I have skin, blood, hair, which is curly and a sort of light brown, and eyes, which are sort of orange in the right light, and bones, which are the color of bones, as far as I am aware. People tell me I need to stop saying things like "as far as I am aware", or "as far as I know", or that when they ask me if they can ask me a question, "you can, but I can't guarantee I can answer it". They call me a "smartass" but I'm just being precise with my language. I have friends. I have teeth.

When I put a sundress on it lets me only linger on my scarring for a moment before it vanishes under a layer of yellow cloth, but it's still not a sight that I can avoid. Propeller injuries like mine aren't something that go away even after they heal. The doctor said I healed really quick because I'm young, and that I was lucky that it was only a little fishing boat propeller because the big industrial propellers just rip someone apart. I was kind of fucked up on morphine at the time - excuse my language - so I don't think I really appreciated it fully, just how close I was to death. That if I wasn't lucky enough to activate, I probably would've just died right there.

When I think about my scar, it hurts and aches in response, like it's reminding me it's there. It's dozens of wavy white lines, running up my entire right side, mostly on the front. They said it was really lucky that it only cut me open on the front, because if it had cut all the way through, I wouldn't have healed nearly as well from having my entire insides turned outside. Each one of them is raised up hard and bumpy, going across to just before my navel and then stopping.

Even when I go out of my way to not look at them, they still are there, in that little theater in my head. Just thinking about them. I don't need to look in the mirror every day - I've already memorized every detail of myself. The nicest pair of shoes I own are a pair of black sneakers, so I put those on and some dress socks that go up to my knees. My parents frequently call me "very fetching". The only other adornment I have are some friendship bracelets and chapstick, which makes my lips a little shiny but not much else.

My nails are pink, but they're starting to grow out, so I need to get them trimmed soon. I head downstairs.

I've only been on this Earth for 14 of G-d's own years but I have spent a considerable amount of that time in a car, driving between Philly and Ventnor. On occasion, a smaller amount of time is spent driving, or walking, from Ventnor to Margate, for one reason or another, but the Atlantic City Expressway has become sort of a third home to me. Whenever we're driving down it with my headphones on, as I zone out, there's a certain kind of peace I don't get anywhere else. I don't know every individual tree we pass but their contours are familiar, the general ebb and flow of their shape as a collective.

The fabric of my sundress bunches up around my shorts, and I tug it out from under me, adjusting the seatbelt as I do, trying not to trigger the dreaded the-seatbelt-thinks-you-got-into-a-car-crash-so-it's-gonna-lock-up mechanism. With a silent sigh of relief, I succeed, and continue scanning for hidden police officers, as is my parent-given duty on this regular drive. All I do is look in the crevices and hidden spaces in the car ahead, and shout "Cop!" if I see one. Today, though, the drive is uneventful. Cameras take pictures of the EZPass as we pass through the toll, using some sort of billing system that I have to assume is just magic, because I don't understand how it works yet.

My dad, Ben, is the designated driver of the family. My mom, Rachel, sold her car before I was born. Living in a city where we can get anywhere we need by walking, she told me it was her attempt at being more 'eco-friendly'. My dad owns an old 2019 Toyota Camry, in all white, which he claims lowers the cost of the air conditioning - but if you asked me, I'd say it's a little ugly, because you can see whenever a bird shits on it really easily. They're talking about something that I've tuned out half an hour ago. Probably taxes, because that's all they talk about (that's a joke). Like most things that my dad handles, the interior is spotless, vacuumed weekly.

When we arrive at Pop-pop's house, I am overwhelmed with a sense of relief, both at being able to see my grandfather again for the first time in a couple of weeks and at being able to take my seatbelt off and squeeze out of the car. Pop-pop Moe tousles my hair at my approach, shouting through my headphones, while I pause my music, scrunch up, and try to extricate (that means remove) them from my ears. "Och! Samantha, darling, you're gonna be taller than me next week! Just what are you two feeding this girl?"

"Raw steaks," "Human growth hormone," my parents say, overlapping each other. My mom elbows my dad in the ribs, and he lets out a wordless noise of protest.

"I'm eating extremely normal food for normal girls my age," I start, before grinning. "Like human flesh. Blah!"

