Claudia's Book

  But it was too late. I crashed into Pete Black and we fell over in a heap. I hit my mouth on the ground.

  “OWWW!” I cried as Pete scrambled to his feet. I raised my hand to my mouth. Was it bleeding? Or worse, had I knocked out a tooth?

  “Are you all right, Claudia?” asked Mr. Eccles.

  I lowered my hand. No blood. No tooth. I ran my tongue around my mouth just to make sure. All my teeth were still there. “Yes,” I said, embarrassed that I had fallen.

  Mr. Eccles bent down to inspect my face. “You’ve got a scrape on your lip,” he pointed out.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to go to the nurse’s office where she might put something on it that would hurt worse.

  Mr. Eccles inspected my lip for a moment longer, then nodded. “Okay,” he said.

  “Good,” said Emily, who’d been chasing me. She slapped me on the shoulder. “Then you’re it!”

  Everyone took off and I took off, too. I forgot about my fall. Sort of.

  But by the end of the day, as I was walking home with Kristy and Mary Anne, my mouth had started to hurt. No. Not my mouth. My front tooth.

  In fact, it had started to throb. And when I talked, it hurt even more. So I kept quiet. Fortunately, Kristy and Mary Anne didn’t seem to notice.

  I was still safe from the hairy fairy.

  Mimi noticed my scraped mouth the moment I walked in the door. “What happened, my Claudia?” she asked.

  “I fell playing tag,” I said, keeping my answer short because it hurt to move my mouth.

  Janine sat down at the kitchen table and began eating an apple. As she bit in with her front teeth, I winced.

  “Would you like an apple?” asked Mimi.

  “No,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “You are not hungry?” Mimi looked surprised. I was always hungry when I got home from school. Maybe not for an apple, but for something.

  I didn’t wait around to see if I could get cookies or popcorn instead. I just said, “I’m not hungry,” and made my escape upstairs to my room.

  I started my homework. But it was hard to concentrate when my tooth hurt. I sneaked out a mystery book and tried to read that. It was one I’d read before, one of my favorites. But it didn’t hold my attention now.

  And I couldn’t eat any of the gooey, excellent snacks hidden in my room. My tooth wouldn’t take it.

  Of course, I couldn’t go around with my mouth shut forever, hairy fairy or not. That night at dinner, my parents got the truth out of me the moment I asked if I could be excused from dinner.

  “But you had nothing to eat when you returned home from school today,” said Mimi.

  My father put his hand on my forehead. “Are you coming down with something?”

  “What happened to your mouth?” my mother asked.

  “I fell at school today playing tag.”

  My father touched my upper lip. I couldn’t help it. “Ow!” I cried.

  “Hold still,” he said. He gently lifted my upper lip.

  “Orrw,” I mumbled. “On’t touch y tooth.”

  “You hit your tooth when you fell,” said my mother. “Oh, Claudia. I bet that hurt.”

  My father let go of my lip. He patted me on the shoulder. “Looks like you’re about to lose your first tooth,” he said, smiling.

  “No! It’s not even loose!”

  “I think we’d better go to the dentist tomorrow,” said my mom.

  “I’ll get you something soft to eat that will not hurt your tooth,” said Mimi.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine,” I cried. But it was too late. My fate was sealed.

  I was not happy in school the next day. I had to go to the dentist. Dr. Rice was our family’s dentist. I had been to visit him, just for a check-up, and hadn’t minded at all. But what if he wanted to pull my tooth? Then the hairy tooth fairy would get me.

  At Dr. Rice’s, when he said, “Open wide, Claudia,” I closed my eyes and my mouth and slid down into the chair.

  “Claudia,” said Dr. Rice. I opened my eyes just a little. Dr. Rice was smiling a puzzled smile. I felt silly.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” I said.

  “What doesn’t hurt?” asked Dr. Rice. “Why don’t you show me?”

  I opened my mouth and pointed to my front tooth. “I fell. But it doesn’t hurt. Not really.”

  Dr. Rice looked at my tooth. “Hmmm,” he said. He tapped the tooth with his metal tooth gadget, very gently.

