Instead of laughing, Isabel blinked in surprise. She looked as stunned and confused as Banana did that time when I accidentally stepped on her tail.
I swallowed hard, wishing I could gulp down the words. Somehow that had sounded much funnier when Chuck had said it. When I’d said it, it just sounded mean. Like the kind of thing Justin might say. Like I was making fun of her for still believing.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That came out wrong.”
Isabel looked down. “Okay,” she said. “I don’t know why you’d say that, though.”
The back of my neck prickled with shame. I wished I could jump on the merry-go-round and spin us backwards to turn back time and undo hurting her feelings. I just hadn’t been thinking.
“It was a joke. A dumb joke. But, Isabel . . .” Since Isabel had brought it up, I had to tell her the truth. “You know there’s no Tooth Fairy, right?”
Isabel stared at me for what felt like a long time. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
“No,” she finally said. “I don’t know that. I know some people believe that, but I don’t think it’s true.”
“What’s not true?” Sadie asked, coming up behind us.
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
“The Tooth Fairy,” Isabel said. I held my breath and waited for Sadie to repeat the truth.
“Oh,” Sadie said. “Guess what? My dad says I can have you guys over after school tomorrow. We can take turns riding my new bike.”
Isabel brightened. “Cool,” she said.
“Cool,” I echoed. But it didn’t fix what I’d said to Isabel.
I should have kept my big mouth shut.
Chapter Six
Birds of a Feather
Even the worst Wednesday morning always gets better, because on Wednesdays we start the day with art.
This morning Ms. Burland showed us one of her favorite artists, Charley Harper, who made a lot of cool-looking birds. We talked about what Ms. Burland called his “geometric style,” meaning that the birds are made out of bold, simple shapes like triangles and squares and circles and half circles, all layered and pieced together. Then we took out glue and scissors and colored paper, and got to work, cutting out shapes for our own bird collages.
One of the images Ms. Burland showed us had all these long, thin rectangles that looked like branches. I wanted to try that on my collage, so I picked a sheet of bright blue paper to use for the background and some light-gray paper to cut into tree strips.
First, though, I got a piece of pretty yellow paper and cut it into a heart. I wrote I’m sorry on one side of the heart and drew a picture of Banana on the other side, with two little lines near her tail to show she was wagging it. Once I saw that Ms. Burland wasn’t watching, I passed the heart to Isabel at the desk next to mine.
I was pretty sure I’d done the right thing by telling Isabel the truth about the Tooth Fairy, even though she hadn’t wanted to believe it. Somebody had to tell her, and it was better that she hear it from a friend. But I really was sorry for what I’d said before that—for accidentally making fun of her by repeating Chuck’s stupid joke. I wanted her to know I felt bad about it.
Isabel looked at the note and smiled at me, and I sighed with relief. I vowed that from that moment on, I was going to be nothing but a truly good friend to her and Sadie both.
I got to work on my collage, pushing at my loose tooth with my tongue while I glued down the trees for my background and cut out red and black shapes to use for my bird.
“Very nice,” Ms. Burland said as she passed by my desk in her tall, shiny boots with buttons all up the sides. I sat up straighter. “Great color choices,” she said to Isabel.
I looked over at Isabel’s collage as Ms. Burland crossed to the other side of the room. Isabel’s black-and-white bird was floating in a lake of dark-purple water, with a lavender sky and a fuchsia moon above it. It looked amazing, which was no surprise. Isabel is the best artist in our class. I felt a flash of pride that she was one of my two best friends.
“It’s a loon,” she said shyly.
Before I could respond, Justin butted in. “A loon?” he said. “I didn’t realize we were doing self-portraits.”
Isabel’s eyes went wide. I turned around to glare at Justin.
“What’s yours, Anna, a cuckoo bird?” he said.
“No!” I said, wishing I could think of a better response.
“Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” Justin crowed. My whole face felt hot.
