Tooth Fairy

Last night Matilda extracted a molar from her mouth. Either that or she found a hippo tooth. Hard to tell. But it was huge.

Gert was fascinated. She wanted to hold the tooth in her hand, feel its weight, get to know the enamel. She even wanted to touch the blood and inspect the void in Matilda's head. She asked questions about teeth and wanted to know when she would lose her own.

"I bet Matilda has lost 80 or 90 teeth by now," she said, her mind doing the math for how much each tooth is worth.

That night they went to bed, one with a tooth under her pillow the other with silly putty.

This morning I was watching the dog get the newspaper (what, your dog doesn't fetch the paper?) when Gert came screaming into the living room holding a piece of paper.

"Did you see her? Did you see her?"

"Who," I asked.

"The Tooth Fairy! She gave Matilda money! And she left me a note under my pillow! My says she came last night and was pretty sure she saw her leaving this morning!"

"No, I didn't see her. She's small and fast."

For the rest of the morning, Gert searched every nook and cranny of the house exclaiming, "She has to be here somewhere!" She looked high and low for any trace of the tooth fairy. She dusted, collected forensic evidence. For this morning the Search for the Fairy became all consuming.

Alas, she found no proof other than a hand-written note under her bed. For a moment I feared she was going to ask for handwriting samples.

It took a moment to convince her to brush her teeth. Knowing that they will fall out if she doesn't means something different now. She's looking forward to being older and losing her teeth. It will be a moment she'll wear with pride and excitement. The poor tooth fairy probably won't be able to get under that pillow because she'll be wide-eyed with excitement.

And she was wide-eyed this morning, her little four-year-old mind filled with the possibility that a real fairy had visited her house. This was better than Santa and the guys who brought copies of the Watchtower last week. Better than the pizza guy's always welcome experience.

She has the mind of a kid. A mind that can go climbing into the far reaches of fantasy. Fantasy that is so close to reality that you can almost hear the swish of the chiffon of the Tooth Fairy's dress.

And hear the chinging of the coins as they pile up for each and every tooth.