Pop-pop Moe lets out a faux-startled sound and jumps back, although for a moment I think I see something else in his eyes I can't quite place. Despite the glasses, he's actually my Dad's father, with a long, gaunt sort of face that's been fattened out by the years. His hair, really curly and all over the place, reminds me of Albert Einstein's. Though, I'm sure my Pop-pop is smarter - just not in physics. I think at one point in his life he was probably taller than I am now, but all his time on this Earth has flattened him like a pancake, squishing him out and stretching him sideways. He has a big nose, wears a lot of plaid, and he smiles with his eyes and his whole face when he's happy, and I do love him very much.

Pop-pop's house is kind of like him - stretched out. He lives in a three-story brick rowhome in Ventnor, featuring a one-car garage, and an outside bush that used to bear berries I was never allowed to eat; it hasn't sprouted any in years though. The first floor houses only a door leading to the 'backyard' - if one could even call it that - and stairs ascending to the second floor, a large circular space. A living room, with a big couch, a big TV, and stairs going up, and then the kitchen and dining room, with a balcony that we never use, so he stores beach chairs on it. There's a bathroom in the middle there, too. And then, on the third floor, it's just bedrooms and a bathroom. Whenever cousins are visiting, they usually stay in one of the guest bedrooms, and on the rare occasion where I stay overnight at Pop-pop Moe's house, I stay in one of the guest bedrooms too. But I try not to, because it smells like 1950s.

There's a Wawa a block down, which is one of my favorite parts of coming here. New Jersey Wawas just hit different. Sorry, Roosevelt Boulevard Wawa.

"Well, I'm afraid you'll have to accept substitutes because as far as I'm aware human flesh is not kosher, darling. That, and today's a dairy meal," he says, leaning in to rustle my hair again. I fold my arms over my chest and pretend to be angry.

"Ah, crap."

"No, that's not kosher either," he says, chuckling. He opens the front door for us, and when I step through, my footsteps are memorized. I've been here enough that nothing about this home is a surprise to me. I pull my sundress closer to my sides and make my way up the stairs, fighting the powerful urge to ascend them on all fours. That's not a shark powers thing, I just like going up stairs on all fours. As far as I'm aware, none of my behaviors have changed from me getting superpowers, although maybe if they did, I wouldn't be able to tell anyway. Who's to say?

Today, we stick to the second floor, where some sports match buzzes from the television. I don't actually think anyone in my family is interested in sports besides me, but I'm pretty sure they're playing baseball, which I couldn't care less about.

Pop-pop Moe ushers us to the dining room table, although I'm not sure if it qualifies as a dining room if it's not separated by a wall from the kitchen. Two loaves of challah greet us, sitting in a little basket, with a little blanket over them, and the four of us step over to the side table where the candles expectantly look back at us, waiting to be lit.

I cover my face while they light and Pop-pop Moe sings. The words form a familiar meaninglessness, that I knew the translation of once upon a time but is now just a comfortable melody. The room is quiet, outside of the television noises, while we sit down at the dining room table, familiar whiteness covered with Pop-pop Moe's best tablecloth.

The rest of the ritual unfurls with the same routine familiarity; a performance repeated every Friday without interruption, except for the past month or so. The gefilte fish tastes better than it usually does, but I don't say anything about it. I don't want to worry Pop-pop Moe.

Shabbat shalom.

The sun is beginning to go down, lighting all of Ventnor with a golden glow. Tomorrow, it will rise again above the ocean. Some of my blood, along with a portion of my large intestine, is now in that ocean, likely consumed by fish and brought into the cycle of life.

My mom's face is flush with wine, bringing a cherry redness to her tan skin and freckled cheeks. I pick at my food with a fork while she talks about recent news with Pop-pop Moe. She looks like me, but she doesn't - her hair is wavy and a lighter brown than mine, plus she's got a cute button nose that I distinctly lack. We're the same height, but she weighs a lot more than I do, because being a librarian does not give one a lot of opportunity to exercise, and also probably because I think wine is a lot of calories. I could drink it, I'm an adult now, but I think wine tastes gross, so this shabbat I settled for grape juice. I don't picture myself drinking anything other than grape juice for the rest of my life.

My dad, on the other hand, looks like my Pop-pop Moe. He has his curly hair and his stubble, but his hair hasn't whitened with age and he cuts it closer to his scalp. He's pale, like me, and stretched out tall like a beanpole, but his eyes are a lot darker than mine. I think I get those from my mom. One day, he will become old and wrinkly, and his skin will probably get kind of sallow and dark like Pop-pop's. I think sallow is the right word for it, at least. He doesn't drink either.

