Moody clouds dance above ScarBurns Middle School like a gray parade. Arms folded, I sit in Ms. Gild’s math class, gazing out the foggy window, waitin’ for raindrops.
Jaws clenched, I stare at last week’s math quiz, mean-mugging the big fat red-letter’d F. I flip the test over to hide the shrieking grade.
I pull out the Polaroid I stashed before walking to school this morning. In the photo, Grandpa smiles in the dingy mirror he left in our attic before he died. When I first touched the mirror back then, Grandpa smirked and whispered “Perception, Emme.”
“Huh?” I said, nose scrunched.
“That there mirror reveals what’cha mind can’t see,” Grandpa said. Wonder what Grandpa’s dingy mirror’d say about this ugly red F.
Two seats over, my ex-bestie Nin sneak-eats red candy-coated apple slices. My chest feels tight, my palms sweaty. Nin used to share those candy apple slices with me. It was our thing. But not anymore. Not since Kase, the new girl, showed up four months ago.
“Class—” Ms. Gild says, her sharp voice halting classroom chatter. “Please review your quizzes. You have the weekend to prepare for the test on Monday.”
My head hurts as Ms. Gild explains the answers. On Nin’s desk, I scope her grade. She got a 100, A+.
“Ouch!” Nin yelps, apple slice stuck to her top teeth. When the candy leaves her mouth, two teeth do too.
The class erupts in laughter. “Those teeth ain’t growing back!” Becka taunts.
Last year, hands down, I would have had Nin’s back. I would’ve stood up to those kids. But two months ago, when I slipped on spilled smoothie in the hall, Nin walked right past me. She didn’t laugh like everyone else. But she didn’t help either.
“I’ll get the first aid kit,” Ms. Gild says, leaving the room.
I reach over to pat Nin’s hand, but she pulls it away. “Don’t touch me,” she snaps.
As hard rain pounds against the classroom window, my heart beats fast, blood swishing hot in my veins.
Smirking, I stand, point at Nin, and say, “Snaggle Nin.”
Becka laughs. “Good one, Emme,” she says.
Then, one by one, kids mimic my harsh words. “Snaggle Nin, Snaggle Nin,” they chant.
I force a smile. Being mean doesn’t feel good. But right now, all I can see is that big ole F, Nin’s A, and me, covered in pink smoothie.
All the Tiny Teeth
Will Emme ever get them back?
Learning Objective: to analyze conflict in a work of short fiction, then continue the narrative in a sequel
Art by Guga Ferrara
Art by Guga Ferrara
When I get home, I run past the kitchen where my mom’s cooking roast beef and carrots. I climb the attic stairs and rush over to the dingy mirror.
Narrow-eye’d, I speak, “What can you show me that I don’t already know? Can you tell me why math is so hard? Why Grandpa crammed old stuff like you in this moldy attic before he died? Stupid mirror. What do you know? Huh? Nothing!”
“Have you been unkind?” the mirror asks.
Startled, I stumble, tripping on old books.
The mirror’s voice is husky, like Grandpa’s rasp in those last few days. Brown fingers reaching toward my murky reflection, I open my mouth, shudder. “What? No! You . . . you’re not real.”
“Perception,” the mirror says. “You sorry for what you’ve done?”
Hesitant, I think of the candy apple slices Nin doesn’t share, the red F on my quiz, the pink smoothie. “No, I’m not sorry.”
“Very well,” the mirror declares. “As is inside, so shall be outside.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“Perception,” the mirror repeats.
“What does that mean?!” I yell, but the mirror doesn’t respond.
A sharp pinch pricks my gums above my top teeth. They’re sore, like my shoulder after the flu shot. I lean closer to the dingy mirror, part my shaky lips. They’re red.
I back away and flash down the cold attic stairs to my room. I rush to my dresser mirror and lift my top lip. My two front teeth wiggle, wobble, and fall into my palm.
I touch my gums and sprint to the bathroom down the hall. Maybe my dresser mirror’s playing tricks on me, maybe my teeth aren’t really missing.
