Children often eavesdrop on adult conversations (or listen when adults assume that children can't hear them even if they are standing right in front of the child) and then fill in the blanks for things which they don't completely understand.
Thanks to children, the Easter Bunny never dies. It's not until the child reaches a development milestone that the thing, whatever the thing may be, fades. However, more often than not, the think will linger. The Easter Bunny is reborn every year through the minds of small children, the think gets passed down through older brothers and sisters.
Sometimes two thinks intertwine and it's hard to get them untangled. The Fixer has to fix it as soon as possible before everything (literally) becomes a big giant rubber band ball.
Sometimes thinks contradict each other or conflict with established rules and orders of this world. Normally, the dead can't come back to life. Normally, unicorns and centaurs don't exist. Normally, one man cannot possibly possess all the money in the world.
Normally, little boys don't give birth to faeries through their belly buttons.Joey was playing in the dirt, helping his older brother and sister make mud pies. Mud pies have to have the right consistency. Too much water can ruin an entire pie.
Joey learned everything his knows from his brother, Marcus, and his sister, Jessica. He poured a little water from the hose into a plastic box of dirt and mixed the ingredients with a stick. He plopped a couple handfuls down on a paper plate.
Jessica, who could make three pies while Joey was still stirring his first, tweaked the display, “This one is lemon, this one is vanilla, and this one is chocolate.”
Joey stuck his finger in the chocolate one, which Jessica swatted back, “No! They're for the customers!”
Children are great pretenders. That is why most of the Fixer's clients average six years of age. Most children, however, do have a little rational guardian angel sitting somewhere inside their brain. When most children pretend to be firemen, putting out a fire, it doesn't require an appointment with the Fixer (or the local fire department). Most of pretend play is just pretend. However, several small children tend to suspend belief. Case in point: Joey licked his finger clean of chocolate and took a few more fingerfuls when his sister was busy cooking up a “butterscotch” mud pie.
Joey had one last lick of the chocolate pie when his tooth came in contact with a twig. As he spat out the twig, a baby tooth flew onto the ground.
Joey picked it up, marveling.
“Jessica! Joey lost a tooth,” Marcus set down the hose.
“Oh, you're going to get a visit from the tooth faerie tonight, lucky!”
“I got a dollar last time,” boasted Marcus.
“Liar, she only gives out quarters,” retaliated Jessica.
“Look at that!” Marcus exclaimed, not interested in the argument any longer. A cracked blue robin's egg lay on the ground. Two robins chirped in a tree nearby.
“The birds and the bees are at it again,” noted Jessica matter-of-factly.
“The birds and the whatwhat?” asked Joey.
“When two people kiss with their tongues, like they do in France, a baby starts to grow in your tummy. Those two birds have been K-I-S-S-I-NG!”
“I'm never kissing no one. Never,” Marcus scooped up a big handful of mud pie filling.
Joey's stomach gurgled. “Stop eating the pies! They're not real, you know,” his sister warned.
Joey's dad entered the kitchen carrying a plastic bag and a bottle of disinfectant. “Hey, buddy, how are you feeling?”
“Not so good,” Joey ni bbled on a soda cracker.“Do you want to see your tooth dissolve in a glass of soda?” asked Dad.
“What about the tooth faerie?” inquired Joey
“The tooth fairy will still visit you, don't worry. We'll put your tooth in a glass of soda and overnight, most of it will have disappeared,” Joey's dad touched his forehead, checks for a fever and while finding none, kissed the top of his hair.
“Okay,” Joey sighs, still unsure if the tooth faerie would visit him or not.
Let it be known (or at least several soft drink companies want it to be known) that placing a tooth in soda will not do a whole lot to the tooth. However, since Joey is a very impressionable child and Thinks and things happened to be in close proximity that evening, that tooth dissolved almost entirely in the glass of soda.
The tooth faerie, with her wild, high hair and her green tinted, slimy body crept up to Joey's pillow to retrieve the tooth but it wasn't there.
Sometimes this happens. Sometimes she gets to a kid after the parents have slipped a quarter or a dollar (sometimes even a twenty note these days) under the pillow.
It should be mentioned that tooth faeries do not exchange money for teeth, they steal teeth. They will not leave a house empty handed, either.
The faerie checked the house thoroughly, starting with the parents' bedroom. She searched through drawers, purses, and cabinets. She crawled under under beds and rugs. She scanned the floor, looked into every nook and cranny of the house, and even peered into the trash cans. Nothing.
After rooting through black banana peels and carefully maneuvering around a plastic bag of vomit, the tooth faerie flies to the kitchen counter and spies the glass of soda.
Oh, yes. She has found the tooth.
Tooth faeries use teeth (not just human teeth) as weapons. Tooth faeries are small, fragile creatures who don't fly very fast. Teeth are great for using as a device to blind cats and dismember frogs. The teeth with silver fillings are used as peace offerings to birds who have a liking for small, shiny things.
The tooth faerie dives for the tooth, brings it to the surface. Dripping in the sugary beverage, she holds opens it up to the microwave clock light to see it the best she could. Half dissolved in a glass of soda. Totally useless.
The tooth faerie flinches her green little fists, she flies back into Joey's room. He's sleeping sweetly.
She grabs a hold of his lips and opens his mouth up just enough to squeeze in. She immediately starts kicking each tooth as if they were doors. None would budge.
Next, she stands on his tongue and spies the littlest one. This tooth will do, she uses all of her strength to try and rip it out of his gums.
The boy wakes up, feels something a bit slimy and hairy moving across his tongue. A spider crawled inside my mouth!
He spits out the tooth faerie. She's drenched in spit and Joey trembles, turns on his lamp.
Not a spider, he feels a bit relieved. He squints at the thing he spat out.
It's the tooth faerie! It's the tooth faerie, he wants to shout. He digs under his pillow and fishes out a dollar bill. Before he can thank her, she flees.
Name: Joey Sawyer
Location: Hibbing
Think: The tooth faerie. Also, babies grow in the stomach and are birthed from the belly button.
Thing: Boy complained of pain in the abdomen, trip to hospital, appendix was needlessly removed.
Status: fixed pending as isComments: Birthed one small faerie (3 inches, one ounce) through the navel before alerting parents to the pain he was feeling. Faerie flew away upon my arrival. Tooth faeries have a life span of about seven days (if they aren't picked up by a crow or eaten by a cat), so I'm going to close this case.
Tried a sip of the soda-who knew cherry and cola made a great combination?