The Mystery of the Tooth Fairy

Brothers trying to find incriminating evidence that the tooth fairy was fabricated.

“Coast is clear,” my older brother Christopher says to me over the walkie-talkie.

I jump off the couch and race to Dad’s room. I’m shaking because I know I’m not allowed in here. My mission is to snatch a letter or note or something written by Dad, but all the papers scattered on his desk are type written.

I open Dad’s bedside table and find a jackpot of what appears to be letters. I can’t read yet, but Christopher can. He can even decipher cursive!

Just then, the walkie-talkie squawks. “Get out! He’s coming back!”

I fold up the papers and stick them in my back pocket and race to Dad’s bathroom just as he walks into his room. I hoist myself up to the bathroom window and scramble out to the roof of our second story house. I scoot across the loose shingles till I get to my bedroom where Christopher helps me climb through the window.

Christopher grabs the papers sticking out of my pocket and rolls them flat on the floor. Then he takes a crumpled piece of paper and lays it next to the leaves of paper I’ve fetched.

“I knew it!” Christopher shouts. “It’s the same writing! These letters have the same handwriting on them as this one from the tooth fairy. Dad was lying to us all this time!”

“Christopher,” I say, puzzled. “I know you are a good reader, but why would Dad draw hearts along the side of the letters? That’s not really a Dad-thing to do, is it?”

Christopher takes another look.

“Oh my gosh!” he says. “Sam, that’s not a letter written from Dad. It’s to Dad from Mom!”

“How can that be?” I say, tearing the paper from his hands as if I’d be able to understand any of it. “She’s been in heaven for 2 years. How can she write Dad from heaven?”

“Sam, these are old letters,” Christopher says. “The question isn’t how Mom wrote the letters. The question is, if these are from the same writer, how did she write the note for the tooth fairy?”

“Well, duh, Chris,” I say. “Isn’t it obvious? Mom became the tooth fairy when she went to heaven. The tooth fairy is real!”