by Gwyneth Rees
‘Here you are, tooth fairies!’ he called out to the room in general. ‘A present for you!’ He was holding the jar with Grandpa’s false teeth inside it, which Grandpa always kept by his bed during the night. He took the jar over to the window and put it down on the outside window ledge.
Izzy immediately started giggling.
‘Thomas, you’d better take that back,’ Lucy said, but she couldn’t help laughing a bit too.
Suddenly the landing light went on.
Lucy quickly drew the curtains shut to hide Grandpa’s dentures, just as their father appeared in the doorway.
‘What’s going on in here?’ Their dad looked dazed and bleary-eyed and he clearly wasn’t pleased to have been woken up. He frowned even more when he saw Izzy. ‘What are you doing in here, young lady?’ As Izzy fled back to her own room, he scowled at Thomas and Lucy as they hurriedly got back into bed too. ‘Now be quiet and go back to sleep, both of you!’
After their father had gone back to bed and the house was silent again, Lucy whispered, ‘What are we going to do about Grandpa’s teeth? Dad might hear us if we try and take them back now.’
‘We’ll take them back in the morning,’ Thomas said.
‘We’d better get them in from the window ledge then. You go and get them, Thomas. You’re the one who put them there!’
‘I’ll do it in the morning,’ Thomas muttered, closing his eyes.
But Lucy was too worried to leave Grandpa’s dentures outside all night so she got out of bed, went over to the window and pulled back the curtains. That was when she saw a fairy in a gold dress and red boots, watching her from a spot in the night air a short distance away. And the fairy was balancing the jar of dentures on her head!
‘Precious!’ Lucy gasped, recognizing her immediately from Izzy’s description.
‘Thanks for the present!’ Precious called back, grinning at her mischievously.
‘They’re not for you!’ Lucy hissed, at which point Thomas got out of bed and came over to the window too.
‘Who are you talking to?’ he grunted.
‘Her! ’ Lucy replied, pointing at Precious.
But all Thomas saw was the jar of false teeth floating in mid-air . . . except that false teeth couldn’t float in mid-air . . . He gaped in disbelief at the jar, which was now dancing around in the moonlight. Something had to be holding it up, only whatever it was seemed to be invisible . . . And the only invisible thing he could think of was the thing that Lucy had told him about – the thing he had refused to believe in until now . . .
And all of a sudden – the second that tiny bit of doubt entered his mind – Thomas could see Precious too.
‘Give my regards to Queen Eldora, won’t you?’ Precious called out, as she gave them a cheeky wave and flew out of sight.
‘What are we going to do?’ Lucy gasped.
But Thomas was too stunned to speak.
At least Thomas believed in fairies now, Lucy thought, but that still didn’t solve the problem of Grandpa’s teeth.
Lucy and Thomas both acted dumb the next morning when Grandpa came downstairs demanding to know who had taken his dentures. He looked much older and frailer without his teeth in, and Lucy felt terrible. But she knew no one would believe them if they tried to explain what had happened.
Thomas wasn’t looking like he felt terrible at all. He looked as if he found the sight of Grandpa without his dentures extremely funny. Izzy, who knew nothing about what had happened after she’d gone back to bed, just looked surprised. Dad was watching all their faces, Lucy noticed, and he seemed to decide immediately who was responsible.
‘Thomas, do you know anything about this?’ he asked.
Thomas immediately stopped smirking. ‘Oh, so you’re just assuming I must have done it, are you?’ he answered back.
‘Thomas—’
‘I haven’t got his rotten old teeth, OK?’ Thomas snapped, pushing back his chair and knocking some cutlery on to the floor with his elbow as he jumped up. ‘Have I, Lucy?’
‘Lucy, do you know anything about this?’ Mum asked immediately.
But before Lucy could answer, Grandpa growled, ‘That boy needs a good hiding, that’s what. And if I don’t get my teeth back right now—’ He was lifting up his walking stick as if he intended to hit Thomas with it.
‘Father, I think you’d better let me handle this,’ Dad interrupted, grabbing the end of the stick before it could do any damage. ‘Thomas, if you won’t answer my question then I think you’d better go to your room.’
