A Time For Monsters by Mason McDonald

Author:Mason McDonald [McDonald, Mason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

JAR OF TEETH

Lizzie stares into the mirror, her last front baby tooth clasped between her fingers. It wiggles as she twists and pulls. She stands on the blue step-stool her mother keeps in the bathroom for her. On her tiptoes she leans over the edge of the sink and with a grimace she takes a deep breath and pulls as hard as she can, ripping the loosened tooth from her gums. Her eyes water and she drops it, panics, catches it, and squeezes it in her fist until the stinging pain dissipates.

She smiles wide in the mirror to see her handy work. With two front teeth gone and only one on the bottom, her smile looks like a checkerboard. She runs her tongue over the wet spots where her teeth had been and winces when she lightly plucks a nerve. “Ow!”

A knock on the door. Her mother. “Liz baby, you okay?”

“Yes,” it sounds like yeth, “got my tooth!”

“Good babygirl! Do you maybe want to let the Tooth Fairy have this one?”

Lizzie, still smiling wide and rotating her head in the mirror, straightens her back and shuts her mouth, appalled at the very suggestion. “No! It’s mine,” she says.

“Okay, hon,” her mother says, her voice steeped in sadness.

Lizzie knows her mother hates her collection. That she thinks it is a strange thing for a kid to be doing. She knows that the other mothers all whisper and make comments. She knows all this. She does, but she doesn’t care. Because it is her collection, not theirs.

Lizzie steps off the stool and looks underneath the sink. Her mother has everything organised in little black baskets. In the first basket on the left, next to bottles of hand soap and unopened tubes of toothpaste, is Lizzie’s jar.

She grabs it urgently and closes the cabinet doors. She inspects it in her hands, makes sure it is still how she left it and she is happy to report that it is.

It is a mason jar with a silver lid twisted on tight. There is a piece of scotch tape on the side with her mother’s handwriting reading Lizzie in black, beautifully flowing cursive.

Inside the jar are all of her baby teeth. White and yellow lumps that she rattles lightly, listening to the pleasant, soothing sound of the little white things crackling against the glass and one another. Like a miracca. Rattle-rattle.

Lizzie unscrews the lid and tosses in her latest prize. It is whiter than the rest as the others have had time to yellow in the jar. She runs out of the bathroom with the jar clasped tight in her hands, afraid that if she dares to loosen her grip then that thief the Tooth Fairy will swoop down and steal them. They are probably worth a fortune to him.

Creep.

“Mom, mom!” Lizzie runs out yelling. Her mother is sitting on the sofa with legs tucked underneath her, tapping on her phone. Her mom looks up as the excited little girl enters the room with her jar of teeth rattling away, playing a happy entrance jingle.

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