This is how it is in first grade: Everybody and his brother have a loose tooth or a missing tooth or three brand new teeth growing in. Teeth are what you talk about.
When you’re the absolutely oldest first grader in the class—a full year and seventeen days older than the little kid with the three missing teeth—and even your kid brother, Gabe, has a handsome gap, it’s a serious problem if you haven’t lost a tooth yet. It doesn’t matter if your brother lost his tooth falling on the stairs. His tooth is still gone. Yours are still all there.
That's how it was for Joshua. Joshua was all by himself sitting there with those itty bitty baby teeth that looked like they weren’t going anywhere.
Ten days before Joshua’s seventh birthday, he finally lost his first tooth. That was worth a lot, but hanging onto it would have been worth even more. The fact is that he lost it in his sleep. He’d walked all the way out through the kitchen and into the yard before he noticed and started searching. Maybe he’d swallowed it. It seemed pretty clear that he’d never find it.
To make matters worse the tooth fairy seemed to be on vacation or something because no quarter appeared under Joshua's pillow for the tooth he lost.
So it did seem a blessing when, the night before Joshua’s birthday, another tooth fell out. Mama knew to be really careful with it, especially after the disaster of the first one. Still, somehow, and we’ll never quite know how, the moment she plucked it off his chin it disappeared from her hand.
“Finding the last one was hopeless,” Mama said, “but this one should be easy to find. It has to be right here.”
It had to be right there, but it wasn’t. They shook the sheets, they checked under the bed, they pulled apart the chair cushions, but that tooth was just nowhere to be found.
“Maybe you could make a fake tooth,” Gabe said.
“No, Gabe,” said Mama. “This is important. Joshua was a good sport about losing his last tooth, but we’re going to find this one."
“A fake tooth will be good enough for the tooth fairy,” Gabe said.
“Nooooo!” said Joshua. Gabe just didn't understand. “We’re going to find it.”
They looked everywhere all over again. Finally, even Mama was worn out. “When can we stop looking?” she asked.
“When we find it,” said Joshua.
“Can we just sing Gabe to sleep and then look for it some more?” Joshua said that would be okay.
The minute Gabe was asleep, Joshua said, “Let’s look some more.” Then Mama and Joshua looked in all the same places they had already looked.
“I think you need a tooth prayer,” said Mama.
The tooth prayer began with a cuddle, because even though Joshua was almost seven, he still fit very well on Mama’s lap. Then it went something like this: “Thank you, God, for Joshua, who made his Mommy and Mama so happy the day he was born almost seven years ago. Thank you for Joshua, who was such a teeny, tiny little baby that his mouth was too small for teeth. Thank you for the amazing way that you made people so that their heads are tiny enough to be born, which is why they can’t even fit any teeth in their mouths. Thank you for that very first tooth that popped out as Joshua’s best first Christmas present, and thank you for all the ways Joshua has grown and the things he’s learned since then. Thanks for Joshua who learned to swim and ride his bike and recognize a lot of words, so that he can almost practically read and how he can do all kinds of math problems in his head. Thank you for Joshua, who’s grown so much that his grown-up teeth are shoving on up and popping his baby teeth right out of their sockets. Thank you for Joshua, who’s so old that he not only lost his teeth, but actually lost them before he could even look at them, and still knows that he’s going to be okay, even though it is really, really sad.”
And Mama said, “I think that’s the end of the tooth prayer. Do you think you can go to sleep now?”
Joshua said, “Let’s look for that tooth.”
Mama started looking over by the window, and Joshua said, “That’s too far!”
Mama started rolling up the carpet, and Joshua said, “It couldn’t have gone over there.”
“Can you think of any other place I could look?” said Mama.
Joshua said, “No. We looked everywhere.”
“That’s what I thought too,” said Mama. “Would it make you feel any better if I promised the tooth fairy would come anyway?”
“Yes ,” said Joshua, “especially if the tooth fairy remembers to pay me double for the other tooth too.”
Joshua woke up on his seventh birthday and walked into Mama and Mommy’s room. They sang him “Happy Birthday,” and he walked back into his own room and looked under his pillow. The tooth fairy had come, and she paid him double. Two quarters.
It was a great birthday. Joshua opened his presents and found a baseball glove and a history book from Mommy and Mama and shirts and a mask from Grandma and Grandpa, and shared strawberries with families at Quaker Meeting, and ate chocolate brownies with Great Uncle Dick in the nursing home.
It was a great birthday, and then it was over and time for Gabe to go to bed. Gabe and Mama went upstairs to get into pajamas. And then they called out, “Hey Joshua, we found your tooth.”
Joshua bolted up the stairs. It was true. It was just sitting there as plain as day under the bureau. While Mama sang Gabe to sleep, Mommy helped Joshua put his tooth downstairs in a little film canister to keep it safe.
When Mama went to kiss Joshua good night, she said, “Joshua, where did you put that tooth we found? Is this it, right under your pillow?” She held up a little white baby tooth. But Joshua knew that the first tooth was safe downstairs. This had to be his other tooth. And that’s how it came to pass that on Joshua’s seventh birthday the tooth fairy brought him two quarters AND two teeth. Now some people don’t believe in the tooth fairy. But there’s really no saying how those two teeth appeared from nowhere. And it all goes to show that sometimes you can have your teeth and get your quarters too!
