Speaker 1: The Tooth Fairy's Wrong Window Emma lost her tooth during dinner.
Speaker 1: It vanished between the mashed potatoes and her glass of milk.
Speaker 1: Dad checked the floor. Emma checked her napkin. Her little
Speaker 1: brother checked his own mouth, though all his teeth were present.
Speaker 1: At last they found it inside Emma's sleeve. That night,
Speaker 1: Emma placed the tooth beneath her pillow and went to sleep.
Speaker 1: At 12.14, something bumped against the window. At 12.15, it
Speaker 1: bumped again. At 12.16, Emma heard a tiny voice say,
Speaker 1: that is definitely glass. Emma opened one eye. A tiny
Speaker 1: woman in a raincoat was trying to unfold a map
Speaker 1: while hovering outside the glass. Emma opened the window. You
Speaker 1: are not Noah, the visitor said. I'm Emma. The tooth
Speaker 1: fairy checked the map. I have made a window error.
Speaker 1: She carried three small pouches labeled teeth, Coins and uncertain.
Speaker 1: The last pouch rattled. I collected a tooth from this house,
Speaker 1: she said, but the pillow was empty when I returned
Speaker 1: with the coin. She unfolded the map across Emma's blanket.
Speaker 1: It showed the upstairs hallway, but the rooms had drifted
Speaker 1: out of place. Emma's room was labeled, possibly Noah. The
Speaker 1: bathroom was labeled, large blue bedroom, which was wrong in
Speaker 1: several ways. This map updates itself, said the fairy. The
Speaker 1: bathroom box moved into the chimney. Badly, Emma said. Emma's
Speaker 1: brother Noah slept across the hall. He had lost a
Speaker 1: tooth that morning and hidden it beneath a toy boat
Speaker 1: instead of his pillow. He wanted to test whether fairies
Speaker 1: could solve clues. Apparently not, said the tooth fairy. They
Speaker 1: crept to Noah's room. The toy boat sat on the windowsill,
Speaker 1: but the tooth was gone. A trail of paper arrows
Speaker 1: crossed the carpet. Noah slept with one foot outside the blanket.
Speaker 1: The fairy landed on the bedpost, slipped on a toy wheel,
Speaker 1: and caught herself by grabbing the sail of the boat.
Speaker 1: Why is there a boat beside his bed? He says
Speaker 1: the carpet floods on Tuesdays. The fairy looked at the map.
Speaker 1: That explains one note. The arrows led to a blocked castle.
Speaker 1: Inside it was a note. Check the dragon. The stuffed
Speaker 1: dragon sat beneath a chair, wearing Noah's winter hat. Emma
Speaker 1: reached into its cloth mouth. Nothing. The fairy checked beneath
Speaker 1: its wings and found a dried pea, a red crayon,
Speaker 1: and one building block. The stuffed dragon held another note.
Speaker 1: Too slow. On the back, Noah had drawn three circles
Speaker 1: and a wavy line. A code, whispered the fairy. Or spaghetti.
Speaker 1: The circles matched three round stickers on Noah's bookcase. Behind
Speaker 1: the third sticker was another arrow pointing down. They crawled
Speaker 1: beneath the bed. The fairy's pouch caught on a spring.
Speaker 1: Coins spilled across the carpet, and Emma had to stop
Speaker 1: two from rolling into a heating vent. The tooth was
Speaker 1: not there. The tooth fairy folded her arms. Does he
Speaker 1: want a coin or an investigation? Emma found the tooth
Speaker 1: tucked into the dragon's felt ear. Both, she said. Noah stirred.
Speaker 1: Emma and the fairy froze. Dragon knows, he mumbled. then
Speaker 1: rolled over. Emma looked at the stuffed dragon again. Its
Speaker 1: felt ears were uneven. One looked much heavier than the other.
Speaker 1: The fairy placed a coin beneath the toy boat and
Speaker 1: left a receipt reading, tooth found despite unhelpful directions. She
Speaker 1: added a second line, map review pending. Is that for Noah?
Speaker 1: Emma asked. That is for me. Before leaving, she checked
Speaker 1: Emma's pillow. and exchanged the correct tooth for the correct coin.
Speaker 1: Emma asked what happened to the collected teeth. Tonight, they
Speaker 1: go into the teeth pouch. Tomorrow, someone with better labels
Speaker 1: sorts them. It was not the grand fairy secret Emma
Speaker 1: had imagined, but it sounded much more likely after meeting her.
Speaker 1: In the morning, Noah was delighted by the receipt. Emma
Speaker 1: kept the fairy secret, except for one part. Next time,
Speaker 1: she told Noah, Use your pillow. Did she complain? In writing.
Speaker 1: Noah read the receipt three times and placed it beneath
Speaker 1: his toy boat. Emma noticed that the tooth fairy had
Speaker 1: drawn a tiny corrected map on the back. The end.
Speaker 1: As always, visit us at readthetale.com for all your favorite
Speaker 1: tales and stories.