"Samantha, bubelah, what's the matter? Why so glum, chum?" Pop-pop Moe asks, leaning forward, one elbow on the table. A piece of cake hangs from his fork, then splits in half. The bottom half drops onto his plate and the top quickly follows, falling off the side of his fork. "Oh, sonnova-"

"Huh? Do I look glum?" I ask, reaching out for another piece of challah. I rip it off, pull back and chew. Eating bread has definitely gotten weirder, with these teeth designed to rip meat. It's taken some getting used to.

"Well you don't exactly look happy, darling. Is something on your mind? More grape juice?" he asks, gently pushing the bottle of grape juice closer. The dining room table is designed to seat 6, so there's a lot of space between the two of us.

"No, I'm just thinking. I think my face just looks like this when I'm thinking."

"She's right! It does. You do that too, honey. Did you know that?" my mom asks, jabbing a finger at my dad's shoulder. "You do that... face on your face. Like this."

She screws her face up, maybe a little too buzzed to control her muscles in the way she wants to. She dissolves into giggles, and my dad runs his hand through her hair, stroking her gently. "I think it might be grape juice the rest of the night for you."

"Mmhmm, I trust you," she mumbles, closing her eyes and resting her head on my dad's shoulder. "You're the boss."

"Sam, darling, your mother was just mentioning you had an interview with the police. How did that go? They didn't give you any trouble, did they?" Pop-pop Moe asks, wrenching control back of the conversation while my dad pours a glass of grape juice for my mom. She rotates so that half of her face is buried in his shoulder, and he removes her glasses to avoid them getting crushed between the two of them.

"Huh? Oh, no, they just wanted to know about, you know... The day. And what I can do," I say, looking at the candle table instead of at my pop-pop. "Sorry about that, by the way."

"Samantha, dear, can you tell me what you're apologizing for?" he asks, taking me off guard.

"Uh."

"You know, I've told you this before - frivolous apologies shouldn't, erm... An apology, you know, it's not a thing to give out so frivolously, darling. It's a promise that you'll change your behavior. What behavior is there for you to change, child?"

I scratch my head and look away in the other direction. Anything besides looking at his face. "I'm sorry for almost getting killed by your fishing boat. And causing you worry."

He leans forward, both elbows on the table now, folded a little in. "Is that something you have the capability to change in the future? That means "ability", I know darling Rachel has been helping your vocabulary-"

"I know what "capability" means, pop-pop," I interrupt him, flinching at myself. I expect him to be a little taken aback, but he just keeps smiling - I can see it in my periphery. "No, I. Well, I didn't have control in the first place."

"Then no apology necessary!" he concludes, clapping his hands together, leaning back into his chair cushion. "But they didn't give my granddaughter any trouble, no? I know some people on the force, I could give them an earful if I oughta."

"No, no problems, pop-pop. Just three-to-five business days, which, I mean... I don't know how long it takes them to just put some stuff in the computer and then print me an ID, but I feel like it should be faster than that."

"Oh, Sam, you should know by now that nothing moves that fast in municipal government," my dad interjects, reaching down into my mom's lap to grab something in her purse. He would know; he works as a city planner, for the city of Philadelphia. I mean, that was probably obvious. "But is that how long they said it would take? Three-to-five business days?"

"What do you mean? That's what they said," I answer. I hear the sound of paper tearing and look away from the wall towards my dad, who has something small and green in his hand. My heart skips a little beat.

"Don't say your old man never did anything for you, kid," he replies, flicking a small ID card in my direction. I reach my hand out and snatch it out of the air like a frog catching a fly, except a frog wouldn't nearly fall on the dining room table. "Congratulations, Sam. They approved you in like, an hour. I just pulled some strings."

"Mazal Tov! But who are you calling 'old man', boychik? I'm the only one that holds that title here," Pop-pop Moe says, declares, spearing the two halves of cake together on his fork. He attempts to bring it to his lips, only for it to split again on the way out, too crumbly to reliably stab. "You're still a spry little thing, don't go thinking you're old, now!"

My dad rolls his eyes. "I'm nearly 40, dad, I'm going grey. I can call myself old if I want," and then he points at me. "This is Sam's moment though, let's not kill it."

"You did it! You impressed the cops," my mom slurs drunkenly from my dad's shoulder. She lifts herself away, leaning on the table and sipping grape juice from a wine cup, looking a little startled, like she expected more wine. "An extremely valuable skill for girls like us to know."

