Since the beginning of time, there have been stories of the tooth fairy, a tiny magical being who exchanges money for the teeth of good little boys and girls: As the tale goes, when a child’s teeth are ready to go back to the Land of Missing Teeth, they push, pull, and wiggle until they are loose enough to fall out.
It has even been rumored that when teeth have had trouble getting free, they have gone so far as to tickle the inside of the child’s mouth until they were laughed right out, but that’s probably a wise tale.
By whatever means they choose, once free the teeth are taken by the Tooth Fairy who must leave something behind in exchange. Usually, a couple of shiny new coins are left since every good tooth fairy carries plenty of change in their pockets, but on special occasions, children have been surprised to find puppies or kittens laying next to them in the morning. To be honest, you never know what you might find under your pillow or in your bed after the tooth fairy has visited you. This is where the story of Kelcy and Fabian begins.
It was a warm spring morning, and Kelcy was outside running around the playground with her friends. She was having so much fun and laughing so hard that she barely noticed what happened next: Something wiggled in her mouth. “Or. . .” Kelcy thought “. . . was it more of a tingle that she felt? Hmmm . . . the only thing in my mouth that could have wiggled is my tongue, and I don’t remember wiggling that.” The answer to her question would have to wait however, for by the time she stopped laughing and had caught her breath, she felt nothing. Moving her tongue to the roof of her mouth while poking it into each cheek proved useless, because she still felt nothing out of place in her mouth. Finding no immediate answer, Kelcy decided that she must have imagined the strange feeling, so she went back to playing with the other girls and boys. By the time her teacher, Mrs. Sampson, called the children inside for Lunch; Kelcy had all but forgotten the incident.
Tired and hungry, all that any of the kids could think about was eating and taking a nap and Kelcy was no exception. And when she saw what was on her lunch plate, the tingling sensation was all but forgotten, replaced by the rumbling in her stomach. Staring at the steaming hot food laid out before her, Kelcy saw that almost all of her favorite foods were piled high.
“Oh yeah!” she said, staring wide-eyed at the feast that lay before her. “Just the way I like it. Liver and beets, Brussels sprouts and spinach, and oh boy, corn on the cob!” Mustering all of her will power, Kelcy had to pace herself. She wanted to avoid the stomach ache she would surely get if she ate too fast and she wanted to enjoy the food for as long as she could, but still it was hard not to just shovel as much as she could in her mouth. That’s probably why she couldn’t understand when she saw that none of the other children were eating. With her mouth half-full, Kelcy turned to the boy next to her and asked,
“Little Tommy, why aren’t you eating?” Now to Little Tommy the answer seemed obvious: liver, beet, Brussels sprouts and spinach, and he would have told Kelcy this, but he couldn’t stop himself from staring at the green clumps stuck between her teeth. Failing to get a response from Tommy, Kelcy posed the following question to the little girl who was sitting on the other side of Tommy. “Sarah, what’s wrong?” But again there was no response, unless you count the shocked look on Sarah’s face.
Through another mouthful, Kelcy mumbled,
“These beets are great you guys! And the liver is nice and tough” Kelcy said as she began to gnaw on the brownish-gray meat.
As the rest of the room watched Kelcy eat, not a single jaw stayed off the floor. None of the kids could ever remember hearing, in the entire history of kids, of a single one that liked beets or liver, Brussels sprouts or spinach individually, let alone all at once. With sickly smiles, all of Kelcy’s classmates screamed “Eeeeeewwwww” inside their heads, only joining in on the feast when it came time to eat the corn.
Even Sarah enjoyed her ear of corn, putting the image of Kelcy chewing on the liver in the back of her mind with some difficulty. Now that no one was staring at her, Kelcy thought she could enjoy her lunch, but when she took her next bite of corn, she felt the wiggly, tingly sensation again.
“That’s funny,” she thought, again feeling went away when she stopped chewing, Kelcy decided that she must have imagined the sensation as she had the first time. Waiting a few moments, and feeling certain that it wasn’t coming back, she gingerly took another bite. This time, however, the wiggly feeling was much stronger, and the tingly feeling was even worse than the wiggly feeling, but once again, these sensations went away as she stopped chewing. “This is bad.” she thought. “My favorite foods and I can’t eat any of them.”
Pondering her predicament, Kelcy stared at the half empty plate before her reflecting on how much fun she had been having only a few short moments ago. It had tasted so delicious as she gobbled it down. And she was so thankful that none of the other children seemed to like most of the food on their plates. “First . . .” she thought, “. . . I would've eaten Tommy’s beets, and then if Sarah had no objections, I would eat her spinach. And from there, who knows where the feast would have lead.” But now, none of this would happen unless she could stop imagining the wiggly and tingly feelings.
