Open Writing

'Will the Tooth Fairy find me in Adelaide, Mum?'

Mark’s questions come thick and fast the moment he steps off the tarmac at Adelaide Airport. They are usually more demanding and can range from how do aeroplanes stay up in the air to how many lollies can you fit in your mouth. Mark’s front tooth was hanging by a thread and was causing him a fair bit of mental agony. I could see the cogs whirring and the questions forming.

Thankfully the tooth fairy and I had done business before so we were well acquainted. This time round I had all the answers. I breathed a sigh of relief and got on with the necessary explanations.

‘Sure she will find you, honey.’ I said. ‘Tooth Fairies have antennas. They are like little divining rods that lead them to wherever the teeth are.' And not only was there an Adelaide Tooth Fairy, I explained, there were hordes of them plying their trade worldwide and hauling their stash to their corner of Fairyland each night.

When we got to the guest house where we were staying for our holidays, I gave him the traditional apple to help things along. I mused that growing those teeth had taken up a third of Mark’s life and had caused us both many sleepless nights. He munched and then we spent an exciting afternoon checking out the unattractive object of the Tooth Fairy’s desire.
‘Why do they want my tooth, mum?’

In typical Mark fashion he was not going to be satisfied until everything was known to him on the topic, especially as there was a whole dollar involved in the transaction. More questions were asked and answered. Fairies grind the teeth and sprinkle it on their cereal for calcium and they dust their wings with it to give them more staying power on those long journeys to and from Fairyland. Tooth power also fuelled dump trucks and locomotives.

And where was Fairyland? We had been reading Enid Blyton’s Far Away Tree stories, a great favourite of Mark’s and he knew about the exotic lands on top of the tree. It made sense to him, then, that that was where Fairyland could be found.

Mark and I spent a pleasant afternoon discussing the most effective place to put his tooth. We checked out and rejected several locations, including under the pillow: too easily lost and the mantelpiece was too white and a little tooth would be easily missed. How would the Tooth Fairy know who it belonged to? We finally settled on dropping it into a glass of water and putting it on the Mark’s bedside table.

Mark’s brother was at the other end of the room during this discussion, busying himself with something arty-crafty. He had his head bent low throughout it all but I could tell he was listening. He had long since extracted the last dollar from the tooth fairy, but being the nice child that he is, he wasn't about to spoil it for his brother. David just smiled and kept his counsel.

‘Tooth Fairies are shy, Mark, yours won’t turn up until you’re asleep.’ It had been an interesting and exhausting afternoon, but Mark wasn’t quite done yet. He clutched his tooth to his chest, Mark had a request.

A letter was to be placed under the glass. ‘Dear Tooth Fairy,’ Mark dictated, ‘this is me, Mark. You can have my tooth for your breakfast cereal. Can I have an extra fifty cents so I can buy a chocolate ice cream? Do Tooth Fairies have teeth? What happens to them?' Love, Mark.’