  “Owww,” I said. Then I said, “Maybe it hurts a little.”

  Dr. Rice took an X ray of my tooth. When the X ray came back he held it up and showed me the picture of my tooth. That was pretty interesting. The dentist who had visited our class had showed us X-rays of teeth, too. But it was more interesting looking at X rays of my own teeth.

  Then Dr. Rice said, “Claudia, there’s a tooth right behind your front tooth. It may not be quite ready to come in, but it will be ready soon. And your front baby tooth needs to come out. I’m going to send you to Dr. Celenza. She specializes in things like pulling teeth.”

  For a moment I imagined Dr. Celenza holding a pair of big pliers and pulling out the hairy tooth fairy’s tusks. That almost made me smile.

  But then I thought about having my own tooth pulled. That definitely did not make me smile.

  Meanwhile, Dr. Rice was telling my mother about Dr. Celenza and my tooth.

  I was going to have my tooth pulled out the very next morning. I wasn’t even going to go to school first. That idea cheered me up a little. But not much.

  I remember having “tooth” food for dinner that night: soup and mashed potatoes and milk, and for dessert, a Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia milkshake. Everybody else had their ice cream in a bowl, but Mimi put mine through the blender and I drank it with a straw.

  I would’ve enjoyed it if I hadn’t been worried about 1) losing my tooth and whether that would hurt; and 2) the tooth fairy. They were about equal in my mind. After all, I believed that the tooth fairy was a sort of demented dentist who flew through the night yanking teeth out of the mouths of unsuspecting children.

  By the time I reached Dr. Celenza’s office, hanging onto both my mother’s and Mimi’s hands (I’d insisted that Mimi go with us) I was halfway convinced that Dr. Celenza and the wicked, tooth-yanking tooth fairy were one and the same. So I was surprised (and amazed) to see that her office didn’t look like a real doctor’s office. The walls were covered with colored stars of red, green, yellow, and blue. A silver moon hung from the ceiling. All around, looking out from behind stars or inside some of the stars, were pictures of smiling kids.

  And the chair looked like a rocketship. The doctor’s assistant helped me climb in the chair and showed me the make-believe control panel. I was so busy pushing the buttons and staring around the room that I didn’t even notice Dr. Celenza come in until she was standing right beside me.

  “Hi, Claudia,” she said. “I’m Dr. Celenza.” She had a friendly smile and was wearing lots of buttons on her white doctor’s coat. The buttons said things like, “Tell the Tooth!” and had pictures of teeth on them. I would have thought they were funny if I hadn’t been so worried.

  “My tooth doesn’t need to be pulled,” I said.

  “Hmm,” said Dr. Celenza. “Why don’t you let me take a look at it, since you’re already here?”

  “Well, okay,” I said reluctantly. “But don’t touch it.”

  I let Dr. Celenza look at my teeth. “You have good, healthy teeth, Claudia,” she said. “But I need to touch your tooth. I know that might hurt. So I’m going to give you a quick shot of Novocain to put it to sleep so it won’t hurt when I look at it.”

  That’s what she did. The shot stung for a moment. Then my tooth stopped hurting.

  “Can you feel that?” asked Dr. Celenza after a minute.

  “Eel at?” I asked (my mouth was still open).

  “Good,” said Dr. Celenza. “You know what, I think that tooth really should come out, Claudia.
And now that it’s asleep, you won’t feel anything.”

  I was about to object. I wasn’t afraid of it hurting anymore — and I didn’t think Dr. Celenza and the tooth fairy were in league together to get all my teeth. But having my tooth pulled meant that I’d have to let the tooth fairy into my room … unless … unless Dr. Celenza kept the tooth. And if she did, the tooth fairy would have to stay away!

  I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said.

  It was over in no time. Dr. Celenza congratulated me on “making the right decision” to have my tooth pulled, and she let me choose a prize for “being such a smart, good patient.” The prizes were all jumbled up in a space helmet. I chose a packet of stick-on earrings. Dr. Celenza let me put the earrings on and I looked in the mirror and grinned. When I saw the gap where my tooth had been, I laughed. The earrings, little red apples, looked cool. But my tooth gap looked funny.