‘I don’t have a room here!’ Thomas pointed out stubbornly. ‘Remember?’ And before anyone could say anything else, he had stormed out.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll get your dentures back,’ Mum said in an attempt to soothe their grandfather. She looked at Lucy again. ‘Lucy, if you know where Grandpa’s teeth are, I suggest you tell us right now.’
‘I don’t know exactly where they are,’ Lucy answered truthfully, ‘and neither does Thomas. But I promise we’ll try and find out . . .’ She quickly left the table and went upstairs to join her brother, knowing that they didn’t have long before her parents came to interrogate them some more.
Thomas was sitting cross-legged on the camp bed, his face red with anger. ‘It’s not fair! Dad always thinks everything is my fault. He never blames you or Izzy!’
‘Thomas, this is your fault!’ Lucy pointed out impatiently. ‘And Dad only picked on you because you were laughing, and that was really mean because this isn’t very funny for Grandpa, is it? We’ve just got to get those teeth back!’
‘I don’t see how,’ Thomas grunted.
‘You could always try being very nice to me!’ a little voice piped up from behind them, and Lucy and Thomas turned to see Precious standing on the window sill, watching them. She was wearing a little red cape over her gold dress, and the same red boots she’d worn the night before. ‘If you want your grandfather’s teeth back, I can bring them to you,’ she offered. ‘Though I’d want something in return, of course.’ She laughed at Thomas, whose mouth had fallen open. ‘That’s right, you silly boy! You weren’t dreaming last night. Fairies are real!’
Lucy found her voice at last. ‘Precious, please bring back Grandpa’s teeth. If you do, I know just what we can give you in return.’
‘Oh?’
‘Chocolate! Goldie and Bonnie said that all fairies love it, and we could get you loads! You just need to tell us what kind you like best and—’
‘I do like chocolate,’ Precious interrupted, licking her lips at the thought, ‘but that’s not what I want. You see . . . a little bird I know flew past here last night and saw you showing some lovely baby teeth to Queen Eldora. You have still got them, haven’t you?’
Lucy gulped. ‘Yes, but—’
‘Good! Let me see them then!’
Lucy had no choice but to do what Precious said. Nervously, she went over and unlocked her jewellery box, tipping the teeth out on to the palm of her hand before bringing them over to show the excited fairy.
‘Lovely,’ Precious gasped, eyeing the teeth greedily. ‘Give them to me now and I’ll go and get your grandfather’s teeth straight away.’
‘No way!’ Thomas put in swiftly. ‘If you want Lucy’s teeth, you’ll have to give us Grandpa’s first. Otherwise, how do we know you’ll keep your word?’
‘Fairies always keep their word!’ Precious replied a little haughtily.
‘Good fairies might,’ Thomas said.
Precious scowled at him. ‘Very well,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll come back tonight with the false teeth and you’d better have all six of these real teeth here waiting for me. But if you tell any of the other fairies about this, the deal’s off!’
After she’d gone, Lucy and Thomas sat down on Lucy’s bed feeling too dazed to speak.
‘It was even weirder seeing a fairy in broad daylight,’ Thomas finally murmured.
‘I know,’ Lucy agreed.
‘So what are we going to do? Are yo
u really going to give her your teeth?’
‘I think I’ll have to. I know I promised the tooth-fairy queen that I’d give them to her, but if I don’t do what Precious says, she won’t give back Grandpa’s dentures.’
Thomas was looking thoughtful. ‘What about if we give Precious the teeth and take back Grandpa’s dentures, but then we stop Precious getting away afterwards?’
‘How can we stop her? All she has to do is fly out of the window and she’ll be out of reach.’
‘Out of reach of our hands maybe,’ Thomas agreed. ‘But there are other ways to catch a fairy.’
‘Like what?’ Lucy asked, puzzled.
‘Well, remember how Dad was going to take me fishing last time I came here, but in the end we didn’t go?’
Lucy nodded. The fishing trip had been the cause of yet another family argument. It was Thomas who hadn’t wanted to go, Lucy remembered, after Lucy had said that she’d like to try fishing too, and their dad had suggested turning the fishing trip into an outing for the whole family. Mum had made up a picnic for them all and then, at the last minute, Thomas had announced that he didn’t want to go and had shut himself in the spare room.