Giving her situation a few more moments of thought, Kelcy decided not to worry about it. Her hunger overpowered her fear, so Kelcy sank her teeth into her corn on the cob and that is when it happened.
“Uh Oh!”
Kelcy cried out, her eyes darting back and forth, the rest of her body motionless. Something that wasn’t supposed to happen had happened. If asked, Kelcy couldn’t even tell what had happened, she just knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
Hearing the pain in Kelcy’s voice, the other children stopped chewing and looked over to see their classmate who was holding her corn with one hand and her cheek with the other.
“What’s up?!” asked Little Tommy, but Kelcy, said nothing as she sat holding her hand to her cheek. “What’s wrong!?” Little Tommy repeated, but once again Kelcy said nothing, scrunching up her face.
It wasn’t necessarily any particular pain that caused Kelcy to make this face. It was more that she was preparing herself for what she would find once she opened her mouth. After what seemed like forever, she slowly loosened her jaw and took the corn out. To everyone’s surprise, two of Kelcy’s front teeth were now stuck in the corn.
“Eeeew!” Sarah said.
“Hey!” Little Tommy exclaimed. “Your corn has teeth. . . Your ear of corn has teeth. Your ear has teeth”
With that, all of the children started to laugh uncontrollably. Even Kelcy couldn’t help laughing at what Little Tommy had said. Had there ever been an instance of an ear with teeth they all wondered.
Hearing the commotion, Mrs. Sampson came running.
“What’s going on in here?” she asked. Mrs. Sampson was never too big on shenanigans, especially in her lunchroom.
As the kids settled down all of them yelled out the same thing, “Kelcy’s corn has teeth! Kelcy’s corn has teeth!”
Once again the room filled with laughter, and when Mrs. Sampson saw Kelcy’s teeth lodged in the corn, the laughter grew louder. Soon, more teachers, who had entered the lunchroom were laughing at the corn with the teeth: It just wasn’t something that one saw everyday. And since Kelcy laughed as hard as any of the other children, they didn’t see any reason to contain their own laughter. And, as will happen in this type of situation, when the laughter was just about to die down, it erupted once again, everyone getting a big kick out of the gap left between the rest of Kelcy’s teeth. This would be one school day that no one who witnessed it would forget any time soon.
After a while, Mrs. Sampson who, as it turned out did have a sense of humor, suppressed that last of the little chuckles she had allowed herself as she calmed the children down so they could prepare themselves for naptime.
As the other children slept, Kelcy found herself staring at the napkin that Mrs. Sampson had put her teeth in for safekeeping. It wasn’t that she expected anything to happen to them, she was simply caught up in the fact that only moments ago, they were inside her mouth.
As excited as she was, Kelcy still found herself drifting off to sleep where dreams of the tooth fairy came to life.
In one particular dream, a tiny fairy wearing a beautiful and delicate ballerina dress, which was blue and covered with sequins, flitted about on butterfly wings. To Kelcy, she was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, even if she was no bigger than a thumb. As the tiny beauty hovered, her wings flapping very fast, Kelcy could see that she carried a tiny wand in one hand and a pouch, in the other.
“That’s funny,” Kelcy said as she watched the tooth fairy pull a couple of shiny round objects from her pouch, “those coins are so small. I can barely see them. What am I supposed to do with them?”
Having heard this, the tooth fairy giggled and put a finger to her lips. She then waved her wand in the air causing Kelcy’s pillow to float up to the ceiling. Once the pillow bumped against the ceiling, the fairy placed the coins on the bed and waved her wand again. To Kelcy’s surprise, the coins began to grow until they were the same size as the coins her Uncle had given her whenever he visited.
“How did you do that?” Kelcy asked, unable to look away from her visitor.
Instead of answering, the Tooth Fairy simply giggled once more and disappeared with a brilliant flash.
When Kelcy woke up, she was pleased to see her mother had arrived and was waiting to take her home.
“Mommy, Mommy, guess what happened!”
Jumping up, Kelcy raced over to the napkin that contained her teeth.
“See?” she said as she unwrapped them. “Now the tooth fairy has to come and look at this.” Kelcy said pointing at the gap in her mouth. “That’s where they were.”
Kelcy’s mother smiled, hugged her, and said, “Well you tell the Tooth Fairy hello for me when you see her,”
She then led her daughter to the car.
That night, Kelcy could think of nothing but the visit that she would be getting from the tooth fairy. At dinner, she couldn’t eat anything, except desert, and after that, she didn’t even want to watch television or play games or dollies. All she wanted to do was go to bed and wait for the Tooth Fairy to arrive. When it was finally time for bed, her mother didn’t even have to ask her to brush her teeth. For once, Kelcy didn’t mind brushing them.