Suddenly Sadie was there between us with her hands on her hips. “Justin Chan, you leave my friends alone,” she said. “You know who makes fun of people like that? A big chicken.”
She turned and marched back to her desk before Justin could say another word.
Surprisingly, he didn’t say another word, to either Isabel or me, for the entire rest of the morning. He didn’t even kick my chair.
Isabel passed me a note: Sadie is a superhero.
I nodded. It was true, and I loved Sadie for it.
But I also felt a tiny bit jealous. I wanted to be the kind of friend who saves the day, instead of being the one who’d almost ruined it. But I hadn’t done anything to stick up for Isabel. I hadn’t even been able to defend myself.
Chapter Seven
A Lot to Swallow
When we got outside for recess, I saw right away that we couldn’t play Spin Me a Tale. Some first graders were already using the small merry-go-round. If we’d wanted to, we could have kicked the first graders off, since we’re bigger, but my friends and I aren’t mean like that. Unlike some people.
“Let’s take the swings,” Sadie said, so we ran there instead.
“What are we going to do about Justin? He’s so annoying,” I said as I pushed off the ground.
Sadie shrugged, kicking off too. “He’s not always that bad. He just sometimes doesn’t know when to stop.”
“I don’t want him to even start,” I said. I pumped my legs to go higher. “You’re lucky you don’t have to sit right in front of him.”
I glanced over at Isabel, who was sitting quietly on her swing, not even swinging yet, with a thoughtful look on her face. I waited for her to say something about Justin’s teasing, but instead she asked, “What makes you so sure there’s no Tooth Fairy, Anna?”
My feet hit the ground with a thud and I dragged them in the dirt to bring myself to a stop. Sadie halted her swing too.
“Well,” I said as both of them looked at me. “Chuck told us. Back in kindergarten, when I lost my second tooth. We didn’t want to believe him, but Sadie said we should check. I put the tooth under my pillow before bed, and my mom came to tuck me in like she always does. But after she left, I put my hand under my pillow and the tooth was already gone. There was a silver dollar and a pack of bubble gum, but the Tooth Fairy couldn’t have been there yet. My mom had to have left it.”
Isabel tilted her head to the side like Banana does when she’s trying to figure something out. “Did you fall asleep while you were waiting to be tucked in?” she asked.
“What? No,” I said, trying to remember. “I don’t know. Maybe. It was a long time ago. Why?”
“Because it’s possible the Tooth Fairy did come and take the tooth if you were really tired and fell asleep right away, before your mom came up,” Isabel explained.
I hesitated. “I guess so,” I said, even though I didn’t think that was true. I looked at Sadie for help.
“Probably not,” Sadie said as nicely as possible.
“Yeah, probably not,” Isabel said, nodding. “Because you already didn’t believe.”
“What?” I said again. Somehow it was beginning to feel like I was the one who didn’t know about things. Isabel sounded so calm and sure.
“You didn’t believe,” Isabel repeated patiently. “Once you stop believing in the Tooth Fairy, the Tooth Fairy stops coming, so your parents have to take over. That’s how the magic works.”
Sadie looked skeptical. “How do you know that?” she
asked.
Isabel shrugged. “All magic has rules,” she said. “There’s a certain way you have to do it, or it doesn’t work. Like, think about birthday-wish magic. You have to blow out the candles all in one breath, and you have to think of your wish while you’re doing it, and you can’t tell anyone what you wished for. Otherwise, the magic doesn’t work.”
“Right,” I agreed. I believed in that. Birthday-wish magic was how I’d gotten Banana.
“Well, the rule with the Tooth Fairy’s magic is that you have to put the tooth under your pillow before you fall asleep, and you have to believe,” Isabel said. “If you don’t believe, the Tooth Fairy doesn’t come.”
I stared at her with my mouth open. I’d never thought of it like that.
“It’s nice of your parents to step in and pretend, though,” she added.
Wow, I thought. I could tell Sadie wasn’t convinced by Isabel’s theory. But secretly I so, so wanted it to be true.
