Bloody Tooth Fairy!

I awake to my middle man, sitting on the edge of the bed…

“Mum”, he says softly, holding back tears.

I see his face starting to break. In my sleepy haze, starting to wake up for the day, I ask “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

“She didn’t come last night” he says

“Sorry, what? Who, didn’t come?” I’m so confused.

“The tooth fairy. She didn’t come and there was no money!?” Now he’s sobbing.

FUCK!?? My hearts sinks. The Bloody Tooth Fairy forgot to visit last night! The nerve!! How could she forget!?? I knew she’d fucking forget though. SHE forgets fucking everything.

I’m wide awake now! In damage control, trying to come up with a plan…. Ok, distraction.

“Oh sweetie, let me help you look, I’m sure the money’s there, she would not have forgotten about you?” I say.

He’s ripped open the envelope and shaken it out. Thankfully his teeny tiny bottom tooth has lodged itself within the crease of the envelope. He hasn’t spotted it.

“See, the tooth is gone, but there’s no money?”, middle man says, deflated.

Ok, this is good, I can work with this.

“I’ll just go do a wee. You start looking around and I’ll be back to help you in a minute.” I try to say calmly, as I run out to the car. I dig around in the centre console, no notes. Shit! But there is a $2 coin. I just need to find a couple more. I’m raiding the kid’s money jars inside now. ‘Why did I have to leave all my shrapnel at work!!?’ I think to myself. Excellent, I find another $2. Then, in the top drawer (you know, the drawer in the kitchen with all the random bits and bobs), there is a $1 coin. Sensational.

“How are you going in there?” I yell out to middle man from the kitchen.

“Still nothing Mum”, he says in a feeble voice.

“Ok, I’m coming in now”. I run my hands along the edge of the mattress and plant a coin up near the wall and another one falls through at the front of the bed and onto the floor. He doesn’t see it. I’m so bad at this.

“Maybe we need to lift the whole mattress up?” I help him with this. It’s heavy. He’s squeezing in next to it, and had wedged himself between the lifted mattress and the wall.

He jumps out, elated, shouting “I can see money Mum!?”, as he grabs the first coin.  

“Whoa, $2. Awesome. There must be more!?” I say, looking around and laying the mattress back down.

“Hmmm, nothing else under the mattress.” I ask him ” Have you checked around the bed? On the floor? In case anything fell down?”

He’s crawling around on the floor now “Yes, here’s another one mum!”  

We look around a little longer. I start making the bed again, put the doona back on.

“I reckon there must be one more somewhere?” I say. “Have you tried shaking out the pillows?” I very quickly pop the last coin into the pillow cover. He shakes it out and it lands on the bed.

“Yes!? Another one! She came Mum, she didn’t forget about me!?” he’s jumping up and down.

“Of course she didn’t forget about you, darling. That all adds up to $5!”. We’re both happy. Thank goodness the oldest boy is not up, or I’d be done for!

He counts his money into a little green coin purse that he got from one of his grandparents. After a minute or so, he says “Do you know what? I think I know what happened!?”

‘Oh no, I’m busted. He’s onto me now’. I think to myself.

“The tooth fairy knows that I like treasure hunts, so that’s what she did. She made it into a treasure hunt for me. So that I had to hunt for the money!”  

“Wow! That’s pretty cool” I say. “She certainly didn’t make it easy for you!?”

“No, but I don’t mind”. He’s beaming from ear to ear again. He’s ok. Crisis averted.

Fuck… that was a close one…

Bloody Tooth Fairy!