On Being a Successful Tooth Fairy

Last night I was a tooth fairy. Hat, who is ten and whom I know absolutely does not believe in fairies but is too mercenary to admit it, has lost three teeth in alarmingly quick succession. I hope this is normal; I hope that her teeth are not all falling out because I don’t feed her properly or something.

Last night there was also a power cut. You’d think this would be a hindrance, but not at all. It meant that instead of either waiting up until Hat had fallen asleep to leave the necessary or risk forgetting, falling asleep myself and waking to a disappointed wail this morning, I could deposit cash in the dark whilst she still wide awake because she couldn’t see what I was doing. (And because I forgot to buy batteries for her torch, she wasn’t able to check later).

Hat – for reasons I cannot fathom – likes to keep her teeth. The ones that have fallen out, obviously. (And the new ones she has in her head, I hope?). She stores them in a jam jar where they rattle about a bit morbidly. Perhaps she thinks I’ll forget which ones have been paid for by the fairies and she can recycle them, really – she’s that mercenary. The upside, though, is that I don’t have to grapple about in the dark, drop bloody tooth, grope around on floor trying to find it, bang head on top bunk, swear and risk waking Hat up. Hat knows all this and in a bid to make life as easy as possible for the tooth fairy (which is how I know she knows) she leaves a note for the fairies, conveniently placed on chest of drawers, explaining that she wants to keep her tooth so could they just leave the money instead. And bugger off without waking her up.

Last night she only left one tooth out – she’s saving the other two for another time, she says, it’s all part of her budgeting plan. And I carried out role of tooth fairy with consummate ease and felt very smug this morning when I woke because I was able to ask, ‘how much did the tooth fairy leave you Hat?’, rather than have Hat weep, ‘the tooth fairy didn’t come’ which would – of course – have made me feel like the world’s worst mother.

Again.