I take the opportunity to actually look down at the ID. They took a photo of me at the station, so that's how I appear, with a stern face and a tan-white t-shirt. The words are arranged in neat, orderly rows next to my face, with a weird holographic print over the entire thing that makes it shimmer in the dining room light.

LUMAN: 43805763

DOB: 04/16/2009

SMALL

SAMANTHA ELISABETH

XXXX LONGSHORE AVENUE

PHILADELPHIA, PA 19149-0000

EXP: 08/04/2024

ISS: 08/03/2023

SEX: F EYES: BRO

HGT: 5′-6″

"What do you mean 'girls like us', mom?" I ask, giving the card a little bend, successfully fighting the urge to test it with my teeth. I'm sure I could poke a hole in it if I wanted to. "Oh, um, thanks, dad. It means a lot to me."

"It's no problem, honey, you've... you've definitely earned it, heh heh-" "I mean pretty girls, Sam!" my mom shouts over my dad, thumping her hand on the table. "Pretty girls like you and me, we gotta know... how to schmooze the cops. You know. It's an important skill. You're gonna save someone's life one day by making a cop feel bad about being mean to a pretty girl with pale skin," She raises a finger, and it wobbles a little bit, and her hand slumps down to the table. "They're never gonna shoot ya."

"Rachel, darling, ixnay on the ooting-shay at the dinner table, please, doll," Pop-pop Moe requests, a little timidly. My mom finishes her glass of grape juice.

"Maybe I sshhhhould lie down. Can I use your couch, Morris?"

"Of course, darling. Let's get you settled... Upsie daisy..." Pop-pop Moe says, mostly to himself, helping my mom up from her chair. She slings an arm over his shoulder.

"Don't... You shouldn't let me drink this much next time, Moe, that's... Mmm... Not a good example," I hear her say as he leads her around the bend to the living room. He says something in response, but the sound is drowned out by the television noise. Something about a special occasion?

"Well," my dad starts, glancing around at the empty-ish table. "Want to hand me your dishes? And congratulations again on the approval. Apparently, the cop doing the interview left very nice comments in your file."

"I have a file? That they leave comments on?"

He reaches out and takes my plate out from under me, encountering no resistance. "You do. And now you can bite someone's fingers off if they try to mug you. But, uh, don't make a habit out of it."

My mom is fast asleep on the couch, snoring quietly, with a little napkin put under her mouth to catch the drool. Probably by my dad. He's off cleaning the dishes, while Pop-pop Moe and I sit in recliners, right next to each other, a side-table with a remote control for the television in between us. I'm not paying attention to the nightly news.

He reaches out and puts his hand over mine. "Samantha, darling, a moment?"

"Yeah? What's up, pop-pop?"

He looks at me with a sort of sincerity that hurts, that really just hurts me to look at. Making eye contact is never easy, but with my pop-pop it's even harder, especially after that day. "I just want you to know... that I'm sorry for the accident. I do feel very bad about it, and I'm glad you're alive and with the powers and the biting, but, you know, if that never happened..."

His hand has the sort of looseness to it that only really old people, like my sixth grade teacher, seem to have. His skin is cold and his veins are prominent, and I guess that's why he's always wearing sweater vests on top of his plaid, like today. A big spot of discolored skin sits between his thumb and his pointer finger, and his nails are cut too short, close to the pink, yellowed with age. I look away from him. "I don't want to think about that. Sorry."

"It's okay, it's okay! Nobody wants to think about bad things. I get it. Your old man's old man is pretty clever," he replies, clapping me on the shoulder. "No, I don't want you ruminating on what-ifs either. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry, sincerely, and, you know, next time, if you still want to go fishing, we can get a smaller little boat. You know, but I'd understand if you've... lost the taste."

He chuckles. "You know what ruminating means, right, smarty pants?"

"No. I mean, I think I understand from context clues, but I don't know what it is is."

He pulls his hand away, opens his mouth wide, then claps his teeth together like a movie set clapper, mimicking chewing. "Ruminate! It's why they're called 'ruminants', those animals that chew their own cud. It's like chewing on something real slow, and regurgitating it. You know regurgitating, right?"

I wince, scrunching my face up. "Gross,"

"Hey, hey, I don't judge! But you see, Samantha, darling, the thing is that grass is a real, real bad vegetable. You've ever eaten grass, Sam?"

"Once. On a dare. It was gross, though," I answer, sticking my tongue out between my front teeth at the taste. It scrapes up against them, but I think I might have a super-strong tongue now, too, because I haven't cut or pricked it even once.

