Elsa said, “Try moving your hand in the opposite direction.”

The girl cried out, “It’s sharp!”

Elsa nodded. “A little like sandpaper, isn’t it? That’s because the shark’s skin is made up of thousands of tiny teeth, or what scientists like me call denticles. They’re covered in a hard enamel and packed tightly together with their tips facing backward to reduce the water’s drag on the shark’s body as it swims through the ocean. From an evolutionary standpoint, these little teeth are the same as the big ones in its mouth.”

The girl’s eyes went to the great white’s mouth, which hung partly open, exposing the many rows of thin, savage teeth. “Can I touch one?”

“If you’re careful,” Elsa said with a smile, pleased to see the child’s curiosity outshine her fear. “They’re very sharp.”

The girl pressed her index finger to the plane of one triangular tooth. When it wobbled freely and unexpectedly, she snatched her hand back. “It moved!”

Elsa nodded again. “Sharks don’t chew, so their teeth aren’t attached to their jaws. This allows for forward and backward rotation and retraction, which is perfect for tearing off chunks of flesh from their prey that they can swallow whole—”

“Ow!” The girl had touched the tooth again, only this time she had run her finger over a serrated edge. She glanced up at Elsa accusingly. “It bit me!”

“It didn’t bite—”

“Mrs. Jayawardene!” the girl wailed, jabbing her finger in the air. “It bit me! The shark bit me!”

The three teachers who had been conversing amongst themselves turned to face the shed. The short, scowling one—Mrs. Jayawardene, presumably—said, “What are you doing in there, Julie? Come out right now! In fact, everyone get in the shade of the tent and take a seat!” She clapped her hands loudly. “You heard me!”

Julie and the other students went obediently to the marquee and plopped down on the sand at the front of the standing-room-only audience. The teachers began straightening them into two lines.

Julie, Elsa noted, was excitedly showing her classmates the finger the great white had “bit.”

When the students were settled, and it didn’t appear as though any more spectators would be joining the gathering, Elsa nodded to Mark, who turned on his handheld video camera and pointed the lens at her. The feed was being sent wirelessly to a large flat-screen TV set up on the sand so everyone under the marquee would have a detailed view of the dissection.

Elsa switched on the lavalier microphone clipped to the collar of her blue SBMC polo shirt, stepped to the threshold of the shed in her rubber Wellingtons, and said, “Thank you all for joining us today. We have quite the show for you.” She spoke with a professional cadence and authority, honed through the many scientific seminars and presentations she had given over the years. “I’ll begin the necropsy of this great white shark in just a moment, but first I always like to ask my audience, what do you already know about sharks?”