Chapter Eight
Chew on This
Isabel and Sadie swung their lunchboxes on either side of me as we headed toward the cafeteria to eat. Normally, all three of us bring our lunches from home, but today was pizza day, which always smells really good, so I was getting hot lunch instead.
My friends went over to our usual table by the windows while I stood in line to wait for my food. Jesmyn, who was in Ms. Dandino’s class with Sadie and me last year but had Mr. Garrison for third grade this year, got in line behind me. We smiled and said hi. For a second I thought about asking her what she thinks of the Tooth Fairy, but some other kids were lining up behind her and I didn’t want them to overhear. It was way too embarrassing.
“Cheese or pepperoni?” the lunch lady asked when I reached the counter.
“Cheese, please,” I said, since Banana wasn’t there to feed the pepperonis to. Banana loves any pizza toppings, even anchovies, but pepperonis are her favorite. I mostly like my pizza plain.
I took a box of milk from the dairy case and carried my tray toward the spot where my friends were waiting. I was swerving around a bunch of kids all gathered around another table when I heard Justin’s voice coming from the middle of the crowd. I heard him say “Tooth!” along with something else, and the whole group laughed.
I froze. Oh no oh no oh no, I thought. The worst had happened. He’d heard about Isabel and he was telling everyone and they were all making fun of her and the whole school was laughing.
I had to do something. I had to stop him.
I would not let him do this to my friend.
I took a deep breath and pushed past the other kids, imagining myself wearing tights and a cape. “Enough!” I said, slamming my tray down on Justin’s table. “You need to shut your big mouth!”
Chapter Nine
You Bet
Justin jumped in surprise. “What’d I do?” he said.
The fact that he was pretending to be innocent made me even madder. “First you made fun of my friend and called her a loon,” I said. “Then you made fun of me, too. And now you’re . . .” I stopped, suddenly realizing something I hadn’t quite processed before. When I’d stormed up to the table, Justin had had his mouth wide open and his finger inside it. He’d been touching his tooth.
Maybe he wasn’t telling everyone that Isabel still believed in the Tooth Fairy. Maybe he’d been wiggling and talking about his own loose tooth.
Whoops. I clamped my mouth shut. But everyone was staring at me, waiting to hear the end of that sentence. And the longer it took me to finish, the smirkier Justin’s smirk was becoming. I had to say something.
“Now you’re showing off your dumb loose tooth like you’re the only one who’s ever had one!” I finished lamely.
This was so embarrassing. I wished I could tuck my tail between my legs like Banana and scootch out of there, fast. But it was too late now.
At least Justin was too stunned to respond.
I heard Isabel’s voice behind me. “You have a loose tooth?” she said. “So does Anna.”
Uh-oh. I needed to jump in fast, before Isabel said something about believing in the Tooth Fairy in front of the entire cafeteria. I could at least save her from that. I blurted out the first words I could think of. “Yeah, but he just got his, so mine is going to fall out first.”
That snapped Justin back to life. “Is not,” he said.
“Is to,” I shot back.
“Says who?”
“Says me!”
“Wanna bet?” he said.
I didn’t want to bet on anything with Justin. I just wanted him to stop making fun of me and my friends. But maybe this was my chance for that. Maybe this was a way I could stand up for all of us.
“Fine,” I said. “I bet that my tooth will fall out before yours does. And if I’m right, you have to leave me and my friends alone for the entire rest of the year. No more teasing us. No more pestering. No talking to us, or even kicking my chair.”
“Fine,” Justin said, his smile growing. “And if mine falls out first, then I get your tooth.”
“My what?” I shrieked.
“Your tooth,” Justin said, looking smug. “If you lose, you have to give me your tooth when it falls out.”
“I can’t give you my tooth!” I said.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“Because . . .” I didn’t know how to explain it, but that just seemed wrong. The idea of anyone having my tooth was icky, but especially if that anyone was Justin. “Because it’s mine. Why would you even want it?”