‘Has Dad still got that fishing net in the garage, do you know?’ Thomas asked now. ‘The one with the long handle?’
‘I think so,’ Lucy replied. ‘Why? Do you think we could use that to catch Precious?’
‘Well, it’s worth a try, isn’t it?’ Thomas said. ‘Come on!’
On their way downstairs, Lucy’s mum stopped them to ask where they were going.
‘We’re just going outside to fetch something,’ Lucy told her.
‘I see,’ Mum replied, and Lucy immediately wished she hadn’t spoken. Mum clearly thought she knew exactly what they were going outside to fetch, and now she would expect them to return to the house with Grandpa’s missing dentures.
It was going to be a long day, Lucy thought gloomily, as she followed her brother out to the garage.
Lucy thought that the day would never end, but eventually it did – earlier than usual, because her parents sent all the children to bed straight after their evening meal. Although Lucy and Thomas continued to say that they didn’t know the whereabouts of Grandpa’s missing teeth – and Izzy truly didn’t know anything – their parents clearly thought otherwise.
Grandpa had sat hunched up in the armchair in front of the television for most of the day and all his meals had had to be soft ones because he couldn’t chew properly. He refused even to look at the children, who he was sure were responsible for his missing dentures.
‘I wish we could tell them the truth,’ Lucy kept saying to Thomas.
‘They’d only get even madder at us because they’d think we were making it up,’ Thomas said.
‘Even if we get Grandpa’s teeth back we’re still going to be in trouble,’ Lucy said gloomily. ‘They’re still going to think we were the ones who took them. Maybe I should’ve given my teeth to Precious this morning like she wanted. She said she’d bring Grandpa’s dentures back straight away then, didn’t she?’
‘That’s what she said,’ Thomas replied. ‘But I don’t trust her.’
The two children had decided to wait until bedtime before telling Izzy anything, mainly because Izzy wasn’t as good as Lucy and Thomas were at keeping secrets from their parents.
‘Precious took Grandpa’s teeth?’ Izzy gasped in disbelief, when Lucy finally crept into her room and told her the whole story.
Lucy quickly explained how she and Thomas were planning to catch Precious when she came to exchange Grandpa’s dentures for Lucy’s teeth that night. ‘We’ve got Dad’s fishing net and a big cardboard box all ready,’ Lucy said. ‘We’ve made holes in the lid so she can breathe and we’ll hand her over to the other fairies as soon as they get here.’
‘I want to come and see you catch her,’ Izzy said.
‘You can’t,’ Lucy replied. ‘If Mum and Dad find out you’re not in bed, it’ll ruin everything.’
‘They won’t find out! I’ll put my pillow down my bed to make it look like me,’ Izzy said, getting up and quickly rearranging her bed. Although it wasn’t dark outside yet, it would be soon, and Lucy had to admit that if her mum or dad just looked in on Izzy briefly from the doorway, they were likely to be fooled.
‘Come on then,’ Lucy said, and the two girls went back to Lucy’s room together.
‘Actually,’ Thomas said, after Lucy and Izzy had joined him, ‘having Izzy here as well isn’t a bad idea. Precious will only expect there to be two of us, so we’ll leave the curtains open and Izzy can hide behind one of them with the fishing net. Then, when Precious has handed over Grandpa’s teeth and she’s flying away again, Izzy can jump out with the net and surprise her as she leaves through the window.’
‘But what if she’s too fast for me to catch?’ Izzy said, frowning.
Thomas looked around the room, then picked up Lucy’s notepad and started to rip out the pages, crunching them up into paper balls. ‘You can practise before she gets here,’ he told Izzy. ‘Try and catch these when I throw them out the window.’ He went to fetch the net, which they had hidden in Lucy’s wardrobe.
But Izzy wasn’t very good at catching the paper balls in the net and they had just stopped practising and were trying to think up a new plan, when they heard a noise on the landing.
‘We’d better shut the curtains! And you can hide behind them, Izzy!’ Lucy hissed, pulling the curtains shut in front of both Izzy and the fishing net, before jumping back into bed herself.
