Dr. Silas Von Rott smiled while putting the final touches on his automaton. “Yes,” he thought, “when laid out on the bed it will look just like a real little boy.”
Carefully, he loaded banana pudding into the trap’s squirt gun. When that tooth fairy shifted the pillow in order to retrieve the tooth, banana pudding would squirt from the fingers.
He called his manservant to bring the automaton. While walking to the room he had prepared, Dr. Von Rott rubbed his hands and chuckled.
“Tonight, Mordecai, I shall become powerful. I shall bait the pillow with this tooth I purchased. Ahh, a lad after my own heart he was, all I had to do was promise him a sweet. Knocking the tooth out of some other child and bringing it to me was his idea. Delightful child. Soon, I will have a tooth fairy’s wand. Do you realize what this means, Mordecai?”
Mordecai just shook his head; carrying the heavy automaton up the stairs took all his strength and concentration. Besides, whether he answered yes or no, he knew Dr. Von Rott would tell him anyway. The Doctor enjoyed expounding upon the cleverness of his ideas.
“No, of course you don’t, Mordecai. A simple fellow such as you would never grasp the sublime simplicity of my genius.” Dr. Von Rott continued so swiftly Mordecai could not have answered even had he been so inclined. “As you know, when a child loses a tooth, the tooth fairy comes to collect it. They leave behind money for the tooth. Sometimes as much as a quid, and how do you think they carry it? No, I know you do not know. It is not in a wallet or purse I can tell you that, there isn’t one big enough. No, they use a wand to summon the money once the tooth has been collected. Now, once I have secured the wand I can summon all the money I wish, enough to finally create my army of clanks armed with death rays with which I can take over and rule the world!”
Mordecai shook his head a lot as he placed the automaton as the Doctor instructed. His family had served the doctor’s family for generations and this was in no way unusual behavior. Besides, the benefits were pretty good.
Automaton placed, Mordecai and the Doctor left the room. Mordecai went to his room to read while the good Doctor went to his study to determine how he would spend his soon-to-be immeasurable wealth.
*****
Fang was so glad this was the last call. This night had been one of the roughest in memory. Screens, cats, and bug zappers – all of the troublesome things which make a tooth fairy’s job less than dreamy. One child this night even had the audacity to attempt to capture him. Fortunately, it was only a mason jar and easy enough to flutter through. Fang just wished it had been a new jar. In the short time it took to exit, he had smelled enough pickles to last him years.
There were no screens on the windows for this house. Fang fluttered through and stopped to look around the room. He did not see any teddy bears. Those guardians of childhood never bothered him, but he did like to say hello, just to be friendly. Something did not feel right.
With a shrug, he flew to the bed where a child lay fast asleep. Fang landed near the edge of the pillow. Taking just a moment to preen his whiskers and scratch his ear, he sniffed the air. Yes, there was a fresh tooth from a boy under the pillow, but there was an undercurrent of odors he did not like, banana pudding with a hint of grease. It seemed to come from the sleeping child. Perhaps the lad had simply had some banana pudding for desert.
Slowly, with a bit of apprehension, Fang approached the pillow. He could see the tooth, just a little too far back for easy reach. The surprise came when he lifted the corner of the pillow.
A glob of banana pudding engulfed him. If not for the slight hiss as the air released, he would have been caught facing the pillow. The warning gave him a split second to turn slightly, or else he would not been able to react. The child’s mouth opened, springing a cage made of false teeth.
Dr. Von Rott had been daydreaming of giant clanks marching on London when the alarm sounded. The Queen was just about to give him the crown too! But more importantly, the tooth fairy trap had been sprung. He raced up the stairs to claim his prize.
Old tooth fairies do not become old tooth fairies without having learned to survive attacks such as these, so faster than thought as the false teeth sprang forward, Fang summoned up the unusual defense he learned early in his career, a shield of vanilla wafer. Bracing as best he could, the uppers broke as he knew they must, the impact throwing him clear of the banana pudding.
He was covered in the banana pudding. This was indeed a dastardly trap. Whoever set it knew banana pudding would prevent a fairy from using their dust. Normally fairy dust formed a cloud around the fairy allowing them to fly and flutter through objects, but this sticky covering kept the cloud from forming. Those false teeth, he shuddered, were the one thing which a fairy could not flutter through. It had been a close call. Fang had one last trick up his sleeve, and it did not depend on fairy dust.
Footsteps were charging up the hall. Just as the door opened, Fang used his last trick. Even many fairies did not know why they had whiskers and rounded ears. In the once-upon-a-time days, people left their children’s teeth for his kind, until one day such a great amount of belief magic accumulated it turned the humble grey mice to tooth fairies. In times of great need, all tooth fairies could still take the form of a mouse.
Dr. Von Rott saw the banana pudding and broken cage on the bed. “Curses! Foiled again! And by a mouse!” he screamed as a pudding-covered mouse scurried along the sideboard.
(Inspired by actual events)
Thank you for reading,
Ernest
When My Worlds Collide 