"Right! It is gross. And it's got bupkis for nutrients, so they gotta... what the cows and the deer and the sheeps do, is they regurgitate the grass they've been grazing on so they can give it another go, see? So they can extract all the nutrients they can. So when you're ruminating on it, you're not just chewing; you're chewing and vo-regurgitating. It's fine for the cows to do it, but not for the people. We don't have a cow stomach for a reason. You understand me, Sam, darling?"

I look away from his face and nod. I turn my head all the way the other direction. My mom snores. "Don't dwell on it. Gotcha."

"And here's a little bonus lesson for you, bubelah - being a ruminant's one of the two things an animal has to do to be considered kashrut. They've gotta chew their cud. Do you know the other thing?" he asks, and I don't. I shake my head. "They've gotta have split hooves! If it chews the cud and has cloven hooves, it's safe to slaughter. A pig's got cloven hooves but doesn't chew its cud, and a camel chews its cud but doesn't have cloven hooves, and you can't eat pigs or camel. When it has split hooves... you know, it knows the difference between right and wrong, left and right, or so the sages say. And the chewing the cud business, that shows that it's never content with the knowledge it has, because if it's too content, it'll get complacent and smug. So when we eat these things, we take in their qualities. We don't want to be complacent without knowledge of right and wrong, and we don't want to know right and wrong while becoming complacent. Either way leads the bad stuff. You understand me, bubbelah?"

I nod, slowly, already turning the idea around in my head. "But if we want to have the qualities of an animal that chews its cud, why shouldn't we rumi... ruminate?"

He grins, a little twinkle appearing in his eye. "Excellent question, Samantha, darling. There is such a thing as too much rumination! Consider the cow, which spends all of its days and all of its nights eating and resting, and while it may know left and right, right and wrong, all of its time is spent just getting that energy to ruminate with! But us humans, we spend time doing more things than just rumination. If you spent all day chewing, you'd be no better than a cow or a deer. All things in moderation, Samantha."

I nod, trying to absorb what he tells me. I was never very religious - Pop-pop Moe takes it more seriously than either of my parents, although some of my relatives take it as seriously as he does. I never mind getting a lesson from him, though; he makes it fun. It's a lot easier to hear this sort of stuff out of your grandpa than out of a dry, flavorless textbook. "Is this supposed to be a metaphor for something? Are you trying to give me my "with great power comes great responsibility" speech?"

He leans back and laughs hard, thumping his chest twice to get a cough out. "No, it was just a digression. You know how us Smalls get. Did you know I met him once?"

"What, Spider-man?"

"No, no, the Lee fella. Ditko, too! I couldn't tell you the occasion, but, you know, it was definitely before that Echo fella. I grew up reading Spider-man, you know? I was just a little babe your age when they started releasing it," he answers, folding his arms over his chest. "Really lost the plot around that clone business... What was that, the 90s? You know, it was never quite as good as before- wait a second! What's this about calling me an Uncle Ben?"

"Is that his name?"

"You're darn right it is! Gosh, what are they teaching the kids these days if not the name of Spider-man's dead uncle, knowing the saying but not the name. The nerve," he harrumphs, reaching over to really mess my hair up. There's some things you can't help but laugh at, and your grandpa messing your hair up is one of them.

"Quit it!" I shout half-heartedly, attempting to slap his hand away.

"You'll have to make me, Shark-girl! Muahahaha!" he replied, reaching over with both hands now. When I try to grab his wrists, he yanks away, leaving me grasping for empty air. "Far too slow!"

"You're being silly, pop-pop."

"Maybe I am! Maybe I've had a little much to drink myself..." He chuckles, leaning back into his recliner. He hits a button and like a lurching zombie, the bottom of the recliner comes out, flicking his feet up along with it. "Do they still make those, Spider-man? The comics?"

I pull out my phone to check. "I wouldn't know, I'm not really a comic book girl. I think all my friends are into anime now, anyway," I answer while I filter through NetSphere for information. "Yeah, it says here they're still producing, like, Spider-man and X-men and that's, like, it. They sold off everyone else to Echo Verse in like 2010."

He snaps his fingers. "That's the boy! Echo Verse. What's this about anime?"

"Just like... Japanese cartoons and stuff,"

"You'll have to get me some recommendations for that one of these days. I've got free time, I should see what the youth are into nowadays," he says, while I put my phone back into my shorts pocket. "You know, I met him too - Mr. Genesis, back in the day."

