Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

Chief Davis snorts once.

‘True enough,’ he says. ‘How is Henry, anyway? I haven’t said much more than hello to him since high school, I reckon.’

‘He’s okay, I guess.’

‘Still working at the community college?’

‘Uh-huh.’ Donald nods.

‘If you see anyone looks like my daughter, I want you to call. I’d rather a false alarm than to miss our chance.’

‘I will,’ Donald says. He wipes the sweat from his upper lip with a downward swipe of his palm, and then wipes his sweaty palm onto the leg of his pants. ‘I will,’ he says again.

Ian and Chief Davis step into the daylight. It seems bright even after Ian puts his sunglasses back on. An oppressive wall of heat surrounds them. Ian reaches into his bag and pulls out one of his cigars. He bites the end off, spits it to the parking lot asphalt, plugs the stick into his mouth. He lights it, looking past it to Diego. Diego standing with his arms crossed, watching one of the boys from Mencken pulling fingerprints.

Then the sheriff himself pulls up in the Ford Expedition Tonkawa County provides for him and screeches to a stop. He steps from the thing, all five feet five of him, all two hundred and sixty pounds of him. He walks toward Ian and Chief Davis, belly swinging before him like a wrecking ball.

Ian glances at his watch.

‘I’ll let you talk to the sheriff,’ he says. ‘I need to tell Deb. Call if there’s any developments.’

‘I will. And Ian,’ he says, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Stop in at Roberta’s tonight, okay? You shouldn’t be alone through this.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Ian says, knowing he won’t.

Maggie opened her eyes and saw white white white: the ceiling. She tongued the place where her loose tooth should have been, but all that was there now was smooth wet gum and a bloody divot that tasted vaguely of metal.

Someone took it, she thought. Tooth fairy took it and didn’t pay. Stole it.

Then it occurred to her that maybe the tooth fairy had paid. She flipped over in bed and tossed the pillow aside, but the only thing beneath it was wrinkled sheet. There was no green dollar bill awaiting discovery. Not even a lousy quarter. She couldn’t believe the tooth fairy would sneak into her bedroom in the dark of night and yank her tooth from her mouth. What a butthole. She briefly considered putting a fake tooth beneath her pillow-a piece of chalk, maybe, or else a white stone if she could find one of the right size-and pretending to sleep so that when the tooth fairy came she could grab him and force him to pay for what he had taken from her.

But then she saw it on the floor. It lay half-buried in the thick carpet. She hopped from her bed and picked it up. She brushed off the dirt specks it had collected and held it up in the morning sunlight shining through her bedroom’s open window and looked at it, amazed at how big it was, at how much of it had been buried in her face. It was kind of gross and kind of neat at the same time. She tongued the gap between her teeth. There was a strange flap of skin there that she could flip back and forth. It felt weird. She ran to the mirror on her dresser and looked at herself and smiled. Then she ran into Mommy and Daddy’s room to show them.

‘Look it,’ she shouted as she shot into the room like a human bullet, door swinging open as she pushed it aside and banging against the wall. The curtains were drawn, daylight held temporarily and ineffectively at bay, and there was a strange grown-up smell in the room. It made the air feel heavy and close, like being in a zipped-up sleeping bag.

Daddy groaned and sat up. He cleared his throat. It was a funny sound. Like a monster in a Saturday morning cartoon. He rubbed his red eyes and wiped his mouth and twisted his neck left and right, sending out little hollow-sounding pops, and looked in her direction. But for a moment his face was blank.

‘Look it,’ she said again and held up the tooth for him to examine.

‘Wow,’ Daddy said after a moment. He coughed into his hand and yawned. ‘Is that a grown-up tooth? It’s huge. Have you been out stealing teeth? You know the tooth fairy doesn’t buy stolen teeth, Mags. It’s a felony.’

‘It’s not stolen. Look.’ She gripped her tooth in her right palm, folding three fingers over the top of it, and with index fingers stretched her mouth open wide so Daddy could see where the tooth used to be.

‘My God,’ Daddy said, ‘you could park a car in there.’

‘Could you two chatterboxes take it to the living room?’ Barely a mumble. ‘Mommy needs her beauty sleep.’

‘Sounds like someone’s got a case of the crankies,’ Daddy said, then winked at Maggie and got to his feet. A pair of pants lay in a pile on the floor. He picked them up and slipped into them, hiding his red boxers.

‘Come on, Mags,’ Daddy said. ‘Let’s get some breakfast.’ He looked over his shoulder at Mommy with a smirk in the corner of his mouth and said, ‘Cereal. With lots of sugar.’

They headed to the kitchen. Maggie climbed onto one of the barstools lined up before the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room. She spun around left, catching herself on the edge of the counter, and then spun herself around right, back and forth, back and forth. She liked to go round and round in one direction, she liked the dizziness it brought, it was fun, but once she accidentally unscrewed the stool all the way and the seat fell to the floor and she sprained her wrist catching herself, so she didn’t do that anymore. While she played on the stool Daddy went digging through the cupboards.

Maggie caught herself on the counter one last time and said, ‘What does the tooth fairy need teeth for, anyway? It’s kind of a weird thing to collect.’

‘He turns them into stars.’

‘Really?’

‘Maybe.’

‘No.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Really?’

Daddy nodded, then put two bowls on the counter and poured Froot Loops into them. He put away the box and got out a half gallon of milk and poured that over the cereal. He pushed a bowl across the counter to Maggie.

‘Eat up.’

‘What about a spoon, silly?’

Daddy picked at his bellybutton and flicked a wad of gray at her.

‘What about some lint?’

Maggie dodged it, dipping her head to the left.

‘ Gross . Don’t. I don’t want your smelly lint.’

‘It’s not smelly.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You almost got it in my cereal.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Get me a spoon before it gets soggy.’

‘Okay.’

Daddy grabbed two spoons from the silverware drawer and handed her one. Then he dipped his into his bowl and shoveled a mouthful of pink and green and orange into his face. He scratched at his blond stubble. Scooped another bite into his mouth and milk dripped down his chin and he wiped at it with his hand.

‘What do you want to do today?’

‘Petting zoo!’

‘What if they mistake you for one of the goats and fence you in?’

Maggie rolled her eyes. ‘They won’t.’

‘How do you know? You’re stubborn as a goat.’

‘I don’t even know what that means.’

‘Shouldn’t we wait till Jeffrey wakes up and weighs in?’

‘He loves the petting zoo.’

‘He’s never been.’

‘Then we should definitely go. He’s only here another two days and he needs to go before he leaves town.’

‘You have a point.’

‘See?’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay?’

Daddy nodded.

‘Okay what?’

‘Okay okay.’

‘Okay petting zoo?’

‘Yup.’

‘Really?’

‘Really really.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise. Now eat your cereal before it gets soggy.’