It is now that we must step way from our story for a bit to speak to the younger readers of the tale of Fangboy. Though we hope you have enjoyed the narrative so far, and perhaps learned some valuable lessons from it, the next section will be of no interest to your youthful minds. You will find it dull and ponderous, and you may find yourself wishing to place the book aside rather than read it through to its conclusion. That would be a shame, for there are many adventures still to come, including some frightening moments and some derring-do action that will tickle your hearts. So when you reach the end of this section (which will be helpfully marked with “* * *”) skip ahead to the next section and resume reading as if you’d missed nothing.
Parents who are reading this book out loud to their children should also skip the following section.
Of course, there was no Tooth Fairy. When children placed their teeth under their pillow, the parents knew fully well that no magical fairy would appear in the home and secretly replace the tooth with money. It was, in fact, the parents themselves who did this, using their own money. This explained why rich children received large sums of money and poor children received small sums, in much the same way that the disproportionate gift distribution by Santa Claus always favored wealthy families, even though one might think that elves making gifts at the North Pole would be uninterested in a family’s socioeconomic status.
So in the middle of the night, after Nathan was asleep, Penny and Mary crept into his bedroom, moving with great stealth so as not to wake him up and expose the ruse. Penny reached underneath his pillow and withdrew the tooth, while Mary did the honor of sliding the money where the tooth had been.
They placed the tooth in a small jar, and Penny put it in the secret drawer of her tiny keepsake shelf.
The next morning, Nathan lifted his pillow and there were not one, not two, but three coins! Three whole coins!
He thought about what he might buy. Lemonade? A suckling pig? Maybe he’d save it. Kids at school who were inclined to be mean to him might make less fun of a boy with three coins to show off.
But then he spent them all on comic books.
On the first day of school, he woke up with a stomachache, one that felt like a giant invisible hand was kneading his guts like pizza dough. For the briefest of instants he considered raising a fuss about it and declaring himself too ill to go to school, but he knew it was only his nerves and that Penny and Mary would make him go to school anyway.
Penny made him an extra-special breakfast of pancakes with strawberries on top. He ate slowly, the syrup congealing around his tongue.
“It will be fine,” she assured him.
They’d had an appointment with Nathan’s teacher, Mrs. Calmon, two days ago, just to be sure she was made aware of the situation. Mary did not come to this meeting, partly because she couldn’t take the time off work, and partly because she felt it was unnecessary. “Why would we warn people about the boy?” she’d asked, when she thought Nathan couldn’t hear.
“It’s the responsible thing to do.”
“It’s like saying there’s something wrong with him.”
“It’s saying that there’s something different about him. There is! It’s not a bad thing, but it’s not a normal thing, and what does it hurt to give his teacher advance notice?”
“Do whatever you want. But I won’t be there.”
Mrs. Calmon was a short, plump, ruddy-faced woman with brown hair tied into a tight bun.
“Are you sure he doesn’t belong in a school for special needs children?” she’d asked.
“Nathan has no special needs,” said Penny. “I just want to be sure he is treated with the same respect as every other child in the classroom.”
“Much of that depends on Nathan himself, doesn’t it? Respect is not distributed equally amongst the students. Every single year I will have one student—never more than one, but always one—who picks from his nose and eats the contents. That pupil does not receive the same amount of respect as the one who takes first prize at the science fair.”
“Understood,” said Penny. “Again, we’re not asking for special treatment. I merely felt it was appropriate to warn you. We love the little rascal, but his appearance can be jarring.”
Mrs. Calmon nodded. “Fair enough. You’re a good aunt.”
That was the story: Penny and Mary were Nathan’s aunts. His parents had died, he’d been “moved around” a bit, and finally came to live with his aunts. Nathan didn’t completely understand how everything had been arranged, but he did know that some papers weren’t as authentic as they might be.
While they were discussing this story, he’d almost asked why they didn’t just adopt him, but something told him that it wasn’t a question that should be asked, that perhaps he didn’t want to know the answer.
“Each desk has a piece of paper with a name on it,” said Mrs. Calmon, as the children entered the classroom. “Find your name, and that will be your desk.”
Nathan walked up and down the rows, searching for his name. There it was. Nathan Pepper. Back row, left corner. He sat down and ran his fingers along the top of his wooden desk, which was shiny and new.
The other students found their seats as well. About twenty of them, if he’d counted correctly, and since there were five rows of four, he was certain that he had. A freckle-faced little girl stuck her tongue out at him before sitting down in the desk in front of him, and a thin, sickly-looking boy gave him a shy smile as he sat down to his right.
“Good morning, class. My name is Mrs. Calmon.” She wrote it on the chalkboard. “We have a lot of learning ahead of us this year, so I hope you’re all ready to pay attention. I will now have each of you come to the front of the class so you can tell the others your name, what you want to be when you grow up, and what you did on your summer vacation.”
Public speaking? Already? What if she made him go first? What would he say?
“We’ll start with you, Peter, and then work our way up and down the rows.”
So, he was to go last. Such cruelty! The agony would be unbearable! Why couldn’t she just let him get it over with?
Peter walked to the front of the classroom. “My name is Peter, I want to be a fireman, and over my summer vacation I set some things on fire.”
“Very good, Peter. Helen?”
“My name is Helen, I want to be a maid, and over my summer vacation I chased away a stray dog.”
“Very good, Helen. Gordon?”
“My name is Gordon, I want to be an astronaut, and over my summer vacation I took a rocket to the moon.”
“Now, Gordon, are you telling the truth?”
“Yes, teacher.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, teacher. I was on the moon for three days.”
“Gordon, you will now be the first person of the year to spend five minutes in the Corner of Ridicule. This is for students who deserve to be silently laughed at by their peers. Go sit on that bright red stool until I say to stop, and feel their eyes upon your back, judging you for your shameful foolishness.”
Gordon hung his head and went to sit in the Corner of Ridicule.
The other students went up, one by one, as Nathan tried to keep his panic under control. “My name is Nathan” would be easy. That part he could handle. But what did he want to be when he grew up? A cowboy? A doctor? A zookeeper? The other kids were taking all of the good choices.
Maybe a banker. Yes, everybody liked a good banker.
Oh, his stomach was killing him.
What if Mrs. Calmon sent him to the Corner of Ridicule just for his teeth?