“Besides,” she said to her mother through the peppermint, flavored foam around her mouth, “There aren’t as many to brush tonight.”
The two of them got a good laugh at this and were still laughing when Kelcy crawled into bed. When it was time for her bedtime story, Kelcy said,
“That’s alright, mommy. I don’t need one tonight. Can you just leave my night light on when you close the door?”
“Of course I can baby. You sleep well. I love you.”
“I love you, too, mommy” Kelcy said as her door was shut.
As she lay in bed, Kelcy tried very hard not to fall asleep, but try as she might; the Sandman eventually came and coxed her eyes shut. As she slept, she had yet another dream about the beautiful Tooth Fairy.
In the meantime, high above the traffic and city lights, Fabian Augustus, Sprite Extraordinaire alternated between flying and hovering in mid-air as he searched through his pockets. Fabian was a Mischief Mockian, and he was looking for the address of his latest assignment. As he flew through the cool night air, he finally found what he was looking for in one of the smaller pockets on his green overalls. Pulling out a crumpled piece of paper, he examined the address that was scribbled on it.
“Let’s see,” he said aloud “I’m to visit some kid and give her . . .” Confused, Fabian paused and hovered as he re-read what he knew he couldn’t have read.
“What?” he said as a cloud floated by. “I’m supposed to take some of her teeth back to the Land of Missing Teeth? Teeth? What are teeth?” Searching back through his memories, Fabian finally eventually remembered learning about teeth in one of his classes in school. “Yuck! Why would anyone want these things?”
As he flew closer to the address written down, he read the piece of paper again. He wanted to make certain that he hadn't misread it.
“Hmmm, I’m supposed to take some of her teeth. That doesn’t sound very mischievous!” he complained. “. . . not very mischievous at all! But, a job’s a job.” Fabian said as he continued on his way, whistling merrily as he compared the stars in the sky to the lights below in the city.
Eventually, he made his way to Kelcy’s house, which he flew around until he found her window. Peeking inside, he could just see the top of Kelcy’s head as she slept wrapped up in her a blanket. Reading the note one more time, as if the message could have changed the tiny Mockian exclaimed,
“She doesn’t look very mischievous, but one can never tell from the top of someone’s head. Still, I don’t think I’m gonna like this assignment.”
Turning the paper over, Fabian read the back, and immediately began to chuckle.
Assignment Number: Six billion, eighty nine million, nine hundred thirty two thousand and four.
Agent: Tooth fairy number 54
Child: Kelcy Foy
“Tooth Fairy! Do I look like a tooth fairy?!” Fabian said to an owl that was perched in a nearby tree. “I mean, look at these beautiful things,” he beamed, grabbing hold of battered, torn, and dirty wings. “Look at this uniform,” he boasted, patting his chest, and stirring up a large cloud of dust. “And what tooth fairy has this type of physique? This nice of a smile?”
Silently, the owl blinked at Fabian as he displayed a toothless grin.
“So, let’s see. What does a tooth fairy do after they take the teeth?” Hoping for a suggestion, Fabian looked over at the owl, which simply spun its head around and closed its eyes for a quick nap. And once again the Mockian thought of his class on tooth fairies and came up with his own answer.
“Oh yeah, I’m supposed to take the teeth back to the Land of Missing Teeth and in return, although I have no idea why anyone would want teeth in the first place, I’m supposed to give this kid Kelcy some coins. How stupid is that! I’m outta here.”
In an instant Fabian’s wings were buzzing like a bumble bees and his body began to lift off Kelcy’s windows seal. He had done a lot of different things in his life, but playing a tooth fairy wasn’t one of them and he had no intention of starting now. “But, maybe . . .” He thought.
“Maybe I should take care of this one for tooth fairy fifty-four. Then she would owe me a favor or maybe even a wish.”
Formulating a plan, Fabian winked at the owl, which was now fast asleep and said,
“I can do this.”
And without a second thought, he flew to the top of the house and slipped down the chimney with a ‘whoosh’. At the bottom of the chimney, Fabian peeked out of the fireplace before walking into the living room, unaware of the soot and dirt that he left with every footstep.
“Piece of cake,” he said as he entered Kelcy’s bedroom. “Now, all I have to do is get the teeth under her pillow and put some coins in their place."
Reaching her bedside, Fabian looked down at Kelcy and smiled. “So, this is what a good kid looks like? Now, let’s see, coins, coins, coins.”
As Fabian rummaged through his thirty-six pockets, he slowly realized that he didn’t have any change at all. Under normal circumstance, he would have taken this as a bad sign and returned home to correct the mistake. Tonight however, there was more at stake, so the determined little Mockian thought long and hard for an answer.
