Clara and the Last Train Car

“My tooth was right here,” Clara said, as her toy train gave one last click around the track.

She held her tongue against the little gap in her smile. The tooth had been in her hand a moment ago, small and white as a grain of rice. Now it was nowhere on the quilt, nowhere beside her slippers, and nowhere on the bedside table.

Clara’s train looped through her bedroom. It curved around a stack of blocks, slipped past two picture books, and chugged beneath a blanket tunnel. The cars bumped along behind the engine, clickety-clack, clickety-clack.

“Did you see my tooth?” Clara asked the stuffed rabbit sitting by her pillow.

The rabbit said nothing. Clara checked under the pillow, then peered beneath the bed. No tooth. She looked inside her pajama pocket and even opened the toy chest, just in case the tooth had decided to hide with the wooden animals.

“Maybe it rolled away,” she murmured.

She remembered setting the tooth on the quilt while she made the train go around the track. Then the engine had bumped over a block. The cars had wobbled, and something tiny had gone plink.

Clara looked at the train. Its cars stood in a row, but the last one was partly hidden inside the blanket tunnel. She started to reach for it, then stopped. If the tooth was in there, she didn’t want to tip it onto the floor.

Just then, a little square of paper slid from beneath her pillow. Clara picked it up carefully. The writing was so small she had to bring it close to her nose.

It read:

“Your tooth is near, so look around, Where trains go round and round and round.”

Clara read the rhyme twice. “Near where the train goes around and around,” she said. “That could be the whole track!”

She set the note beside her rabbit and studied the rails. The train had gone past every part of the loop. Clara traced the track with one finger, starting at the engine. The clue had turned her search into a puzzle—and she had an idea where to begin.

Clara placed one finger beside the rails. “I’ll follow the train’s path, one car at a time,” she decided. “No rushing, and no tipping.”

She began at the engine, which stood beside the blocks. Nothing white rested inside. The next car passed the picture books. Clara leaned close and saw only a little wooden crate. The third car had traveled beneath the blanket tunnel. She lifted the blanket’s edge and peeked in.

“Hello, tooth?” she whispered.

A sock, two toy buttons, and a crumb from snack time were waiting under there. No tooth.

Clara’s eyebrows drew together. The track curved around and around, just like the note said, but she had not found the right place yet. She looked at the train again. The final car had been tucked farthest beneath the blanket. It was easy to miss from where she stood.

“Maybe the clue means the place the train finishes its loop,” she said. “The last car comes around after all the others.”

Clara lifted the blanket tunnel with one hand and slid the final car out with the other. She kept it level. The little car gave a quiet rattle.

Clara froze. “Was that you?”

She tilted the car just a tiny bit, then stopped. A white speck showed between the wooden sides. The tooth had rolled into the final car and nestled against its back wall.

“I found you!” Clara whispered. She cupped the car in both hands and eased the tooth onto her palm. It was safe, with not even a scratch.

She placed the tooth in the small keepsake dish on her dresser while she set the cars back on the rails. Then she carried the dish to her pillow. The tooth went beneath the pillow, tucked in a place where it could not roll away.

Clara looked at the train. “Piper will have an easier time spotting it if you’re parked neatly,” she said. She guided the train beside the bed, lined up every car, and put the engine at the front.

The tiny note rested by the rabbit. Clara smiled at the rhyme. She had followed the loop, thought carefully, and found the last car’s secret passenger.

With the train parked beside the bed, Clara climbed beneath her blanket. The engine faced the pillow, and the cars sat in a tidy line, no longer bumping over blocks or disappearing beneath a tunnel.

“Good night, train,” Clara said.

She gave the rabbit a small pat. “Good night, too. We solved the clue.”

The rabbit leaned against the pillow as if it had been listening the whole time. Clara wondered whether Piper, the Tooth Fairy, would notice the train right away. She pictured Piper following the rails from the engine to the very last car, then finding the tooth tucked safely beneath the pillow.

“Maybe she’ll like the way you’re parked,” Clara told the train. “You’re easy to see from here.”

The room grew quiet. A book lay open beside the blocks, with a picture of a bear wearing a red hat. The blanket tunnel rested in a soft heap near the track. Clara could still remember the little rattle from the last car and the white dot waiting inside it.

She was glad she had not turned the car upside down. She was glad she had read the note carefully. Most of all, she was glad her tooth was in its safe place at last.

Clara touched the pillow where the tooth rested underneath. Then she let her hand fall beside the rabbit. Her train would stay parked all night, just where Piper could spot it. The clue had led Clara around the whole room, and every part of the bedroom seemed settled now: the books, the blocks, the train, and the girl in her bed.

“Tomorrow I’ll see what Piper leaves,” Clara murmured.

She listened to the still room for a little while. No wheels clicked. No cars rattled. The train waited beside her bed, and the tiny note lay near the rabbit, its rhyme already solved.

Clara’s eyelids grew heavy. She pictured the train taking one last quiet loop in her mind, past the blocks, around the books, and through the blanket tunnel. Then the picture grew still. Her tooth stayed beneath the pillow, safe for the night, while Clara settled comfortably under her blanket and fell asleep.