Gray Cat Makes a Deal

OFFICIAL NOTICE:

Be it known pursuant to Celestial Act #3082.15 that said heavenly messenger, Angel # 351,976,365,976, commonly known to certain children in Maybee, Michigan and its surrounding townships as “the Tooth Angel”, hereby gives durable power of transmission to the creature known as “Gray Cat” for such time as is needed to confirm delivery of the enclosed private correspondence to one Stephen Kennedy, human residing in the domicile at 9037 Joseph St., upper level, east bedroom.

Approved this 6th day of July, the year of Our Lord 2002

Seraph Angus MacNoodle
Director of Interspecies Communication






July 6, 2002

My Dearest Stephen,

Many sincere congratulations on losing your first tooth! Excellent job, young man! May I say that I DO wish you hadn’t taken the term “lose” so literally, though. Which brings me to the reason why you have received this message in such an unusual and undignified manner.

The hanging tooth alarm at Headquarters (that thing about blasted my ears off this morning!) had alerted me in plenty of time to be there when the thing actually came out. In fact, I was right behind you when you pulled it out of your mouth, so I decided to grab onto the back of your sandal and keep an eye on the tooth until I could safely deposit your money.

Didn’t you hear me screaming, “DON’T PUT IT DOWN!!!, back there behind Younglove’s house? Those teeth have a life of their own once they fall out. Sure enough! You put it on the table. I scrambled breathlessly up the dizzying height and peeked over the edge just as you guys started jumping on the picnic table. Of course, the tooth started bouncing around, too. Well, I valiantly leapt upon its razor edges, risking life and limb in my selfless attempt at saving your treasure. Then I was bouncing along with it, clinging to said tooth, as you guys kept jumping on that table. One particularly big bounce sent me and tooth flying off the table and into a rather fresh dog pile. Thanks, Georgie. Convenient placement.

Ahem. Anyway, I couldn’t very well walk up to you in that condition and hand you your tooth back. Remembering that your Mom had the water on behind your house, I headed over there to clean up. My mistake. One rather large starling caught sight of me trudging through the grass and took it upon herself to take me home to meet her family in the big tree above Becca’s garden. Nice kids. A little rowdy. The baldest one grabbed your tooth out of my hands and swallowed it, without a with-your-leave! I’m afraid I lost my temper and beamed him one with my purse, which didn’t set very well with his mother. Then she refused to take me back down to ground level so that I could deliver your tooth money.

What was I to do? Fly? OK, OK, I admit I have wings, but… do I have to go into this? Well, if you must know, I’m… well, afraid of heights. And this nest is WAY up there! I tried yelling to Becca as she walked by, but she snubbed me. Finally, in desperation (and with a little malice, I must admit!), I called the nearest cat, which happened to be Gray Cat. Boy, am I glad he’s hanging around your place! Princess and Pippin can’t seem to get it out of their heads that I am NOT a mouse. Anyway, Gray Cat, while not being particularly cooperative, DID finally agree to bring me down IF I pick his fleas off of him for a whole week. How degrading! To make matters even more humiliating, he doesn’t trust me (Me! A member of the Heavenly Corp! He kept muttering about “angels disguised as light” and other such rubbish) to keep my end of the bargain.

So.., here’s the deal. I got permission (all the way from the top, mind you) to have Gray Cat deliver this letter and your money, so you don’t have to wait a whole week for me to do it. He will then come up into this confounded tree each day for a week for me to pick off his fleas (how DISGUSTING!)… THEN he’ll bring me down.

Gray Cat says he won’t go in your house to deliver this, so I hope you guys find it wherever he decides to deposit it.

In the meantime, Mrs. Starling says I might as well baby sit if I’m going to be here all week. Oh, joy. I’m already tired of singing “the worms crawl in”, and it’s only the first day! +Do me a favor, Stephen- don’t lose any more teeth anytime soon, OK? And wave to me whenever you go by that old tree, so I know you got this.

Signed,
The Tooth Angel