Tooth Trouble
Our 3rd grade class followed a single-file line down the dimly lit brick hallway to the lunchroom. Buzzing with the voices of over 60 nine year olds and teachers, you could sense the excitement for our grade’s morning assembly with Mr. Mark the Magician -- a local illusionist who many hoped had brought along some amazing magic tricks to impress us all. As we sat cross-legged in rows, excitement was mounting for whatever was in store. But I had only one thing on my mind.
Feeling the soft, tender flesh of my gums as I wiggled my right front tooth, I could tell that it was close. Highly focused on getting it out, yet too afraid to actually stick my hand in and pull on it, my tongue continued to jiggle away furiously at the baby tooth. Mr. Mark began with a card trick, and one of those disappearing rabbit acts -- which at any other moment I would have been mesmerized by -- but my attentions constantly shifted back to my mouth. No matter how much I tried, that stubborn tooth would not budge. Frustrated, I pushed with all my strength against its smooth back. AHHHH! I screamed with delight, jumping up from the floor and spitting my tooth into the palm of my hand. Not only was I relieved that I no longer had a wobbly tooth in my mouth which prevented me from eating my lunch everyday, but I was also excited to show off my new toothless grin (having already lost my other front tooth, I now had a nice, wide-gapped smile), and collect a dollar that the Tooth Fairy always left in my pillow. I spun around holding my tooth out for everyone to see, but Mr. Mark had just shouted ABRACADABRA! and pulled a small white dove out of his hat. My classmates’ faces of delight were much more magical than a bloody incisor, so I was shuffled away to the office to pick up a ziplock bag for my tooth. It was one enchanting moment I wish I could have held on to forever.
*****
I kept the bag in my pants pocket for the rest of the day to make sure nobody could steal it, even though it poked me while playing soccer during recess. My anticipation grew throughout the afternoon, and increasingly with every stop on the bus ride home as the route sped closer to my house -- the last stop of the day. I held the tooth tightly in my pink coat pocket as I climbed the steps up to the porch, ready to surprise my parents with my precious cargo.
“Hi Aly!” my mom shouted from the dining room, already setting the table for dinner. She had a monotonous routine that was followed strictly each day: Up at 6:00 am to brew coffee and read the paper, scuttle me off to the school bus by 7:45, work outside doing landscaping with my Dad until 2:00, then back home and prepared to have dinner ready by 4:30. The day never stopped for her. “How was your day?”
I decided to play it coy -- to really build up the suspense before I told her.
“Pretty good. I have a big surprise!” I mumbled, careful not to smile and spoil my missing grin.
Continuing to bring pans over to the table, her response was less enthusiastic than I would have liked. My dad sat reading the ads at the head of the table, while I scooted past the oven and out of the way of my mom, scrambling to get everything ready to eat.
“Oh yeah? What is it?” she asked while taking out a ladle and scooping a heaping gob of sloppy joe onto a bun in front of my dad.
Pulling out my chair, I shot her a sly look with my mouth still closed.
“What?” she asked again, a little more forceful this time. I decided not to test her any more, and finally showed her my new smile.
It took her a moment to notice between scoops, but as she finally realized what I was missing, her eyebrows shot up in an exasperated look, which was like a reflex for her when I would reveal something surprising -- but which she always quickly caught.
“Wooow! No more tooth. Frank, look at Aly’s smile… she lost both her front teeth!” she said, laying down the ladle and smiling her tired smile she always pulled out for me even after her long days.
My dad, exhausted from work as well, acted interested to appease me, asking me to show him the tooth and tell him how it had fallen out -- which I gladly shared between bites of sloppy joe and crinkled french fries. I drew out every detail of the day -- from Mr. Mark’s magic show, to my determination to wiggle it out, to how much easier it was to eat my peanut butter and banana sandwich today, to the horrified look on Morgan Praski’s face when I showed the tooth to her on the bus ride home -- embellishing details and hyping the story as much as I could. This was prime storytelling material for a seven year old! My parents gobbled it up along with dinner, doing the best they could to stop yawning and looking back at the time on the microwave. Just like them, I couldn’t wait to fall asleep, The sooner I did, the sooner the magic would begin -- my tooth a part of a grand disappearing act, with a crisp dollar left in it’s place.
*****
Our family’s tooth fairy pillow was so old that it was only pulled out of the closet every time that a tooth was lost. The cloth, which I can imagine was once a crisp white, was stained a bit brown around the edges from years of dreams and drool after being passed down through the generations since my Great-Grandma Jevitt hand-sewed it in the 1930s. Across the top of the pillowcase, the words “Now lay me down to sleep” were embroidered in dark blue lettering, the ends of which had been frayed from years of heads rubbing against them. But most importantly, there was a pocket of dark blue fabric sewn into the cloth, big enough to just fit two fingers into and slip in a solitary tooth, waiting to be exchanged for some cold hard cash. I loved the feeling of the tooth underneath my hand as I tried to fall asleep, constantly checking to make sure it was still there and that I hadn’t missed the Tooth Fairy sneaking in while my mind wandered elsewhere. Twice that night my thoughts were interrupted by my mom stealthily opening my bedroom door and taking a tentative step inside the room to see if I was awake.
Both times I could see her startled body jerk back in surprise as I peeked my eyes open and moved when she stood next to me.
“Oh, you’re still awake?” she would whisper, pulling the covers up to my chin. The smile in her voice sounded genuine, but exhausted.
“Yes! I haven’t seen the fairy dust yet!” I’d whisper, and once again she would make her way back through the dark to the hallway. My eagerness kept me awake, trying to catch the tooth fairy as she snuck into my room and exchanged my front tooth for a shiny dollar coin. But after a while the sleep began to wash over me slowly, like waves. I told myself to rest my eyes but keep my ears open, but soon enough, as if rocked to sleep by the snoring of my father on the other side of the wall, I was out.