In the bright bathroom, I gaze into the mirror. I touch the front two bottom teeth. They wiggle, wobble, then fall into the sink.
Through missing teeth, I whisper, “Perception.”
I grab my phone, type the word “perception” into the search bar, and read the definition aloud. “The ability to see, hear, or become aware of something.”
“To see,” I murmur. “The mirror wanted me to see.”
It asked if I was unkind. But I lied. I was unkind . . . to Nin. Called her Snaggle Nin.
Perception. I see now.
Frantic, I grab the tiny teeth and rush up the attic stairs again.
“I lied. I was unkind. I’m sorry!”
“I’m not the one owed an apology,” the mirror says.
Teary-eye’d, I plead, “Please. Whatever you are, make it stop.”
“Find the one the apology belongs to.”
“Nin?” I answer. And I know.
Red mask coverin’ snaggle’d teeth, I race outta the house into hard rain, headed to the place Nin goes when she’s sad.
Art by Guga Ferrara
Nin’s exactly where I expect, sitting under the bridge made of yellow Lego bricks inside ScarBurns’ kid museum, eating red Jell-O.
I open my mouth to speak, but Nin speaks first.
“What’cha doing here?”
I shrug, adjusting my mask. “Nothing. Everything. Listen, I’m sorry. For what I did . . . and said.”
“You hurt me.”
“I know.”
Nin swallows Jell-O. “Why?”
“Don’t know. Got an F. Saw your A. And then . . .”
Nin lowers her eyes. “And then what?”
I don’t want to say what I’m about to say next, but I have to. “I got . . . jealous. You shared our apples with Kase.”
“You’d like Kase. She makes the best smoothies.”
I smile. Then I think of the pink smoothie incident. Nin didn’t help.
And she knows. “I’m sorry too. I should’ve helped you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Jealous?” Nin shrugs.
“Of me?”
“Yeah,” she says. “You’re good at English. I’m horrible.”
“Ha! Math’s the worst. You’re a numbers whiz.”
She passes me a red Jell-O cup. “I could help with math. We could help each other. And Kase too.”
“I’d like that,” I say.
Art by Guga Ferrara
Art by Guga Ferrara
Hours later, I charge through the front door. I rush up to the attic.
“I found Nin!” I tell the mirror. “I apologized. We both did. Can I have ’em back now?”
The mirror is silent; its quiet burdens the room like a backpack full of undone homework.
But I did it. “I . . . apologized.”
“Emme,” Mom calls from the other side of the attic door. “Yuh in there?”
“Yeah,” I say, eyes heavy.
“Yuh eat?”
“Nooo.”
“Alright, come do that,” Mom says, her footsteps descending squeaky stairs.
Vision blurry, I gaze into the mirror, hesitantly opening my mouth. “They’re back! All the tiny teeth are back.”
I grab the mirror on both sides, kiss the dingy glass. “Thank you!”
But the mirror doesn’t speak.
Writing Prompt
Write a sequel showing what would happen if it turns out one or more of the conflicts in this story hasn’t truly been resolved.
This story was originally published in the October 2025 issue.
Close Reading, Critical Thinking, Skill Building
Essential Questions: How can jealousy affect people? How can we look at ourselves truthfully? How are conflicts resolved?
1. Prepare to Read
(5 minutes)
Preview Vocabulary (5 minutes)
Project the Google Slides version of Vocabulary: Definitions and Practice on your whiteboard. Review the definitions and complete the activity as a class. Highlighted words: burdens, dingy, halting, murky. Audio pronunciations of the words and a read-aloud of the definitions are embedded on the slides. Optionally, print the PDF version or share the slideshow link to your LMS and have students preview the words and complete the activity independently before class.
2. Read and Discuss
(30 minutes)
Read the “Spotlight On” box on page 26 or at the top of the digital story page.
For students’ first read, have them follow along as they listen to the audio read-aloud, located in the Resources tab in Teacher View and at the top of the story page in Student View.
