Towers of Silence

Chapter Thirty Three

“Mummeeee!”

Pandemonium from the kitchen. I ran in and found Tom bawling his head off and Maddie looking worried.

“What on earth’s the matter?”

Tom doesn’t cry much so we always know it’s something big when he does.

He was incoherent.

I ran my eyes over him searching for signs of injury and saw nothing. I scooped him onto my knee.

“What’s the matter?”

He was red-faced and tears were squirting out of him like mini fountains. “Tell me, Tom.”

He fought for a breath. “My tooth,” he wailed. “I ate my tooth.”

I peered. His loose tooth had gone.

“He was eating his sandwich,” Maddie said.

“It’s gone,” he sobbed.

“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “You’ll still get the money.”

“The tooth fairy won’t come.”

“You’ll still get some money, Tom,” I was not going to get into philosophical debate about the rules and regulations of an imaginary fairy. “It’s all right.”

I gave him a tissue. “Wipe your nose.”

He did.

Maddie moved closer and put her hand on his shoulders. “Think of something nice,” she said gently.

“Will it bite me?” he said in panic and his face creased up again.

“No, no. It’ll probably melt away because your tummy’s got really strong stuff in to melt all the food.”

“Or it’ll come out in your poo,” Maddie added.

Tom beamed at such a naughty idea and looked at me for confirmation. I nodded. “It could do. But it definitely can’t hurt you whether it stays in your tummy or comes out the other end.”

He sighed.

“Let’s think of something nice,” Maddie said again. “Like presents.”

“Stockings,” I said. “Where do you want to hang your stockings.”

“By my bed,” said Tom.

“Have we still got them?”

“Yes. You know when I was little we used real stockings like women wear, not ones with nice pictures on.” And how strange they had looked hanging in the dawn light, distorted, detached legs with angular shapes straining against the nylon.

“Mine’s a snowman,” Tom reminded me.

“And what do you think there’ll be in it?”

“Chocolate money,” they chorused.

“Yes.”

“And an orange,” said Tom.

“Satsuma,” Maddie corrected him.

I nodded.

“And toys.”

“I got a Slinky last year,” Tom said brightly. He had been virtually inseparable from the coiled metal toy, wearing it as a bracelet when he wasn’t watching it flip over and over down the stairs.

“I got a mouth organ. How many things will we get, Mummy?”

“You’ll have to wait and see.”

“And we can open them straightaway, Tom, and eat all the money, can’t we?”

Crisis over, we chatted for a while longer about their stockings and by the time Ray came in Tom was proudly showing off the gap where his tooth had been.