One of the grown-ups had just gone into the bathroom, and the children waited in silence until they heard the bathroom door opening again and whoever it was going back downstairs. Then Lucy and Thomas got out of bed, whispering to Izzy that it was safe for her to come out now. But when they went over to the window and drew back the curtains, Izzy wasn’t there.
Thomas cried out and Lucy felt like her legs were about to give way under her.
That was when they saw that Grandpa’s jar of false teeth was sitting on the window ledge and that Precious herself was hovering in the air, just out of reach. She was holding the long handle of the fishing net in the middle, a bit like a tightrope walker might hold a pole to help them balance. And, at the net end, Lucy saw a tiny figure trapped inside the mesh, struggling and shouting out for help.
‘Izzy?’ Lucy gasped, hardly able to believe it. ‘Is that you?’
‘I used some fairy dust to shrink her down to fairy size,’ Precious said. ‘I saw you practising how you were going to catch me, so now I’ve caught one of you instead. That’ll teach you to try and trick me!’ And she flew away, taking Izzy with her, leaving Lucy and Thomas staring after her, speechless with shock.
‘Thomas, what are we going to do?’ Lucy finally blurted.
Thomas’s voice sounded hoarse as he gasped, ‘I don’t know.’
Lucy struggled to think clearly. ‘The other fairies will be here soon. They’ll help us.’ But she still had to fight the urge to run downstairs and tell her parents everything, even though she knew that her parents would never believe her and would either fly into a panic when they realized Izzy was missing or, more likely, assume that the children were playing another trick on them and become even angrier than they’d been about Grandpa’s missing teeth.
Lucy couldn’t stop trembling, and Thomas refused to move from the window as they waited for the other fairies to return.
‘This is all my fault,’ Thomas kept saying over and over. ‘If I hadn’t mucked around with Grandpa’s teeth, this would never have happened.’ They had removed Grandpa’s dentures from the window ledge, but had decided it was best not to risk drawing any attention to themselves by replacing them in Grandpa’s room just yet. Instead they had put them out of sight in Lucy’s wardrobe.
‘I shouldn’t have tried to make Izzy be the one to catch Precious,’ Thomas added. ‘I should have just done it myself.’
Lucy didn’t say anything. After all,
she had thought it was a good idea for Izzy to jump out and surprise Precious too, hadn’t she?
Just then a noise outside made them turn and suddenly Queen Eldora was flying in through the window with Goldie and Bonnie following close behind.
‘Thank goodness!’ Lucy cried out as the three fairies settled on top of Lucy’s dressing table, clearly surprised to see that Thomas was looking at them now. But before Thomas could explain how he had come to believe in fairies so quickly, Lucy blurted out the news that Precious had kidnapped Izzy.
Queen Eldora looked stunned. ‘I’ve never heard of any fairy doing such a terrible thing!’
‘She must have done a very quick shrinking spell,’ Goldie said.
‘Can Izzy be un-shrunk again?’ Thomas asked anxiously.
Goldie nodded. ‘Fairy shrinking spells never last long if you do them outside Fairyland.’
‘I don’t understand why Precious is behaving like this,’ Bonnie said, sounding upset. ‘She knows she’ll never be able to come home again if she carries on being this bad.’
‘The golden pillowcase will never let her through now she’s been this wicked,’ Goldie agreed.
‘How do you mean?’ Lucy asked. ‘What golden pillowcase?’
Queen Eldora started to speak then. ‘Tooth fairies travel in and out of Fairyland via magic fairy pillowcases, which are golden in colour and hang on human washing lines. They are invisible to most humans, of course – only those who believe in fairies can see them. But no fairy can pass through a magic pillowcase unless she has a certain amount of Goodness in her.’
‘That’s why Precious is stuck here,’ Goldie explained. ‘Because she’s done too many bad things and her Goodness levels have dropped too low.’
‘What sort of bad things?’ Thomas asked curiously.
‘Many different bad things, I’m afraid,’ the fairy queen answered. ‘And she’s never sorry afterwards, which makes it even worse.’
‘Once she stole a little girl’s favourite doll because she thought the doll’s clothes would look nice on her,’ Bonnie said. ‘And then when they didn’t fit properly she dumped the doll and all her clothes in a dustbin.’