Have students reread and annotate the story independently. Here are some symbols you might have them use:
∞ = connection
⭐ = important
❓ = I don’t understand
💭 = “I’m thinking . . .” (add words and comments)
💙 = love this
Alternatively, have students complete a double-entry journal during their reread. In their journals or on a piece of paper, have students create a T-chart. In the left-hand column, have them record three to five lines that jump out at them or feel particularly meaningful. In the right-hand column, have them record their reactions to these lines through questions, comments, connections, or analysis. You can find both a print and a digital version of our Double-Entry Journal handout in the Resources tab.
Divide students into groups to discuss their annotations or double-entry journals. Then reconvene as a whole group and pose the following questions, some of which may draw on students’ reading responses and group discussions. (If you prefer to have students answer these questions in writing, use the Discussion Questions in the Resources tab.)
Discussion Questions (20 minutes)
1. What role does jealousy play in this story? Explain. (character, plot) Jealousy is at the center of Nin and Emme’s friendship falling apart and is a key reason they treat each other unkindly. Emme fails to stand up for Nin when Nin is being teased—and then joins in the teasing—because she is jealous of Nin’s friendship with Kase and jealous of Nin’s perfect score on the math quiz. Emme is also resentful that Nin didn’t help her after she slipped and fell on spilled smoothie two months earlier; Nin says she didn’t help because she was jealous of how good Emme is at English. It’s likely that when Emme slipped, the main reason Nin didn’t help was that their friendship was already damaged, though—which goes back to Emme being jealous of Nin’s friendship with Kase.
2. Explain what Emme means when she describes the mirror this way: “. . . its quiet burdens the room like a backpack full of undone homework.” What mood does this help create? (figurative language, author’s craft) With this simile, Emme is expressing the idea that she feels anxiety or tension in the mirror’s silence; she’s expressing a looming sense of dread that she’s feeling about the mirror’s coming response. In other words, Emme is saying that the mirror’s silence gives her the same feeling of dread that a backpack full of undone homework would. All of this helps to create a tense, suspenseful mood.
3. Emme describes the mirror’s voice as “husky, like Grandpa’s rasp in those last few days.” What might this detail suggest about the mirror or about Emme? (inference) That the voice Emme hears from the mirror sounds like her grandpa could suggest that Emme is imagining the mirror speaking—that she is hearing her grandpa’s voice in her head. On the other hand, it could suggest that Emme’s grandpa is actually speaking to her through the mirror.
4. Emme’s grandpa told her that the mirror in the attic reveals what your mind can’t see. What does the mirror reveal to Emme that her mind can’t see? (inference) The mirror reveals to Emme that she was wrong in how she treated Nin, that she doesn’t want to lose Nin as a friend, and that she should apologize.
5. Do you think the mirror is really magic and that Emme’s teeth really fall out? Support your answer with details from the story. (supporting a conclusion) Answers will vary. There is no proof that Emme’s teeth do not fall out and magically reappear in her mouth; however, several details suggest the possibility that Emme only imagines what she hears from and sees in the mirror. First, there is the fact that the voice Emme hears from the mirror sounds like her grandpa, which could indicate that the mirror’s voice is in Emme’s head. Also, Emme seems able to speak without any difficulty after her teeth fall out, which she likely wouldn’t be able to do if her four front teeth were actually missing. In addition, Emme wears a mask when she is with Nin at the museum, so the reader does not get any reaction from Nin to support the idea that Emme’s teeth are missing—of course, the reader also does not get any support from Nin’s reaction for the idea that Emme’s teeth are not missing!
3. Write a Sequel
(30 minutes)
Have students use the Featured Skill Activity: Conflict to help them to respond to the writing prompt on page 27 in the printed magazine and at the bottom of the digital story page:
Write a sequel showing what would happen if it turns out one or more of the conflicts in this story hasn’t truly been resolved.
Alternatively, have students choose a task from the Choice Board, a menu of culminating tasks. (Our Choice Board options include the writing prompt from the magazine, differentiated versions of the writing prompt, and additional creative ways for students to demonstrate their understanding of a story.)
Connected reading from the Scope archives