The Chief Molar Inspector's Crooked Stamp

On the wall of the Chief Molar Inspector's office, between the window and the coat stand, hangs a small framed form. It is old and a little yellow. And right in the middle of it is a stamp that is completely crooked, as if someone had pressed it down with their eyes shut.

Every new inspector asks about it. Tonight it was Dot's turn. Dot had started that morning, and she was holding her brand-new inspection kit so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. "Chief," she said, "why is that stamp so wonky?" The Chief Molar Inspector put down her cocoa and smiled. "Because it was my very first."

A long time ago, she said, she had been a junior inspector called Mabel, and she had been just as nervous as Dot. On her first night they gave her a kit. There was a velvet cushion the size of a postage stamp, a magnifying glass, a feather brush, and a set of scales so tiny they weighed things in dewdrops. And there was the Checklist.

The Checklist had forty questions on it. Shine, out of ten. Sparkle, out of ten. Evidence of brushing, yes or no, and evidence of carrots, yes or no. Mabel had read it so many times that she could say it backwards, which is not useful, but she did it anyway, to calm down.

Then the first tooth arrived. It was a bottom tooth, small and round, from a boy called Arlo, aged five. It had a tiny chip on one corner, and a smudge of strawberry jam that had come along for the ride. Mabel put it on the velvet cushion and looked at it through her magnifying glass. Her hands began to shake.

"Shine," she whispered. "Seven, or eight? It's got jam on it. Is jam allowed? And what about the chip?" She looked at the forty questions, and the forty questions looked back at her, and none of them said what to do about jam.

That was when the old Chief came in. He was a very old fairy with a beard like a puff of cotton wool, and he walked with a stick made from a toothpick. He did not look at the Checklist at all. Instead, he took a little spiral shell from his pocket. "Before you count anything," he said, "listen."

Mabel held the shell to the tooth, and then to her ear, and she heard things. The crunch of a hundred apples. A giggle, very loud, at a joke about a duck in wellies. A whistle that did not quite work. A stubborn toffee, a tiny click, and a boy saying, "Still works." And last of all, the soft, sticky sound of birthday cake.

"Oh," said Mabel. The old Chief nodded. "The Checklist tells you how a tooth looks," he said. "The shell tells you how it was used. This one was used very well."

So Mabel picked up her pen, and in the box marked Condition, she wrote: Well loved. Then she took the big brass stamp, breathed in, and pressed it down. Her hand was still shaking a little. The stamp came out crooked, and Mabel gasped.

"Perfect," said the old Chief. "Frame it."

Dot looked at the crooked stamp for a long time. Then the Chief Molar Inspector opened her desk drawer, took out the same little spiral shell, and put it in Dot's hand. "Your first tooth comes in at midnight," she said. "Listen first. Count after."

Later, when the castle lamps were low, Dot sat at her desk with a small front tooth on a velvet cushion and the shell held to her ear. She heard a hum, and a hiccup, and a very big yawn. Her stamp came out a little crooked too.

Down the corridor, the Chief Molar Inspector finished her cocoa and switched off her lamp. She smiled in the dark for a while, the way you do when something has gone just right. And then the whole Enamel Castle settled down, and went to sleep.