“What would I ever need change for? The bus?” he muttered to himself. “Oh well, let’s see what I do have.”
Emptying some of his pockets, Fabian found frogs and snails; slingshots and army men. There were spitballs, raspberries, mean nicknames, and dirt, plenty of dirt. In other pockets he found bad grades, left socks, and firecrackers, but in all of his stuff there was not one single coin. Not a quarter, not a dime or nickel, not even a single penny.
“Well,” he finally said, “This could be a problem. What to do, what to do?”
After thinking for an hour, Fabian was about to give up and go home. After all, how could he complete the mission without leaving some coins behind? Try as he might, nothing seemed to come to mind. He just had not had enough experience with this sort of magic.
“Maybe I can convince tooth fairy fifty four that she still owes me a favor. At least for my effort,” he said, rummaging through his pockets once again. “I can’t believe that I have nothing to give to a good kid. I just can’t believe that . . .”
But, as these words left his mouth, an idea came to him, a brilliant one he believed. “A stupendous one, if I say so myself,” he cried out. “That’s why I am the best Mischief Mockian to ever live.”
With a proud grin, Fabian found the paper with the assignment on it and a pen he kept in his fiery red beard.
“Let’s see,” he said, jotting on the paper. “I’ll just change this to say ‘I owe you this many coins.’” As he read the message a second time, Fabian smiled. “There now, that’s done. I’ll simply leave this note, so Kelcy will know that the tooth fairy was here and that she owes her some money. Let’s see, I guess I’d better write in an amount.”
Crossing out the words ‘this many coins’, Fabian wrote in ‘one million dollars’. “Hmm. Maybe I should make it two million. Nah, I don’t want her to get greedy. One million dollars it is then.”
Looking at the note once more, Fabian walked over to the bed and tried to lift Kelcy’s head so he could place it under her pillow and get the teeth.
“Wow! Her head must weigh a ton,” he said struggling with all of his might. “Come on Kelcy, a little help here please,” he said as he began tugging on her ears.
Working up a sweat and getting no closer to his objective, Fabian realized that he would have to get to Kelcy’s teeth some other way.
“Maybe if I crawl up under one side of her pillow, I could get her teeth and put the note there.”
With that, he pushed against Kelcy’s pillow, but it wouldn’t budge. On his second attempt, it still wouldn’t move.
“Alright, one more try, and then I’m outta here.”
Taking several steps back, Fabian ran toward Kelcy’s pillow at full speed, hoping to get up enough steam to move what seemed like a massive head to the little sprite. Just as he reached it however, Kelcy rolled over and the Fabian disappeared underneath the loose end of Kelcy’s pillow.
“Wow, it’s really nice under here.” He thought as he rubbed his face on the soft pillowcase. “Okay. Now, all I have to do is take the teeth, yuck and put the note here.”
Carefully, he placed the note where he thought Kelcy would most likely find it, and then he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and picked up the teeth making certain not to touch them with his bare skin.
As disgusted as the thought of teeth was to Fabian, he was still curious as to what human teeth might look like. He had seen the teeth of many creatures from his homeland and had known plenty of children, but he had never paid attention to what their teeth looked like. With his curiosity peaked, Fabian turned his hand palm up and stared at the napkin.
“Maybe, I’ll just take a peek. They can’t be that bad.” He said, his voice quivering slightly.
Slowly, Fabian unfolded the napkin, and far from being grossed out, the first thing that he noticed was how white Kelcy’s teeth were. In his mind, they resembled pearls, except for the odd shape and the pointy ends. Staring at them for a few moments, he couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to throw them away. They were beautiful and held this new admirer captivated. His eyes grew wider with every passing second. After a while, the sight of them saddened Fabian, for he had no teeth of his own and since Mockians don’t grow teeth, he probably never would have any of his own.
“I don’t see the big deal about these things,” he said as he wrapped them in the napkin again, stopping himself for one last look.
“They are very shiny after all,” he thought. “Maybe I could get something for them. Maybe they’re worth a lot of money. I think I’d better put them somewhere safer than in my pocket. They could always fall out and then I’d have no proof that I fulfilled this assignment.”
Thinking for a moment, a safe place came to mind.
“Well, that’s that!” Fabian said as he put the teeth away. “Now, if I can only get out of here without being noticed, this mission could be considered a success if I say so myself.” As he would find out shortly, nothing is as easy as it may appear, for a second before he was about to take off Kelcy rolled over, and trapped him beneath her pillow.
“Uh Oh!” He mumbled into the pillow.
After struggling for a while, he realized that he wasn’t strong enough to budge Kelcy’s head.
“Well, you’ve really done it this time Fabian,” he thought. “I guess I’ll just have to wait until she wakes up and sneak out then. All I’ve got to do is stay awake until morning,” he said as he let out a big yawn.
