The Tooth Fairy.(Short Story)

Sofia raced into Torvald's workshop, jolting him from the trance he fell into while making fiddles.

"Why aren't you in bed?" he snapped. Dressed in her lemon-coloured Bugs Bunny pyjamas, seven-year-old Sofia danced over towards him in time to the jaunty fiddle music pouring from his tape player. She loved these folk dances, played on beautifully decorated Norwegian folk fiddles called Hardangers. Torvald had been making these instruments professionally for half his life.

"Look how loose my tooth is now, Dad!" Sofia hopped about on her slippered feet. With her tongue, she pushed one of her front teeth outwards, practically at a right angle.

Torvald had until the following night to finish this Hardanger; his customer was on a plane right now, flying over from Norway to collect it. For the last month, he'd been imprisoned in his small, stuffy workshop, enslaved by this deadline. All he had left to do was the last bit of inlay work on the fiddle's fingerboard. Soothed by Sofia's excitement, Torvald put his chisel down.

"When it falls out, Dad, will the Tooth Fairy leave me some money?"

Torvald reached for his packet of Drum. "Well, if you leave your tooth in a glass of water before you go to bed, yes, she'll come when you're asleep," he said, as he rolled a cigarette.

"But why can't she come as soon as my tooth falls out? I want to see her!"