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| Lauren Elizabeth Stewart |
Me: Lauren you are not going to sleep with us tonight. You are going to sleep in the other room that used to be your mother’s.
Lauren: Yes because I have to be in my own bed. The tooth fairy is coming tonight.
Me: Really? When did you lose your tooth?
Lauren: Yesterday afternoon.
Me: Why didn't she take your tooth and leave you something? Did you forget to put it under your pillow?
Lauren: No, but Daddy says that once when he was little the tooth fairy did not come for five days. I think she was busy last night.
Me: I don’t think she was busy. I think she just forgot.
Lauren: The tooth fairy never forgets.
Me: Besides I don’t think she is coming tonight because you didn’t tell her you were sleeping over. She will go to your house, not find you, and if she is as inefficient, as I think she is, she will leave something under the pillow for your sister.
Lauren: She never makes mistakes because she is magic.
Me: How do you know she is magic? Have you ever seen her?”
Lauren: No, she is so tiny that nobody can see her.
Me: That doesn’t sound right to me. Where does she live?
Lauren: She lives in a castle in the sky.
Me: Does she have a moat around it with crocodiles?
Lauren: (Laugh, laugh). Of course not! And her castle is invisible.
Me: What does she bring you?
Lauren: She leaves me money?
Me: Where does she get it from?
Lauren: (giggle, giggle) She already has it and she keeps it in her castle.
Me: What does she do with the teeth?
Lauren: She makes necklaces.
Me: I don't think so. I think that with the scarcity of elephant ivory they use your teeth to make piano keys.
Lauren: That's silly, they can't make piano keys from our tiny teeth!
Me: How does she get to the houses she visits?
Lauren: She flies.
Me: In an airplane?
Lauren: (giggle, giggle) Of course not! She flies without an airplane. She is magic.
Me: I don’t think she knows you are here so she is not going to come.
Lauren: Tooth Fairy, I am spending the night with my grandparents at 5909 Athlone Street.
Me: I hope for your sake that she will come.
Lauren: She will. You're asking me too many questions!
Addendum: I really did not want to upset my granddaughter Lauren, 9, by telling her that in the Southern Hemisphere we have Ratón Perez (he is a mouse) who exchanges teeth for money. I didn't tell Lauren that with all the Spanish we speak here at Athlone Street there is a chance that the Tooth Fairy and Ratón Perez are currently fighting it out to determine whose territory it is.