My tooth fell out the day my older brothers and I were supposed to sleep over at my uncle’s. He lived in the next town over, about half an hour away, which was far enough to make it feel like a real adventure, but close enough that our parents could pick us up if something happened. My tooth had been wobbling for days, and after each cautious bite of the banana Mom had sliced up for us, I swore I had swallowed it and used my tongue to make sure it was still holding on, until finally my tongue just pushed it right out of place. I spat the tooth onto my hand and marveled at its tiny shape. Part of me wished more pieces of our bodies just fell out and regrew so I could look at them more closely, without any restrictions. Funny how now I sometimes faint just at the idea of blood.
“Momlookitfelloutitfellout!” I shrieked, jumping from the couch and into the kitchen, pinching the tooth between my index finger and thumb, holding it out for my mom to see. The tooth had once been only mine, and now look, I can share it with you.
She turned from her position at the sink, shutting off the faucet as she gasped along with me. “Oh my goodness! Ok, we have to keep it safe until the tooth fairy comes,” she said, drying off her hands. “Let me get an envelope.”
That’s when the all-consuming dread nearly stopped my little kid heart. “But, Mom, I’m not going to be here tonight. The tooth fairy won’t even be able to find me,” I moaned, collapsing into one of the kitchen table chairs. My mom flitted back into the kitchen with a small white envelope that had a little rainbow in the top left corner. Such an odd combination--rainbows seemed childish, and envelopes were adult things.
“Of course the tooth fairy will still find you; she has magic. It just might be a different tooth fairy. There’s the Keokuk fairy, and the Ft. Madison fairy, and lots of other fairies all over the world. So the Ft. Madison fairy will pick up your tooth this time instead of the Keokuk fairy.”
“Are you sure? But what about all my other teeth the Keokuk fairy has. Now they are going to be separated.”
“All the fairies are friends, so I’m sure that the Ft. Madison fairy will pick up your tooth and then deliver it to the Keokuk fairy, so they are all together. Don’t worry about it, Mara. Now here, put your tooth in the envelope, so it doesn’t get lost,” she said, holding the envelope open.
I took one last look at the tooth, the piece of me that once lived in my mouth and now sat cold and dry at the bottom of an envelope. Poor tooth. Suddenly I wanted to keep it, put it back in my mouth where it once belonged, force my gums to regrow around it. My tongue stroked the empty space. Bottom, slightly to the left.
When we got to my uncle’s that evening, I triple checked that the envelope carrying my tooth was still safely packed in my little corduroy backpack. I followed my brothers into the basement, which seemed so exciting because our basement was just concrete and pipes and spiderwebs, and his had furniture and a TV. My mom stayed upstairs with my uncle, talking about adult things. That was probably the moment my mother explained to my uncle that he had better replace my tooth with some money under my pillow tonight, or risk shattering my belief in magic and in her. I wonder what he thought of these parental deceptions--he didn’t have any children, and even when he did get married, years later, they just adopted more dogs, including their names on birthday cards, as if they were indeed their kids.
My uncle had these old arcade games in his basement that I was never very good at, but liked to play anyway. Really I just liked the fact that I could open the door on the front of the machine and take quarters from the little bucket underneath. I’d leave the door open so when I put in the quarter to start the game, I could see it drop into the bucket. Sometimes I’d reach inside and try to catch the quarter as it fell. It thrilled my goody-two-shoes heart because doing so made me feel like such a rebel.
My uncle had a treadmill in the basement, too, in front of this ginormous TV. I was young enough to still consider treadmills as foreign and exciting toys, rather than torturous exercise machines. I’d walk or jog while watching Cartoon Network--my brother Max’s choice, not mine--and sometimes Andrew would speed up the machine until I told him Dad would hate him if he made me fall off and die. It wasn’t quite as blatant then as it is now, but as the youngest and only girl of the family, I was Dad’s favorite. I had sort of suspected it. The boys always got in more trouble than I did. Dad always gave me the cinnamon roll that was in the center of the pan because it’s edges were never crunchy. There was always this deep satisfaction whenever I got special treatment, an internal HA to my brothers. So what if they didn’t want to play with me. I was gifted a greater proportion of fatherly love. I never really felt bad about it. The boys had each other; I had Dad. It was only fair.
