Bruce the Great White Shark

            Once upon a time, there lived a great white shark named Bruce. Bruce ruled the sea, and everywhere he went the creatures in the sea would swim away and hide. Bruce was also the biggest shark in the sea, so everywhere he went the other sharks would do as he said.

“Bring me a nice juicy tuna!” he would tell the hammerhead.

“Yes, Sir,” the hammerhead would say with his head hung low.

“And you!” he shouted at the reef sharks. “Bring me a dozen sea horses so that I may have an appetizer before my meal!”

“Yes, Master,” they said in shaky voices. They were especially scared of Bruce because they were so small.

The other sharks always complemented his looks and his many rows of razor sharp teeth. They did anything they could to keep Bruce happy.

“Wow, Bruce. Is that a new row?” asked Mickey the Mako shark.

“Why yes, Mickey, thank you for asking. It came in yesterday. I haven’t quite been able to really use it yet. But maybe if I’m lucky I’ll nab that swordfish that’s been swimming around my territory lately.”

“Oh, you’ll show him boss,” peeped Ricky the reef shark.

“Yeah,” said Mickey, he doesn’t know what’s coming.”

“Well thanks for the small talk, boys, but I gotta be getting back home soon. I need some rest.”

“Yeah, you bet Bruce. Sleep well,” said Mickey.

Yeah, boss, sleep well,” piped Ricky as Bruce swam off.

Bruce loved to torment the people at the beach; in fact, it was his favorite thing to do. He would swim under all the people’s legs and pick which one he wanted to scare, and which one he wanted to eat. When he was all done selecting his prey, Bruce swim up to the surface of the water, and swim between the people with his big huge dorsal fin sticking out,

“SHARK!” yelled the first person to see the fin.

“Oh my God! Everyone out of the water!” yelled the lifeguard through his mega phone.

Then he would blow his whistle and shout again. Bruce swam in and out and all around the lines of people in the water. He zigzagged and circled and whirled around people and everyone screamed at the top of their lungs. But Bruce was only taunting them; there was only one person he wanted to eat. It was the man in the yellow swim trunks. But just as he was ready to strike a boat drove by and picked the man up. Bruce stopped suddenly and the boat drove over his back.

“OWWW! Said Bruce, “That’s my fin!”

            Bruce looked at his back to see that a huge gash had appeared right below his big dorsal fin and screamed in pain. Then Bruce began to get angry as he noticed that because of the boat, the man in the yellow suit had gotten away. Without any more hesitation, Bruce raced after the boat. The boat was moving fast, but Bruce was faster and he caught up with the boat in the blink of an eye. When the fishermen on the small motor boat looked back to notice that a 25-foot Great White Shark was trailing their boat and was beginning to open its massive mouth, they screamed the loudest they had ever screamed before and pushed the boat to the fastest it could go. 

            Just as they did this, however, Bruce was closing his four rows of teeth over the motor of the boat. Then he stopped—attempting to kill the boat as if it was a living thing—and the boat kept going, pulling out Bruce’s whole jaw! NO! How could this happen? What is a Great White Shark with out his razor sharp teeth? Without them, Bruce was a nobody.

            That night Bruce swam back home without a trace of his dignity left. He held his head low and wondered what he would do. As he got closer to home, the other sharks came to do their usual sucking up, but realized that they would no longer have to.

            “Hey, Bruce,” said Hank the Hammerhead, “is that a new row of teeth—what a minute… Bruce, did you lose your teeth?

            “Hey everyone!” shouted Ricky the Reef shark, “Bruce lost his teeth, come look!”

            Well after Ricky told the whole town, everyone came out to see. They circled around Bruce and laughed and taunted him.

            “Bruce lost his teeth, Bruce lost his teeth!” shouted everyone.

            “Stop it! Yelled Bruce. “Please!”

            “What are you gonna do? Tear us to pieces? said Micky the Mako.

            Bruce was on the verge of crying but couldn’t let the rest of the Sharks see, so he swam away as fast as he could back to his house and shut the door.

            Bruce wondered what he could do. He had once been the biggest badest thing in the sea, and now everyone—even the smallest fish--made fun of him. As Bruce thought about it, he realized that he might have been big and bad, and everyone might have been scared of him, but nobody really liked him. Everyone might have complemented Bruce and is teeth, but under all of that there was no love for Bruce.

            Well, right after Bruce realized this, he jumped out of his chair and burst through the door. He was going to make everything right.

“Ricky, is that a new row of teeth?” asked Bruce

“Uh…yeah, Bruce. Yeah it is!” Peeped Ricky the reef shark

“Wow! They look great!”

“Thanks Bruce!” Shouted Ricky and swam back to the reef.

            This overwhelmed Bruce. Never in his life had he been nice to Ricky, but now he was a new person. Later that day, Bruce gathered some mesh from an old sunken fishing boat and used it to make a net. Then he went to the deep part of the sea to catch as much plankton and he could. After he filled the net, he went back to the reef to give his load to the sea horses he had been so mean to before.

“Wow! Thanks Bruce.” They all shouted together.

“No problem guys.” Said Bruce.

            That night, when Bruce was all done with all his good deeds for the day and was getting ready to go home, he heard Ricky shout:

“Hey Bruce c’mere, look what we found!”

            Bruce swam over to the rocky were Ricky was and to his surprise, found his big jaw with all his big teeth still there!

“Ricky! You guys this is great!” Bruce said as he slipped his teeth back in.

            Bruce learned something that day. No matter how big and mean you are, what makes you the biggest is how nice you are to other people. And after that day, everyone lived happily ever after.