Timko and the Wobbly Tooth

Timko’s tooth had gone wobbly. A bottom one, at the front, very small. Timko touched it with his tongue, and the little tooth leaned forward like a leaf in the wind, then back again.

“Wiggle-wiggle!” said Timko. “Mom, look!”

“I see,” Mom smiled. “That’s a baby tooth. He’s done his job and will fall out on his own soon, and a new, proper one will grow in his place.”

“But when?”

“When he wants to.”

Timko did not like that “when he wants to” one bit. He was six already, and he wanted everything to happen at once.

Meanwhile Dad walked around the kitchen from shelf to shelf and peeked under the table.

“Now where’s my pencil?” he muttered.

“Dad, it’s behind your ear!” Timko laughed. “You’re looking for something that’s on you!”

Dad felt for the pencil, hummed, and winked.

“It happens.”

Mom looked at Timko’s little tooth, then at Dad, and took her blue apron down from its hook.

“I’ll bake a pie, just in case.”

And Timko ran to the big oak, where Granny Owl lived in the hollow.

“Granny Owl! My tooth is wobbly! When will it finally fall out?”

Granny Owl wiped her glasses with her wing and narrowed her amber eyes.

“Hoo! Here’s a riddle for you. It comes not when you wait for it, but when you laugh. And it hides where it’s warmest. What is it?”

Timko thought, snuffled through his little nose, and shrugged.

“I don’t know. Maybe spring?”

“Maybe spring,” hooted Granny Owl, and closed one eye. “And maybe not.”

After lunch Rusty and Pip came running. Rusty, as always, raced ahead, so fast that the leaves flew from under his paws.

“Me first!” he shouted. “Show me the tooth!”

Timko opened his mouth and wiggled the tooth with his tongue. Rusty whistled. He felt every one of his own teeth with his tongue too, but not a single one budged.

“Not fair,” he grumbled. “I’m always first.”

“But you came first today,” said Pip. She was sitting on a stump, and the daisy behind her ear swayed.

“When my dad was little,” Timko told them, “he used to throw his tooth over his shoulder and say: ‘Mousie, mousie, here’s a bony one, give me an iron one!’ We play that game at home.”

Rusty gave Pip a sly look.

“Pip, so you’re the one who takes the teeth?”

Pip laughed so hard that she rolled off the stump into the grass.

“Me? What would I do with other people’s teeth? My own grow my whole life, and I even have to wear them down so they don’t get too long! I have plenty of my own!”

Timko laughed too. No mouse swaps anything. A new tooth will grow by itself, with no swap at all. That’s even more interesting.

Mom carried an apple pie out to the table under the oak. Warm and golden, with steam rising from it. Lily toddled beside her on her short little legs and reached for every slice.

“Mine! Mine! Pie!”

Timko took his slice and froze. What if he bit down and it hurt?

He stopped, snuffled through his little nose, and whispered:

“Breathe in, breathe out, and off we go!”

And he took a bite. Crunch! The pie was delicious, and the little tooth only wobbled and stayed where it was.

“Well,” Timko sighed. “Even pie can’t get it out.”

So Rusty decided to help in his own way. He puffed out his cheeks, crossed his eyes at his nose, and wiggled his ears, one this way, the other that way.

“I’m a grumpy badger who got woken up in the middle of the day!” he rumbled in a deep voice.

Timko burst out laughing. Pip squeaked with laughter. Lily clapped her paws. Timko laughed so hard that he swayed on the bench, and suddenly something gently tapped his lip.

He stopped. He felt with his tongue. Where the tooth had been, there was now a little gap, smooth, warm and a tiny bit salty.

“It’s out!” Timko gasped. “My tooth fell out!”

A drop of blood showed on his lip. Timko was a little scared, but Mom was already beside him with a mug of water.

“Rinse your mouth. Like that. A little blood is normal, it’ll stop in a moment.”

Timko rinsed and spat the water into the grass. And sure enough, the drop was gone.

“And when will the new one grow?”

“Slowly,” said Mom. “It’s in no hurry, because it grows for life.”

“But where’s the old one?” Timko remembered.

Everyone looked at the table. At the bench. Under the bench. The tooth was nowhere.

And the search began. Rusty dug through the grass with his nose: “I’ll find it first!” Pip, who notices the tiniest things, peeked under every leaf. Lily picked up acorns and proudly showed each one: “Tooth! Tooth!” But those were acorns. Even Granny Owl flew down to a low branch and turned her head left and right.

“I can see every ant at night,” she muttered. “But your tooth has vanished into thin air.”

They searched until the sun hid behind the oaks. They did not find it.

Timko felt so sad he almost cried. He had waited so long for this tooth! And now there was no tooth, no game, no “mousie, mousie.”

“I feel sad,” he said.

“Of course you do,” Mom crouched down and hugged him. “You waited so long.”

Toward evening Rusty and Pip went home, each carrying a slice of pie. There was more pie than needed, as always.

In the kitchen Dad stood Timko with his back against the door frame, where the growth plank hung. It already had little marks with tiny drawings: a heart, a backpack, a star, a plaster cross. And below ran Lily’s row, short little marks one above another.

“Wow,” said Dad. “You’ve grown.”

He looked around the cramped little kitchen, where Mom, Lily and the pie barely fit together, and for some reason he grew thoughtful. Then he patted his pockets.

“Now where’s my pencil?”

Timko, though sad, smiled and pointed at Dad’s ear. Dad took out the pencil, and suddenly he squinted.

“And what’s that on you?”

He carefully put his paw into Timko’s red scarf, into the soft loops right under his chin. And pulled out something small and white, like a tiny pearl.

“My tooth!” Timko jumped. “It was in my scarf the whole time!”

“You were looking for something that’s on you,” Dad said seriously. “It happens.”

Timko remembered Granny Owl’s riddle. “It comes when you laugh. And it hides where it’s warmest.” And where is it warmer than in Mom’s knitted scarf?

Dad drew a mark above Timko’s head and next to it drew a tiny tooth. Lily reached for the real one: “Mine!” But Timko clutched it in his little fist.

“No, Lily, this one is mine. Yours will wobble someday, you’ll see.”

Then the whole family went out onto the porch. Timko turned his back to the house and, just like Dad once did, said:

“Mousie, mousie, here’s a bony one, give me an iron one!”

But he did not throw the tooth. He put it in Mom’s box of buttons. A game is a game, but a tooth that had wobbled so long and hidden so cleverly, Timko wanted to keep for himself.

Dad laughed so hard that the pencil fell from behind his ear. This time there was no need to search: Timko picked it up first.