“Kids, I’m leaving! Come hug me goodbye,” Mom called down the stairs. Our footsteps thudded on the carpet, such a foreign sound. I was used to creaking wooden floorboards and knew exactly where to step in my room to make the most noise. Mom knelt down with her arms out as soon as she saw me, and I went straight towards her like a magnet.
“Bye, Mommy,” I whispered into her black poofy hair, the curly strands tickling my nose.
“Bye, Bunny, I love you. Have fun, and don’t forget to put your tooth under your pillow.” She kissed my cheek before hugging the boys.
As soon as she left my uncle said to us, “All right, kids, now we can have some real fun.”
Falling asleep in unfamiliar places took forever. I was used to the certain amount of squish in my pillow, the feel of my mattress. The fold out couch I shared with my brothers that night was lumpy, the pillow too flat. I slid my hand underneath the pillow until I felt the crisp corner of the envelope. The fairy won’t come until you fall asleep, Mara. I just liked checking. I had said a final goodbye to my little tooth, whispering into the paper, I hope you enjoy your trip and get reunited with my other teeth.
I’d like to think I dreamed of hundreds of fairies, collecting teeth all around the world. The fairy brought my tooth to life and together they journeyed to wherever my other teeth had been placed, and they lived happily ever after. Or maybe I dreamed of fairy realms where everything they owned was made out of the lost teeth of children, maybe even the handles of their toothbrushes, and they lived in some macabre tooth castle. I wondered what they did with their own teeth.
When I awoke, there was no grogginess, no sleep tainted confusion. I immediately slid my hand under my pillow, just as I had done the night before, my heart racing as I searched for the quarters the fairy had left for me. But I didn’t feel metal. I swept my hand further to the right. Surely they had just been pushed over while I slept? Faster now, more frantically I searched. Then--there. The crinkle of paper. My heart dropped.
The fairy didn’t find me.
Mom was wrong.
The fairy couldn’t find me.
Mom was never wrong.
Finally I sat up, tossing the blanket onto the boys. Max didn’t move a muscle, but Andrew shifted, opening one eye to look up at me. I carefully lifted the pillow, and prepared myself to see the envelope with the rainbow corner, untouched. Instead, a crinkled Abe Lincoln met my gaze. My mouth dropped open in shock. Five dollars? The Ft. Madison fairy left me five whole dollars for one tooth? Did she make a mistake?
“Andrew, look how much the tooth fairy left for me!” I whisper-shouted. He merely groaned. “Andrew, I got five whole dollars.”
That got his attention. “What? Nuh-uh,” he mumbled, finally opening both eyes.
“Yeah-huh, see?”
“Lucky,” he muttered, before falling back asleep.
When Mom came to pick us up after breakfast, I ran up to her, hiding the five dollar bill behind my back. “Mom, you were right, the tooth fairy found me! Guess how much money the fairy left for me?” I added smugly, “You’ll never guess.”
“Hmmm, a dollar?”
I laughed, shaking my head. “More.”
“More than a dollar? How much did you get?”
I pulled the money from behind my back, holding it up like Simba. “Five dollars! The Ft. Madison fairy must be rich! I should always come here when I lose a tooth.”
Mom looked excited, sure, but now that I know it was always her who left two quarters under my pillow and not some made up fairy, I think I recall a flicker in her eyes, a delay in her smile, the questioning look of am I enough. She is the keeper of my teeth. Rather than my teeth being building blocks to fairy castles, they must all be stashed in some box somewhere back home. I wonder what would have happened if I had stumbled upon it all those years ago. What would she have said then?
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