1936 CANADIAN SILVER DOLLAR

“Untooth my knee, fiend!” screamed James, battering the shark’s snout with his fist. “If a man wants to spend an afternoon boogie-boarding, he should be able to do so without suffering harassment from the chomping jaw of a great white!” The shark chewed him further. A loose tooth wriggled free of its jaw as it pierced James’ skin, and it stayed stuck there as the man continued battling the fearsome creature.

“Arrgh!” cried James. Pain from the shark-bites radiated over his muscular frame. Blood loss had turned his jabbing arm into a flopping noodle, and his usually-savage punches now dissolved against the gray hide like worms being smeared onto descending sneaker soles. “Though your sizable jaws may have a seismic effect upon the fragile surface of my skin,” he shouted, both of his legs now deep in the shark’s mouth, “know that not even with your most thorough chewing can you ever hope to eradicate the indominatable Mr. James Prowman! Well, then, choke on me!” As James slid into the shark, his proud, yelling voice echoed off the walls of its slick throat.

Six Hours Later
The widow waited on the pier with a gathering of sympathetic friends. “Poor, poor James,” said Elena Prowman. “I shall miss him so.”

“As shall we all,” said Brock Throckton, James’ closest friend, slipping up behind her. “But this world is for the living, and we must do our best to struggle forward.” Overcome with emotion, he placed his head and ear on Elena Prowman’s shoulder while staring at the sea. His hand tugged tenderly at her hair, and he sighed. Then he jerked his head up. “Is that it?” he said excitedly. “Is that the shark that ate James up?”

A boat was steaming toward the pier. Swinging from a large hook on the boat’s bow was the body of a shark; beside it, a grinning sea captain puffed on a corncob pipe.

“Oh, I can’t bear it!” cried Elena. “Poor James!”

“Still, didn’t you ever get aggravated by the way he talked?” said Brock. “You know, that odd manner he had? The weird words combined in weird ways?”

Elena couldn’t suppress a giggle. “I suppose sometimes it COULD get a little bit irritating…”

The boat had paused parallel to the pier. The choppy waves that were breaking against the hull did not seem strong enough to cause the pendulous shark to sway with quite such vigor. Its belly bulged and its tail flapped, and the sea captain cocked a wary eye at it as a spritz of sea foam from a broken wave salted his lips.

“Perhaps I’ll have this fella stuffed and mounted on my bedroom wall,” mused Brock, inspecting the jittering shark.

“Will I get to have a look at it there?” asked Elena coyly.

“You never know,” said Brock, and moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. He let his tongue continue to peek out of his mouth, pointing at Elena like a pink arrowhead. “You know, I’ve always found you awfully attractive…”

Suddenly, a muffled bellow: “Eaagh!” The shark’s midsection bulged and split open. The bellow swelled as if a volume knob had been whirled, and its source, a blood-covered James Prowman, emerged with an entrail-dragging leap from the slit he’d cut in the belly of the shark. His wife screamed. Brock began gnawing on one of his knuckles. The sea captain’s pipe spewed forth from his face, quickly followed by a flying cluster of vomit. James landed on the boat’s railing and immediately leaped again, this time from the boat to the pier. “How dare you attempt to cuckold me when my supposed corpse had not even had time to be digested?” he yelled at Brock. “You’ll pay for your ungallant gaming of my bride, villain!” In his hand he held the shark tooth that had become lodged in his leg while the beast was biting him, and which he’d used to cut his way out of that dark, dank prison. He jutted it forward at Brock’s face. The group of mourners dispersed. Brock, weeping in fear, turned to run—

048/365 - This motorized shark is part of a game called"Shark Bowling." You pull the shark back to wind it up then let it go to knock down the pins.

Enjoy.