That morning, Kelcy woke up slowly. Her dreams of the tooth fairy were so real that it was as if she had actually talked to her. Smiling, Kelcy sat up to see what was under her pillow. Staring at the pillow for several seconds, she eventually grabbed the edges. She wanted to remember this moment forever, and that she would, for as she stared at her pillow, she thought she saw it move. Not a lot, but it definitely moved and it wasn’t from the pillow settling or from any breeze or anything else. After a little while, the pillow moved again. This time she was certain of it and this caused a big smile to wash over her face.
“She’s still here!” Kelcy hoped, as her anticipation grew. “And I’m gonna get to meet her for real!”
Reaching down, Kelcy gently grabbed the pillow. “One, two, three!” she counted to herself before snatching it away, exposing Fabian who was snoring ever so slightly.
Seeing the tiny and oh so dirty Fabian with his bent wings and his shabby clothes was the last thing Kelcy expected to find. The only thing she could think to do was scream, as loud as her lungs would allow.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” Shattering the silence of the cool morning air, Kelcy woke Fabian from a pleasant dream, instilling as much if not more terror in the startled little sprite.
“Ahhhhhhhhh?!” Fabian bellowed, not exactly certain why he was screaming.
Without giving it a second thought, Fabian jumped from the bed and began to run around the room screaming the oddest thing, “What happened?! Where are they? I’m not afraid of anything!”
This, of course scared Kelcy even more, who screamed a second time, as her mother could be heard running down the hall.
Still scrambling around the room in a state of confusion, Fabian ran for the door and was knocked clear across the room by Kelcy’s mother entered at the same time. When he landed, Fabian was lucky that his head broke his fall.
“What is it baby?!” Kelcy’s mother cried as she rushed to the bed, grabbing her daughter.
“That thing, mommy! That thing over there!” Kelcy said, pointing a shaky finger at the unconscious Fabian.
“What Kelcy, what? Is that one of your toys?” Kelcy’s mother said as she approached the tiny little creature.
“No!” Kelcy protested. “It was under my pillow when I woke up, and it screamed at me.”
“What? That cute little doll yelled at you? I don’t think this little guy can yell,”
Picking Fabian up with one finger and her thumb, Kelcy's mother examined what she thought was a doll.
“Eeeew, it’s filthy. I think we’re going to have to throw this one away.”
“That’s fine by me!” Kelcy said as she got off the bed and followed her mother to the garage where the garbage cans were kept.
“Who gave you this doll, baby?” Kelcy’s mother asked.
“No one. That isn’t my doll. It’s not even a doll.”
“What? What do you mean?” her mother asked.
“I mean, it was running around the room before you came in. Screaming something about being afraid, or scared.”
“Kelcy. Now, this doll might be a lot of things, dirty being the first thing that comes to mind, but it is definitely not alive. You just had a nightmare.”
It wasn’t until the two of them went back into the house that they noticed the soot and dirt Fabian had tracked through the living room. Everywhere they looked there were tiny smudges that Kelcy’s mother thought looked oddly enough like tiny footprints.
“See, I told you!” Kelcy yelled out. “That thing was alive!”
As much as the spots of dirt resembled the tracks of some tiny person, Kelcy’s mother couldn’t bring herself to believe that the doll she had just thrown out was anything more than just that. Looking down at her daughter, she tried not to frowned but failed in the attempt.
“You know what this means, don’t you, Kelcy?”
“Yeah, you’re gonna call the police, so they can come and get it.”
“No, this means that you can’t go to Davie’s birthday party today. You’ll have to stay here and help me clean up this mess up.”
Doing a double take, her mothers response was the last thing that Kelcy expected to hear.
“But mommy! That thing could be dangerous.”
“Don’t mommy me, young lady. The only thing that doll could be dangerous to is a bar of soap. Now, go upstairs, brush your teeth, and then put on your clean-up clothes.”
“Ah mommy!” Kelcy whined as she slowly slinked to her bedroom. “I didn’t do this.”
“Well, just the same, you’ve got to help me clean it up, and then you’re grounded for today. No games, no toys, and no television. So, upstairs with you. I want you back here in fifteen minutes.”
As Kelcy climbed the stairs, she thought about the mornings excitement, but quickly put it in the back of her head, because when she opened her bedroom door, she discovered that the dirt from the living room also all over her bedroom. From the floor to the walls, her room was covered in tiny little tracks.
“Oh man! I’m gonna get blamed for this, too.”
“You sure are,” a voice said from somewhere behind Kelcy.