*****
I had almost forgotten about my tooth the next morning, until I felt the unusually wide gap between my gums and my tongue as I wobbled -- still half-asleep and wrapped in a Harry Potter blanket -- to the kitchen to eat breakfast. Suddenly remembering my expected gift, I leapt backwards, my blanket now a cape flowing behind me in the wind.
But something was wrong.
Jumping onto my bed and feeling the tiny blue pocket, I felt something hard, but not flat. And this something? It was none other than my tooth.
I was outraged. How could the tooth fairy forget me? Who did she think she was? Didn’t she know that this was an important visit?
Storming back out to the kitchen, I dramatically slammed my tooth onto the table, next to my freshly poured bowl of Lucky Charms.
“She FORGOT me!” I huffed, scowling at my mom.
“Who?” she asked looking over at me from the coffee pot.
As soon as she saw the little white tooth laying against the edge of the kitchen table, her face dropped. Her eyes widened before she pursed her lips together like she does when she’s caught off guard. She reached for her cup of coffee and took a long, breathy sip before putting her head down with a smile on her face. Then, she began to laugh. Not just any laugh, but a deep, hearty laugh -- the kind you just have to let out after you’ve had a long, stressful week and finally find a little mistake that tickles you funny. The oh-crap-I-messed-up laugh.
Making me even more annoyed, I snapped “Why are you laughing? This ISN’T funny!” But by now she was laughing so hard that she had made her way over to the table, trying to pull out her chair and not spill her coffee at the same time.
I had already started moodily eating my cereal by the time she composed herself, staring back and forth between the tooth and my mom the entire time. She looked at me while I chewed, an amused smile on her face.
“The tooth fairy was very tired last night. She was all filled up with sloppy joes and fries, and every time she tried to visit you, you were awake,” my mom explained, with that creepy smile which I can still picture to this day as my mom explains things to me that I don’t fully understand yet. She is waiting for me to connect the dots, to read between the very dull lines which she never wants to touch. And just like her sly smile as she tried to explain to me years later that me being born two months after my parents got married was NOT some sort of divine miracle, I understood in that moment why the tooth fairy hadn’t come. Instead of my tooth disappearing, it was the magic that melted off of my face into a confused and scared frown over my cereal.
I finished my bowl, leaving the milk at the bottom like always, and placed it in the sink. My mom was still smiling as I grabbed the tooth from the table and went back to my room to get ready for school.
*****
“Hey Morgan, how much did the tooth fairy leave you last time she visited?” I asked quietly on the bus that morning.
She looked at me and shrugged. “I don’t know, my mom just gave me a dollar when I knocked it out.”
My heart sank. So it was true. Mom was the tooth fairy. And mom forgot to leave me my dollar because she fell asleep.
“You didn’t actually think the tooth fairy was real, right?” Morgan asked as she looked away from the window towards me. “It’s just like Santa Claus, or the Easter bunny. How are they really supposed to get to everyone in one night? It’s not possible. So the parents make stuff up and pretend they’re real and do everything. Duh.”
*****
We didn’t talk much on the rest of the ride, but I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out before. I was upset not only that my parents were stringing me along with all their talk of magic reindeers and fairies, but also with forgetting me the night before. Why lie about these things? Why not just tell kids the truth? At least if my parents had done that, I wouldn’t have to be crying on a school bus learning from my best friend that what had caused me so much excitement the day before was really just a sham.
*****
Don’t worry, I got over it though. I forgave my parents after they finally sat me down on our blue and white speckled sofa and explained to me how the Tooth Fairy really worked. All I remember saying to them afterwards is, “I’m not going to LIE to my kids about this stuff,” before getting up, grabbing my favorite barbie doll, and heading back to my room. They had ruined the magic of the Tooth Fairy, so I was going to be sour the rest of the night.
However looking back, I see these lies in a different light. Instead of shutting down my whimsical outlook on life from the beginning with a direct chat about the truth of the tooth fairy, my parents tried to protect me -- to keep me believing in magic. Growing up, there have been so many times when my parents have told me they wished I could have stayed a child longer -- not having to deal with their long hours at work, the bill collectors calling, the passed-up opportunities to go on trips with friends because of the cost. Magic and miracles were some things my parents wanted me to believe in for as long as possible, and with as much faith as I could. The longer I believed, the easier it would be to keep me oblivious about all of the stress and responsibilities of the adult world.
I’ve come to see that the secrets that adults keep from their kids are not usually out of a mischievous plot to keep them in the dark, but to shield them from the harsh realities of the world: sooner or later we have to face the truth and let go of our fantasies in order to grow up -- and this stinks. Growing up and realizing the world is not full of magic is scary. Almost as scary as working two jobs to provide for your family, or trying to hide the presents sent from “Santa” each holiday season in a closet where you hope that no one can find them. My parents were just doing the best they could. It’s still terrifying to think that we grow up believing one thing and eventually peel back its layers to learn more and more of the truth. But what’s more terrifying? -- Living in a fantasy world where a fairy sneaks into your bedroom and takes a piece of calcified bone that has fallen out of your mouth? Or living in a reality where everything you believed in -- this fairy included -- turns out not to be true?
The next time my little cousin runs up to me, throwing his tiny arms around my shoulders and showing me a gapped-tooth grin, I’m going to do exactly what I said I wouldn’t -- I’m going to play along. Gasp in wonderment, smile, and ask him if the tooth fairy visited him. Maybe he already knows the truth, maybe he doesn’t. But it isn’t my place to snatch away what may be his last fleeting moments of innocence, of a belief in the magical forces of the world. I wish him all of the happiness in the world for as long as possible, and if that comes at the price of a little white lie, I’m okay with it.
