Disclaimer: I do not own Finding Nemo. If you don't realize that already, then whack yourself on the head with a nice, thick wooden spoon for a while. It'll sink in sooner or later.

Summary: How DID Pearl find out that "this tentacle" was shorter than all the others?

Tentacles and Shiny Things

The door opened and two pink octopi walked out. "Bye, Mom!" a childish voice called, turning around and waving towards the threshold.

"Have a good day, honey!" came the reply.

"So where we goin', Dad?" the child, now floating alongside her father, asked, bobbing up and down in excitement.

"We're going to see some old friends of Daddy's."

"Ooh!" And they walked in silence. Pearl began twirling her tentacles, humming absentmindedly to herself. "Oh, look, a sand dollar!" she said, looking at the ground. She bent down to pick it up—

"We're here!"

"Huh?" She looked up. They must be at some exciting place! A piranha zoo? The snail emporium? The—"A Dentist's Office?" she cried.

"Uh huh." Her father walked in. "Bloat, you still look the same since the last time I saw you!" she heard him greet, but she didn't care. Instead, Pearl decided to look around the strange room. There were metal instruments everywhere, a single chair, and an empty tank. It was an unusually boring place.

Then the light shifted and glinted off of a silvery object. "Shiny," Pearl commented. She reached one tentacle out to touch it.

"AHHHHHHHH!" The instrument slipped and cut a jagged, but not deep, laceration into her fifth tentacle.

"What is it, honey?" Her father ran into the room, Bloat at his side.

"IT CUT MY TENTACLE OFF!" Tears were streaming down her face as she held out the hurt appendage.

"Oh, honey, that isn't that bad—"

"IT CUT MY TENTACLE OFF! IT CUT MY TENTACLE OFF!"

"No, really, it's only a little cut—"

"AHHHHH! I'M TELLING MOMMY!"

Ooh. She shouldn't have gone there. Wincing, her father gently grasped the tentacle. "But you can hardly notice it, honey—"

"AHHHHH!"

Bloat picked up a towel from the cushion. Holding it over the cut, he put enough pressure until it healed. Pearl sniffled and looked at him. "See? You can hardly tell."

She nodded. "Okay," she said in a teary voice.

"Let's go get some dessert," her father suggested, and the three walked out of the room.

That night, Pearl bounced happily through the door and hugged her mother. "Did you have fun today, honey?"

"Yup."

"And what happened?"

"Well, first we walked and I saw a sand dollar…"

"Really?"

"Yeah, and then I was going to pick it up, but we came to the dentist's house. So then we went inside and a shiny thing cut off a piece of my tentacle and I started—"

"It WHAT!"

"It cut off a piece of my tentacle, and I started—"

"Where is your father?"

"Why, he's over there, Mommy! Running right out the door. So I had this shiny thing…."