Once upon a time there were two princesses and a prince (whose age was smack in the middle between theirs) who lived in a castle. The youngest princess lost her tooth with the help of her older siblings and, in holding with tradition, placed her tooth under her pillow.
"Maybe the tooth fairy will bring you two silver coins in exchange for your tooth." speculated her brother-the prince.
"Well phooey on that" the princess commented. "50 cents? That's pretty cheap considering all the work we did to get that tooth. I think the tooth fairy needs to up her game."
Her sister-the eldest of the three of them, of a more serious disposition-wasn't to sure that it was a good idea to be complaining or else you might get nothing at all, but she kept her mouth shut.
In the mean time, the youngest went to bed, her head resting on the pillow and went to sleep, dreaming of possible upgrades in the tooth payment department. Now this upgrade led to a debate among the the members of the tooth fairy union, whose job it was to dispense the rewards for lost teeth. Some wanted to give the princess what she wanted. "She is such a precious child. Should not the gift under the pillow reflect how precious she is? Why be stingy? We have the resources." Some wanted to hold the line at two coins. "Otherwise this will lead to tooth payment inflation. Today fifty cents, tomorrow fifty bucks. Besides, who does she think she is, demanding more? Losing teeth is one of the great equalizers among the classes, a common experience that binds all children together regardless of their socioeconomic status. The same two coin award for everybody are a testimony to that truth. Her parents got two coins. Her grandparents got two coins. Heck, Jesus probably got two coins and he had to spend them at the temple for his circumcision ceremony." The debate raged on through the wee hours of the morning, unbeknownst to the princess.
Finally, in the pre-dawn hours, nothing had been done and so the tooth fairy on duty was in something of a bind, because she did not want to leave the sub-pillow space empty. So she flitted around the castle, looking for something, but nothing seemed to fit. Finally, exhausted and somewhat despondent, she sat outside the gates of the castle where the road crossed the drawbridge to allow the tradespeople to enter for the day. Here arms were crossed and her head resting on them over her knees.
In the first rays of the morning sun, she looked up and saw, resting on a small rock in the middle of the moat, a turtle climbing out to sun itself.
She clapped her hands in delight. "Oh how perfect! Not two coins, but a small pet." She coaxed one of the turtles to the shore with the promise of a lettuce snack, put him in a box and started through the castle courtyard to the stairs which led to the royal princesses bedrooms. She didn't realize it, but the waters of the moat were a growth inhibitor. Something in the water kept the turtles from getting bigger, probably a magic spell cast long ago to prevent ecological disaster.
She was just a wee tooth fairy and the turtle was solidly build with yellow stripes down the exposed leathery skin of its head and, unbeknownst to her, was getting bigger and bigger. The stairs were quite a trial, each one requiring a dead lift and a flip. But she persisted, glad for once for all those calisthenics that the tooth fairy academy had insisted on to give her muscles tone. Step by step, she lifted and flipped the box, huffing and puffing the whole way. At the top of the second landing, just outside the youngest princess' door, she collapsing to rest for a bit. The turtle was quite dizzy at this point and the box had acquired holes at each corner because it had been growing the whole way up, its legs with short claws sticking out.
By the time the tooth fairy had managed to get the box to the top of a step stool at the side of the princesses bed, the box was quite damaged and the turtles head was sticking out. The turtle was so big now, maybe the size of a terrier and the box was a shoe box.
This created a new problem, because even when she positioned the turtle next to the princesses pillow and had successfully extracted the tooth from underneath and tucked it away, the turtle wouldn't fit under the pillow without putting her neck at an awkward angle. So she had to gently push the blankets and comforters and extra pillows under her, one side at a time, to lift her up to the same level as the pillow. The tooth fairy was afraid that she would disrupt the princesses sleep and waking the tooth replacement recipient during the tooth exchange was a big no-no--seven years bad luck or something.
However, the princess was sleeping soundly and snoring gently. After convincing the turtle to retreat into its shell, she pushed and pushed to it under the princess' head. By now, the turtle wasn't just the cute little green shelled pet that fit inside a shoe box. Now it was the size of a small sheep or a big dog, well on the way to becoming a giant sea turtle or maybe an elephant turtle. Not that the turtles was vicious (not of the snapping sort). They weren't loud (it couldn't bark or even snuffle). But it was big.
But the tooth fairy rubbed her hands together, a job well done. "Exchange complete." And not just two coins, but a turtle--a magic growing turtle. So she left the princess' room to report her status.
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