Carol’s Column
It's toothmouse time and the gold price is up
IT WAS a magical night for little girls and toothmice.
And mind you — the rate of inflation didn't do too badly either.
It started with a wobble.
"Ma, my tooth is loose," announced my nine-year-old daughter of the pansy face and wide eyes.
We were sitting at the table eating weekend leftovers which I'd deep-fried into a cunning dish called the three-S stew.
The kind you shut your eyes for, shovel into your mouth-hole then shut-up about. One of those.
"Let me check the price of gold," said son-number-three immediately, then added: "It's a good week to lose a tooth — everything's up — it's a bear market."
My daughter smiled, her [d]ark eyes flashing, the [t]ooth in question hanging [by] a thread. She shut her [ey]es, shovelled in the stew [an]d took a bite. You've [g]uessed it. Out came the tooth.
What joy, what happiness. It was as if she'd discovered the crown jewels.
That night she prepared for bed with care, as little girls always do, tucking her dolls in tightly, wrapping her fluffy blanket around her toedrops and cuddling up to Macaroni-the-cat.
"Do you think the toothmouse will find his way?" she asked anxiously, her eyes dark with worry.
"Definitely," I answered, surveying the preparations she'd made on the floor.
She'd drawn a large road map complete with arrows and instructions. At intervals along her route, she'd placed things of strategic toothmouse interest.
Three Smarties, her toothbrush accompanied by a note: "Dear Toothmouse, I brush my teeth daily to make them sparkil, love Nicky Lazar".
She'd sprinkled the toothmouse's path with silver glitter and built a little shoebox platform. And on this podium complete with furry, blue slipper and lots of cotton wool, she'd balanced her tooth.
Even a toothmouse who'd lost his contact lenses could not have failed to find it.
Night fell swiftly as it does in the town. All was still save for the barking of the neighbours' dogs, the gurgling of the 70-year-old plumbing, the clacking of the loose roof tiles and the trumpeting from the range of snores that wafted through the house.
At 4am the alarm shrilled and I leapt out of bed dislocating my tibia.
It seemed my husband didn't stir. He didn't have to. I'd won the toothmouse stakes when we'd drawn straws earlier in the evening. Not that I minded after 18 years of toothmousing — I could have done it in the dark.
Indeed I did.
I crept silently into Nicky's room.
And bumped into something warm and solid.
It was hairy but too big to be a dog.
Good heavens,
"Who are you?" I hissed through my upper teeth — t[he othe]rs still in a tooth[glass next] to my bed.
"[I'm] the friendly neighbourhood toothmouse," said a gravelly voice. "Who are you?"
"I'm the toothmouse too," I replied angrily. Nobody likes to be usurped.
"Have you ever had an argument at 4am, creeping on all fours, about toothmice?"
It is not dignified.
"I got here first," grum[bled] the other toothmo[use].
This was beyond a jok[e]. [TEXT CUT OFF WITH SCISSORS] gether we crawled towards the shoebox podium.
And grabbed for the tooth causing it to topple from its stand.
Compromise is essential. "I'll take the tooth and you pay," I said not wanting to come to blows. And retreated to my bed.
Where I was shortly joined by my husband.
"I've had an amazing experience," he murmured as he bounced down on to our super-sprung for exercise bed, making me rise a metre in the air.
"I met an upstart toothmouse."
Next morning, Nicky was delighted. "I got 30c for my tooth, what a generous toothmouse that was!" she said happily.
Too generous.
Our youngest son has extracted almost all his teeth which are at present residing in a shoebox in his bedroom.
"With the profit I make on my teeth, I'll be able to invest in the property market," he said triumphantly.
So who needs teeth?
■
Editorial note
Masthead reads "Sunday Express LIVING, September 5, 1982", page 5; 5 September 1982 was a Sunday. The standing head "Carol's COLUMN" is set over a drawing of her, and the column is signed "Carol Lazar" at the foot. This one came off the wall in three pieces. The opening and the last three columns are on the sheet shared with "They say pets are good for your health" of 29 August, photographed as page-207 and page-213. The middle of the column, everything from "What joy, what happiness" to the second toothmouse, is a separate strip pasted down the middle of another page altogether: the 25 April 1982 page, where it was photographed as page-181. That the strip belongs to this column and not to an earlier toothmouse piece is settled by the text on either side of it: the strip sets up the shoebox podium and the rival toothmouse, and the columns on page-207 pick both up ("gether we crawled towards the shoebox podium", "I met an upstart toothmouse"). The child in the strip signs herself Nicky Lazar. Confidence is medium for two reasons, both physical rather than textual. The foot of the opening column was trimmed at a slant, clipping a character or two from the start of five lines; those are restored in square brackets, and the sense is not in doubt. And on page-181 a corner of the strip has lifted away from the page and curled over, hiding parts of three lines. Those too are bracketed. A fresh photograph of page-181 with that corner pressed flat would settle them and let this page be raised to high. The line between the strip's torn corner and the resumption at "gether we crawled" is lost outright.
Transcribed as printed. Doubtful readings:
- "her [d]ark eyes flashing, the [t]ooth in question hanging [by] a thread. She shut her [ey]es, shovelled in the stew [an]d took a bite. You've [g]uessed it.": the clipping was cut at a slant through the left of these lines, and both shots of the sheet show the same characters gone, so it is scissors and not the frame. Restored from sense.
- "through my upper teeth — t[he othe]rs still in a tooth[glass next] to my bed.": a lifted, curled corner of the strip covers these words on page-181. The visible fragments are "he", "rs still in a tooth-" and "to my bed"; the reading given is the only one that fits them and the sense.
- "[I'm] the friendly neighbourhood toothmouse,": the same curled corner covers the opening of this line. "the friendly neigh-" is visible.
- "This was beyond a jok[e]. [TEXT CUT OFF WITH SCISSORS] gether we crawled towards the shoebox podium.": the strip's bottom corner is torn away and at least one line is gone. What follows begins mid-word, so the lost text ended "to-".
- "I got here first," grum[bled] the other toothmo[use].": line ends carried off by the same torn corner.
- "make them sparkil, love Nicky Lazar": "sparkil" is set thus, inside the child's note and in italics. Left as printed; it is the child's spelling, not the compositor's. Her name is set "NIcky" with a capital I, corrected here.
- "our super-sprung for excercise bed": printed thus, for "exercise". Corrected here as a plain spelling slip.
- "making me rise a metre ih the air": printed thus, for "in". Corrected here as a plain slip.
- "Good heavens,": set with a comma. Left as it stands.