Spinning around Kelcy eyes grew wide, for floating before her was Fabian, hovering like a bumble bee in mid-air. At first she thought to scream, but thought her mother would see this new mess and ground her for at least a week. Instead, she kept quiet. After all what could this tiny thing do to her?
When Fabian realized that the little girl with the big lungs wasn’t going to scream again, he flew down to her.
“I’m sorry about the dirt.” He said, forcing a smile. “That was an accident. It was dark last night, and I didn’t mean to make such a mess. I’ll even help you clean it up.”
Kelcy considered Fabian’s offer, but after looking the dirty little fairy over, she changed her mind.
“No, you’ll just make it worse.” She said shaking her head vigorously.
“No, I won’t!” Fabian protested. “Watch this.”
Opening his hand and he blew some of the dirt from his palm at Kelcy’s bed. Terrified at the prospect of more dirt to clean up, Kelcy’s first thought was to stop him, but before she could, the dirt that was already on her bed flew up to the dirt blown from Fabian’s hand.
“You see, dirt is like one big family and if you know how to handle it, you can be a part of that family,” he said, smiling at Kelcy, who just looked on in amazement.
“I don’t think so.”
She said, watching as all of the dirt floated to Fabian where it clung to his overalls. Looking at her bed spread verified that, not a speck of dirt was left behind.
“It’s really quite a nice feeling once you get used to it,” he said with a shiver.
Kelcy smiled politely, and said, “Hey, can you go clean up the dirt in the living room like that?”
Looking down at the ground, Fabian felt bad about what he had to tell her.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you there.”
“Why? You put it there.”
“I know, but I can’t let your mother see me. She doesn’t believe in fairies.”
“Fairies? You’re not a fairy.” At least not like any of the fairies Kelcy had ever read about.
“Sure I am! At least that’s what you call me here,” protested Fabian. “I am Fabian Augustus, sprite extraordinaire. Number one Mischief Mockian, uh, Mischief Fairy in the world. I am the one who all other Mischievous Fairies look to for their ideas. I practically re-wrote the book on being a Mischievous Fairy. Wherever there are bad kids, I’m not too far behind. I find ways to get them in trouble and more ways to keep them in trouble. I’m pretty good at it, if I say so myself, and pretty great if you ask the other Mischief Mockians.”
“If you’re so good, according to you and so great according to everyone else, how come I’ve never heard of you?”
“Are you a bad kid?” Fabian asked, folding his arms and tilting his head.
“I don’t think so.”
“There you go. I only work with the bad ones.”
Seeing the puzzled look on Kelcy’s face, Fabian tried to clarify his last statement.
“Well, usually I only work with the bad ones. You were a mistake. I got your tooth fairy’s assignment by accident.”
“So they do exist,” Kelcy blurted out.
“Who?”
“The tooth fairies. . . They really exist.”
“Of course they exist. They’re as real as you and me. Where did you think the money for your teeth came from, your parents?”
Just as Kelcy was about to respond, her mother called for her.
“Kelcy, come down here and help me out.”
With a smile, Kelcy turned to Fabian and said,
“Alright Far Beyond, I gotta go now, but stay right here, okay?”
“Sure, I couldn’t go anywhere if I wanted to, and by the way it’s Fabian.”
“Good,” Kelcy said before grabbing her cleaning clothes and running out of the room.
“Coming, mommy.”
After Kelcy left, Fabian looked at the dirt on his hand and said,
“Now you guys stay close. We’re not supposed to get Kelcy in trouble.”
When he was certain that the dirt understood, Fabian flew over to Kelcy’s pillow and finished the dream that he was having before Kelcy first woke him up.
Downstairs in the living room, Kelcy helped her mother clean the soot from the carpet before dusting the furniture, which was also covered with Fabian’s dirt. All the while she couldn’t help smiling, now that she knew the tooth fairy was real. As she washed the dirt from the coffee table, Kelcy also couldn’t help feeling as if the dirt was somehow enjoying being cleaned up. What she didn’t realize was that even dirt enjoys being washed from time to time; not often, but on occasion taking a break from being dirt was a nice change. Who wouldn’t want to be turned into mud. After a while, the living room was clean, so both Kelcy and her mother flopped down on the couch to rest.
“Mommy?”
“Yeah Baby?”
“Mommy? Do you believe in fairies?”
As she wiped dirt from a lampshade, Kelcy’s mother thought about this question for a moment, “Well, actually, I do.”
Surprised, Kelcy got up from the couch and walked over to her mother.
“Really? Have you seen any?”
“Well, not recently, but when I was a kid, about your age, I used to see them all the time. Why do you ask?”
“Well what about now? Do you see them now?”
“No. Why?” Kelcy’s mother asked again.
“Oh, no reason, just wonderin’.”
