The Tooth Faery's Gift Twilight slung her sack over her shoulder and gulped the rest of the nectar from her cup. "They must water it down," she surmised wearily, as she trudged out of the squad room to report for duty. She did NOT feel like being here tonight. All her friends were at a party in Sunflower Garden, and she had to work. She had to admit that she had drawn a good neighborhood to work; all the spoiled little toothless kids in her area expected paper money; she didn't have to drag heavy coins around all night. She had been thrilled to be chosen for the tooth-gathering team; couldn't understand why some of the other faeries smiled behind their hands when they saw her happiness. She understood now, though. These nights got long, as she flitted around from child to child, waiting for those stragglers (those hoping to catch a glimpse of HER) to fall asleep. How much sooner she could go back and write up her reports, if these kids would just GO TO SLEEP, already! She had tried talking to Herr Sandman, but he just shook his head, saying that the children were able to block him out when they were excited. Halloween, Christmas, Birthdays and Tooth Fairy nights made it impossible for him to do his job. Too bad; those little tikes need their sleep, he would lament. No kidding. Twilight needed their sleep, too. Twilight punched in on the wee time clock, the drop of dew on her flower petal time card catching the reflection of the position of the Moon in the sky to mark her time in. Replacing her card carefully in the flower, she turned, and straightening her bag and fluttering her wings, took off smoothly into the warm night air. Her first three stops were Billy, Tiffany, and Ashley. Each of them had lost at least two teeth before, and the Tooth Fairy thing was becoming old hat. Good. They were asleep, confident of the dollar bill (five, in Tiffany's case) that would be under their pillows in the morning. Next were twins Brian and Ryan. She peeked through a crack in their window blind. Ryan seemed quiet, but Brian tossed and turned. "Shh," she heard Ryan say as he lay perfectly still. She flitted away, grinning. First-toothers, these two. She'd be back later. She adjusted her bag, which was a little heavier now with the teeth it contained. She checked her list often, and flew on, skillfully removing teeth from under pillows. This at times involved plucking it from a crumpled, bloody tissue, or opening the lid to a little box (did they think this tiny creak would wake them to her presence? Ha!). She left the proper amount of green-printed paper behind as she went. What these kids could see in that stinky paper with ugly pictures was more than she could fathom. Had she been in their place, she would want the shiniest coins the Faeries had to offer. She left Brian and Ryan for last, and finally they were both peacefully unaware of her little exchange. She was by now back to her cheerful self, enjoying her work, her purpose for the time being. She perched on a blossom for a bit of refreshment before heading back to the office. As she tucked her completed list back into her bag, she encountered another dollar bill. Odd...she had brought as many as teeth she had to gather, and according to her calculations, her list was complete. Just to be sure, she unfolded it and held it up in the moonlight so she could see. There at the very bottom, she could see the name "Peter," though it looked like it had been erased and rewritten several times. She nodded knowingly, and smiled. He must have been ambivalent about his tooth coming out before bed time, and given his parents a hard time when they wanted to help. It happened. Well, okay, this one more stop, then. The cardinal rule for a Tooth Fairy was: Never put off visits until the next night for ANY reason, EVER. She had never seen Peter before; he lived at the edge of her territory, and though her list said this was his second tooth lost, the Fae from the neighboring territory must have seen him the first time. This was her favorite part of her job, the first visits. She peeked through the screen from a shadow; he was sleeping soundly (he should be; it would be getting light soon enough). She squeezed through a tiny hole in the screen, grateful that she didn't have to rearrange her molecules; she was getting weary. Dropping her bag on the pillow, she burrowed under for his tooth. Puzzled, she emerged toothless, looked around his pillow, and on the floor around the bed, grateful that he slept with a light on. Had it fallen? Was she maybe not in the right place? Determined, she dove back under Peter's pillow. Something crinkled. What is this? Gift wrapped? This is a new one. She dragged it out and perched on the pillow. A note? She'd gotten fan mail, but there was always a tooth. This worried her. She could not read the language of humans as well as some of her colleagues, and she did not want to leave without that tooth! It would be a huge disappointment for Peter, and the first decay mark on her record. With all these worrisome thoughts, she opened the paper. And she smiled a very big smile. It wasn't a worded note, but a series of pictures that told the sad story of the sleeping six year old boy before her. The first picture was a stick figure of a child eating fresh coconut, enjoying the tasty white flesh. The second showed a grin with a big black gap -- a lost tooth! The third picture was of a tooth, and a question mark -- missing! The final picture was a sad boy lying in bed, the empty area beneath his pillow circled for emphasis. Twilight was moved to tears, and they fell and sparkled in Peter's hair and on his face. She couldn't help herself. Never had she received, had she ever even heard of something such as this. She wished she had more of the green paper in her bag -- she would have left him double and gone back to the office for more. There was no time now; already the night was fading into the predawn. Quickly she reached in her bag, unaware that the green slip of paper had a "5" in each corner. (Unwittingly she had left Tiffany a paper with "1's" in the corners -- Tiffany's parents would make it right). She hastily tucked the note from Peter into her bag, and flitted back out through the hole in the screen. She got back to the office just in time, for the sun rose in full glory of the morning. She grabbed her flower petal and turned its dewdrop to the dazzling light to punch out. Quickly she headed to her Supervisor Fae's office, pulling the note from her sack as she flew. "Boss, you won't believe this..." Contributed by MedicineDoe (U) Copyright © 2003 MedicineDoe, all rights reserved. Do not use without the author's written permission. 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