  “You can eat real apples in a few days,” Dr. Celenza told me. “Don’t worry. But for the first couple of days, take it easy on your teeth.”

  “Okay,” I said happily. I jumped out of the chair and hurried out to the waiting room. While Mom talked to Dr. Celenza, I showed Mimi my new stick-on earrings and described how brave I’d been about having my tooth pulled.

  We were almost out the door and I had forgotten all my worries about the hairy t.f. when a voice behind us said, “Oh, my goodness! Wait!”

  I turned and saw the doctor’s assistant hurrying toward us. “Your tooth,” he said. “You almost forgot your tooth! You want something to leave for the tooth fairy, don’t you?”

  I froze. My mother laughed and said, “Thank you.” She took the vial with my tooth in it from the assistant and said to me, “What do you say, Claudia?”

  “Thank you,” I said reluctantly.

  “Dr. Celenza said you were a terrific patient,” my mother told me on the way home.

  “You were very brave,” Mimi added.

  “I guess so,” I said listlessly.

  Neither my mother nor my grandmother seemed to notice. “You know what, Claudia?” my mother went on. “I do believe the tooth fairy gives special attention to kids who have to have their teeth pulled at the dentist’s office. Especially when they are as brave as you were.”

  I didn’t answer.

  My mother said, “So be sure to leave your tooth under your pillow tonight.”

  “I will remind you,” said Mimi, patting my hand.

  I didn’t answer. I kept my mouth closed. I was practicing for the arrival of the tooth fairy. I might have lost one tooth that day. But no way was I going to lose all the rest.

  “You did not forget to put your tooth under your pillow?” asked Mimi. She’d come in to tell me good night, just as she did every night.

  “No,” I said. I lifted the pillow to show her.

  She nodded and smiled. “Good night, my Claudia,” she said and touched my forehead. Then she turned off the light on my bedside table and left the room.

  The moment she was gone, I leaped up. I emptied out my piggy bank and lined the coins up along my windowsill so that if the t.f. tried to get in, she would knock the money over. I would hear the coins and have time to jump up and fight. (Also, there was always a chance that the tooth fairy would see all the money and just take that and leave.)

  Then I closed the curtains and pulled the bottoms of them onto my desk (which was under the window). I put a stack of books on the curtains. Even if the t.f. was able to get past the money trap, she would have to open the curtains. When she did, ka-bam! The books would fall over and wake me up.

  I put Vaseline on the window latch (which would make it harder to open). Then I took my clothes and bunched them into a dummy figure under the blankets and covered it up. Even if the t.f. was able to get past all my traps, she wouldn’t find me there. I wasn’t going to be caught. I was going to hide in the closet until I was sure I was safe.

  I took one of the pillows into the closet with me and propped it against the wall. Then I piled my shoes around me. I was going to use them for ammunition to throw at the tooth fairy, if necessary.

  I had my flashlight with me and, for a while, I tried to read. But every little sound made me jump, and I worried the t.f. would see the light coming from the closet (if she made it past all my traps) and would come after me and my remaining teeth.

  It was hard staying awake. The closet was uncomfortable, but in spite of that, my eyes kept drooping. Then a sound would startle me momentarily awake. They were just the normal sounds of my house, though.

  Gradually, the house grew quiet. And dark. And still.

  And then I heard it. A sound.

  Someone was coming into my room.

  Cautiously I peered around the closet door. My eyes widened. A tiny square of light from the hall was coming into my room through my bedroom door. I recognized my mother.

  Before I could think what to do, my mother tiptoed over to my bed. “Claudia?” she said softly.

  Of course, I didn’t answer.

  It was very dark but I was sure I saw mother slide her hand carefully under my pillow and take something out from under it. Then she slid something else back under the pillow and tiptoed carefully from the room, closing the door softly behind her.

  I pushed the door open and leaped across the room. I turned on my flashlight and lifted the pillow.

  My tooth was gone. In its place was a shiny Susan B. Anthony dollar.

