Tilly and the Wide Tooth

Tilly’s newest tooth was so wide that it made her collection box go, “Click!” and pop open.

The little box sprang apart on the workbench. Tiny teeth rolled between the jars of moon-dust and the spools of silver thread. Tilly caught one in her apron pocket, another in her teacup, and a third just before it slipped beneath the workbench.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “That tooth certainly knows how to make an entrance.”

Tilly was a young Tooth Fairy, and her workshop sat snugly inside a hollow tree. Its walls curved around her like the inside of a wooden bowl. A round window looked out between the roots, and a lantern hung from a low branch overhead. Tilly mended fairy slippers there, folded notes from children, and cared for her most special treasure: a display case full of teeth.

Each tooth had a little space of its own. There were tiny teeth, crooked teeth, and one with a funny bump that looked like a hill. Tilly loved every one. She had promised to make room for the newest tooth, which belonged to a boy named Arlo.

Arlo’s tooth was as wide as a button on Tilly’s coat. It had a smooth top and a small dip along one side. Tilly held it carefully in both hands.

“Arlo must have had a very brave smile,” she said.

She lifted the lid of the display case and tried the tooth in an empty space near the top. It wouldn’t fit. She turned it sideways and tried another space. Still too wide.

Tilly looked at the little tooth-sized openings. “There must be a place for you,” she told the tooth. “I just have to find it.”

She gathered the loose teeth, set them safely in a saucer, and put the case back together. The lid clicked shut this time. Tilly carried the wide tooth to the display case and began searching from top to bottom, certain that somewhere inside was the right spot.

Tilly tried the case’s narrow spaces one by one. She turned Arlo’s tooth this way and that, but it would not squeeze into any of them.

“Maybe I can make one space wider,” she said.

She moved a small tooth aside and nudged two others apart. The row wobbled like a line of sleepy ducks. Tilly steadied them with one finger, then checked the gap. It was still too narrow.

She tried putting the wide tooth near the middle, where the display case had a wooden bar. The tooth bumped the bar with a little thunk.

“Oop! Not there,” Tilly said, and caught it before it tumbled onto the floor.

For a moment, she sat on her stool with the tooth in her lap. She wanted Arlo’s tooth to have a place just as special as all the others. But she didn’t want to force it into a space that wasn’t made for it.

Then she noticed that the bottom of the case looked a little different. A narrow wooden strip ran across it. Tilly had always thought the strip was a shelf, just like the ones above. She leaned down and peered underneath.

“Oh!” she said. “That isn’t a shelf at all.”

Below the strip was a wide, open space, nearly as broad as the bottom of the case. Tilly had mistaken its front edge for a wall. The space was empty because she had never imagined a tooth could need so much room.

Tilly’s eyes brightened with an idea. “The other teeth can move up. Then this place can belong to Arlo’s tooth.”

She worked slowly. She lifted the smallest teeth first and set them in a row on the shelf above. She shifted the crooked tooth beside them, then made a little group for the round ones. Each time she moved a tooth, she checked that it had a snug place and wouldn’t roll.

At last, the bottom space was clear. Tilly held Arlo’s tooth over it. For one second, she hesitated. Then she lowered it gently into the wide space.

It fit perfectly. The case stayed closed, and every tooth had a place. Tilly smiled. “There you are, Arlo. One of a kind, and right where you belong.”

Tilly stepped back from the display case and looked at the whole collection. The little teeth sat in neat rows. The crooked one leaned beside a round one, as if they were sharing a joke. At the bottom, Arlo’s broad tooth rested in its own roomy place.

The case looked different now, but not in a bad way. It looked as if it had been waiting for that wide space to be noticed.

Tilly ran a cloth over the glass. “There,” she said. “Now everyone can see you.”

She pictured Arlo waking in the morning and finding the small gift she had left beneath his pillow. He might wonder where his tooth had gone. Tilly imagined telling him, in a whisper only a Tooth Fairy could hear, that it had joined a collection where every tooth mattered.

The workshop felt quiet around her. A wooden clock ticked from a nook in the tree. The teacup still held one little tooth that had rolled there when the box popped open. Tilly took it out and returned it to its space. Then she checked the case once more. Nothing wobbled, and the lid stayed shut.

She put away her tiny tools and folded her apron over the back of her chair. On the workbench, the moon-dust jars stood in a tidy row. Tilly placed the saucer in the cupboard and turned the teacup upside down to dry.

Before she climbed the ladder to her little bed in the tree, she paused beside the display case. She liked how the teeth looked together: small and large, straight and crooked, each one different from the next. Arlo’s tooth did not need to be smaller to belong. The case had changed to make room for it.

Tilly dimmed the workshop lantern. The curved wooden walls grew quiet, and the round window showed the dark branches outside. She smiled once more at the one-of-a-kind tooth resting at the bottom of the case, then climbed into bed, pleased with the place she had made.