When my twin sister and I were 7 years old, we were playing in a small stream near our home. One day we noticed some small white smooth pebbles in the stream, that for some reason, we had never noticed before. At the very same moment, both my sister and I had the best idea we had ever had, no, make that the best idea in the history of ideas that ANYONE has ever had.
At 7, we both began to lose our baby teeth, so our parents of course told us the story of the awe-knowing(and generous), Tooth Fairy. We learned that putting our extricated teeth under our pillow at night would produce cash in the morning under said pillows. The Tooth Fairy flew in through the windows into the rooms of little children at night, taking our teeth and leaving behind money. We had only lost 2 or 3 teeth each at that time, so our piggy bank was in desperate need of a deposit if we were ever going to be rich.
It was on this sunny, blissful day while we were catching minnows in that clear stream that we laid plans for our financial independence from our parents, and thus the idea of the century was born. After all, we were 7, and we weren't getting any younger, and with only $4.00 or so in our piggy banks combined, we weren't getting any richer. We decided that the Tooth Fairy probably wouldn't notice if we put small white pebbles under our pillows instead of real teeth. I mean, how smart could she be? It would be dark and she wouldn't be able to see very well anyway. She could easily mistake the small pebbles for our teeth.
With that warped thinking, my sister and I fervently gathered those small white pebbles, at least 20 or 30 of them, in our tiny little greedy hands and set off for the house. We were careful not to raise our mother's suspicions, so we took the small pebbles to the bathroom to dry them off. We didn't want the Tooth Fairy to get all wet and mad and not leave us our deserved loot.
We divided the pebbles into two handfuls; one handful went under my pillow and the other under my sister's pillow. We waited impatiently that afternoon and evening, and we were so antsy that we could hardly wait to go to bed that night so we could wake up and be filthy rich! Of course, we didn't enlighten our mother or father with our plans of wealth and riches because we didn't want to share. They could have done the same thing when they were kids if she wanted to be rich.
Of course, it goes without saying that our mischievous little plan did not come to fruition. When we woke the next morning, there, under our pillows, were our tiny mounds of white pebbles, just as we had left them the night before. We looked nervously around the room as though the Tooth Fairy was upset that we had tried to trick her and she was angrily watching us.
I remember my sister and I slowly and sadly gathering our pebbles like lost little dreams and carrying them outside to deposit them back into the stream. The crystal clear stream that now seemed to babble, as though laughing at two little little imps who thought they could outwit the all-knowing Tooth Fairy.
--Fortuitous Observer
