Tuesday 5 January 2010

The Girl


The Girl’s wobbly tooth had been threatening to make a bid for freedom since before Christmas, and we joked that Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy would bump into each other in the dark. But it waited until last night, and she placed it in aside while she diligently picked up her toys downstairs, cleaned her room upstairs, brushed her teeth and got into her jammies. At length, though, she could no longer resist proudly dancing around with her tooth – accidentally flinging it somewhere in her room.

We searched every inch of her room, it seemed, but no tooth – a catastrophe as far as she was concerned, for it meant no Tooth Fairy and no coins under the pillow.

Finally, while she was searching under her bed, I ran downstairs and took down from a high shelf a tin of sentimental things – including her first lost tooth. I slipped it between my fingers, went up to her room and slipped it onto the floor.

Look, honey, here it is, I said.

“You are the best, Papa!” she said.

1 comment:

brierrabbit said...

I've got a joke going that the "shoelace fairy" is intent on tripping me up. no matter how I tie my shoe laces. they still, somehow, come untied. i even drew a picture of what he should look like. Great children's story idea. I can imagine how it would start " Ah, yes, child, your Great, Great Great Grandfather Clancy O'sullivan, once stepped on a fairy by accident, nearly strangling the poor little fellow with his boot laces, and now he won't leave any of us O' sullivans alone....., why he even followed us here to America, He did.....