Part 1 (2/2)

Sam stopped dead in his tracks. Clive, expecting a scuffle, did too. Terry drew up short. 'What is it?'

Sam spat a milk incisor, slightly bloodied at the root, into his hand.

'Soz,' said Clive, genuinely horrified at what he'd done. They were, after all, friends. 'Soz.'

'It's all right,' said Sam a little shakily. 'It was already loose.'

Cousin Linda, always ten yards ahead, permanently mortified at having to wet-nurse three small boys, exhorted them to catch up.

'Put it under your pillow,' Terry said. 'Get a tanner from the Tooth Fairy.'

'There's no evidence to suggest,' Clive said, 'that Tooth Fairies actually exist.'

'Every time I lost one I got sixpence,' Terry shouted.

'But what did you get when you lost your toes?' Clive argued. 'Nothing.'

'I got five quid in a bank savings book. Five quid.'

'That was from your dad,' Sam said. 'It's different. Tooth Fairies aren't interested in toes. And, anyway, the pike had the toes.'

'Five quid!' Terry was hurt. The pike episode had left him with a limp.

'There is a way to find out,' Clive insisted. 'Put it under your pillow, but don't say anything to your mum or dad.'

'What are you shouting about?' Linda wanted to know when they caught up with her.

'Sam's tooth fell out,' Clive said quickly.

'Is there such a thing as a Tooth Fairy?' Sam asked.

Linda quickly redefined the distance between her and the knot of small boys. 'Just don't swallow it. Otherwise a tooth tree will grow in your stomach.'

'What?' the three boys said at once.

'A tooth tree,' she called over her shoulder. 'Growing in your gut.'

Sam kept his fist tightly closed over the tooth, as if some malignant spirit might want to twist his arm up and force the tooth back into his mouth. He was silent the rest of the way home.

Sam never mentioned the incisor to either his mother or his father. If they thought he was particularly quiet that evening, they reserved comment. In any event, Sam was considered a distracted boy, given to self-absorption and daydreams and unnatural fits of staring.

'Miles away,' his mother Connie would often remark. 'Miles away. Do you think that boy is autistic?'

'Autistic?' Nev lowered his Coventry Evening Telegraph. 'What's autistic?'

Connie tried to recall something she'd read in a magazine. 'Well, sort of miles away all the time.'

Nev didn't believe in anything he couldn't p.r.o.nounce. He regarded his son watching television, his own features wrinkling in rough a.s.sessment. Sam, always aware of the way in which they talked across him, pretended not to hear.

'Nah,' said his father, retreating behind his paper.

That night Sam examined the tooth by the light of his bedside lamp. The ivory peg was stained slightly yellow near the root. The ring of dried blood around the base reminded him acutely of the sensation of it popping from his gum. It was a pain-shaped bloodstain. With his tongue Sam probed the hole the tooth had left behind in his gum. It was identically pain-shaped. He switched off his bedside lamp and slid the tooth under his pillow.

Some hours later he was awoken briefly by his parents coming to bed. His mother looked in on him. Only semiconscious, he was dimly aware of her tucking in the blankets and smoothing his pillow. He rolled over and went back to sleep.

In the middle of the night he woke up feeling stiff with cold. His bedroom window was wide open to the dark of night, and a breath of wind lifted the curtain. The faint crescent of moon offered a little light but no comfort. The breeze brought on its wings a strange odour, familiar yet difficult to identify. It was a composite of smells, among which was that of gra.s.s after rain. Yet it hadn't been raining.

Something was wrong. Sam sat upright in bed.

Someone was in the room.

His skin turned inside out like a glove. He blinked at the web of darkness. His white s.h.i.+rt, ready for school next morning, was draped over the back of a hard chair. It floated in the gloom. He stared hard at the s.h.i.+rt. A figure was crouched in shadow behind the chair. The shocking stillness of the room wanted to blister and peel back like a layer of skin.

'I know you're there. I can see you.'

The figure stiffened slightly.

Sam was afraid, but deep within his fear he felt curiously composed. Still his voice quavered. 'It's no use hiding. I know you're behind the chair.'

The figure expelled a brief sigh. Sam couldn't distinguish anything behind the draped s.h.i.+rt. Burglar, he thought. It's a burglar. The intruder made a decision to come out of hiding. Slowly straightening its back, it stepped from behind the chair. The curtain lifted at the window. Somewhere far off in the night a dog-fox barked, three times. All Sam could discern was the black shadow of what he took to be a small man. The shadow approached the foot of the bed.

The voice came out in a cracked whisper. 'Can you see me? Can you?'

Through the window a broken fingernail of moon was visible. It barely illumined the intruder's face, but what Sam could see he didn't like. Two dark eyes, s.h.i.+ny like the green-black carapace of a beetle, flashed at him. The eyes were set deep, each in a squint counterpoised to the other, lurking under a matted shock of black hair. Tangled elf-locks framed high cheek bones and a swarthy complexion. The word 'half-caste' came to mind. Sam had heard the term employed by adults but used with an ugliness of meaning beyond the word itself. Now that the figure had come closer, Sam identified the burglar as the source of the smell he'd recognized on waking. It was not streaming through the window at all. It was the smell of the intruder, and in addition to the scent of gra.s.s after rain was the odour of horse's sweat, and birds.h.i.+t, and camomile. The intruder Sam was unable to tell if it was male or female suddenly c.o.c.ked its head to one side and smiled. A row of teeth glimmered in the faint moonbeams, a mouthful of blue light. The teeth were perfect, but, unless he was mistaken, they were sharpened to fine dagger points. At full height the intruder stood little more than four feet tall, or at any rate, just a couple of inches taller than Sam. It was difficult to see what the creature was wearing in the dark, but he could identify mustard-and-green striped leggings and heavy, industrial-style boots.

'Yes. I can see you.'

'That's bad. Real bad.'

Sam nodded a silent yes. He didn't know why it was bad, but he knew it was better to agree.

The intruder was squinting hard at Sam, as if puzzling what to do next. 'And you can hear me. Obviously obviously obviously. Bad.' The sharpened teeth gleamed electric-blue again in the moonlight. There was a tiny crackle as the figure placed a finger on the bed-post. Sam felt the crackle ride to the nape of his neck and fan his hair. The intruder was discharging static.

Sam suddenly had an idea who the figure was. 'You've come for the tooth, haven't you?' He was dismayed by the Tooth Fairy's appearance. If he did have an image of a Tooth Fairy in his head before that night, it was of a fragile lady three inches tall, lace-winged, with an acorn-cup for a hat. Not a thug in heavy boots. 'You want the tooth, don't you?'

'Shhh! Don't wake the house! How come you were able to see me? How did you spot me? Don't answer. Wait.' The Tooth Fairy held up a beautifully manicured hand, five ivory fingers outstretched, a thin silver ring on each. 'How many fingers do you see?'

'Five.'

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