Justin rolled his eyes. “To get more money from the Tooth Fairy,” he said, like it should have been obvious.
My mouth dropped open. “That’s cheating! And you can’t trick the Tooth Fairy.” Surely that was true whether the Tooth Fairy was real or not.
Beside me, Isabel was nodding. Sadie stood close on my other side, making me feel stronger. It was good knowing that my friends had my back.
“I won’t give you my tooth,” I said to Justin. “Choose something else.”
He thought for a minute. “Okay,” he said. “If you lose, you have to stand up in the middle of class and dance the Funky Chicken.” Justin tucked his hands into his armpits and flapped his elbows to demonstrate. “Bawk, bawk!” he cried.
No way was I doing that during class. Even the idea of it was embarrassing. And Ms. Burland would give me detention for life.
But I wasn’t going to lose this bet anyway. I had to win it, for me and my friends.
“Fine,” I said. I stuck out my hand to shake on it.
Justin beamed. “Really?”
“Whatever,” I said. We shook.
I picked up my lunch tray and followed my friends to our table, trying to look like I didn’t care. I took a big bite of the pizza and said, “Mmm,” but the truth was I couldn’t even taste it. My insides felt heavy, like they were already stuffed with cheese. Cold, lumpy cheese and regret.
I should never have gotten pulled into that big-mouth bet. This loose tooth was causing nothing but trouble.
Chapter Ten
Wiggle Away
On the way home from school I charged down the sidewalk ahead of Chuck, wiggling my tooth as hard as I could while I walked. I’d had more than enough of this day already. I wanted to get home to Banana.
“Yo, Anna, what’s the rush?” my slowpoke brother called from several feet behind me. “And what are you doing in there, digging for gold?”
I whirled around. “I need to get this tooth out,” I said, walking backwards to keep moving.
Chuck sped up. “I bet I could knock it out with my fist,” he offered, grinning like he does when he thinks he’s being clever.
I rolled my eyes. “No thanks,” I said, turning so I could walk forward again.
Chuck shuffled to keep up. “Want me to pull it out? Dad must have some pliers we could use.”
“No!” I tried to elbow him in the side, but he ducked out of the way.
“You sure? It’d be easy. One little tug and .
. . pop!”
My hand flew back to my mouth. I cupped my fingers over my jaw to protect it. “Keep your grubby paws away from me,” I said into my hand. Chuck wouldn’t really go after my tooth with pliers, but I squirmed a little even just thinking about it.
Chuck shrugged. “Suit yourself. You can keep it in forever, then.”
I shook my head firmly. That was most definitely not an option. Especially now that Justin and the Funky Chicken were involved.
The faster I could get this tooth out, the sooner Justin would be forced to leave Isabel and Sadie and me alone. But I was sure that my tooth was already way looser than his. I wouldn’t need Chuck’s pliers to win.
Unless . . . what if Justin used pliers on his tooth? I couldn’t imagine anyone actually doing that, but with our bet on the line, it seemed almost possible.
I sped up and went back to the wiggling. Chuck groaned but sped up too.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what Isabel had said about how the Tooth Fairy stops coming once you stop believing. Part of me was embarrassed for her that she thought that was true, but another big part of me wished I could snap my fingers and start believing again. I didn’t want to be missing out on the magic. And even though it made sense that there might be no Tooth Fairy at all, I thought Isabel’s theory made a lot of sense too.
But you can’t just decide you believe in something. That’s not how believing works. And if I didn’t fully, completely believe, the magic wouldn’t work anyway, so I might as well not believe at all. Right?
I needed to discuss it with Banana. I kind of wanted to talk it over with Chuck, too, but I didn’t want him to start joking about the Abominable Snowman and my imaginary friends, and talk me out of it. Chuck can be very persuasive. At least I knew Banana wouldn’t laugh at me.
Anna, Banana, and the Big-Mouth Bet Page 2