The Night the Tooth Fairy Got the Hiccups

It started at eight o'clock, right in the middle of a cup of camomile tea. The Tooth Fairy was at her desk in the Molar Intake Division, reading the evening list, when she went: hic.

Every time she hiccupped, she floated straight up into the air, about the height of a teaspoon, and a puff of silver dust shook loose from her wings. Hic. Up she went. Puff went the dust. Down she came, and the dust settled on her tea like icing sugar.

"Oh dear," said the Tooth Fairy. "Hic. This won't do. I have a very important tooth to collect." It belonged to Ruby at 6 Willow Close, who was seven and very particular, and who had asked in writing for her receipt to be stapled, not paper-clipped.

Everybody in the office had a cure. Mr Gumbridge from Filing said to hold her breath and count to twenty. She got to fourteen. Hic. Up she went, and bumped her head very gently on the lampshade.

Miss Floss from Polishing said to drink a glass of water upside down. The Tooth Fairy tried. Most of the water went up her nose, a little went in her ear, and none of it went anywhere useful. Hic.

Barnaby the night porter, who was a very old snail, said the best cure was a surprise. So everybody hid behind the filing cabinets and jumped out shouting, "Boo." But they said it so kindly and so politely that it sounded more like hello. Barnaby jumped out last, about ten minutes later, by which time everyone had gone back to work.

By now it was nearly midnight, and pillows cannot wait forever. So the Tooth Fairy put on her travelling cloak, tucked a coin and a small stapler in her pocket, and flew down to Willow Close, hiccupping all the way. Each hic bounced her a little higher, so she flew in a wobbly line, like a bee that has had too much pudding.

The bedroom window was open a crack. Inside, Ruby was fast asleep, holding a knitted rabbit by one ear. The tooth was under the pillow, right at the edge, ready and waiting. The Tooth Fairy reached for it, very slowly and very softly, and then—

Hic. Up she floated, and bumped the lampshade, which swung and squeaked. The girl sighed in her sleep and rolled over, and the knitted rabbit slid onto the floor. The Tooth Fairy hung in the air, holding her breath, as still as a picture. The girl did not wake.

Very gently, the Tooth Fairy picked up the rabbit and tucked it back under the girl's arm. Then she thought hard. If she reached under the pillow now, she might hiccup again, and bump again, and squeak again. And nobody wants to be woken up by a fairy bouncing off the furniture.

So she did the proper Bureau thing. From her cloak she took a form called a Delay Notice, and she filled it in with her best pen. Reason for delay: hiccups, seventeen of them, very bouncy. Tooth status: safe, staying put one more night. Next visit: tomorrow, hiccups permitting.

She signed it, and she stapled it, because Ruby liked staples. Then she left it beside the pillow, where it would be found at breakfast.

The Tooth Fairy flew home slowly, hiccupping softly over the rooftops. Back at her desk, her camomile tea had gone cold. She drank it anyway, and halfway through the cup she gave the biggest yawn of her whole life, so long and so wide that it squashed the hiccups flat. She waited, and nothing happened. They were gone.

The next night she went back to Willow Close without a single hic. She slipped the tooth out from under the pillow as softly as a feather, and left a shiny coin and a note in her neatest writing. Thank you for waiting, it said. Hiccups resolved.

Then she flew home to Cloud Nine, put on her slippers, and made a fresh cup of camomile tea. She drank it slowly, sip by sip, sitting perfectly still in her chair, with nothing bouncing at all.

And in Willow Close, Ruby slept with her rabbit under one arm and a coin under her pillow, and the house was quiet all the way to morning.