I lurch up in my chair. I'm not exactly what you'd call a 'superhero nerd', but it's sort of like someone saying they met the president, or Dave Grohl. "Really?"

"Sure, sure! Mr. Chakravarti, if the memory does serve me well. He was very kind, very sweet, you know, very concerned about the flooding and the ocean, my firm had a meeting with him back in... I want to say 2000? Maybe 2001. You know, he doesn't exactly take interviews but he doesn't hide it either. Very humble," he leans back, grabs a glass of water that he had set out on the table between us, and takes a sip. "Now there's a hero. Be like Mr. Chakravarti, if you need to pick a role model."

"What exactly does that mean?" I ask, not understanding.

He looks at me, takes a sip, glances down at his water, and takes another sip. Then, he puts the glass down and shrugs. "You know, save people's lives. That's what it's all about, isn't it, Samantha, darling?"

"Save people's lives. That's what it's all about, isn't it?"

I keep turning that over in my head like I'm examining an ancient, freshly uncovered artifact, covered in dirt. The trees on the side of the Atlantic City Expressway are much harder to discern at 10 PM, rushing past us in one undifferentiated mass of black, with the Philadelphia skyline coloring the horizon a dim, dull, but visible blue.

My mom is asleep in the passenger seat - we basically woke her up to escort her out, and now she's going to sleep like a baby the rest of the night. I'm not worried, because this is just what happens when she gets really drunk, like at Passover. My dad is listening to something old on the radio, one of his old college CDs connected with a cart drive to the plug where his phone would be plugged in. I think it might be the Deftones, but it's hard to hear through my own music. He doesn't even need a navigation system to make his way back home from Ventnor, which is really cool. I can't imagine driving this far without one, I think I'd get lost on the highway.

Shark-girl... That's not really a good name for a superhero, is it? I mean, not like I want to become a superhero, because I never asked to get powers. I know there's a lot of people who get their powers in industrial accidents and then just, you know, wake up and go back to work. And there's people who are total superhero freaks, who treat them like celebrities and shit, and I think that's just really weird. I've never been one of those types either.

Superheroes, and I guess supervillains, superhumans, supes, capes, whatever - they were all already a thing before I was born. Way before, even. The idea that I could even become one had honestly barely even entered my mind, I just wanted the license so I wouldn't have any issues if I had to protect myself with my powers. What would I even do, anyway? Biting someone's hand off isn't exactly a really superheroic way to subdue a criminal (that means stop them, by the way). And my friends who I haven't hung out with aren't going to think I'm cool if I'm a superhero, I'm just still gawky old Sam Small. Boys aren't going to like me more if I go around dressed in kevlar biting people's faces off.

I mean, maybe the weird goth boys who still listen to metal, but, you know, that's not my type.

What would I even wear? I'm not any better at swimming, I tried. There's already tons of swimming superheroes who work with the coast guard. And I could never be a villain, either. Not because I have some sort of deeply ingrained moral code about it, because if I got a cooler power like teleporting or walking through walls I'm sure I would probably be stealing stuff all the time, you know, I already shoplift sometimes, I'd just do that but more. No, I can just imagine the tongue-lashing I'd get from my parents if they knew I was doing villain shit, and biting things isn't really a sneaky power that's hard to trace. Like, how many villains could there be with super biting? Not exactly something usually necessary to save your life, you know?

How many people had to bite their way out of problems, instead of lifting or flying or shooting-fire-ing? What a stupid power.

You know, plus, if I became a villain, I think my Pop-pop would be disappointed in me. I can handle my parents yelling at me, they do it all the time. But I think if Pop-pop Moe was ever disappointed in me, like, really disappointed, not just "you weren't supposed to eat that dessert before dinner, 10-year-old-Sam" disappointed but "you aren't supposed to rob banks and murder people, 14-year-old-Sam. I thought we raised you better than that.", you know? I think I'd just die.

I think I'd just die if that happened.

Fingers crossed this isn't ominous foreshadowing.

"Sam?" my dad's voice startles me out of my reverie - that's what my mom calls it whenever I start staring out into space because I'm thinking too hard. We're parked on the street, in our designated spot. "You good?"

I didn't even notice the music stopping, or us getting home. My album had ended like ten minutes ago. I put my headphones in my pocket. "Yeah. I'm good."

I feel the outline of my JLUMA in my phone case.

Save people's lives.