  I looked over my shoulder. I guess I was confused and still expected the tooth fairy to come swooping in through the window. But nothing happened.

  And then I realized why.

  My mother was the tooth fairy. There was no real tooth fairy.

  I’d never been so relieved in my life. I could lose the rest of my baby teeth safely. No one was going to come sneaking in my room and pull them out when I wasn’t looking. Nothing huge and hairy was going to lean over my bed and whisper my name.

  I was safe. No t.f.

  I put my clothes back in the closet and dismantled my traps. I dropped my money back in my piggy bank — except for my dollar. I left that under my pillow. When I’d gotten back in bed and laid down, I slid my hand under the pillow and felt the rough edges and smooth cool metal. A whole dollar for my tooth. Not bad. Wait till I told Mary Anne and Kristy.

  And wait till I told them what I’d figured out….

  I was almost asleep, clutching my dollar, when another thought made my eyelids fly open. I sat straight up in bed.

  “The Easter Bunny!” I gasped. “Santa Claus!”

  Was it possible? Could it be true? It had to be.

  If the tooth fairy wasn’t real, then neither was the Easter Bunny or Santa. My parents were the ones who hid the Easter eggs in our backyard every year and ate the carrot I left out. My parents were the ones who filled the stockings Janine and I hung from the chimney and left the presents by the tree for us to open on Christmas morning.

  No giant rabbit (with giant rabbit teeth) had ever hopped into our yard to hide eggs and fill up the Easter baskets we left on the back steps next to the plate.

  No fat jolly man with eight tiny reindeer had ever landed on our roof. No big guy dressed in red had stopped to nibble on the cookies and drink the glass of milk we’d left on the mantle.

  No Easter Bunny. No Santa Claus.

  It had to be true. Slowly I lay down again, staring up into the darkness, thinking hard. Was I relieved? Or was I sad?

  I wasn’t sure. But I felt different. I felt that I wasn’t a kid anymore. I felt grown-up.

  Later, I would ask my parents and they would tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but about the tooth fairy and company. Later, I would tell Kristy and Mary Anne what I had believed about the tooth fairy and we would all laugh.

  For the moment, however, I wasn’t sure what to think.

  But it was a big moment in my life. A milestone. I knew I would never forget it.

  My third-grade teacher wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t great. Mr
s. Colquiet, I realize now, just didn’t have much of an imagination. She followed Plans. She followed Rules. She wore Business Suits. (I think that says it all.)

  That was hard for me, especially after Mr. Eccles.

  It was also hard because Janine had had Mrs. Colquiet and she had been Mrs. Colquiet’s best student. The very first thing Mrs. Colquiet said to me on the very first day of third grade was, “Claudia Kishi? Janine Kishi’s younger sister?”

  I nodded miserably. I knew what was coming. And it did. Mrs. Colquiet’s face broke into a huge smile. “Janine Kishi. An outstanding student. Your family must be very, very proud of her.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, well, well … ” Mrs. Colquiet gave me another beaming smile and kept on calling roll.

  For a little while — until she found out how different I was from Janine — I was her favorite student.

  Then I began to fall further and further behind. And not just because of Mrs. Colquiet, who, to be fair, never, ever compared me to Janine. But I felt as if she were comparing us, which made it even worse when I would get spelling tests back and the big red number at the top would be the lowest grade in the class. And although spelling wasn’t my worst subject, I often made the worst grades on the spelling tests. I made major errors on my math homework. I got whole countries mixed up in geography.

  You get the idea.

  But because I hadn’t done so badly with Mr. Eccles, I just figured it wasn’t so important. And I think my parents figured part of it was that I didn’t do as well with Mrs. Colquiet’s style of teaching. Mrs. Colquiet wasn’t terrible. In fact, she was very careful to tell my parents, even on my worst report cards, that my talent for art made me the best artist in the class.

  I started fourth grade thinking things would be better, especially when I learned that Kristy was in my class. I hadn’t been in a class with Kristy since first grade.

  “Guess what?” Kristy told me on the morning of the first day of school.