Without another word Kelcy’s mother reached out, hugged her, and said,
“Nowadays, the only fairy I see is the one I have in my arms right now; the princess fairy Kelcy.”
In unison, Kelcy and her mother laughed out loud until a thought occurred to Kelcy’s mother. Checking her watch, Kelcy’s mother pointed out the time and said.
“You know. If you hurry up and take a shower, I think we just might make Davie’s birthday.”
“Really!” Kelcy said, already heading for her bedroom.
“Yes. Go take a shower, and change your clothes . . . but remember, after the party you’re grounded for the rest of the week.”
Being grounded afterwards barely bothered Kelcy at that moment, because for now, she was on her way to her friend’s birthday party. The rest, she would deal with when the time came and even the rest was to become less of a problem a second later.
“Okay. You’re only grounded for the rest of the night. Now go get ready,”
“Okay,” Kelcy said as she ran up the stairs.
Excited about the party, Kelcy failed to notice Fabian, who was still sleeping quietly on her pillow. In fact, she was in such a hurry when she came out of the bathroom, that she threw her towel right on top of him as she left. Fabian was sleeping so soundly that he rolled the damp towel around his body and continued to dream.
At Davie’s party, Kelcy played games like pin the tail on the donkey, operation, hide and seek, and red light green light. She also ate hotdogs, hamburgers, ice cream, and cake. Everything tasted so good that Kelcy didn’t even notice there weren’t any liver or beets anywhere to be seen. As a matter of fact, she actually thought that she could learn to like hotdogs, hamburgers, ice cream, and cake. On the ride home, Kelcy couldn’t stop talking about how much fun she had at the party.
“And then Davie pinned the tail to the side of Michael’s head,” Kelcy said.
As the two of them drove home, everyone on the street could hear the two of them laughing as Kelcy told stories about what had happened at the party. Even as they entered the house, they could be heard laughing by Fabian, who was still laying half asleep on Kelcy’s pillow.
As he roused himself, Fabian slowly remembered that he was in Kelcy’s room, so he sat up and waited for her to enter. Downstairs, Kelcy’s mother said.
“Alright Kelcy, go to your room, change your clothes, and start your home work.”
“Homework! Mommy, it’s not due for two days!”
“I know, but you’re grounded, remember? Well, this is part of your punishment. When you’re finished, let me know and I’ll come up and check it.”
“Oh mommy!” Kelcy pleaded.
“Don’t oh mommy me, young lady. Get upstairs, I’ll call you when dinner is ready, or you call me whenever you’re finished.”
“Okay, but I think we’ll be eating dinner first. All of my homework has numbers.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing you’re getting an early start.”
“Maybe, but just because I’m getting an early start doesn’t mean that I’m going to understand it any sooner.” Kelcy said, smiling as she had made what she considered a valid point. Then off to her room she went, holding her head down for effect. Opening her bedroom door, she found Fabian sitting on the bed, smiling a truly big and somewhat mischievous smile.
“Come in,” he said, fanning one of his arms out.
As Kelcy entered the room, she couldn’t help but wonder what Fabian had messed up this time.
“What did you do now?” the suspicion in Kelcy’s voice hurt Fabian, but only for a moment.
“Nothing,” Fabian said, failing to convince Kelcy that he hadn’t messed something up. “Just come over here.” He pleaded to the hesitant little girl.
After thinking for a moment or possibly a little longer than a moment, Kelcy shrugged her shoulders and walked over to the bed.
“What have you got there?” she asked Fabian, pointing at the sheet of paper that the mischief maker was unsuccessfully trying to conceal behind his back.
“Well, I heard you and your mother talking, and I wanted to make it up to you. You know, for the mess in the living room? So I did this.”
Fabian then handed Kelcy her homework, which was folded in half.
“Is this my homework?”
“Yeah, I finished it for you.”
“You did?” Kelcy asked, opening the sheet paper and checking the answers.
“One plus one is two, one plus two is three. Wow!” she said, smiling at Fabian. “And you finished it all?”
“Yes. I added all of the numbers up for you.”
“Oh, Far Beyond. You’re the best!”
With that, Kelcy hugged Fabian as if she had known him for years. Although Fabian had never experienced a hug before, he did know that it made him feel good, so he hugged Kelcy back even tighter.
“Thank you, thank you, Far Beyond! Thank you.”
“That’s Fabian,” he said timidly, but Kelcy was too excited to hear his correction.
“This is great! Hey, we should play a game or something.”
Fabian smiled, but wasn’t quite sure why. Usually, he only smiled after convincing some bad kid to playing some devious prank, but he hadn’t even gotten Kelcy to tell a lie. Why then, he thought, would he enjoy this feeling so. For now, the answer to this question would have to wait, because it was time to play a game.
