The whole tooth

I read in the news earlier this week that some supply teacher (no doubt overworked and underpaid) snapped at her class of seven year-olds and told them that Santa doesn't exist. The article can be found here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article5326005.ece

Two things here spring to mind:

- Seven year olds still believe in Santa? The big pussies. I don't know a single seven year-old who believed in Santa when I was at school. Apart from my little brother, who believed until he was about fourteen. In fact, every year Mr and Mrs Nunn would get the video camera out and "interview" him about whether he was looking forward to Santa's visit, as every year they said to each other and to me, "This'll be the last year he believes." This went on until he was twelve, when it just became a bit creepy.

My younger brother now maintains he was "pretending" to believe in order to spare their feelings. This seems unlikely.

- The second thing is a story it puts me in mind of from when I was little. Whilst my younger brother was sweet, naive and - some might say - credulous, I was always a bit cynical. I remember when I was five telling my mum if I could be any age at all, I'd be four again - "those were the days". Five was too weighted down with responsibilities.

Anyway, I was in my first year at primary school, so would have been four or five years old, and I'd just lost my first tooth. As in milk tooth - it fell out. Wasn't punched out or anything, though that might have made a better story.

As was the custom, I put my milk tooth under my pillow, and the Tooth Fairy came in the night and left a ten pence piece for the tooth. Very exciting indeed. Though she didn't take the tooth away. So, I hatched a plan - I would leave the same tooth again the next night under the pillow and see if I could con another ten pence from the gullible hag. I announced this plan to Mr and Mrs Nunn with glee.

The next morning I woke up. My tooth was still there, but no money. Instead was a note from the Tooth Fairy in teeny tiny handwriting saying that she was sorry but she wasn't rich enough to pay me for the same tooth twice. Thrilling. But I was suspicious. Surely one tooth looks pretty much like another, and she wasn't taking the teeth away in any case. What sort of business model was she operating here? A flawed one, clearly. Besides which, Mr and Mrs Nunn were the only people who knew about the plan. I smelled a rat. I suspected they might be in on it. I could no longer trust them.

Instead I went to my primary school teacher the next day. She would help me clear this up. But I had to be cunning. So I announced in a very loud voice, "Mrs Burgin, my mummy and daddy say there's no such thing as the tooth fairy!"

"Shh," she said. "Don't spoil it for the other children."

My suspicions were confirmed. I had tricked a teacher and proved my own parents were liars in one morning's work. And I was still only five years old. Genius.

As a slightly unsavoury side note, about a year ago I found a matchbox full of my old baby teeth at my parents' house. It rattles disturbingly. I am not sure what they expect to do with this. I hope they're not planning on cloning me. The world can only take so much brilliance.