by Poppy Green
Ben looked up from his autumn foliage drawing. “The tooth fairy will come,” he told Sophie. “I just know it.”
Hattie was coloring in the buds on a flowering tree. “Maybe he or she couldn’t find your house,” Hattie suggested.
Sophie thought about that. “How does the tooth fairy know where I live, anyway?” Sophie pondered.
Owen shrugged. “We are talking about a fairy,” he said. “There is a lot that is hard to explain.”
Sophie’s paper was still blank. She couldn’t decide what to draw. In fact, she didn’t feel like drawing. She felt like figuring out the mystery of the missing tooth fairy.
Could Hattie be right? What if the tooth fairy needed help finding her house? How can I make it easier to find? Sophie wondered.
Suddenly she had an idea.
Sophie grabbed a colored pencil and began to draw. In the center of her paper, she drew an oak tree. She labeled it SOPHIE’S HOUSE.
Then, around the oak tree, she drew symbols for other locations in Pine Needle Grove. She added symbols for the shops in town. She drew in the stream and the playground. She marked the locations of Olsen Orchard and Buttercup Patch.
Hattie leaned over to look at Sophie’s paper. “What’s that?” Hattie asked.
“A map,” Sophie explained. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe the tooth fairy just needs help finding my house.”
Hattie’s eyes lit up. “Great idea!” she exclaimed. “I’ll make one too.” Hattie put her springtime drawing aside. She got a clean sheet of paper. “Where can we leave them so the tooth fairy might find them?”
Owen took a new sheet of paper too.
“Let’s make lots of copies,” Owen suggested. “We’ll put them up all over town!”
Ben joined in. All four of them made maps until art time was over. By then, they had about a dozen copies. Hattie even decorated each one with glitter glue—a lot of glitter glue.
“It will grab the fairy’s attention,” Hattie explained. She held up a glittery map. “Don’t you think?”
Sophie laughed.
At the front of the classroom, Mrs. Wise flapped her wings. “Okay, class,” she called out. “Art time is over. Please clean up.”
Sophie collected all the finished maps.
“Meet outside after school?” Owen suggested. “We’ll help you hang these up.”
Ben and Hattie nodded in agreement.
Sophie beamed. She was grateful to have the help of her friends.
chapter 8
Right This Way
The four friends broke up into two teams. Sophie and Hattie both lived near the stream. Owen and Ben lived on the other side of town.
So Owen and Ben took half the maps. And Sophie and Hattie took the other half.
“We’ll hang some on our way through town,” Owen said. “One by the library, one by Little Leaf Bookstore, and one by the General Store.”
“And maybe one out by Goldmoss Pond,” Ben added.
Sophie nodded. “And we’ll cover our side of Pine Needle Grove,” she said. “Thanks for your help!”
The teams parted ways. Owen and Ben took the path toward town. Sophie and Hattie went the other way through the tunnel of honeysuckle branches.
Sophie stopped at the first big tree they came to. It was a beautiful fir tree with long, drooping branches. “How about one on here?”
Hattie nodded. “Let me give you a boost,” she suggested. “After all, fairies fly. So the higher the map is, the better.”
“Good thinking!” Sophie said.
Hattie crouched down in leapfrog position. Sophie climbed up and balanced on Hattie’s back. Then Sophie reached up as high as she could. She found a spot where the tree’s trunk was sticky with sap. Sophie pressed the glittery map right on that spot. It stuck like glue.
“Perfect!” Sophie declared.
Moving on, they hung a map on the main path to Butterfly Brook. They hung another on the side of Birch Tree Slide. They hung a couple down by the stream. And they hung their last map on the path to Forget-Me-Not Lake.
Then they headed for home. They got to Hattie’s house first. Sophie thanked her for her help.
“You’re welcome,” Hattie replied. “I bet the tooth fairy will be able to find your house tonight.”
Sophie nodded as she waved good-bye. She hoped Hattie was right. They had made a lot of maps. They had hung them all over. And they were certainly very eye-catching. Surely the tooth fairy would see one of the maps.
Right?
As she walked up to her front door, Sophie had one more idea.
She looked around on the forest floor. She gathered some of the longest twigs she could find and dragged them toward the front door. She arranged them into a familiar shape.
Then Sophie went inside. She ran upstairs to her room. She opened her window and looked down at the shape she’d made.
It was a big arrow, pointing the way to Sophie’s house. She hoped it was visible from the air.
chapter 9
The End?
The next morning Sophie awoke with a start. Sun was streaming in the window. She rolled over and propped herself up on her elbows. Sophie paused for a moment and crossed her fingers. What would she find under her pillow?
