1
IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP YOUR PAYMENTS, YOUR TEETH MAY BE AT RISK
MONDAY
It was recess and Jack Pearse sat on a wall next to his friend Trudy Emerson. Normally, Jack would have considered kicking a ball around with some of the other children or something similar. However, the previous week he had joined a secret government organization called the Ministry of SUITs, uncovered a plot to turn Northern Ireland into a floating pirate ship, and had almost been trampled to death by a group of runaway dinosaurs. All things considered, it had been a tiring week and Jack was quite enjoying having a peaceful sit-down.
Jack turned and looked at Trudy. She was sitting quietly, with her blond hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. The front few strands were dyed red and fell in front of her eyes.
Jack decided to say something. He carefully got up from the wall, took two steps, and sat back down on the left side of Trudy, which Jack had recently designated to be the “safe” side. That was the side of her that had her arm in a sling. This was the only physical evidence there was of how close to death they had come the previous week.
Jack suspected she didn’t even really need the sling—she just liked how it enhanced her “bad girl” image.
It was strange to think that seven days ago Jack would have tried to avoid speaking to Trudy, as she had a reputation for punching people who said anything she considered stupid. Even now, he still was slightly wary of striking up certain conversations because he was moderately terrified of saying the wrong thing. Despite the fact that they were friends, she still seemed to undertake a fair amount of her communication through punching. Jack thought that arm punching was possibly Trudy’s version of a strangely violent semaphore but with thumping instead of flags.4
“The weekend seemed really quiet,” Jack observed.
“Quiet’s nice sometimes,” said Trudy. “Why did you walk around to my other side?”
Jack hesitated before speaking. If he told her the real reason he’d swapped sides he was fairly sure that he would get hit. Because even though Trudy had a safe side, unfortunately she also had the ability to stand up and revolve 180 degrees.5 Luckily, at exactly the right moment, a living distraction clumsily ambled across the playground and said hello. It was David, Jack’s other best friend.
David was lazily chewing on a Snickers bar he had pulled from his blazer. He spoke between mouthfuls. “Hey, Jack, there’s a guy in the school office looking for you.”
“Oh yeah? Who?”
“Didn’t catch his name,” said David. “Big man, wore a tutu, was carrying a pair of pincers.”
Jack’s face turned white. In all the excitement, he had forgotten about the Tooth Fairy. The small white molars, incisors, and canines that were inside Jack’s head technically no longer actually belonged to him. Last week Jack had made the mistake of putting a pillow over his head. Any teeth that were put under a pillow automatically became the property of the Tooth Fairy. And the Tooth Fairy had the paperwork to prove it.6
Jack turned to Trudy. “It’s the Tooth Fairy. Do you think he’s here to…?”
Trudy put a hand on Jack’s shoulder and spoke quietly. “You made a deal with him, Jack. He’s here for your teeth.”
Jack’s stomach lurched. He wasn’t sure whether his stomach was fearful, or merely worried about the fact that if Jack lost his teeth, it would mainly be fed on soup for the next few months.
David cocked his head to one side quizzically. “You’re saying that the big man in the pink tutu is the Tooth Fairy?”
Trudy nodded. “And he’s here to take Jack’s teeth. We’ve got to get moving.”
“Okay,” said David.
Most people who had just been told that the Tooth Fairy was real would have at least had one or two follow-up questions. David, however, was a little bit strange and therefore accepted the fact that the rest of the world, at the very least, had a right to be as odd as he was himself.
Jack stood up suddenly. Out of the corner of his eye he had caught sight of the Tooth Fairy approaching. Six feet and six inches of bulging muscle, packed into a tutu two sizes too small,7 was walking across the playground. When the Tooth Fairy saw Jack, an evil grin spread across his bearded face. He began striding toward the friends.
Jack developed a sudden urge to play hide-and-seek. Although it wasn’t so much the seek part of the game he was interested in as the hide part.
Trudy stood up and clenched her one good fist. “The Tooth Fairy isn’t going to get your teeth without a fight. It’s time we used The Speed.”8
Jack wasn’t sure which he should admire more—Trudy’s bravery, her confidence, or her entirely misplaced sense of optimism. “Trudy, The Speed is all well and good. But you’d agree that a swallow is considerably faster than an elephant.”
“Well, of course. Duh!” Trudy laughed.
“Imagine an elephant in a boxing match with a swallow. Which one do you think would win?”
“The elephant, obviously.”
“And that is our elephant,” Jack said, pointing at the rapidly approaching Tooth Fairy.
Trudy swallowed both nervously and appropriately. Thanks to the marvelous workings of perspective, the Tooth Fairy was looking larger and larger with every step he took. “I can see your point. Do you have an alternative plan?”
Jack smiled. “My mother always says that discretion is the better part of valor.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Yes, and I always felt that running away is the better part of discretion.” And with that, Jack, Trudy, and David took to their heels and ran as fast as their feet would carry them.
The Tooth Fairy sighed, shook his head, and strode faster.
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
OPTIMISM
DIFFERING TYPES OF OPTIMISM
Many people insist that being optimistic is a positive and useful thing. And it is true that an optimistic attitude toward life will take you far. However, as with all things, optimism can be overdone. This fact can be demonstrated by looking at the last words of famous optimists.
General Arthur McHenderson (World War I British officer): “They’ll never be able to get a shot on target from that far away.…”
Simon Arteson (inventor of the world’s most ineffective parachute): “Just because it didn’t work with the mannequin doesn’t mean that it won’t work for me.” (For further information please see the section Falling from Heights: Invention of the Modern Parachute.)
Sir Henry Chichester (naturalist and explorer): “Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure that when a lion roars, it’s a sign that it isn’t hungry.”
Traditionally, optimists and pessimists have been identified based on the following differentiation: those who, when they see a glass of water, think “the glass is half full” and those who think “the glass is half empty.” Ministry operatives, from their experience in the field, have discovered a much wider range of attitudes to life than the two mentioned above. Current thinking in the Ministry divides these groups up as follows:
Optimist—“The glass is half full.”
Realist—“The glass is half empty.”
Pessimist—“I bet you someone has peed in that glass of water.”
Pragmatist—“Why do I have a glass of water? Didn’t I order a Banana Thickshake?”
Gourmet—“Do people really expect me to drink a glass of water? I distinctly requested the 1990 Bollinger R.D.”
Some Ministry operatives have suggested that a few very special individuals sit outside these wide-ranging groups. For example, the Tooth Fairy and the interdimensional monster called Cthulhu are placed in a subset of the pessimist group. That is to say, they actually go around peeing in other people’s unguarded glasses of water.9
Copyright © 2017 by Paul Gamble