“I love games.” He said, the excitement in his voice drawing a smile from Kelcy. “So, Kelcy. . . What kind of games do you like to play?”
Grinning from ear to ear, Kelcy said. “Well, you wanna play dollies?”
“Dollies? What’s that?” Fabian asked suspiciously, because “dollies” just didn’t sound like something that he would enjoy. “Do you have any army men?” he suggested.
“No, but dollies is close to that. You wanna play?”
“Oh yeah, I love army men.” It was actually his favorite game to play.
The two of them sat down to play. After a couple of hours, Kelcy’s mother had finished dinner, so she went upstairs to tell Kelcy. To her surprise, when she opened the door, she didn’t find Kelcy studying hard, but found her daughter on the floor having a tea party with her dolls.
“What’s going on here? I thought I told you to start your homework!” The anger showed in her mother’s face.
Kelcy gulped before remembering that Fabian had done her homework hours ago.
“I did mommy! It’s finished. You wanna check it?”
As the scowl on Kelcy’s mother’s face melted into a smile, she held out her hand.
“Yes, I would like to take a look at it.”
“Here you go,” Kelcy said as she trotted over and handed the paper to her mother.
“Let’s see. One times one is one, one times two is two, and one times three is seven?”
As Kelcy’s smile slid down her face, so too did her mother’s. While Kelcy looked over at Fabian, who was wearing one of her old dresses, Kelcy’s mother looked down at her.
“What happened?” her mother asked. “You did good until you reached the number three. Now, I know that math is not your favorite subject, but I also know that you can multiply one to at least ten.”
Once again Kelcy looked at Fabian, who had been sitting perfectly still since her mother entered the room. When he said nothing, Kelcy held out her hand and said,
“I just got confused. I’ll do it again.”
“Not now. Right now, I want you to wash your hands. It’s time for dinner. You can finish your homework after that, and I’ll help you.”
“Thanks mommy.”
As her mother left the room, Fabian stood up, smiled at Kelcy and tried to look as innocent as possible.
“You said you finished my homework.”
Fabian could tell by her tone that Kelcy was very mad at him and this caused him to fidget, rubbing his hands nervously.
“I did finish it, but I never said it was right.”
“What?!”
“That’s right” He said defiantly “I said that I had finished your homework. I never said anything about knowing how to add,” It sounded good in his head, and Fabian hoped Kelcy would agree with his logic . . . She didn’t.
“Well, you should’ve told me that.”
“Hey. I didn’t even know what multiplication was until I saw that,” he said, pointing at Kelcy’s homework, “and besides, you told me that ‘dollies’ was like army men. This is nothing like army men. I feel silly.”
Looking at the little sprite who was wearing a yellow dress and a big blue hat with multi-colored flowers on top, Kelcy couldn’t stay mad. And, as silly as he felt, Fabian couldn’t help but laugh at himself as well. Struggling to maintain the angered expression he was now faking, Fabian felt a laugh building up inside himself, and something else.
As Fabian’s frown slowly transformed into a smile, a sense of joy washed over him, a sense that he could only attribute to being in Kelcy’s company. It was then that Fabian realized how much he liked this little girl. Even though she was a good kid and Mischief Mockians had little use for good kids, Fabian found himself having fun without doing something bad: At least without doing something bad on purpose. Instead of dwelling on this fact, the dusty little Mockian gave into the joy he felt and together the two of them laughed, holding their bellies as they fell to the floor next to each other.
It wasn’t until the pain from all of this laughter caused Kelcy to notice Fabian’s teeth. As she let out one last chuckle, she realized that something didn’t look quite right. It could have been that they were too clean and didn’t fit with the rest of Fabian’s appearance, but what struck Kelcy as the most odd feature was their size. “They’re so big,” she thought, “much too big to be his own teeth.” As Fabian continued to roll around on the floor, laughing, Kelcy realized just how right she was.
“Hey!” she shouted. “Those are my teeth!”
Hearing that, Fabian quickly shut his mouth and looked at Kelcy who had gotten to her feet and was now towering above him. With heavy guilty in his voice, he spoke.
“Yeah, I know, but I couldn’t think of a better place to put them for the trip back home. Besides, I’ve never had any of my own teeth,” he said, smiling broadly, revealing a beaver-like smile.
Without hesitation a small giggle bubbled up from somewhere inside Kelcy, which was followed shortly thereafter by another one and another one still. After a few more of these uncontrollable giggles, Kelcy found herself collapsing on the ground once again, rolling around and laughing loudly. And a few seconds after that, Fabian found himself by her side laughing just as loud, Kelcy’s teeth rattling in his mouth.
And it was while the two of them were laughing so loud that both realized they were going to have a lot of fun together in days to come.