Then, with a dramatic flourish, she lifted it up.
The box was there. And nothing else. Just to be sure, Sophie opened the lid. The tooth was inside.
Sophie sighed and put the pillow down again.
Well, I guess that’s that, she thought. Either I missed my chance or there is no tooth fairy.
One thing seemed clear: The tooth fairy wasn’t coming for her tooth.
Sophie got up, got dressed, and went down for breakfast. She tried not to be disappointed. But she was. She couldn’t help it. Why had the tooth fairy come for Ben’s teeth, but not for hers?
Sophie felt cranky at breakfast. She snapped at Winston when he didn’t pass the syrup.
“Sorry!” Winston replied. “I didn’t know you needed it.”
Sophie felt cranky at school, too. She told her friends what had happened: nothing.
“There must be a good reason,” Ben insisted.
Sophie waved it off. “Never mind,” she said. She just didn’t feel like talking about it.
She was still cranky on the walk home. She spotted one of the maps they’d posted on the fir tree. She’d have to remember to take down all the maps the next day.
After dinner Sophie remembered the violets she had picked at school. She pulled them from a side pocket of her backpack. They were wilted and rumpled. But the petals were as bright as ever.
Sophie ground them into a powder. Then she mixed up a fresh tin of violet purple.
Sophie pulled out a new canvas. She was envisioning a sunset scene. It would make excellent use of her new paint.
By the time she was done painting, Sophie was feeling much better. Painting always made her feel better. And this sunset scene was a keeper.
“Sophie!” Winston called up the stairs. “We’re going to play some board games!”
So Sophie joined them. The Mouse family always enjoyed playing board games together. And they were each good at different games, so usually Sophie and Winston didn’t get too competitive. Between Sophie’s painting and playing games with her family, it was a pretty great ending to a not-so-great day.
chapter 10
PS …
In the morning Sophie bounced out of bed, feeling cheerful. I’m glad this whole tooth fairy drama is over, she thought. And on the bright side, I get to keep my tooth.
Sophie looked around. Wait. Where was her tooth, anyway? The last time she saw it was … yesterday morning.
“Oh, right!” Sophie said out loud. She had left the tooth box under her pillow. She had been so distracted by her disappointment that she’d forgotten to move it.
Sophie picked up her pillow.
But the box wasn’t there. In its place was a single acorn.
Sophie blinked. Weird. On
e of the acorns from her collection must have fallen off the shelf. But then … how did it get under her pillow? That didn’t make sense.
Sophie looked closer. She didn’t remember this acorn. Oh! There was something under it—a small white piece of paper. It blended in with the white bedsheet, making it hard to see.
Sophie picked up the paper. There was writing on the underside—tiny writing! Sophie had to squint to read it.
Dear Sophie,
Sorry it took me so long to bring your treat. I wanted to find the perfect acorn. I hope you like it.
Love, T. T. F.
T. T. F.? Sophie thought. Then she gasped. The Tooth Fairy?
PS — Thanks for the maps! It was very easy to find your house.
At the very bottom of the paper, there was even tinier writing.
Sophie laughed out loud. She supposed it was a good thing she’d left the maps up, after all.
Sophie admired her newest acorn. She turned it over and over in her hand. It was perfectly round and so smooth and shiny. The color was a deep reddish-blue-black. Purple, really. A purple acorn!
Sophie didn’t have anything like it. She set it down in a place of honor on her acorn shelf. It was a beautiful addition to her collection.
And it was definitely worth the wait.
The End
More from this Series
Hattie in the Spotlight
Book 16
A New Friend
Book 1
The Emerald Berries
Book 2
Forget-Me-Not Lake
Book 3
Looking for Winston
Book 4
The Maple Festival
Book 5
About the Author and Illustrator
Poppy Green can talk to animals! Unfortunately, they never talk back to her. So she started writing in order to imagine what they might say and do when humans aren’t watching. Poppy lives on the edge of the woods in Connecticut, where her backyard is often a playground for all kinds of wildlife: birds, rabbits, squirrels, voles, skunks, deer, and the occasional wild turkey
Jennifer A. Bell is an illustrator whose work can be found in greeting cards, magazines, and more than forty children’s books. She studied fine art at the Columbus College of Art and Design and spent many years designing seasonal giftware and greeting cards before becoming a children’s book illustrator. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division • 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020 • www.SimonandSchuster.com • First Little Simon paperback edition October 2019 • Copyright © 2019 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. LITTLE SIMON is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and associated colophon is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected]. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
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Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this title from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-5344-4949-7 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-5344-4948-0 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-5344-4950-3 (eBook)